I'm just starting out and have a new weight bench I would like to use mainly for breaking down muscle so it uses more energy in building and sustaining new muscle tissue. I don't want to build mass right now, I'm only interested in "putting my muscles to work" in helping me burn the fat. I know I'll obviously build some, I just want to keep it minimal. My bench only uses free weights but has the leg extensions and butterflies, as well as a dumbbell pad. Does anyone know of any specific routines that are good for what I'm looking for that can be done with the bench I have?

First, if weight loss if your goal, you obviously have to be in a caloric deficit. You know this right?

When you are in a deficit, your body makes up for this inefficiency by breaking down tissue (fat, muscle).

That said, you will not be adding any significant amounts of new muscle while you are dieting down. That is just not the way physiology works. The importance of lifting weights while dieting is simply to give your body a reason to hold on to your existing lean body mass opposed to losing it along with the fat loss you will experience.

Does that make sense?

In terms of equipment, do you have a barbell?

Gotcha, in other words while I'm keeping my calories to a minimum I wont really be taking in enough calories to rebuild the muscle tissue that was broken down through weight lifting. Is that right? I read that muscle itself burns fat, and then the energy needed to repair that muscle burns even more fat, and that basically the more muscle you have, the more fat your body will burn naturally. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

This is why I thought it would be a good idea to lift weights three times a week and ride my stationary bike the other days. I was in weight lifting way back in high school, the only difference is I was trying to gain instead of lose, and we would lift every other day and do calisthenics the other days to give the muscle tissue a day to heal....or rebuild.

Is strength training not such a good idea while you're trying to loose? Should I stick with just cardio for awhile?

I have a barbell and about 150 lbs. in weights. No dumbbells though.....not yet.

Daymon74! I’m assuming you’re a guy

Well I know that for women, doing high repetitions of small weights (2lbs, 5lbs, 10 lbs) TONES muscles but does not build bulk. And having toned muscles helps replace fat, but does not make you look like a bodybuilder! I also read that a pound of muscle requires about 90 calories to maintain itself vs. a pound of fat requires only 5 calories. Hope this helps.

Good luck and keep us posted

Oh brother, that is one of the oldest myths in the book. High repetition resistance training DOES NOT tone muscle at all. In the gym, lifting weights either builds muscle or it does not.... it really is that simple.

Toning is a word that I hate. Becoming lean is a function of nutrition, energy balance, and fat loss. It has nothing to do with some magical "repetition zone" that you can lift weights with.

Also, resistance training for women is no different than what it is for men. There are very few instances where a woman should be trained differently than a man.

If anything, while in a caloric deficit, it is better to lift lower reps and higher weights, which I can get into if you care.

For now, just know that you can't tone with weights, really.

To the OP, resistance training is an integral component of any weight loss plan, IMO. As I said before, a caloric deficit is going to lead to tissue loss. By adding a properly designed resistance training program to a caloric deficit diet, you are going to give your body a reason to hold onto as much muscle as possible.

You keep saying that muscle burns fat. This really is not the case. Muscle is a very expensive tissue in terms of energy. All tissue burns energy though, even fat. That said, the more muscle you have, the faster your natural metabolism will be. The faster your natural metabolism is, the more calories your body will burn naturally each and every day.

This is why you want to supplement your diet with resistance training. Hold on to the muscle that you already have. Make sense?

Yes, I would appreciate it if you could tell me more about that. It sounds like you know what you're talking about. I'm not trying to "tone" LOL, I just want to optimize my weight loss with weight lifting and I want to do it the right way. Just lifting to be lifting would be kind of pointless if I don't really know what I'm doing.

i just wanted to say that it's impossible for a woman to have a bodybuilder's body by lifting normally. women bodybuilders obtain their bodies by lifting numerous hours and sometimes using supplements. i mean, it's their profession, ya know? they really really work at it.
i'm not sure lifting light weights has any advantage over lifting heavy weights. personally i like to feel what i'm lifting and feel my muscles fatigue..then i know i'm gettin' somewhere. give me the heavy stuff! hehehe!

Our bodies are in a constant state of building up and breaking down. This, in a nutshell, is metabolism. The maintenance level of caloric intake is the amount of energy one must consume to fuel the building up so that it balances out the breaking down, leading to said weight maintenance.

Each person has a unique maintenance caloric intake. However, a ballpark figure is 14-16 calories per pound of body weight.

At any rate, maintenance assumes that you have exactly enough energy to support all the vital functions of the body. Since mass and energy conserve, energy output = energy input, so there's no net change to the system. Weight stays the same.

When you decide to lose weight, the first step is to start eating under maintenance. When you do this, you are providing less energy then required in order to maintain the balance that we mentioned before. However, this is the essence of weight loss here, our bodies need that energy, so it turns to its only option.... its own tissue. This is how weight loss goes.

This tissue loss is going to consist of both fat and muscle.

Muscle, being a very metabolically expensive tissue, is not going to increase in size while you are in a caloric deficit. The body is already not getting enough intake of energy (calories) to support itself currently (resulting in said weight loss) so the last thing it is going to do is make the situation worst by adding lean body mass. Make sense?

