Guest guest Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 > ---->why is that? i routinely do it, but then i don't lift to capacity > either. So your muscles can rest. If you work your muscles out without letting the build up, your going to eat away at your muscle instead of build it. ------->i know it's to let them rest, but why 48 hours instead of 24? >>>>I suppose if you exercise them light enough it wouldn't matter, but I would also suppose that if it doesn't matter, you're not exercising them enough for a good workout. ----->i'm not sure how you'd define a 'good workout', but i seem to be doing fine like this...still gaining muscle, but often working the same muscle groups 4-5 days/week. maybe, since i'm not interested in " bulking up " much, though, that this is an appropriate pace for me. i really don't know! Suze Fisher Lapdog Design, Inc. Web Design & Development http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine http://www.westonaprice.org ---------------------------- " The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " -- Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher. The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics <http://www.thincs.org> ---------------------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 In a message dated 9/12/03 8:51:24 PM Eastern Daylight Time, s.fisher22@... writes: > ----->wouldn't that depend to some extent on how much you stressed your > muscles the day before? yep. > ---->well, i do want to gain in some areas, but not others. i'm not sure > exactly what " power lifting " and " olympic lifting exercises " consist of, but > am pretty sure i'm not doing them! LOL to tell you the truth i know next to nothing about power lifting and nothing about olympic lifting. the powerlifting " big three " are the three exercises i focus on-- the squat, deadlift, and bench press. i think the idea behind both philosophies is to gain efficient muscle for the sake of strength, and both use movements that work wide spectrums of muscle groups rather than individual ones. if you want to target muscle gain to specific areas, i guess you have to do it with machines. all though i completely disagree with machines philosophically. > ----->some areas i want to tone and others add muscle. i seem to be adding > muscle and toning most areas all the time. i'm saying " seem " because it's > hard to tell sometimes! when i lose fat, my muscles " look " bigger because > the fat's not hiding them, but maybe they're not bigger. however, i've > *clearly* gained muscle over the past year that i've been weightlifting, so > i'm not just " toning " . even repeating the same exercise on consecutive days. > maybe i'm just gaining more slowly than i would if i alternated days? If you've gained muscle, you must weigh more. If you don't weigh more, I doubt you gained a whole lot of muscle. Though you may have made your muscles a lot stronger. Losing fat is probably the best way to gain muscle definition. Fat cusions the muscles and obscures their contours. If you alternated days, you would probably gain much more effectively, if for no other reason you would be able to lift more weight on the next day than you would otherwise. Your success is going to be proportionate to the degree you're challenging your muscles. If you do the same weight and same reps all the time you're not going to go anywhere very fast. If you alternate, theoretically you should progress faster. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 14, 2003 Report Share Posted September 14, 2003 In a message dated 9/14/03 9:03:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, s.fisher22@... writes: > ----->well, i have lost weight and gained muscle. i misspoke before-- if you lost fat, you could theoretically lose weight while gaining muscle, but only if you lost less weight than is proportionate to your fat loss, which would be quite an effort to measure. i don't know what the > difference is between *gaining* muscle and making my muscles *stronger* if you gain muscle, you have more of it. if you gain strength, you can exert more power with your muscles. if you gain muscle, you'll gain strength, but gaining strength doesn't indicate gain of muscle. but > my muscles are noticably larger than they were this past winter, yet i've > lost about 10 lbs. or so since then. and it's not that they were merely > covered by fat and are now more noticable, they've clearly been growing. > although, obviously not enough to compensate weight-wise for the fat i've > lost. so maybe i've lost 15 lbs. of body fat and gained 5 lbs. of muscle, or > something like that. that's reasonable. > i will try working the same muscle groups every other day now and see if > they grow faster. i'm actually at a point where i do want to step it up a > bit and lift almost to failure, but i do have to take it easy with anything > involving my legs because of a bum knee. that's the reason i've been going > as slowly as i have with most lifting that involves my legs. the stepping it up will be as necessary as the resting, but the latter would be a pre-req of the former. but lifting more weight is much more important than doing reps to failure, which i personally wouldn't advocate anyway. i never go till failure, and i'm not sure it's even possible with free weights. i'd sure hate to " fail " half way through coming up on a squat! Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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