New here - Q's about cardio and gaining muscle

[greentree]

(1) Continuous aerobic work plateaus after 8 weeks of training so anything more is counterproductive.

I'm not sure I understand this - what defines "continuous aerobic work?" Do they mean same pace, sitting on a machine for 30-60 min, without increasing speed or incline? Does that mean that intervals do not fall into the "continuous" category?

I love to run and really look forward to it. I limit myself to 3-4x per week, and I rarely do more than 30 min, but I constantly increase my speed and push myself. I almost always do intervals of sprints, and occasionally do tempo runs. When I do run at a constant pace, it's mostly for fun and stress release, but I still push myself and always aim to increase the distance I run in 30 min. I will also use the elliptical to mix it up, but I hate it very much.

I am 5'5", 119 lbs, and I do not know my bodyfat right now. I am not as concerned about losing fat as I am about gaining muscle, I'm reasonably lean. Weights are pretty new to me, I just went from running outside, to working out in a gym 5 months ago. Any and all suggestions are much appreciated. I lift after I run 3-4x every week. I have been mixing it up every month, adding new exercises and I am seeing results. I just don't want to be wasting my time doing cardio that won't help.



I need to work on my diet big time, but with very little variation it looks like this:

Breakfast, 3 egg whites and coffee - I try to eat a half cup of old fashioned plain oatmeal too, but I get lazy sometimes and leave that out

I run and lift, then 1 scoop of GNC wheybolic extreme - 20g protein. I feel dorky taking this because I'm not a "body-builder" but after I shower and run errands and get home, sometimes 2-3 hours have gone by and I am starving and haven't eaten anything

I will have some sort of carb usually again, eith a half cup brown rice or oatmeal, and I like to have a quarter cup of cottage cheese too.

For a snack, I will drink V8 juice or munch on broccoli/carrots/cauliflower. I sometimes have chicken noodle soup or beef and veggie soup too

Dinner is late, I can't really eat at work in the evening, but I will have 2 chicken breasts or soup when I get home, sometimes a lean cuisine thing with meat and veggies.

Any other time I need snacks, I will grab a cheese stick or veggie, but I often cheat and eat chocolate or licorice. I can't seem to stop that! Also, cappucinos are my weakness, and they are terrible... I've never recorded my diet before, and writing it down here makes me realize how much I need to work on it! Wow.

How do women gain muscle? I know I have a lot to work on here, but what is the most important thing to start with? I read in the stickys where I can keep track of my diet, and I will do that right away. Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[greentree]

Hello again everyone - was this the right place to post these questions? If I was being too specific or too general, let me know. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

 

[trex74]

The weekend can be slow, I am sure some of the more experienced girls will post up soon-hang in there!
Some of the good advice I've received is that you have to eat to build muscle, especially lean protein which you should eat with every meal.
maybe you're not eating enough? I punched in what you ate, not including chocolate or licorice, and it came up to about 1300 Calories. That would keep you lean for sure!

 

[RottenWillow]

(1) Continuous aerobic work plateaus after 8 weeks of training so anything more is counterproductive.

I'm not sure I understand this - what defines "continuous aerobic work?" Do they mean same pace, sitting on a machine for 30-60 min, without increasing speed or incline? Does that mean that intervals do not fall into the "continuous" category?

I love to run and really look forward to it. I limit myself to 3-4x per week, and I rarely do more than 30 min, but I constantly increase my speed and push myself. I almost always do intervals of sprints, and occasionally do tempo runs. When I do run at a constant pace, it's mostly for fun and stress release, but I still push myself and always aim to increase the distance I run in 30 min. I will also use the elliptical to mix it up, but I hate it very much.

I am 5'5", 119 lbs, and I do not know my bodyfat right now. I am not as concerned about losing fat as I am about gaining muscle, I'm reasonably lean. Weights are pretty new to me, I just went from running outside, to working out in a gym 5 months ago. Any and all suggestions are much appreciated. I lift after I run 3-4x every week. I have been mixing it up every month, adding new exercises and I am seeing results. I just don't want to be wasting my time doing cardio that won't help.



