Husband Giving Me Unwanted Advice; help

B

BellaDonna

Member
My husband is disputing my workout schedule. He has suggested I should be doing nothing but aerobics for weight loss. He is a 30 year gym rat and in really good shape. I tried to explain some of the excellent information I have received here over the last 5 or 6 years stating that aerobic workouts are great for the "right here and now" calorie burning, but that weighted workouts burn calories for more effieciently and for longer periods of time.


If I am wrong, please set me straight. If he is wrong, please back me up. Either way, thank you for your input.
__________________
 
Check out my thread on fitness websites. Try reading over there and you should find plenty of information to back you up.

Aerobics are for cardiovascular fitness plus weight loss. Weight training is to maintain or increase muscle mass which increases your metabolic rate. More muscle= more calories burned in a day.

of course he is entitled to his opinion. I would tell him to find out what science backs up his claims first.

Danna
 
Give him Danna's info because she's right on target.
To be blunt, he's dead wrong and tell him another guy said so. If he works out the same way he says you should work out, I doubt he is in that great of overall shape.
T.:)
 
I am with Danna and Trevor. Not only do you want more muscle mass to burn more calories and stay slim, you want to stay strong. Some of the difficulties that come with aging result from becoming weak and losing muscle mass. Men have more muscle mass since they produce more testosterone. Chick's lift! Tell the husband you need both!
Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver
 
I'm reading the October issue of Fitness magazine right now and there is an article about a strength/cardio fitness routine being the best for increasing metabolism. They put women on different routines - diet only, strength only, cardio only and a strength/cardio combo and the the strength/cardio combo had the best results.

Erica
 
Just say, "You paddle your canoe, baby, and I'll paddle mine."

Calorie burn is not the be-all and end-all of an exercise program. Your husband needs to do some studying of things other than his own opinion.

A-Jock
 
Thank him for his advice, but tell him you enjoy the workouts you do and that yes, you will lose more weight (as far as the scale sees) by doing strictly aerobics. But your metabolic rate will be higher if you increase your muscle mass (plus - you'll look sexier with a little muscle definition).

The thing with husbands is, they never believe that their wives have a clue. I can tell my husband something a million times and he won't believe me. He hears it from ANY other person and he believes them. It's really irritating. I'm smarter than him too, so that makes it even MORE irritating! :D

(Sure I'll get some sort of reaction from Trevor on this one!):)
 
Oh A-Jock I LOVE that "You paddle your canoe, BABY, and I'll paddle mine"! This will be a GOOD one in disagreements :D

Thanks!!

BTW you have gotten great advice here! You REALLY need weights as you get older!! I had been telling my mom that for years (she is 60) Well she just had a bone scan and guess what.......Osteopenia.

Good luck and you paddle that canoe!! }(
 
A-Jock,
You have the best come backs. The one that I use often is "Never wrestle with a pig, the pig has fun and you just get dirty". I love that one.

Joanne
 
Hey, Jo-Jo - thanks for the nod! Actually, I STEAL the best comebacks; the wrestle-with-a-pig thing is a George Bernard Shaw quote, and the canoe-paddling zinger was from the late, great Clark Gable, who said it to anyone who had the b*lls to tell him what to do with his career.

You should see the moves I steal from Cathe for my aqua classes.

A-Jock
 
You've gotten some good advice here. I wonder: is he afraid you'll get too muscular? Even guys who workout themselves may have the misconception that any weight work that women do will make them "too muscular" (at least for their personal tastes). Since he is a "gym rat," maybe the gym he goes to caters to men and women who are going for major muscle (like Ms Olympia type muscle). That might turn him off and compel him to keep you from working with weights.
 
It is also a very poor idea to simply to only aerobics every day. This is going to put a lot of wear and tear on your joints, and you will likely end up with some form of injury in the long-term. You need weight training to strengthen your joints and muscles, which will also improve your form during aerobics (making them safer), and also to give the joints a bit of a break from the intensity of aerobics. For that matter, a good stretching regimine is also a critical part of a healthy & safe fitness plan.

All the best,
Sandra
 
One more thing. Has your husband hear of osteoporosis? Your bone density will diminish every year that you fail to include resistance training into your routine.

Good luck with educating him. I wouldn't be too hard on him. Fitness myths about women and weight training are prolific. I didn't know anything about how important it was until I started with the Firm workouts and watched their video 20 questions about fitness. It's a great video for beginners.