Weight training does hold its importance however.

Unfortunately, there a lot of misconceptions floating around out there where high volume, high rep training is the ideal training protocol when it comes to fat loss. You should leave cardio and nutrition for the fat loss side of things and leave weight training for the only thing in physiologically and biologically can do, and that is maintain or build muscle.

The biochemical signals that control increases in muscle work from two ways: atrophy,and hypertrophy. One signals the muscle to break down, one signals it to grow.

A lower volume will quash the atrophy signals, but signal very little if any hypertrophy; maintenance. As volume and indeed total "overload" to the muscle increases, the hypertrophy signals become more pronounced. But so does energy requirement. This is not the ideal situation when in an energy (caloric) deficit.

This said, do just enough to inhibit the atrophy signals. This means sticking to compound, free weight exercises with few sets and 3-6 reps in most cases.

I've heard alot of people say similar things, and I agree that you can't really bulk up alot, but there's really no reason why your body cannot get stronger during this time and possibly gain a little bit of muscle size/mass. I've been doing that myself. I weighed in at 155 this morning. 3 months ago I weighed 168 or 169. That's about a pound per week, if not a little more, it's the max recommended rate of loss if you're exercising. Alot of my success is due to exercise, because I'm not even trying to diet anymore, just staying away from sugar and excessive grease.

But anyway, at the start of this time period, I was only cycling occasionally. Due to the bad weather, I started doing other exercises indoors. But, I was rather weak.

When I started, it about killed me to do this:
2 sets of 100 reps of jumping a weighted jump rope, 200 total.
1 set of 10 reps of 185 pounds squatting.
1 set of 25 reps of push-ups
25 crunches
1 set of 8 reps of curls with 50 pounds, with the bar that's 68.

and, well, that's about it.


fast forward 3 months, and I'm now doing:
half an hour of high intensity spinning on my trainer, THEN:
6 sets of 200 reps of weighted jump rope, sometimes doing one-footers... 1,200 total
2 sets of 25 reps of 185 pounds squatting
2 sets of 15 curls with 68 pounds
2 sets of 45 reps of push-ups, even doing them slower with a pause.
65 crunches
25 leg raises
2 sets of 25 reps of leg curls, I forget the weight
I do all of the above in a one hour or so balls-to-the-wall circuit session.

You get the idea. My point is that I have made huge improvements both in weight loss and strength. My abs are showing so much that I started shaving my chest and stomach. I just don't buy the idea that you can't lose weight and build muscle at the same time. True, you can't bulk up a crazy amount, but I don't really want to do that. There's just no way that I could have made the improvements that I have if my body did not have the ability to build muscle. The whole idea behind lifting weights is to break a muscle down, then your body rebuilds, but also overcompensates, and that process is what builds muscles. There's no way that I could have improved so much without the overcompensation part. If my body was simply maintaining itself as was stated, then I should still be doing 25 push-ups then being sore for 2 or 3 days afterwards. Instead, I'm doing 90 total, and could be doing more sets if I wanted... and the next day I'm not sore whatsoever.

So basically, personally, based off of my own results, I believe that you can definitely build muscle while dieting, as long as you eat properly throughout the day, eat properly after a workout for recovery purposes, and consume the right amount of high quality protein. Right now my body is doing far more than just fighting off the "atrophy signals".

You made a lot of assumptions here, and based your entire rubuttle on these assumptions. The main assumption being, that I stated somewhere in this thread that you can't get stronger in a caloric deficit.

I said, physiology does not work in a way that allows for increases in muscle mass, or tissue for that matter, while you are in a caloric deficit.

However, you certainly can increase strength while in a caloric deficit. Strength increases do not always, actually often times do not, couple with increases in muscle size (hypertrophy).

Our bodies are able to learn how to lift heavier weights without increasing size due to a host of variables, namely motor unit activation and firing rate of muscle fibers.

Follow me?

Edit to add: please note that I am not trying to shoot you down or argue with you. This is a very good conversation and I think it will do a lot of good for others to actually play it out.

Define "lifting normally." Yes, women's hormonal dispositions differ from that of a man, making it much more difficult to increase lean body mass. That said, women can build very impressive phyisques without the use of drugs or supplements.

I figured that was the case... but... due to these squats, the knotty part of the inside of my lower thigh does in fact seem bulkier. Also, I'd like to think that my abs have bulked up a little since they're popping out, but quite honestly I have no proof of this since fat was covering them up before, so all I know for sure is that they're stronger. Other than the knotty area on my inside lower thighs by my kneecap, I only feel MUCH stronger with much more endurance, but not bulkier whatsoever.

Right. Honestly, when you start decreasing body fat levels and muscles start to expose themselves through the flab, it is natural to think you are increasing your muscle mass. You are not though. Well, most likely not anyways. I understand why you assumed what you did originally.

Good discussion.

i'm all for natural bodybuilders. by lifting normally, i just meant for anyone not trying to be a bodybuilder, etc. of course they'll gain the definition, but there's no need to worry about being "huge" like a bodybuilder. that's all.

liked your article on hiit, by the way.