Workout Recommendations

[Juliann]

I've decided to make my workout schedule like this


Mon - Treadmill (30 min) yoga and work on my arms

Tue - Tread/yoga/work on abs

Wed - Tread/yoga/work on back

Thur - Tread/yoga/work on other parts of the arms

Fri - Tread/yoga/work on lower body

Sat and Sun I'll have off


how does that sound to you all? Plus I have 5 pound weights by the way, will that do to help me lose weight and tone my arms?

[abarlament]

What are you trying to acomplish? 5 lb weights won't do anything for you. 30 mins on the treadmill maybe 3 times a week instead of 5.

[Juliann]

well right now that's all I have is 5 pound weights, so I guess I'm screwed


why only 3 times a week? There's alot of people that run on a daily basis, I don't see the difference

[abarlament]

Are you training to be in a marathon or something? Why are you doing so much cardio?

[Juliann]

no, not at all, I just want to lose weight and tone my body. So would 5 pound weights do to lose weight for my arms and tone them?

[CJNY]

Juliann,

If you don't want to lift heavier weights, why not incorporate some body weight exercises like pushups, squats, pull-ups. These can give you some real strength gains that your 5 lb dumbells just won't.

The main limitation with doing bodyweight exercises is you don't have easy control over the resistance level like you do with weights. You may not be able to even a single regular push-up, for example, but there are ways to work around this for each exercise. Heres an example of how it might work:

The easiest pushups are merely pushing your self away from a wall. Stand with you feet farther from the wall to increase the difficulty. Eventually you can place your hands on a chair, gradually increasing the difficulty by lowering the position of your hands as your capability increases until you are doing full push ups from the floor. Then you can even raise your feet above your hands to make them even harder.

Weights are easier to manage, but these exercises will be far more effective than your dumbells.

As to exercising every day, yes, many people do this. They are generally not making improvements, however, but have slipped into a maintenance mode where they tend to do the same things week after week. This is OK if you are happy with your current fitness, but to improve (whether in strength or endurance) you will do better to stress your capabilities (for, say, 1-3 days) and then resting to allow your body to recover and, hopefully build a compensatory adaptation to the stress. Rest might mean simply doing a different exercise or it might mean no exercise at all, depending on how high the stress level was.

[Juliann]

What about yoga? because most of the yoga I do has whole body workouts and I do yoga for about 20 minutes. I do YogaZone, it's on in the mornings around here at 6am, is that also good for arms? And it's not so much that I don't want to get heavier weights it's the fact that can't afford any beause i'm literally broke right now and thats all i have so I was hoping those would be effective and help me lose inches from my arms and tone them i the process, but i guess i was wrong


how about this schedule


Mon- Tread/yoga/arms
Tue- Tread/yoga/abs
Wed- Tread/yoga/butt

Thur-Fri = only yoga

Sat-Sun = off


and the next week I do the same for Mon-Wed but alter the workouts for butt abs and arms...etc.


will that do? I mainly want to make my arms slimmer and toned thats my main trouble area right now instead of my abs, but I can work on those with some crunches/situps

[Lady C]

I would add exercises with those 5 lb weights. Try adding biceps curls, side raises, shoulder presses, chest press, chest flyes, and posterior deltoid rasies (reverse flyes). Do as many as you can and increase that number each time. This will increase the muscle tone by doing volume and not heavy weights. Go to here for instruction on how to do these exercises.

[Juliann]

Thanks alot Lady, you really helped out same goes for anyone who replied

[gettnlnr]

Juliann,
just to warn you, I'm kind of a no nonsense kind of guy.
For weight loss, ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) recommends cardio training in your target heart rate zone for 20-60 minutes per day 5-7 days per week.
You are not asking about diet at all so I'm going to leave that ona e alone for now.
As far as weights are concerned, for about $30 U.S. you can go to Wal-mart and pick up a Swiss ball and a therapy band and be able to do a huge assortment of exercises with resistance. With the therapy band, if you need more resistance you just shorten the band, to a point of course.
Yoga has it's place, but my honest opinion is more for flexibility and relaxation than weight loss.
hope this helps,
shane

[Juliann]

swiss ball? I'm thinking of saving up my money and buying new weights, what kind would you recommend? I'm not trying to bulk up and look like a body builder, i just want to make my arms leaner, toned and stay feminine looking ya know? So what kind would you recommend that are cheap but can get me the results i need?.....are they at wal-mart too?

[gettnlnr]

a swiss ball is basically a huge ball that you can get different sizes to accomodate different body heights. You can use them for a bench or seat, or basically any use you could imagine. As for weights, I'd just buy a set of adjustable dumbells again you can get a set that would be functional at you guessed it- Walmart.
hope this helps,
shane

[Juliann]

thanks :thumbup: