I’m a Woman and I Don’t Want to Bulk up!

The card from the committee coordinating your high school reunion arrives in the mail yesterday, and all you can think about is whether everyone will still view you as the football team’s pom squad captain with the perfect grade point average. Fifteen years, twenty pounds, one husband and two kids later, you realize you couldn’t do the splits even if your life depended on it. Aging is inevitable; Accountability is part of life. But you were “da bomb” in high school, and you still wanted to shine for your greatest fans and worst critics. So you approach a Chicago Personal Trainer, and say that you want to look like the eighteen-year-old girl who dazzled a crowded stadium of cheering fans. And he tells you: “No problem. We’ll do some cardio, lift weights, do core and balance exercises…”

And all you hear is “lift weights” (men aren’t the ONLY ones with selective hearing). You gulp hard. You imagine yourself in an environment of meatheads beating their chests, and toasting each other with their protein shakes after a grueling session of pumping iron. But, you imagine a scarier image: You looking like one of those meatheads. Sure, you enjoyed dating the muscular captain of the football team in high school, but you never wanted to look like him! Your perfect workout involves lots of running and five hundred sit-ups a day. Your trainer shakes his head in exasperation, and proceeds to allay your fears:

WEIGHT TRAINING CAN MINIMIZE EFFECTS OF MENOPAUSE AND AGING : Weight training for women should be more than toning and sculpting. Menopause and aging are both associated with a decrease in bone density, muscle mass and an increase in adipose (fat) tissue. Weight bearing and weight loaded activity causes osteoblasts to migrate to the bone surface. The osteoblasts manufacture proteins which are eventually mineralized as calcium, and increase the strength and rigidity of the bones. As more osteoblasts are manufactured through weight bearing and weight loaded activity, more proteins are mineralized as calcium to increase the strength and rigidity of bones. While menopause and aging aren’t the celebrated milestones that women want to reach anytime soon, it does not mean YOU should be pounding on the weights like the aforementioned meatheads. All you need to do is do one full body workout, three times a week. Each major muscle group should be trained once in a two set, 15 repetition sequence at 70% of a 1RM max. Each exercise should include a stability component, such as bicep curls standing on one foot or shoulder presses on a stability ball. Depending on your goals, cardiovascular exercises and food intake will also need to be included in the training regimen. The consistent deployment of this training program will increase the manufacturing of osteoblasts, and therefore increase the calcium production needed to increase the strength and rigidity of the bones. Consequently, the effects of menopause and aging will be minimized.

WEIGHT TRAINING CAN MINIMIZE THE EFFECTS OF ACCIDENTS AND INJURIES: As the human body ages, it becomes vulnerable to accidents and injuries. Weight training is absolutely necessary to increase musculoskeletal strength need to immediately support a fall, or quickly heal from an arthritic pain. Imagine if you were rummaging through your closet trying to find your high school yearbook, and you fell off the ladder and hurt your lower back. If you never did any back exercises, it would take several weeks for the back to heal due to a lack of neural adaptation. If you did back exercises on a consistent basis, then your back was programmed to adapt to stresses generated from applied force, and therefore be capable of withstanding the fall. Therefore, it would take less time for the back to heal given neural adaptation. Weight training as an isolated activity can cause accidents and injuries, so it is very important to take the necessary steps in exercising in a safe and effective manner.

WEIGHT TRAINING CAN INCREASE PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS: But we know what your REAL motive is. At this point, you’re not worried about menopause, aging, osteoporosis or breaking a fall. You want to look hot. You want your greatest fans and worst critics to be eyeing you the entire night, wondering if that dancer body can still do the splits. The striations (cuts) in any muscular structure are mostly created through a low weight, high repetition sequence. Also, it is very important for all muscle groups to rest for at least 48 hours, so the muscles can morph in an optimal way.

So, wipe the sweat off your brow, put on those cross-trainers and strap on those weight gloves. We’re going to hit the weight room for the next few months, so you can walk into that reunion, and be able to put on a great show for the cheering fans! It’ll be like old times…..

Clint Phillips is one of Chicago’s leading personal trainers.

“How Many Reps Should I do?”

People want me to give them a magic number – if they always do X reps, they will look like a fitness model in just a few short weeks. It’s true that 4-6 reps is usually for bulking up while 12-15 reps is better for toning, but what’s missing here is any mention of the INTENSITY of the reps. That’s what causes the body to change and improve.

I tell people that they should not just shoot for a certain number, they should go for momentary muscular failure. Let me give an example – say you are interested in toning, so you want to do a 15-rep set. So you pick up a weight and do 15 reps then stop. Now ask yourself a question…. “Could I have done 16? 17? 18?” If the answer is yes, then you have just wasted your time. You didn’t get to momentary muscular failure. You should have kept going until you couldn’t lift the weight anymore.

I see a lot of people (women especially) who sit in an exercise machine, put the pin in for the first plate, lift the weight 30-40 times, then stop for no apparent reason. Then they yawn, take a drink of water, adjust their shoelaces, and twiddle their thumbs. Next, they do 20-30 more reps, set the bar down gently, meditate a bit, then walk over to another machine and repeat the same process. They never had to strain for a rep. They didn’t really work hard. Believe me, they have done nothing to help themselves. Nothing is going to change based on such weak sets.

If you find yourself able to do more than 15 reps, then next time grab a heavier weight! Light weight and high reps means muscle failure by 15 reps. Otherwise you’re doing TOO light and TOO many reps. You can work out like that every day and in a year – you’ll still look the same as you do now. By the last rep, you should be sweating, your face should be red, you should be gasping for air, and you should be just about ready to kill your Personal Trainer. If not, you might as well stay home, because you are just wasting time.

What works even better is to do “forced reps.” This means you go all the way to failure, then someone assists you just enough to crank out another 2-3 forced reps. All of my personal training clients will tell you from experience that this method gets them better and faster results than they could ever get working out in their own.

Clint Phillips is one of Chicago’s leading personal trainers.