What is the difference between the exercise made to bulk up and the one to slim down?
June 7, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Exercise Question
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I don’t get how that works. Some exercise to lose weight, and others to bulk up. What is the difference between those exercises? Or is it really what you eat that makes the difference?
I’m currently trying to bulk up in the legs and butt, and slim down in the waist and abs area. How can i make sure that my legs don’t get thinner because of the workout, and that my muscles around my abs and waist don’t get bigger?
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When trying to bulk up, use heavier weight and less reps…when trying to tone, use less weight and more reps so that it’s more cardio-like
You will gain muscle mass from resistance-based exercise, i.e., lifting, pushing, or pulling as hard as you can.
You will loose body fat if you do any exercise that raises your heart rate, such as swimming, bicycling, jogging (notice the lack of “hard as you can” in these activities,) for periods of half an hour or more, provided you don’t eat more calories than you normally do.
If you work your legs hard, get some cardio exercise, and don’t specificaly work your abdominal and lower back muscles, you will probably get the results you want.
The answer is that you can train in a similar fashion to both.
Gaining weight (as quality muscle) requires a very focused training strategy. While the general advice is to “lift heavier weights” if you actually interview the people who have built quality muscle, you’ll find it’s far more complex. I don’t know any competitive bodybuilders who just lift heavy weights. They follow specific routines and change their style of training. It’s not a magic “rep range” for example, but a combination of exercises and changing those exercises and the intensity of training over time that provides the results.
This, of course, must be combined with quality nutrition to ensure the weight gained is muscle and not simply fat.
For dropping weight, a similar strategy can be employed. The problem is that when you train heavily and intensely, you are not giving your body adequate resources to recover. This is because you are consuming fewer calories, so as a result, your body is forced to burn fat for fuel. That’s the goal (to lose weight) but it means you make it more difficult to recover from intense training and build muscle.
The important thing to remember, however, is that if you do not train your muscle while dropping weight, you risk losing muscle. This will not only slow your metabolism, but will also slow the rate at which you lose fat. So training with resistance is important.
The idea that “higher reps” is better for burning fat is a myth. See this link for more on that:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Myths.html
What I found in nearly a decade of coaching people to lose fat is that when your calories are restricted, you can still train intensely, just not as long. In other words, you don’t want to do long mega-sets but instead have a short, intense workout so that you can recover fully before the next workout on your limited calories. I change my style of training not so much because the different way of training encourages burning more fat, but because it keeps me from overtraining and reduces my risk of injury if I’m dropping calories.
So, to make long story short, it really is what you eat that is going to be the biggest influence.
I wouldn’t worry about the muscles on your abs and waist getting bigger. If your waist is getting bigger, you are probably adding fat. Even large bodybuilders who have put on pounds of muscle mass can maintain a slim waistline, even though they do train their abdominal muscles. This is because the majority of the girth on your waist is from the fat there, not the muscle.
The only consistent way to shape your body is to do phases. You’ll want to gain weight very slowly so that you don’t put on too much fat as you work on bulking your legs. For bulking your legs, focus on compound movements like squats and dead-lifts. Once you gain a little weight, perform a cycle with fewer calories to trim the extra fat, then begin consuming more calories again.
This cycle of bulking and cutting is how bodybuilders accumulate mass over time while staying lean for competitions.
If you’re looking for a good leg routine, check this out:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=BE036FB7C7D74F56130677BF189C53A3.hydra?id=459546
Best of success,
Jeremy