Group: Beginners to Exercise

Beginners to Exercise
Created: 2012/01/01, Members: 970, Messages: 18927

Share and offer advice to beginners to the fitness world!

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build then tone?

lucyfly
lucyfly
Posts: 30
Joined: 2004/06/22
Germany
2004/10/09, 12:01 PM
okay question..

so i started out lifting real heavy and with that i lost 10 llbs and i am real happy with the results..

now i wanna try something different and do more circuit training to tone and burn the fat. first question .. is this a reasonable way of doing that? (in addition to dieting)

second question... when someone is a beginner and don't necesserily want to build too much muscle do you just have them do more circuit or light weights?

or does it even matter?

my logic is that you have to have muscle then tone it and lose the fat over it.

or is it just as effective to start doing light lifting then working your way up to heavy..

do i make sense?

:love:
lucy
JustinE22
JustinE22
Posts: 1,312
Joined: 2003/09/18
United States
2004/10/09, 03:22 PM
hey there Lucy, not sure if i can answer all your questions but i'll give it a shot. First on toning muscle. Everyone has muscles more than others and the lack of toning or definition is due to a higher fat to muscle ratio i.e. the fat is sitting on top of the muscle therefore not exposing it as much. To get definition(I don't like the word toning, people get the wrong idea about toning) you need to loose body fat. Lifting lighter weights and more repititions will actuall cause you to loose some muscle. You always want to lift heavy so that your body knows it needs to keep the muscle you have. Your diet is key and will dictate the results you want. To add muscle mass you would eat more calories than you burn of good foods with compound exercises. To get defined you would create a caloric deficit i.e. less calories than you burn a day, with heavy isolation exercises. I would suggest choosing the a program here on FT, i think they have a weight loss and toning program. And of most importance work on your diet and you will get the results you want. Hope that helped a little, feel free to ask more questions if your still not clear.:big_smile:

justin