I need to work on my diet big time, but with very little variation it looks like this:

Breakfast, 3 egg whites and coffee - I try to eat a half cup of old fashioned plain oatmeal too, but I get lazy sometimes and leave that out

I run and lift, then 1 scoop of GNC wheybolic extreme - 20g protein. I feel dorky taking this because I'm not a "body-builder" but after I shower and run errands and get home, sometimes 2-3 hours have gone by and I am starving and haven't eaten anything

I will have some sort of carb usually again, eith a half cup brown rice or oatmeal, and I like to have a quarter cup of cottage cheese too.

For a snack, I will drink V8 juice or munch on broccoli/carrots/cauliflower. I sometimes have chicken noodle soup or beef and veggie soup too

Dinner is late, I can't really eat at work in the evening, but I will have 2 chicken breasts or soup when I get home, sometimes a lean cuisine thing with meat and veggies.

Any other time I need snacks, I will grab a cheese stick or veggie, but I often cheat and eat chocolate or licorice. I can't seem to stop that! Also, cappucinos are my weakness, and they are terrible... I've never recorded my diet before, and writing it down here makes me realize how much I need to work on it! Wow.

How do women gain muscle? I know I have a lot to work on here, but what is the most important thing to start with? I read in the stickys where I can keep track of my diet, and I will do that right away. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Very sorry, Greentree. It seems your original post got overlooked.

No idea in what context the bolded statement was made. Without the context, it's quite ambiguous. Continuous physical activity can become aerobic after about 30 minutes or so, and a trainee can certainly continue to make gains in CV efficiency for much more than 8 consecutive weeks of regular training.

However, a plan to seriously improve CV efficiency over time is rather antithetical to a plan to increase skeletal muscle. You need a caloric surplus to build skeletal muscle and you are unlikely to have that surplus if you are doing enough aerobic work to really dramatically improve your CV efficiency.

You can make some initial gains in both CV fitness and skeletal muscle, but soon you'll need to make a choice as to which is your primary goal and tailor your overall fitness plan accordingly.

A woman gains muscle in exactly the same manner as a man-- stimulate muscle growth by creating damage via appropriately intense weight training sessions, then providing sufficient nutrition and recovery time to allow your body to build back the damaged tissue slightly larger.

To build muscle, you need a slight caloric surplus, maybe 300 calories daily, and good quality protein on regular intervals throughout the day. The frequency and quality of your protein intake is more important than the amount you get at each sitting, but aiming for 30g each time is a reasonable goal.

Please keep reviewing those stickies. There's a wealth of knowledge there to get you started.

 

[greentree]

The weekend can be slow, I am sure some of the more experienced girls will post up soon-hang in there!
Some of the good advice I've received is that you have to eat to build muscle, especially lean protein which you should eat with every meal.
maybe you're not eating enough? I punched in what you ate, not including chocolate or licorice, and it came up to about 1300 Calories. That would keep you lean for sure!

I know! I was suprised to learn this as well because I've never calculated it until now. I'm really just not a big eater. I think I should start eating more, but I'm never hungry and it feels weird to eat when I'm not hungry. I'm not as lean as you'd think with 1300 cals a day, I can see abs somewhat but I'm certainly not cut. I'm pretty sure I'm in that "starvation mode" that everyone talks about. How embarassing... oh well, I'll fix that! Any thoughts on this?

 

[greentree]

Very sorry, Greentree. It seems your original post got overlooked.

No idea in what context the bolded statement was made. Without the context, it's quite ambiguous. Continuous physical activity can become aerobic after about 30 minutes or so, and a trainee can certainly continue to make gains in CV efficiency for much more than 8 consecutive weeks of regular training.

However, a plan to seriously improve CV efficiency over time is rather antithetical to a plan to increase skeletal muscle. You need a caloric surplus to build skeletal muscle and you are unlikely to have that surplus if you are doing enough aerobic work to really dramatically improve your CV efficiency.

You can make some initial gains in both CV fitness and skeletal muscle, but soon you'll need to make a choice as to which is your primary goal and tailor your overall fitness plan accordingly.

A woman gains muscle in exactly the same manner as a man-- stimulate muscle growth by creating damage via appropriately intense weight training sessions, then providing sufficient nutrition and recovery time to allow your body to build back the damaged tissue slightly larger.

To build muscle, you need a slight caloric surplus, maybe 300 calories daily, and good quality protein on regular intervals throughout the day. The frequency and quality of your protein intake is more important than the amount you get at each sitting, but aiming for 30g each time is a reasonable goal.

Please keep reviewing those stickies. There's a wealth of knowledge there to get you started.

