Heavy lifting
Hi cherriepie,
I just would like to add my few cents to previous comments.From working out at home with Cathe for six years, I have lost weight, inches and sizes. Scale- wise i did reach plateau and was on it for years.During the plateau time i lifted both heavy and light through endurance and hypertrophy loads. I can not recall at anytime gaining size though. At some point i did feel tight in my sleeves (wearing shirts) but not to a point of changing a wardrobe!
Now my arms have toned up with definition and I love it. For some people it's probably big but I feel comfortable with what I have because I am not a skinny frame. I was not born a slender diana Ross type.
Just to give you an idea. Plus her frame is not what I am looking for. I personnally like toned up slightly proportionate arms like, just to give you an idea, Nicole wilkins.
Pre-Workout Nutrition | FitnessRX for Women
That is the shape I am gaining. I love definition. Believe me if you want definition your arms need to
slightly and temporarily increase . we are not talking about more than an inch and more than two pound scale-wise.
I am currently a size smaller than when I started STS. My arms now can comfortably fit into smaller size sleeves. Muscles take less space. Now each body respond differently but if it is more than 4 to five pound I would consider checking nutrition. I am not trying to point a figure but Nutrition not being right is not necessarily overeating it could be under-eating (this happen to me).
That being said I have never at any point gained more than 3 pounds since I started working out consistently six years ago. I wanted to break my plateau and the only way i managed to succeed was to re-consider my nutrition and my workout routine. That was the only way to stop
deluding myself over and under EATING.
All the very best
I know this is an older post, but I just want to second the motion of Nathalie's, so to speak. For one thing, the muscle gain can take less time to show up in mesomorphs or endomorphs than the fat loss does...so there may be a temporary period of time - up to a few months - where shirts especially will feel tighter. It depends upon your frame, but if it's like mine, the muscle gains come in almost immediately, while the fat loss takes far too much time for my tastes.
For another thing, I think we have to keep a longer-term perspective. Improving our current figure is an important goal to many of us, myself included. As a woman, I don't like getting bigger in the least, especially since I have always been big (and tall...there's no hiding out for me, LOL). However, it is my humble opinion that we need to build a reserve of strength and endurance for the years to come. People may completely disagree with me, and that is perfectly okay, but I'm training for the long haul. I want to be able to do a plank in my eighties with perfect form, for example.
(I'm in my thirties now.) It takes doing some heavy training to accomplish that, in my case, at least periodically. I'm willing to handle a little extra bulk in the present, if it means making great strides in strength and/or endurance levels. If those fitness levels
aren't improving after a month or more and you're bulking up, absolutely- drop the heavy training. If you are sticking with higher-rep/lower-weight training and your strength, endurance, speed, and energy levels are increasing, great. If your figure goals are also being met with that style of training, that's also fantastic. However, if like me you are doing that and hitting a continual plateau in your fitness and/or figure goals, it's time to reevaluate that strategy. I got to where I was actually detraining with only doing higher-rep, lower-weight (generally total-body workout) routines. Even though I was working
harder all the time, a sweatfest daily in fact, I was not working
smarter.
Also, I'll add that periodizing one's training is good to help minimize that bulking up, overtraining, burning out, and detraining, while still building strength and endurance over the long run.
-Liz
