started losing a bit of weight at last.
now i want a resistance trainingt routine, but i dont want to build any muscle mass up.
is this possible.
is it light weights and lots of reps to do this???
Yes, but begs the question, why?
If you do low weights and lots of reps (particularly concentrating on lowering them slowly) it build up connective tissue rather than muscle so can help rehab from or prevent injuries.
You should aim to do a similar umber of reps regardless, i.e. if your doing low weights and lots of reps, you do fewer sets, if your doing low reps you have to do more sets to compensate.
However many you do if you dont eat protein the muscle wont build up so stick to a normal diet if you don't want the body builder look. But don't cut it out either as excercise is destroying the muscle fibres so that they'll rebuild stronger/more of them. If you went on a reduced protein diet doing resistance excercise will actualy result in muscle loss!
for good guides either ask a trainer at the gym or the mens health site has a workout generaator, tell it how long youve got, what your aims are, and if its relevent what part of the body your working on that day and it picks a set of excericises.
I do a couple of weights sessions each week based on Joe Friel's road training bible and haven't bulked up.
For most of the year this consists of sets with 20-30 reps but there are periods when I do heavier weights and less reps.
ton - try circuits instead.
george, thought about circuits but i cant run cos of 2 knackered knees. 😕
surely it's the progressive element of a workout programme that causes increases in size and strength
in which case, you should be safe enough to find your current limits in terms of weights and reps in the gym - and if you don't try to increase the workload from week to week you're not going to trigger massive growth.
speaking personally here, but I'm not sure I fancy going to the gym and doing really high reps of anything. think I'd much prefer to get 2 or 3 sets of 10-ish reps done and then move on.
+1 Circuits even when Ive not been on the bike but been to circuits 2-3 time per week I still have reasonable fitness on the rides, not done any since breaking my collar bone so 2nd week in July I aim to go back as strength seems to have returned to my shoulder and Dr recommended I waited a further six weeks on my last visit.
SWIMMING
Just watch out for the Japanese and the Greenlanders 😉