Group: General Fitness & Exercise

Created: 2011/12/31, Members: 382, Messages: 54581

Various general exercise related discussions. Find out what it takes to reach your fitness goals through daily effective exercise. With so many options we try to find out what works best.

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lean muscle mass

nkeryan
nkeryan
Posts: 2
Joined: 2003/09/17
United States
2003/09/19, 11:23 AM
can i grow lean muscle without lifting heavy weights, right now I start with a light weigth and use it till failure(usually around 15reps), then I add 5 pounds for the next three sets and go till failure again. I use 90% dumbells in my exercises, I was wondering if this is a good routine for building lean defined muscle. My diet is good i think, I eat 1gram of protein per body weight and like 2 times carbs. Can someone please correct me?

Thanks,
ryan
bb1fit
bb1fit
Posts: 11,105
Joined: 2001/06/30
United States
2003/09/19, 11:52 AM
Not much, you need to really overload the muscle with heavy loads to intice growth. You are doing more of an endurance training. You can train a muscle for 2 different things, strength and endurance. If you take a 10 lb. dumbbell and do enough reps, you will eventually get a pump, but will you grow from it? No...you are not sufficiently making the muscle work for strength (overload). But, increase that load to a weight you can't get 8 from without straining, or have to get a spot for to finish, and you have overloaded the muscle, and are forcing it to adapt to new heavier loads. This intices growth. Always stive to get stronger.

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Great people never want it easier, they just want to be better!
Ron
richardjst
richardjst
Posts: 410
Joined: 2002/07/13
United States
2003/09/19, 11:52 AM
Building muscle takes progressively heavier weights over a full controlled range of motion...after a while changing of sets and reps and order is needed for continuous growth.

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If hard work and persistence were the keys to success, most people would opt to pick the lock.~Dick