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2005/04/25, 12:31 AM
I'm taking off two days a week, instead of working out everyday. 2 days of weight training and 3 days of circuit workout including 2 days with HIIT and 1 day of regular cardio. I break up cardio within the workout programs, but those 3 days, my cardio is about 30 to 40 min total. Is this enough cardio if I'm aiming for bf loss? Should I do light cardio after weight training too?
I have problem with my weight training though. Upper body exercise and chin ups makes my extensor muscle very tight. If I use the lighter weights, I don't feel the targeted muscle is working hard. What can I do?
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2005/04/30, 11:09 PM
Keep only working out 5 days a week, your body needs 1-2 days of rest a week.
When you do your weight training, if your wanting to burn fat, you have to ask your self this question. To what intensity are you working out? I'm not saying power lifting, most females goals are not to be overly muscular. What I am saying is to do a weight, where you can do 12-15 reps. Don't just do the reps, when it says 12-15 that means you want to get 14, and on the 15th one you want to "fail" to lift it. Do the reps at a fairly fast tempo, this will also help burn the fat on top of the muscle fibers. You always want to be able to get "atleast" 12 though. I would do a 16 set work out for each body part that you exercise. This will help you do 4 exercises with 4 sets on each one. Also, only rest around 30-45 seconds between sets. If you rest 3 minutes your body is 100% recovered, if you rest 1 minute it is 72% recovered, so rest less then a minute. In order to burn fat you have to "force" your body to work, if you are completely rested between sets you wont be forcing, you'll just be doing it and you wont burn near as much fat. Another thing you can do is at the end of every muscle group work out, do a burn out or 2. Just put on a light weight, like say if you bench 135lbs, bench 55lbs or 65lbs as many times as you can. No target rep just as many times as your body will let you, this burns fat a lot. Just make sure to do a cool down afterwards so you don't cramp, because after doing that the lactic acid will be high and you will cramp if you don't cool down first.
As far as your cardio. Don't do cardio after you lift. The purpose of lifting is to use the calories that you eat to go to your muscles, if you burn all of them off your tearing your muscle while lifting and not repairing with any protein calories. Do 10-15 minutes right before you lift for a warm up, not at too intense of a pace because you don't want to use up all of your energy right before you lift. Do your cardio all the days you lift for 30 to 40 minutes right before you go to bed. When you sleep is when your body stores the most fat so you want to burn off as much as you can. Also, if you take Saturday and Sunday off, do a 30 minute light jog during the day. This will help you body still have enough time to rest, but it will also help you get a little more calories burned. Just make sure that there is 1 day that you do nothing physically active, just give your body a rest.
I hope this answers your questions, and I wish you the best of luck, take care.
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