Thank you! The first quote was from the sticky "reasons why being a cardio queen can be counter-productive." I should be getting 30g of protein at each sitting? Wow! How many sittings each day?

It seems like I am gaining muscle well at the moment, and it's fun right now because I'll sometimes rub a sore spot and be suprised at how different the muscle feels from the week before. My goal right now is definitely to gain muscle. How do you do so without gaining fat - is that possible? Is it careful eating? How much cardio is appropriate for this?

 

[trex74]

RW's post makes a lot of sense to me, I am deciding to focus on building muscle, and it is quite an attitude change for me to eat so often.
However, I am finding that my portion sizes aren't huge or anything, 75 grams (2 1/2 oz) of chicken is NOT a lot to eat, but it gives me 23 grams of protein.
I plan out what I bring to work with me, I had fun going and buying a nice insulated lunch bag, and bring three small meals with me.
If I cook chicken breasts or another meat the night before, I use the leftovers, weigh it out on my scale, and add in sweet potato or brown rice and some greens/salad.
I don't know if your in starvation mode, but there is a sticky somewhere to calculate basal metabolic rate, you can do the formula and figure it out...
I eat five meals/day

 

[RottenWillow]

Thank you! The first quote was from the sticky "reasons why being a cardio queen can be counter-productive." I should be getting 30g of protein at each sitting? Wow! How many sittings each day?

It seems like I am gaining muscle well at the moment, and it's fun right now because I'll sometimes rub a sore spot and be suprised at how different the muscle feels from the week before. My goal right now is definitely to gain muscle. How do you do so without gaining fat - is that possible? Is it careful eating? How much cardio is appropriate for this?

Ok that's probably high unless you are not on an AAS cycle and aren't carrying a lot of muscle currently. Aim for 20-25g of complete proteins like meat, whey protein isolate or eggs at each meal, every 3 to 3.5 hours.

You can't gain significant amounts of muscle w/o also gaining a bit of fat. A very good (and realistic)ratio would be 1:1, meaning gaining only a pound of fat for every one pound of muscle.

 

[musclemom]

Thank you! The first quote was from the sticky "reasons why being a cardio queen can be counter-productive." I should be getting 30g of protein at each sitting? Wow! How many sittings each day?

It seems like I am gaining muscle well at the moment, and it's fun right now because I'll sometimes rub a sore spot and be suprised at how different the muscle feels from the week before. My goal right now is definitely to gain muscle. How do you do so without gaining fat - is that possible? Is it careful eating? How much cardio is appropriate for this?

The problem is that your body will not build without excess calories, so technically, you can't build muscle without gaining a little extra fat. Our bodies are very, very smart. Muscle is calorically wasteful, so if the perception is that you are not living in a time of excess it will not create muscles that burn extra calories. Likewise, when you have have a caloric deficit the first thing to go is muscle, not fat, because muscle uses more calories to maintain.

However, there is one time that axiom doesn't hold true, which is when you're really new to weights. You get about a six month honeymoon, if you lift seriously, where you can gain muscle, if you eat enough extra calories, and gain virtually no extra fat.

But to gain that muscle you need to provide your body with sufficient building blocks, which means WAY more food than you're eating, and way more protein. To cut we tell people 10 to 12 times their body weight in calories broken out into macros of 40% protein/30% carbs/30% fat. If you're only eating 1300 calories a day you're already eating a cutting diet and you don't know the macros.

You can get a free account at FitDay.com where you can log your food intake and get a realistic picture of what you're eating and what ratios.

The stickies at the top of the forum have a LOT of really solid information, too.

I'm glad you bumped your post The weekends, particularly around the holidays, can get a little goofed up for anyone

Welcome to the board, Greentree.

 

[greentree]

Wow, that is a lot of info to process! Thank you all for your responses. I can't believe how much I didn't know, I'm really glad I found this forum. I took some before pics a month ago, and I look forward to posting some after pics with them. I appreciate the tip about picking up a new lunchbag too, because I hate packing lunches but I might be happier to if I had a cute bag!

RW, if I understand you correctly, I can take whey protein with meals too instead of just after lifting? I get really lazy about cooking and that would be wonderful. Also, I do not take it on days that I don't lift, should I be?

Thanks again everyone, I appreciate the help so much!

Edit: Also, fitday.com is fun! I have a "mood pie chart." Who knew?