Strength-training advice needed

K

KayM

Cathlete
Hi everyone. I just got back from a visit to beautiful Phoenix, AZ and it's 5 degrees in Wichita, KS! Seriously, 5 degrees!

Anyways ... I feel better after whining about that. I have a couple of strength-training questions I'm hoping someone can help with ...


1. When I'm doing S&H, I sometimes get charlie horses... especially when doing the post-stretches. Am I not warming up enough (I feel pretty darn warm)? Does that happen to anyone else?

2. I'm currently doing either S&H or PS, each tape on a different day, once per week. So that's 3 strength training days and 3 cardio days per week. Since I'm only training each body part once per week, is that enough to gain strength? My muscles are still rather wimpy and I LOVE the format of the videos, but I want to get results!

Thanks for any advice, and hopefully I will catch up on reading all of the posts here in a little while. I assume this is new software for the board they're using, I love it! I hated the old stuff.

-Kay
 
Hi Kay,

I only get charlie horses when I'm low on water intake. I don't get them from any particular exercises, but I will get them in my calves and I've noticed it's always been when my water intake has been sluggish.

Hopefully someone else will chime in with better advice, but I thought I'd mention the water thing just in case. :)

Donna
 
Hi Kay

About the charlie horses, are you stretching too far? Also, make sure you are drinking enough water and getting enough potassium (bananas) and calcium in your diet. I don't get charlie horses, but I know that S&H is one intense series that can wipe you out. I have a water bottle next to me and take sips during the rests between sets.

If you are getting the results you want doing one body part per week, I'd stick to your current workout schedule for now. I've been doing each body part twice a week, as a rule (one heavy day and one endurance or circuit day). Of course, it's good to mix it up---maybe do six weeks of one body part a day and then six weeks of working each part twice a week or go from the strength plan you're doing now to an endurance rotation.

Your muscles won't be "wimpy" for much longer if you're into S&H (my favorite of all of Cathe's strength tapes).

Good luck!!! suzanne:)
 
Not sure about your charlie horses, but I'll comment on the strength training. I was doing PS each tape, once per week. I did that for 4 weeks and didn't see much difference in my upper body. What I did was double up the upper body tapes - on M and F I did both upper body tapes (skip stretch on 1st one, and warm-up on 2nd). After that I started to really see and feel a difference. That's what worked for me - I don't know about you, but it's worth a shot. I think it's ok to do that for PS, but personally, I wouldn't try it with S&H.
 
Regarding Charlie Horses during exercise?

Try eating a banana. Heavy dose of Potassium is recommended to ease the pain and frequency of charlie's............HTH
GN
 
I have an excellent nutrition textbook from school. I had to take nutrition for dental hygiene. When I gave blood and was weak trying to do Power Max, I looked up "iron" for a list of all foods that contained iron. My book will give a list for every mineral or vitamin in order of the most per calorie to the least. Imagine my amazement when steak or beef didn't even appear on there!

The highest in iron per Kcal was... are you ready?

Oysters!

Anyway here it is for potassium. Bananas are halfway down the list. Bananas are easy to prepare and most people like them, and that's why they have such a reputation, my book says. Number one is ten dried peach halves! Spinach, bok choy, and zucchini also outrank bananas. One baked winter squash, 1 cup cooked lima beans, pear halves, potatoes, half a cantaloupe, pinto beans, kidney beans.

My book says that fresh foods contain more potassium, and prepared foods contain more sodium. People who eat more fresh foods can get up to 11 grams per day, and toxicity is not a concern when the source is foods.

Ooh, here's more. Deficiency is rare, and occurs more often due to excessive losses than to deficient intakes. Dehydration (and diabetic acidosis, vomiting, diarrhea, laxative use, steroids, diuretics) can cause it. That is why doctors often prescribe potassium with these medicines (K dur is potassium). So keep sipping that water!

Well this may be more than you wanted to know but, hey, I had fun doing it!
-Connie
 
oh yes it is cold where I am to thurs it was -15 with wind chill factor.
charlie horse I agree with potassium and stretch really good
you are in charge of your workout make sure you are lifting with good form of course your heaviest you really have to push yourself even if you can only do a few with heavier wt. and go back down to a lighter wt. most people are stronger than what they think.:)
 
Well, needing more water never occurred to me to be honest. I will have to try that!!

I just started weight-lifting so I'm not sure what results to expect at all, much less from doing each body part once per week. But, maybe I should try to add in a total-body endurance workout on Saturday's, maybe that will help. The only endurance workouts I have are the Firm, and they are so lower-body focused I have gotten away from using them too much. Guess I need to get hold of Power Hour, or just keep using those Firm's for now!

Thanks everybody for your advice!!
 
Kay!!

HI! I just read your thread, and although I can't really give you any advice, I wanted to tell you that I live in Wichita, too!! How very cool! :D I live in the northeast part of Wichita. Nice to see someone here that's also from Wichita.

Hollie
 
RE: Kay!!

Hi Hollie! I can't believe there's someone else on this board who lives in Wichita. I live south, near 47th and Seneca.

At least the weather today is better than it was when I wrote that original message. It was quite a shock to come back from Arizona to that type of weather!

I actually work in northeast Wichita, at Koch.
 
RE: Kay!!

That is just too cool!! I live near Central & Oliver! I can't believe there's someone on Cathe's board that is a Catheite, too! NO ONE I know could even get through her warm-ups. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I'm so glad to see someone close by! :D

Hollie

p.s. I know Koch is HUGE -- but my friend's husband works there. He's a chemist -- works with asphalt or something. What do you do at Koch?
 
RE: Kay!!

I work in a spin-off called Flint Hills Resources. It's owned by Koch and we're in the Koch building and everything still, though.

I work in the Electronic Commerce department - I support the electronic banking server we have. Well, the server does some other things too, but the electronic banking is the main portion. So basically I'm a computer geek. :)

How long have you lived in Wichita? How do you like it here? I've lived here around 15 years, although I left to live in Houston for a couple of years. You've gotta like the traffic here compared to Houston, although people still haven't figured out their turn signals. :)
 
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