A friend of mine recently started working out with a personal trainer and brought up that since she informed her trainer that she really only wants to get long, lean muscle, and not bulk up, especially not through her legs or thighs, her trainer suggested that they work more on repetition of the exercises she gave to her and not on the actual weight being used.

This means that the weight being used, if any, would be minimal, and there would instead be more repeats of the exercise performed rather than more weight added. I know that this is definitely true when working on the arms, since women typically do not want to bulk up on their arms, but want instead a nice definition and to get rid of that “lunch lady arm” syndrome.

I remember being told by a personal trainer that I should use very light weights on my arms, and perhaps only build up to five pounds on each arm at the most if I wanted to maintain a sleek and muscled look, almost sinewy, without bulking up more like a man would bulk up in the arms. I did follow that advice one time and I did end up building up a nice definition in my arms and shoulders, without bulking up and getting too puffed out looking, which was definitely not my goal since my flabby arms and triceps were always one of my major concerns.

She did also say that diet played a big part in that, and that if you want to maintain that long, lean look you have to focus on eating only lean proteins and limiting your bad carbs because they played a role in water retention, which takes away from that lean look and the muscles showing through the skin. If you want to get long and lean, I’d suggest starting off with very light weights, say maybe one pound on each arm, and just doing a done of repetitions, say maybe twenty on each arms instead of ten, then working your way up, slowly, to the five pound weights.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 10:20 am and is filed under Fitness Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.