I like to work out, and consider myself a fairly knowledgeable person when it comes to exercise. But one thing about which I willingly admit my ignorance is why girls refuse to lift weights.
Not to be conceited, but I definitely have one of the better female bodies in the gym. I have more muscle tone than most girls, but I am also pretty cut. So it drives me nuts when another female gym-goer comes up to me and asks me how much cardio I do to maintain my low body fat. When I tell her I don't do cardio that often, and that I prefer the weights to the treadmills, she looks at me like I just tried to put a hex on her sick aunt. Please tell girls that weights are good.
<$>- Frustrated Junior on Emory St.
Yes, I too am fed-up with females thinking that picking up a weight will result in a comic-book like transformation from femininity to a raging green behemoth. So, on that note, I'm going to comment on a couple of mistakes people make when going to the gym to burn fat. Want more information? E-mail me at ian.asaff@tufts.edu or pick up a TPPP card in the gym and e-mail francis.otting@tufts.edu. Ok, here we go ...
Lifting weights is okay for females to do. You ladies (and I shudder to imagine the number of times this same thought has appeared in this column) do not have the hormone levels to get "hyooooge." In fact, your levels are a fraction of what males walking around the gym possess ... and look at them. The vast majority of guys you see in the gym aren't even close to "hyoooooge," even though they are trying their damndest to get there. So, weight lifting will not result in a bulky, blockified look.
Instead, it will increase your metabolism, which will result in more calories burned throughout the day, which can lead to fat loss. Weight lifting will also increase your energy levels, maybe even allowing you to stay awake in that boring art history class which punctually puts you to sleep every Monday and Wednesday at two.
Bottom line is, if you're serious about getting in shape and losing weight/toning up/just getting healthy, then you need to incorporate weight training into your fitness routine.
A phenomenon I've seen lately is something I'll call "cardio hopping." Basically, a person will go from Stairmaster to treadmill to elliptical to treadmill and back, combining all these different machines for a total of 37 hours of cardio in a single sitting. First of all, this is excessive. A cardio session needn't last more than an hour, and even an hour is pushing the limits of your body's ability to combat overuse injuries (stress fractures, shin splints, joint problems, frayed ligaments, etc.). Obviously, there are exceptions. But marathons and other endurance events are infrequent for this very reason.
Secondly, it's no wonder you are able to spend all this time on the machines when your form is bad. Yes, amazingly enough, people have found ways to cheat when doing
cardio. How? Well, they do pretty much the same thing that people do when cheating while lifting weights.
First of all, try making sure you go through the entire range of motion (this applies primarily to the stair-steppers, whose tiny little up-down-up-down steps on the Stairmaster would make a gnome's stride look like Yao Ming's). It's called a Stairmaster because it's supposed to simulate climbing the STAIRS. So move your feet as if you're climbing them, not as if you are stepping over anthills.
The second thing I see is called "the drape." This happens when you are so tired, so beat, so dead to the freakin' world that you drape yourself over the cardio apparatus in order to keep from collapsing. So, while your lower body pedals/steps/elliptisizes at a frantic pace, your upper body is comfortably lounging on the handles, perhaps reading a magazine, or maybe even taking that nice little nap you missed since you were awake during all of art history earlier that day.
Needless to say, you are taking half your body out of the exercise. Half your body: a half which would be helping to burn more calories by stabilizing, by swinging arms, by using little muscles you don't know you have during the exercise.
So guys and girls, remember that the machines in the gym are not chaise lounges. Stand up when you are doing your cardio, and if you are so tired that you must lean on the equipment to get through your workout, guess what? End the workout, since you are probably over-training at that point anyway. <$>
