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So for about a year now I have been actively lifting my upper body 3 times per week. That's not a ridiculous amount so I'm not expecting to be totally ripped by now, but I have been doing a fairly consistent 3 times/week. Even my personal trainer who I had last March says he notices improvement. Unfortunately, I never got into the habit of lower body lifting and I don't do that at all (I do cardio though 5x per week so my legs get SOME exercise). What I want to know is how much can NOT lifting lower body affect my upper body gains, my fat loss, my ability to look cut, etc.?
Why not just do legs once a week and upper body twice a week? The only problem I have with that routine is I have a tendency to get sore if I go longer than 5-6 days between lower body workouts.
Yep it will and it's been proven. Think about it, when you do squats you're still using your upper body strength to hold the weights to a certain point. Just because you're doing legs doesn't mean you're somehow neglecting other muscles and body parts. It all works in tandem; more so with others.
I'd just switch it up and do different routine every time. At least you won't get bored and keep the body moving from different angles with each workout.
on the other hand, and I'm a petite woman, I workout my lower body with heavy weights and my arms with very light weights. I have trained my legs a lot on leg press and I'm now squating just the larger barbell which I believes weighs 45lbs?
I find my lower body can handle this just fine but its my arms and shoulders that have a hard time balancing and holding the barbell on my shoulders...not quite sure what to do and I'm wondering if this is because I always neglected my upper body.
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Originally Posted by VTHokieFan
So for about a year now I have been actively lifting my upper body 3 times per week. That's not a ridiculous amount so I'm not expecting to be totally ripped by now, but I have been doing a fairly consistent 3 times/week. Even my personal trainer who I had last March says he notices improvement. Unfortunately, I never got into the habit of lower body lifting and I don't do that at all (I do cardio though 5x per week so my legs get SOME exercise). What I want to know is how much can NOT lifting lower body affect my upper body gains, my fat loss, my ability to look cut, etc.?
It's probably not affecting your fitness goals very much at all.
I think it's good policy to include some stationary bike with resistance, some sprint work and some glute-hamstring workouts (you don't really look like an athlete if you have noassatall syndrome) but I haven't been able to justify serious leg training since serious athletic competition became a memory.
Also, make sure you're getting enough rest for each muscle group before training it again. Overtraining will hamper your long-term gains a lot more than neglecting legs.
Plus a million more articles out there. Bottom line, all of the *really* strong guys out there say that HEAVY squats are a must - hormone production/release, CNS load, etc, etc. The glutes/hips/hams/quads are by far the largest muscle group in your body, why would you NOT train them?
Here's a clip of the head strength coach from the LSU football team on the subject:
Plus a million more articles out there. Bottom line, all of the *really* strong guys out there say that HEAVY squats are a must - hormone production/release, CNS load, etc, etc. The glutes/hips/hams/quads are by far the largest muscle group in your body, why would you NOT train them?
Here's a clip of the head strength coach from the LSU football team on the subject:
P.S. Why in the hell are you doing 400lb calf-raises? What goal are you satisfying there?
I agree with everything presented in the links, but only if you have a reason to be doing heavy squats and your goal is to maximize your physical strength and explosiveness for athletic competition.
In my opinion, casual fitness guy (which is a rank I've now belonged to for ten years) is taking a lot of risk with and putting a lot of wear on a very important group of joints when he squats heavy. To me, your knees are like a set of tires: you're only going to get so many miles out of them. I don't think that stopping all activity and pampering your legs is a good plan, but heavy squats doesn't fall in the "reasonable" category for me any more. That aside, I trashed the articular cartilage on the ends of my femurs doing heavy squats and power cleans under the guidance and tutelage of a very competent strength and conditioning coach - can't tolerate heavy pushing from 90 degrees to straight anymore.
Compound exercises that seem to primarily work the lower body (squats and deadlifts) will actually pack on muscle in your upper body like nothing else.
If you want raw, physical and functional strength, I strongly recommend Starting Strength (as does the majority of the weight lifting community). You'll pack on pounds of lean muscle mass while dropping fat like crazy.
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8,309 posts, read 38,782,175 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeSherman
Compound exercises that seem to primarily work the lower body (squats and deadlifts) will actually pack on muscle in your upper body like nothing else.
If you want raw, physical and functional strength, I strongly recommend Starting Strength (as does the majority of the weight lifting community). You'll pack on pounds of lean muscle mass while dropping fat like crazy.
Great book and I love how Rippetoe is an unabashed cave man.
"Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general."
"Exercise is the stimulus that returns our bodies to the conditions for which they were designed. Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard, physical effort. Exercise is not a thing we do to fix a problem; it is a thing we must do anyway, a thing without which there will always be problems. Exercise is a substitute for cave-man activity."
Great book and I love how Rippetoe is an unabashed cave man.
"Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general."
"Exercise is the stimulus that returns our bodies to the conditions for which they were designed. Humans are not physically normal in the absence of hard, physical effort. Exercise is not a thing we do to fix a problem; it is a thing we must do anyway, a thing without which there will always be problems. Exercise is a substitute for cave-man activity."
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