Why don’t you lift weights?

In My Humble Opinion
661

You can lift weights 2-3 times a week and make impressive gains in both strength and size. The main point is when doing a few sets leads to important gains in strength and size, so that even going to the gym for one hour every week has big benefits.

It is not easy to meta-analyze different studies and while the study is reasonably well done and somewhat useful, for specific advice I would go with expert lifters who have trained thousands of athletes as well as regular people.

Since volume equals reps times sets, specific advice on number of reps per set, and whether “warm up” sets are included is lacking here. While compound lifts work many muscles, applying a factor of “half effort” to “indirect muscles” is a big approximation, but you have to do something.

If you want to grow strong, the traditional advice was to do as few warm-up sets as needed, ramping up the weight for a few reps each until above 85% of your maximum. Then do sets of 1-5 reps. More sets will increase both strength and size. Whether fifty sets of one rep is equivalent to five sets of ten reps depends on the weight being used. For strength, the weight should often be too heavy to do ten reps for compound lifts.

The traditional advice for size was to do high volumes of sets in the 50-70% range of maximum. Depending on the exercise and number of sets this might equate to 1-20 reps. But if volume is high, you can gain almost as much strength from using medium weights as using heavy ones.

But if just training for health, the good news is a little strength training goes a long way and even an hour at the gym each week can result in significant improvements if programmed well.

662

My best friend from childhood has a brown eye and a blue eye. When he works out there is a line that goes right down the middle of his face and body. One side turns bright red and the other side turns white.

663

I’d quibble a bit, and while the quibble may seem trivial, to me it is not:

No “just”. When training for health, the good news is a little strength training does the job. Someone who is in the subclass of trying to eke out their full potential for mass and/or strength would very likely be well advised to go with those who have learned by doing and trained many serious athletes and bodybuilders. That’s not most of us.

664

I don’t think we disagree. It’s probably one of those Pareto things. You probably get 80% of the possible benefits just by doing one hour each week of progressive strength training in an intelligent and systematic way.

If you added two half hour sports or cardio of whatever kind (of sufficient intensity to sweat), these two hours are likely a very solid exercise program within the reach of many busy people.

665

That is pretty much my exercise program. An hour of strength training with a personal trainer (because i hate doing it, and don’t have the self-discipline to do it on my own) and a couple hours of social dance, which includes a few chunks that get my heart rate up.

I’m thinking if picking up a yoga class, too.

I have zero interest in bulking up, it’s already hard to buy women’s blouses, because they are designed for women with sticks for arms. I don’t need to be at my “full” potential for strength, whatever that might be. But when the main leaves heavy sacks of concrete in my way, i want to be able to move them. I want to be able to carry furniture and generally be capable when there’s a physical activity i want to enjoy.

666

There’s an entire training philosophy that would vehemently disagree with you, and argue that if you are trying to maximize muscle volume 3 times a week is the most you should do.

One such proponent is Dorian Yates, one of the biggest professional bodybuilders of all time (I believe when he was competing he actually trained 4 days a week, but only for about 40 minutes each time; now, he maintains an amazing physique for his age (62), and only trains 3 times a week).

Remember that your muscles grow when they are resting, not at the gym. The workout is just the stimulus for that growth.

So, the argument goes, high volume training is detrimental to muscle growth. You are actually acting against your goals if you try to stimulate muscle longer than is necessary.

Now, the trade off for time is an increase in intensity. Again, the theory is that exercise is just a stimulus, and you want to stimulate your muscles and then immediately stop. This means doing sets to total failure (you can’t complete another rep with correct form), thereby stimulating the muscle to repair itself and come back bigger and stronger.

At its most extreme (Google Mike Mentzer, or Heavy Duty training), you only need to do one set per body part.

If you want to try it out, pick an exercise where you can use a machine, so balance isn’t a concern as you get weaker. Do your sets super slow: like 5 seconds on both the concentric and the eccentric portion of the movement. This will require you to pick a much lighter weight than normal. Your initial reps are the warmup, and the last few serve as the signal for your muscle to grow.

If you have a training partner, then once you can’t complete a positive rep, they help you get to the top of your rep and you start doing slow negatives; don’t stop until you can’t even hold the weight in place.

That’s your set. At that level, the lactic acid level is extreme, and you don’t want to train daily.

As a woman, building muscle won’t bulk you up. No offense, but you lack sufficient testosterone to build big muscles.

If you develop your muscles, you’ll get leaner and more firm.

Never be afraid of getting stronger!

667

Women get bigger muscles by working out. Not as much as men, of course, but the reason my arms don’t fit in many “women’s sleeves” isn’t because I’m fat, it’s because i have large (for a woman) muscles in my arms. I mostly buy men’s shirts these days.

But saying i have zero interest in bulking up doesn’t mean i don’t want to be strong. I’m not as strong as i was in my youth, and i miss it. I love having physical strength. I pay a ton of money for this trainer because i want to maintain some strength. (And i really do dislike working out. I hate to sweat. I’m just not going to stick with it without some external pressure.)

I don’t think there’s a huge relationship between strength and body fat either way. I think you can be lean and strong, and you can be fat and strong. I’ve seen both. I think testosterone does help men lose fat, though.

668

Which is the problem with

There seem to be no shortage of divergent expert opinions and approaches, all of which have individuals as impressive examples. It seems like many approaches work, probably different ones optimally for different people. Honestly I doubt what works best for the elites is always what works best for the typical person, be it bodybuilding, strength training, marathoning, or sprinting. The elite are a select group in each activity with different proportions of muscle types than most to start.

669

In addition to that, what works well in your first year of strength training (almost anything) and what works for experienced natural lifters is different; not sure this described Yates. Lifting six days a week is not likely better for older lifters than every other day. There are lifters with very different opinions, of course, but substantial agreement backed by recent research on the basic principles.