Cheers
Danna
 
IMHO you should just tell him the five components of a well-rounded healthy fitness program/lifestyle: 1)cardiovascular fitness, 2)muscular strength, 3)muscular endurance, 4)flexibility, 5)healthy body composition

You are also correct in saying that aerobics will help with immediate calorie burning, but increased muscle mass will help raise your metabolism. I just recently learned that for those that don't perform regular strength-training exercises, the average adult will lost a half a pound of muscle every year starting at age 25!!! Obviously that's a generalization, but WOW!! You should also let him know how strength training helps to prevent losing bone density in women as we age, thus decreasing the risk of osteoporosis.

This is a very know-it-all post, but sometimes stating some facts to the dh helps to "put him in his place" and let him know that you may actually have a clue as to what you're doing/talking about. HOPE THIS HELPS--it sure did for me!!! LOL!
}(
 
Kathryn raises a good point, one that has very sexist implications. The concept of women being "too muscular" has absolutely no foundation in medical or exercise science. There is no such thing, physiologically speaking, as having "too much muscle"; one cannot have an unhealthy excess of muscle. (As opposed to the vast and growing amount of research that indicates one can have too LITTLE muscle mass and too much storage fat.)

Often the turnoff for men when it comes to women and strength training is: will she get strong? stronger than me? more muscular than me? I CAN'T HAVE THAT!

Also, the number of exercising men out there who think they're experts on exercise (especially exercise and women), with precisely zero formal academic training in the field, is pretty frightening. Also frightening the number of people who agree with their hubris.

Personal experience does not equal expertise.

Stick with the well-rounded cardio+strength+flexibility approach you've been following, Original Poster.

A-Jock
 
Yup. Good one, Annette.

I'll just keep getting stronger. If I ever end up "too strong" or have "too much muscle" I'll just sit and watch TV for a week or two and this terrible and scary problem will fix itself. }( }(
 
I certainly agree that the concept of a woman being too muscular does not have any basis in medical or exercise science. But if you see an overly muscled woman from the neck down and you cannot readily tell if it's a guy or a woman, then I think most average people would say something's amiss, besides the steroid use. So to me, there is certainly a social concept of an overly muscled woman. I also believe men can be overly muscled. There are people of both sexes who like that look however.
I can honestly say I never met a guy who was concerned about how strong his wife/gf was getting from lifting.
I disagree that personal experience does not equal expertise. There are many examples of pros in fitness and bodybuilding without advanced degrees and certifications, etc. who have excelled in this field. I doubt Arnold Schwarzennegar(sp?)bothered with taking courses in exercise physiology while he relied on experience(and steroids) to win god knows how many bodybuilding titles. And, there are plenty of people with certifications/degrees who know nothing except what they may have memorized on page 15 from some textbook. And they don't know how to apply it. I had a guy at the club today who told me about one of the trainers who did not know where the traps were located on the body. And this trainer holds one of the infamous ACE certifications that virtually the whole planet holds. The ideal, of course, is to have experience and some academics. Out of the two however, I think experience plays a much bigger part as far as being a good trainer goes. Because experience allows you to be in tune to what works and what does not work. And what works in a textbook may not always work in the real world.
Let's amend it to say there are plenty of men and women who think they're experts and they aren't. I always go by this----throughout a year, let's say, I may see the same people many times over working out at the club. If their bodies NEVER seem to change no matter how much they come in there to workout, they most likely haven't a clue as to what they are doing. My guess would be a full 60% to 70% of the people I see fall in that category.
 
With regard to the "social" concept of the "over-muscled woman" - that smacks of the social concept of earlier Chinese civilizations that held that women's feet were too large if left to grow naturally, and so women's feet were bound for centuries. Just because something is a widely-held social construct doesn't make it right. And dangerously, far too much of the medical profession still labors under social constructs such as the "over-muscled woman" that it masks as science.

Personal experience does NOT equate expertise. What works for one person does not necessarily work for another person. Just because someone has undergone surgery does not qualify that person to perform surgery, and just because one has been involved in a lawsuit does not qualify that person to give legal advice to another.

With regard to the "infamous" ACE certification (a cert which I have held for almost 8 years now), and other group-X and personal training certs, the point is certainly well-taken that just because one is certified does not mean they're any good at their practice. But it does increase the odds that, at least for awhile, that person actually read material on exercise physiology, anatomy, biomechanics and applied kinesiology, nutrition, and a whole host of other subjects to give the student an understanding of what is universal and what is individual. Studying only from The Book Of Me isn't enough when doling out advice.

A-Jock
 
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