Hey,

My girlfriend is interested in starting a cutting routine similar to mine. I kinda told her the basics 5 300 calories meals of mostly protien and veggies. Cardio in the morning before she eats, and lifting in the evening with me. For lifting she is going to follow the body sculpting bible for women. I really don't know what her goals are, I've suggested to her to get down to 20% bf is that a good goal?

I don't know a whole lot about women and health/fitness, but I want to help her with her goals. If I can convince her to post here I will so ask me whatever you think is relivant and I'll get back to ya.

-Phil

Hi Phil,
In addition to this great website, I've also been inspired by the "mistress" at this site: http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html
Maybe your girlfriend could find help there.
Pam

The best advice I was ever given when starting weight training a few years ago was LIFT HEAVY. A lot of women do not lift heavy enough for fear of getting "bulky" but this is just a myth. To change your body, you have to challenge your body!

Also-I think its a GREAT idea to track progress by measuring BF% rather than scale weight alone. I do this too. My advice would be for her to get pinched before she starts then intermittently throughout the program to ensure progress and track milestones.

Have fun lifting together! :)

The best advice I was ever given when starting weight training a few years ago was LIFT HEAVY. A lot of women do not lift heavy enough for fear of getting "bulky" but this is just a myth. To change your body, you have to challenge your body!

Also-I think its a GREAT idea to track progress by measuring BF% rather than scale weight alone. I do this too. My advice would be for her to get pinched before she starts then intermittently throughout the program to ensure progress and track milestones.

Have fun lifting together! :)

I absolutely agree with Hershey girl..but what I am going to suggest is something just for starters. I don't know your gf but if she has never worked out before, she may not quite "get it" how great it is to lift. She just might see it as just a chore.

If this is the case, a great place for women to start and develop a feeling and love for their own strength is Body Pump classes. Most gyms offer them for free. Though they are open to both genders, they really suit women better then men and in my experience tend to be taught by women and the classes are largely made up by women.

You start light, lighter than you can in a regular gym, with weightless BB's (as opposed to the 45 lbers that are in the free weight section of the gym), and you gradually build up the weights as you can handle it over time.

Though I know the class structure goes against all the usual advice to build lean body mass but these Body Pump classes are really effective at giving women a sense of power over their own bodies.

The workout is a full body workout in slightly under an hour with 5 minutes of stretching at the end. It is high reps, more endurance oriented, great music with a great beat--that is very powerful female oriented.

Of course we all know the limitations of high reps and full body workouts--spots will be missed and getting hard is not that likely, with some exceptions.

But I will tell you, as the women who come in to the gym and go into the changing room to get into their workout clothes for body pump--you just feel that collective female testosterone building up. We all start to become extremely focussed on the class and working our muscles..and there is a silent communication and joy and understanding as we set up our workout places in the class room.

And you do build a fair bit of muscle tone--not like heavy lifting and a regular free weight workout--but you do build. And once you get hooked..and there were quite a few women who were hooked of all ages up to the 60's and as young as the 20's, you can get inspired to move on.

That is what happened to me. I started wanting more..but I wouldn't have gotten there if it hadn't been for the year or so of Body Pump classes that I took. And lots of people noticed my toning up and I started to drop dress sizes without much in the way of losing weight. Particularly when I started to add fasted cardio in the AM to it.

So if you find your gf not too enthusiastice about the weight workouts--look into the Body Pump classes. You can also search these threads for discussions about it--there are quite a few fans of it here.

:gl:

Yup, I got into lifting via Body Pump.

You start off doing it to 'tone up' or whatever, and you think it's kinda cool, but after a while you realise that some amazing changes are happening to your body (being new to weight lifting you are actually building some muscle even though the training is not optimised for size/strength development), and you want more where that came from.

That's when you end up switching to weight lifting and, having learnt good form from Body Pump, you are confident in the gym. You bypass all the machines that women are 'supposed' to train on for safety reasons (pur-lease!) and head straight for the free weights section. And you never look back.

I absolutely agree with Hershey girl..but what I am going to suggest is something just for starters. I don't know your gf but if she has never worked out before, she may not quite "get it" how great it is to lift. She just might see it as just a chore.

Great point Justitia, and it's not mentioned often enough.

I think there are very few women that find it natural to lift to failure. I absolutely hated the idea of lifting to failure when I started out. I started out with light weights, just heavy enough to be able to do 3 sets of 12. Anything heavier than that would have discouraged me into saying "I can't do this." But now that I know I can do this, I'm more willing to lift the more efficient way, closer to Max-OT style.

I'm sure this could apply to many men as well. If you don't like the idea of lifting to failure, start out with a body pump class, or by doing high reps of "light" weights until you get used to it. I still wouldn't recommend wasting your time by lifting something that you can do easily for more than 12 reps however. My sister has been working out with 3 pound dumbbells for a year now, and it just drives me batty.