Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what gives!

[JUJYGRL]

This summer I spent a lot of time doing GS rotations in between my cardio days of Bootcamp. It was challenging but I could do the entire workout, including band work. This Fall I decided to completely stop GS to focus on alternating cardio days w/ S&H's. I ended up doing them for 8 weeks because my muscles were showing great definition which I hadn't seen yet from GS. I don't know if it was the workout itself or just the months of training (my first year w/ Cathe). So two weeks ago I went back to GS and I can barely do the band work! What happended? I thought S&h would make me stronger? Anyone else experience this? Hopefully this week (being week 3) will be better.

~Chrissy~

 

[bethj]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

It sounds like you lost some muscle "endurance" by exclusively doing slow and heavy for 8 weeks. The band work is all about high rep endurance. Maybe you should do an endurance workout every two weeks during a long slow and heavy rotation.
Beth

 

[clareMc]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

This is exactly what has happened, but it is also completely normal and I have both noticed it myself and read of others who have also experienced the phenomenon.

Nothing to worry about. But, consider, you focussed on a goal and you achieved it. Congrats! You have actually increased strength, muscle mass and definition. So, all you do now is alternate Gym Styles with Slow & Heavy. This is my personal preferred strength training regimen and the two series are perfectly complementary.

But consider also that endurance work is really only necessary if you perform certain sports or activities that require you to have endurance in certain muscle groups. In the long run, however, you are better off focussing on strength both because thid focus helps protect you against osteoporosis and it keeps your metabolism kicked up into high gear way more than endurance work can.

Clare

 

[candi]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

You could even alternate weeks of S&H plus an endurance workout and then the next week GS plus an endurance workout. This way you'll be doing a little bit of both.

I like Clare's option myself, though because I love working heavier. Once in awhile I'll pop in an endurance workout to see how it feels. I did Power Hour yesterday and I'm pretty sore today!

 

[beachgerrrl]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

Clare,

If you can please clarify for me:

Are the Gym Styles a "strength" w/o? or an "endurance" w/o? Are you saying to do the Gym Styles "total body" w/o as the endurance w/o, or are ALL of the Gym Styles (body parts) also all endurance w/o? (I forgot the name of the total body gym sAyles one).

thanks!

 

[clareMc]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

The Gym Styles (set of three DVDs) are an interesting mix of strength and endurance. For the most part Cathe encourages use of medium to heavy weights and uses a variety of rep speeds to facilitate this. But she also includes work with the dynaband, towards the end of each muscle group segment, which is endurance based work and which "finishes the muscle off" as she puts it. I categorize the Gym Styles as strength focussed weight training.

The total body workout in the Hardcore series is Muscle Max. It is an excellent workout and you could definitely use this to intersperse with your S&H and your Gym Style rotations.

But what I do is make my rotation week an 8 or 9 day affair and I work through all the S&H upper body sections once, and all 3 Gym Styles workouts once in the 8-9 days, including also 1 day of endurance leg work such as Leaner legs, as well as the Gym Style legs, simply because I prefer not to do the S&H for legs. I prefer endurance work for lower body and heavy weights strength work for the upper body.

Does this clarify?

Clare

 

[Stacy]

RE: Muscles more defined but I lost strength..what give...

Hey Clare do you mind posting a sample rotation "week". I'd love to see how you fit all this in!!

Thanks!