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Beginning Cardio for Newbie Female Trainee (and for her 3-year cardio-free boyfriend)

W

Warik

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Yes... it's another one of those "I'm training my girl - what should I do?" posts. =)

My girl started working out with me about 6 weeks ago with the goal of "losing weight and toning up" (which I corrected to be "burning fat and building muscle" :)). She has definitely put on some muscle in the past 6 weeks, because her bis and quads are noticibly harder, and she is lifting much more than when she started. Her weight, however, has increased, and her size has not changed much. I didn't want to start with any cardio because a) I didn't want to scare her away from the gym and b) I hate cardio. But the time has come. We are having our first cardio session on those crazy bikes tonight after doing arms & abs.

I was thinking of cardio 3x a week starting with a small time and small resistence level (5 minutes at level 1) for the first week and then increasing the time limits and levels every following week. My question is, how much is good enough to start, and what should her cardio goals be? How quickly should we start seeing sufficient results to indicate that the level of cardio being done is doing any good?

Thanks,
-Warik
 
3x/ week shouldnt' be a bad start. But I would first ask how is her diet? If she's going from no training to 6 weeks of lifting, I'm sure her appetite has gone up. If she's not eating clean, she may be seeing the results there. You might want to get her bodyfat checked too. The number on the scale may not change that much, but bodyfat might go up or down. (Hopefully down..!) Also if she's just getting started doing cardio, she may have a hard time going for 45 min right off the bat. Takes a little bit of conditioning. Start at 20 min, and work up.

And to your question of how long to see results - again depends on the diet. No point in going nuts on cardio or pinning all of your hopes on it either. It has its place, but the more important component is diet.
 
Congrats on your/her results so far.

I came into all this through cardio, and I'd have to say that it depends on what kind of shape she is in. If she can take it, I'd start her at longer than five minutes to start with. I doubt you'll see much in the way of results if you start at five minutes, and that might be discouraging. I personally would shoot for at least ten or, hopefully 20 minutes. Go with a longer time to start with and then build up the intensity/speed.

How quickly you see results would really depend on what kind of shape she's in now (sorry, it's a non answer) but I've had friends start to really notice in a week or two. Depends on how much body fat is hiding the muscle, what her cardio capacity is to start with, etc.

What kind of shape is she in, cardio/weight wise?

Good luck!

Wyst
 
Sassy and I posted at the same time, lol.

I forgot to mention, make sure to *keep* telling her that her weight not changing and her muscles getting bigger equals fat loss. You can't tell her this enough, in my experience with newbies. If her weight has gone up but her size hasn't changed, this means muscle being built. I know you know this stuff, but don't forget that It's gotta be like a mantra for beginners, especially beginner women, who are brought up to only care what the scale says.

Wyst
 
Warik said:
"losing weight and toning up" (which I corrected to be "burning fat and building muscle"

Woo-HOO! :D Yeah! Yippee ;) Stumbling block # 1 out of the way!

As for why she's not seeing results: DIET DIET DIET! She can try www.fitday.com to track she eats, be sure to get enough protein, etc. It's not perfect, but better than nothing & less of a hassle (plus more FUN) than doing the calculations yourself.

Wyst makes a great point about the 'mantra' & I agree it's hard to shake what she's always known (the scale).

I think 20 minutes is a good goal to start with - at a moderate intensity. It would be great if she could do a cardio form she enjoys (aerobics??) personally I find biking tortorous!
 
Re: Re: Beginning Cardio for Newbie Female Trainee (and for her 3-year cardio-free boyfriend)

Gladiola said:




I think 20 minutes is a good goal to start with - at a moderate intensity. It would be great if she could do a cardio form she enjoys (aerobics??) personally I find biking tortorous!

Yeah, good point -- it's totally about the heartrate and sustaining it. If you can get that, it doesn't matter what you do. I have one friend whose cardio is fencing. Her lessons aren't that super intense, but she does the drills for half and hour after class in one of those damnd plastrons, and you can bet she sweats something fierce. They sort of insisted that she buy her own plastron, lol. But damn if she doesn't look sexay doing the epee drills up and down the floor. It's a pretty good workout.

Now if I could just get her to lift a little heavier, lol.

Wyst
 
Its all diet. change the diet if that does nothing then add cardio.
 
Gladiola said:
Woo-HOO! :D Yeah! Yippee ;) Stumbling block # 1 out of the way!


I hate the phrase "tone up!!!" The chick who was filling in for my pilates instructor in my class Monday night had us do an exercise that she claimed would "help us tone and get rid of those love handles" and the lady on the mat behind me said to the lady next to her that she "wanted to turn some of her fat into muscle." I wanted to throw medicine balls at both of them.

It's good that you got her into weight training and then are gradually introducing cardio...some of us LOVE cardio (or at least suffer through it), and probably do too much, and it's REALLY hard to cut back.
 
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