Need Tips - Workout Advice for a Girl

[thirddan]

"You aren't going to be able to do any of the good compound movements without a barbell and bench and a ton of different weights, though, and that isn't going to work without a spare bedroom or something. "

this is not true, you can do dumbbell versions of all the compound movements...

[FlyWf]

I think, especially for a girl, grip strength limitations would make doing decent weight dumbbell deadlifts very hard.

[Rootabager]

Join Curves
Pilates really though is great.
eat good

[Big Poppa Smurf]

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I've never posted in this forum before. I'm hoping some of you guys can give me advice. Size-wise, I'm small enough - let's say goal weight, and I'm pretty short as well, 5'3. I'm interested in becoming stronger, for two main reasons: to look better naked and to burn more calories. I also just want to be healthier and have more endurance in general.

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Your goals aren't quite clear to me.

Being stronger won't necessarily make you burn more calories or look better naked. Getting stronger is a function of your central nervous system becoming more efficient. Getting stronger will not make you burn more calories unless you also gain muscle mass. That's why body builders can eat 5,000 calories a day and still have ridiculously low bodyfat. Someone who lifts purely for strength, like a powerlifter, does not burn many calories during their lifts or while resting. I find it weird that you list burning more calories as a goal in and of itself. Is maybe that another way of saying that you want to lower your body fat? Also when you that you want to get stronger so that you look better naked, do you actually mean that you want to look a little more muscular? Being stronger does not necessarily correlate with being more muscular or looking better naked. In fact, someone can greatly increase their strength while looking virtually identical on the outside.

So if you explain a little bit better about what your looking for, I can give you better advice about what to do.

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Dude you know what she meant, stop trying to sound smart.

[slickpoppa]

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I've never posted in this forum before. I'm hoping some of you guys can give me advice. Size-wise, I'm small enough - let's say goal weight, and I'm pretty short as well, 5'3. I'm interested in becoming stronger, for two main reasons: to look better naked and to burn more calories. I also just want to be healthier and have more endurance in general.

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Your goals aren't quite clear to me.

Being stronger won't necessarily make you burn more calories or look better naked. Getting stronger is a function of your central nervous system becoming more efficient. Getting stronger will not make you burn more calories unless you also gain muscle mass. That's why body builders can eat 5,000 calories a day and still have ridiculously low bodyfat. Someone who lifts purely for strength, like a powerlifter, does not burn many calories during their lifts or while resting. I find it weird that you list burning more calories as a goal in and of itself. Is maybe that another way of saying that you want to lower your body fat? Also when you that you want to get stronger so that you look better naked, do you actually mean that you want to look a little more muscular? Being stronger does not necessarily correlate with being more muscular or looking better naked. In fact, someone can greatly increase their strength while looking virtually identical on the outside.

So if you explain a little bit better about what your looking for, I can give you better advice about what to do.

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Dude you know what she meant, stop trying to sound smart.

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Blow me. Stop trying to sound like you aren't trying to sound smart.

[kidcolin]

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Dude you know what she meant, stop trying to sound smoove 4 da ladiez.

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[Fast Food Knight]

slickpoppa,

I want to remain at, or perhaps slightly smaller than, my current size, with less flab and more sexiness. Does that answer your question?

FlyWf,

Thanks for the info! $30 is beyond reasonable.

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First of all, from your pictures, you already look pretty lean. Second of all, if you lift weights but don't eat well (and I'm not talking about eating like a dude who wants to get huge) your outward appearance will not change much.

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How do you define eating well? In terms of calories, I think I eat extremely well. But if you're defining "well" as high in lean proteins, whole-wheat breads only, lots of vegetables... nah, I don't do that. I eat a lot of Lean Cuisines, Smart Ones, South Beach meals, and ramen.

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I think I'm starting to get the picture of what you want to accomplish. Correct me if I'm wrong: you want to lose maybe a little bit of body fat while also gaining a little bit of muscle. IE you're going for an Anna Kournikova look as opposed to an anorexic model look? If thats true, I can give you some advice on how to lose a little bodyfat and gain a little bit of muscle.

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I wouldn't say Anna Kournikova but I also wouldn't say anorexic model. How about this:

[Snafu'd]

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she could also substitute dumbbell versions for all those exercises if she doesn't want to buy a bench and barbell (for space reasons or whatever)

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Yeah, at the moment I am in a small 2 bedroom apartment with 2 roommates and not a ton of extra room. We will be buying a house soon where I can hopefully use more room for workout purposes, but until then, what lb dumbbells would you guys recommend? I am REALLY REALLY weak - but hopefully not for long. Do you guys have any particular brands you recommend or retailers that have especially good deals?

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FFK,
I've got the bowflex brand but I don't think you should have to spend that much on dumbbells. I noticed that they had several different brands for less at Target the other day and I'm sure they are fine. A medicine ball would be a good thing to pick up too. Throw those in with some fitness bands and you'll be able to do a ton of workouts in your spare bedroom. But there is no need to jump out and buy all these things at once - just pick up the one you think you'll use the most and go from there. Good luck!

[slickpoppa]

FFK,

I guess what I was saying was a long winded way of asking whether you wanted to gain muscle or lose fat, or both. Now I'm pretty sure you're most interested in losing a little bit of fat. In that case, you don't need to do much work with weights, which is good since you don't want to go to the gym. Anyways, what you should be doing is high intensity interval training, often referred to as HIIT. HIIT is essentially doing really intense cardio, like sprinting, for very short periods of time, taking a brief rest, then repeating. The bad news about HIIT is that it can be somewhat painful, the good news is that it does not take a lot of time. If you're willing to go to a track, check out this article for a couple of examples of HIIT running programs: http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=251run2 .

If you're looking to stuff strictly in your apartment, then that's a little more difficult. One option is doing burpees, which is described here: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/rossboxing2.htm , though that might be more likely to get boring after a while.

Building muscle is a little more difficult because that requires eating more frequently and more protein (ramen and weight watchers is probably not enough) as well as using weights. Since you're just starting out, I would suggest doing the running HIIT stuff that I linked above, and doing pushups, pullups, and bodyweight squats as substitutes for weight work. If you decide to also buy dumbbells, there's a lot of other stuff you can do with those as well. But at this point I think the HIIT will give you the most pronounced effect on your outward appearance. If you enjoy that for a while then maybe you'll decide to join a gym and then you can really start utilizing the weights.

[Fast Food Knight]

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I think I'm going to find a girl when school starts up again and get her to come to the gym with me every time I go. I'd have her doing the same workouts as me, and wouldn't be too worried about her getting too big. Of course I wouldn't want her taking in 4000cals a day either, but a body composition change is nice.

This is my project for the new school year, TR sometime in the future to follow.

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Plz move to Georgia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]