However, lifting for only one hour each week will bring massive benefits to most people, and new lifters can often gain substantial muscle at any age with proper diet and progression.

670

If we consider that muscle development is an adaption to environmental stress, then I’d think that key to all effective approaches is that they challenge the body in ways it’s not used to.

Meaning, perhaps it’s not any particular approach that works, but the novelty of any particular approach that is beneficial.

So one way that people differ is the proportion of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers they have. As you surely know, fast twitch is associated with power, and slow twitch with endurance.

I’ve heard it hypothesized that people naturally tend to train according to the type they have: if they have more fast twitch, they tend to lift heavier with fewer reps. But if they have more slow twitch, they prefer higher rep sets.

Targeting the muscle fibers a person has may be one way that different training programs produce variable results for different people.

One of the ways to make healthy behaviors habitual is to do them regularly. A person trying to develop a gym habit may have an easier time if it’s something they do nearly every day (instead of just a few times a week).

So there’s a balance. A person might consider still going to the gym on off days, maybe just to stretch, so as to create a routine.

For me, I find that 5 days a week works well. I typically take Monday and Friday off; Monday is the first day of the work week, so it’s going to be hectic, and it’s useful to be able to work late. By Friday I’m usually beat from a long work week.

Tuesday through Thursday offers 3 days in a row to cover the entire body: push/pull/legs. And Saturday and Sunday does the same: Upper body/Lower body. The result is hitting each body part twice a week, without getting too fatigued.

671

And of course someone intrinsically with more fast twitch will more likely end up as the strength athlete or sprinter, and someone intrinsically with more slow twitch will more likely do endurance events. We enjoy doing what is easier for us to be good at.

Still I wonder if training against our strengths has some extra benefits? Just a random thought.

One can have a six day a week exercise habit varying the mix, strength training once to three times a week and doing a variety of cardio the remaining days.

But it is another individual variation issue. The sameness helps some and huge variety helps others.

You like lifting every day and do splits to respect recovery. I strength train (in a variety of ways not just weights) once to twice a week for about an hour a session, and do cardio the other days. And the cardio varies. Over last winter I was training for a Spring marathon so I was mostly running, fast, long slow, tempo, the typical mix. Over summer I mostly cycled about an hour and a half in day four to five times a week) and only ran once a week. This winter I will be having a June rim to rim Grand Canyon hike with the adult kids in mind so will do more rucking to prepare the specific muscles, and will include doing stairs with the weighted backpack and long sessions of step ups with weighted backpack (mixing in farmers carry too). The hour or so of strength training per week will stay in the mix.

This isn’t better. It isn’t worse. It is just the habit that works for me, that keeps me interested and having fun. The same thing every day all year round year after year wouldn’t work for me.

672

To some degree you can change the dominant muscle fibres by the type of training you do. Training against your strengths has some benefits for limited times, depending on your goals.

It comes down to the basic force equation we all learned in high school:
F=ma=(mass)*(acceleration)=m(dv/dt)

Explosive movements use little mass and high acceleration,
Speed-strength movements are lower mass.
Strength-speed movements are higher mass.
Strength movements are highest mass, low a.

Olympic weightlifting is mainly strength-speed; powerlifting mainly strength. A general athlete like a Crossfitter does a variety of training. You wouldn’t want to train more than 15% of your time, or for months, on exercises too divergent from your main activity because you don’t want to change your muscle fibre distributions that much. At high levels, not most of us, there are few swole marathoners but plenty of muscular sprinters.

673

See, you people who find weight training “fun” and “interesting” have an enormous natural advantage. And i suspect you are in a minority.

674

And that’s the thing. Many of us don’t have a “main activity” per se. Our goal isn’t to be as proficient as possible in a specific main activity. It is as @puzzlegal states, to be able heave concrete sacks when we need to, overall to function fully for as long as possible.

(Yeah @puzzlegal, it helps if it is fun, play, and not a chore.)

675

Well, you ran a marathon. If you are planning on doing this again, weightlifting to become muscular would not help that goal.

Of course, Attia’s list of “basic tasks he wants to be able to perform when he is elderly” is relevant to most people. Many elderly people have already lost the muscle they need to do things that were once easy, and this impacts their function, mood and longevity - as you age you want to preserve brain, body and “spirit” (social network, life purpose, mood, values). But this means maintaining some fitness. The good news is a little exercise goes a long way.

676

I have no plans to do another. Although my joke is that my first was 26 years ago so my third can be in another 26 years, wheelchair division, with my daughter pushing me. I also had no pretensions of being an elite even for my age group. I wanted to finish with a smile on my face number one, and compete with my younger self number two. (That punk beat me unfortunately.)

And reality is that at 65 plus no amount of intelligent programming would make me massive, even if such was a goal.

You had been a voice reassuring me that I didn’t need to worry much about losing muscle mass during a season of marathon training and you were right. The little lost quickly returned to my baseline.

We completely agree. A little goes a long way and having cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 max the measure of above) and strength/muscle mass in the bank will keep us on this side of the functional threshold farther into our lives. Life expectancy increase some, health expectancy increase huge.

677

You can see from the first graph that a very fit 75 year old can do more than a very unfit 25 year old.

I have never run a marathon, and never will. It’s way too different from what I enjoy and am good at. I’m impressed you could do that! What a great way to bond with your daughter!

I ran plenty of 10Ks when younger and lighter. But I still occasionally break personal strength records at the gym, and recently burned 45 calories a minute on the climbing machine.

678

That’s my advantage! I’m not really very good at anything!

679

Tips for magnificent mobility.

Giftlink:

680

I choose to believe that everyone is good at something-you just might not have discovered it yet.