Hello all, I started lifting weights for the first time in my life 5 months ago. I started with upper body and about 2 months later I started a full lower body. There were a few weeks that I skipped my lower body but have been consistent overall. Here's the good news, I went to put on a pair of 33" pants and they fit The problem is that the pants are super tight on my upper leg/thigh/quad area. I naturally have the muscular type of body and I don't like it, I want to be small, to be able to wear 30 or 32" pants one day with medium shirts. I want to completely quit my lower body workout for a time so I can fit into smaller pants as I lose more fat. My question is how important is lower body workouts? Do they super boost your metabolism? I can say it's a lot harder and it does get my heart rate up a lot more than upper body. Is HIIT on an elliptical just as good as lower body workouts?

Can you be more specific on the type of workout you are doing on your lower body?

General rules of thumb when it comes to weight training is as follows :

Low reps at high weight = muscle mass
high reps at low weight = muscle toning

Doing high reps at a low rate should tone but not produce a large ammount of new muscle mass. It will also give you the metabolism boost you want to drop that weight.

If you are trying to avoid building muscle mass avoid lifts such as high weight squats.

Low weight high reps is kind of point less with lower body, because our bodies do it all day every day. I ran into that on my Tri forum. Slow twitch did a study about it recently. I would cut back on the lower body lifting, and do more cardio. Maybe try a different cut of jeans too...lol. ellipticals will shrink your legs for sure. But do lower body workouts with half the frequency you are now to start, and if htat does work, half it again. The lifting is really good for your joint, and you shouldnt completely stop it.

I forgot to add what I do. I changed from squats and lunges to extensions and curls. I use enough weight to only be able to get it up for 10-12 reps, and do 6-9 sets. They get torn down and are sore for days after, so I know they are getting a good workout. I was told by a personal trainer that leg workouts have a way of speeding metabolism up a lot and releases more human growth hormone. But I guess the cardio 5-6 days a week can offset the leg workouts.

I am in the same boat as you. I am just naturally very muscular and since really working out my thighs have gotten huge. And yeah wearing like 32" dress pants doesn't really work , but I can still where 32" jeans. Try getting the boot cut those seem to fit best on me, and luckly having the pants a little tight on the thighs is fashionable right now so you can get away with it. As to trying to make your legs smaller. Muscle is never a bad thing, my girlfriend loves that my legs are so muscular, try to embrace that part about you, many people would kill to be able to put muscle on so easily

Just buy baggier pants. Waist size is all that matters. I don't see why or how it would do you any good to purposely lose muscle. I'm actually trying to make my quads and hams bigger... maybe I can borrow some of yours?

But yeah, just buy relaxed fit pants. Bird legs on dudes look stupid anyway. The chicks want the beef. LOL. I just think you'll be sorry if you purposely lose muscle then succeed, and throw all that effort down the drain just so you can fit in some pants that you already own.

Depends on your definition of "low weight" I guess. For most people, if you throw enough weight on a bar so that they can do 50 squats, and on that 50th one they're about to break down and cry like a baby... I guarantee that they won't be able to say "yeah this is exactly what my body does, all day, every day".

But it does, just over the course of a day. The study is on slowtwitch.com. Don't take my word for it. Its not useless, but not hte most bang for your buck. Also, it really depends on your goals.

Just seems like the act of bike riding itself is a low weight, high rep, activity. So, why bother, right?

As for that site... there's wayyyyy too much information on that site for me to find much of anything specific very quickly at all. If you have a link, I'd be interested in viewing it, because my mountain biking buddies and I have been talking about this very subject for awhile, debating on what the best plan of attack would be for race performance. I built a homemade squat rack with the idea that I need to build up the weight that I could handle as much as possible, but apparently all the expert and semi-pro riders I've talked to who leave me in the dust do lower weight, such as 135 pounds, but they do them dozens of times. After they're finished, sometimes they are so sore they can't hardly walk for 2 or 3 days. I just have a hard time believing that a workout such as this, which could leave an expert bike racer torn down, isn't worth much due to it being the same work that we all do on a daily basis.

You're right, but the biggest benefit of lifting is engaging the fast twitch muscles that don't get much work throughout the day, and that is done better with a little more weight, and less reps. It also gives you that HGH that we all want. I wouldn't classify 135 pounds as being low weight necessarily. Like doing a 135 12, 140 10, and 145 8 would be a nice lifting set. I think mostly we have a difference in definitions. Like I would define low weight as 25 pounds. Theres little benefit in that.

Now, if you just want to strengthen joints, and tone up a little, its ok to do like your 50's or 25 pounds.

What kind of cycling do you do? I just started doing some road biking this last summer and LOVE it.

Mostly aggressive cross country, or mild freeriding. I road bike, but I don't enjoy it as much comparatively... I only road bike for training purposes. It's just alot easier to get base mileage in when all you have to do is walk out the door and take off.

I do squats, but I do more than that kind of weight. Currently I'm doing 3 sets of 185 pounds 15 times... but that's only after jumping rope 900 times and doing a few sets of leg presses and leg curls.

I agree with corndoggy. Don't try to lose muscle. Be happy with your body: you're fit, trim, and have low body fat. Congrats!