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Some good links for women looking to get in shape
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Seriously,
These links will open your eyes about training, nutrition etc etc
1 part:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1524087
2 parts:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1500416
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1504047
These will also give you some ideas that will fit in with the personal training thread as you can go in armed with some professional knowledge and won't be fobbed off with some shitty routine that is designed to "tone" etc.
These links will open your eyes about training, nutrition etc etc
1 part:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1524087
2 parts:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1500416
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1504047
These will also give you some ideas that will fit in with the personal training thread as you can go in armed with some professional knowledge and won't be fobbed off with some shitty routine that is designed to "tone" etc.
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Comments
Very good info, first pic in the first link =
Oh yes indeed
I just *know* somebody is going to come back with "Oh, but blah blah blah some of them are too muscular". Yes, some of them are, but that would take YEARS to achieve and if people get anywhere near the girl in the first picture, something is going right!
Once you get into it, it becomes an addiction.
Just don't fall for passing fads, and make sure you get yourself sweaty!!
Also - don't go focusing on numbers.........................................
Yep. :yes:
Also go by how you FEEL.
Grabbing a 'handful' and finding that it's much firmer from one month to the next is *always* a good indicator that you are indeed burning off that layer of fat and also building the muscle underneath
I got into the habit of working out recently and it's already proving to be quite addictive (started late February). I am already feeling better about myself but have some excessive pounds to get rid of before I risk turning into a female bull.
Just skimmed over one part (need to get back to revising, ack) and it's definitely motivated me for tomorrow.
Don't be so sure................
Lol but i am sure. I need lipo before i even think of going to the gym seriously.
Interesting stuff though.
In a good way or a bad way? Bearing in mind that it takes years and years to train to get that way, and a lot of people supplement with creatine to retain water in the muscles to look like extra bulk.
You can see all the hard work that's gone into it, and they are atheletes too, but whoah momma! big chunky muscles!
I really don't think they are all too 'bulky' though. Aside from the implants, I'd be more than happy to look like the woman in the first picture, in the first link.
I think your perceptions alter though, given what you're doing. Before I started the gym I was quite happy to be a 'skinny fat' (i.e. I was a size 10 but with a lot of body fat, and I could get away with it with my tiny frame) and found women with more fat than muscular definition really attractive, I'll use the example of the curvier women in the Dove adverts. It was only when I started weights and optimising my nutrition and starting to become leaner and see some muscle there did I find women of similar body shapes attractive. I'll probably get a flaming and a half for saying this but when I see ads and stuff like Dove, I think to myself, "Start lifting some fecking weights" but that's probably all the hormones eating up my brain
It's probably more to do with my lifestyle now, but generally I find quite a defeatest attitude towards working out and settling for what you've got rather than aspiring to other goals (and there's nothing wrong with that)but I can understand why people on TN etc, would find women who've worked really hard to get like that attractive. I think it's a different kind of attractive though, culture has so much to do with our perceptions.
Didn't mean to type so much out!
What upsets me though is when I see women at my gym who want to get lean, and work towards a flat stomach etc, and all they do is work at a comfortable pace on one cardio machine, and then go to another cardio machine, and then another. And their body shapes don't change, and they won't until they start lifting weights to build muscle. Makes me want to say something, but I'd probably get told to sod off (unless the endorphins are running that high
I mean, it isn't even my intention to be at a stage where I can lift loads, I just want to be lean with a little muscle definition, but to get to that stage, I've had to lift really heavy weights, so I'm sure people look at me and think I must be a weirdo, when my goal isn't that extreme. Ah well, give me a year
well by the looks of your stats you ain't doing too badly. nearly made me wanna join a gym, to see if I could do it too, nearly! lol
I really pushed myself at the beginning with the upper body free-weights because I didn't want to be the person known for using the lightest weights.
However, I think that you can well take ideas from different types of training and apply it to your own training regime to get to the goal you want to reach. I want to be able to run as well for some distance, so I am also working on that when I'm giving my body time off from weights.
I've often heard people say that swimmers have fit bodies (I agree
I think that what the main lesson should be that you NEED to work hard to get anywhere regardless of what you do. If you don't push yourself to your limit there isn't going to be any improvement, no matter if it be weights, running, swimming, etc.
... and there we go. As I said, I was *waiting* for somebody to comment on that. The pictures used are not the point of the articles! Did you actually read them...?
The whole point of the links I posted is to try improve women's approach to training. Like go_away, I see women (and men, but usually they have a better approach - lifting heavier weights!!) who have been going to the gym year in, year out with little or no change in their physiques as they have just been muddling their way along.
If you read the threads, especially the two by Jen Heath, they state clearly that sure, if you want super-massive development you WILL get it eventually by training hard, but she is saying you should also train just as hard to get where YOU as an individual want to be. Once you've reached that goal, you bring the training down to a maintenance level.
It's not about being built like some of the women in those pictures, those are extremes, but the *training ethos* is the same, which is the point the articles are making. To clarify, I don't find the built women attractive, but the sleek sexy ones (mentioning again the first pic in the first link!
First link, the girly under section 3..................... *drool*
Yup, I read it, I was just commenting on the pictures.
ETA: I don't disagree with the principle of train hard though.
Excellent.
Yeah - that's the problem most women run into... The bloody trainers. They start them out incorrectly for the most part and then people think "oh, that's what I should be doing!".
What gets me is that many of my women friends will quite happily do two of those useless classes in a row (bodyjam etc) and yet won't get on the weights. What I have tried to explain, and in the end had to get my trainer friends to back me up, is that more than approx 45-60 minutes of exercise stops burning the fat tissue, and moves onto the muscle as the body goes into a state where it is preserving the energy stored in the fat for emergencies.
Of course, the class instructors won't tell them this as they'd have no class to teach and so wouldn't get paid! Doing more than one class at a time is utterly counter productive AND the classes aren't progressive. A plateau is reached very early on and your body won't progress without an increased challenge. Get on the weights!!
But yes. it's when you're really giving it some that you get the buzz. When you feel you've pushed yourself as hard as you're capable of, you just feel so high (and bloody knackered!!)! Then you get the endorphin rush...............
Right - sod this, got to sleep!! Just something I have a lot of passion for...