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UllrsIshtar -> RE: Exercise tips for a woman about 325 lbs (2/2/2016 2:58:32 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: WinsomeDefiance
Kay has really been working on her upper body strength and has upped the weights to 30 lbs and increased her reps. We both have, actually. Which I think is great because, yes, using your arms to beat your body weight is hard!
In general, unless it's against doctor's advice, when doing weight training lower reps with higher weights are almost always superior to higher reps with lower weights.
For weightloss she should be doing a first set of reps of around 20-30, with weights heavy enough that the last few reps cause her serious effort, but still light enough so that she can maintain good form all the way to the end.
Form is the most important thing when lifting weights. Use bad form, and you set yourself up for more injuries, and will decrease training efficiency.
After her first set of reps, she should be tired enough to have to take a couple minute break, and then do another set of reps until she starts to lose her form again (however many that is). Again take about a 2-3 minute break, and repeat the reps until she fails form again.
Rinse and repeat until the number of reps she can complete in good form is less than 10.
When weight training effectively, no matter what it is you are doing, you always want to train until you fail form and then stop and take a break, and you always want to pick weights heavy enough so that you will fail form in less than 30 reps.
Slower and controlled is better than faster and more. If you don't have weights heavy enough to be able to train to failure in under 30 reps at a normal speed, slow down the exercise.
Go as slowly as you can through the motion, focusing heavily on perfect control of your form, and on maintaining an even speed.
When you slow down, and focus on your form, lighter weights will become more effective than a higher weight done quicker. Again, you should slow down enough so that you start losing your ability to maintain good form in under 30 reps. If this means that you have to go at a snail's speed, so be it.
Do not ever try to go fast when training with weights, especially if you're a beginner. Training fast will cause you to flail about, unable to control your form, and will get you injured eventually. Weights should never be handled at a speed greater than with which you gently pet a dog/cat.
Slowing down even more than that, with lower weights is often useful for extreme beginners, because lower weights offer more control, which decreases injuries. Slowing down also forces you to pay more attention to using the correct form, which again is extremely useful for beginners.
Nearing the end of a set you'll find yourself having the tendency to want to speed up. This is because you're starting to lose the control needed to maintain good form due to muscle fatigue. Don't give into the temptation to do so. If you cannot complete the set at a controlled speed, then just don't complete the set. Rep goals are just random numbers we make up to measure our goals by. You need to train towards increasing your fitness, not to some fictitious number. If that means that you end your set a couple reps shy from what you were able to do last week, so be it, no big deal, because you've already trained to your maximum potential for that exercise, that rep, that day.
If you go higher than 30 reps than that per set, you're losing the benefits of the weights, and might as well just do the exercise without any weights at all. (Although with some people who are really severely out of shape, some exercises even done without weights will be difficult enough, even without weights, that they cannot complete 30 reps in good form when starting out, in which case weights should obviously be skipped until they can.)
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