Fundamentals of lifting weights to lose fat: Answers to frequently asked questions Part 2 (by Tom Venuto)
FAQ #3: Do I have to join a gym or health club?
You can train anywhere you want. The major benefit of home training is convenience. If the time saving and convenience benefits of training at home help you stick to your training program better, then by all means, work out at home. However, the more advanced you become, the more you’ll benefit from joining a health club. As a gym owner and manager, I admit I’m showing my bias by saying everyone should eventually join a gym, but in a well-equipped club, the exercise possibilities are endless, the atmosphere is motivational and people are there to help you.
I started working out in my parent’s garage at the age of 14 with nothing more than a barbell set, some dumbbells, an adjustable Joe Weider Bench, with a leg curl/leg extension attachment, a squat rack and an Arnold Schwarzenegger book to guide me. I worked out in that garage for the first six months, then I joined a gym and have been training in a well-equipped gym ever since.
If you decide to train at home, basic free weights are all you need to get started. You can perform hundreds, even thousands of exercises with nothing more than dumbbells. If you also get yourself a bench and barbell set and you clear out a little corner in your favorite room, you're ready to roll! If you want to get really fancy about your home gym set-up, the next pieces of equipment you want are (1) a cable-pulley machine with a low and high pulley, and (2) an adjustable squat rack or power rack.
FAQ #4: What if I don’t want to get “bulky” or look like a bodybuilder?
Judging by how often I hear concerns about getting “too big,” it’s obvious that many people think building muscle mass is easy. Believe me, gaining muscle is far from easy. It’s a long, difficult process for everyone except the most genetically gifted. It’s even more difficult for women, who have less of the muscle-building hormone, testosterone. Despite my reassurance, almost 100% of the women I’ve coached (and some of the men) have still been worried about getting big “bulky” muscles. If this is a concern for you, let me put you at ease…
This fear of “getting too big” usually comes from seeing pictures of professional bodybuilders in the magazines. Almost 100% of professional bodybuilders take steroids and other anabolic drugs to get abnormally large muscle mass. If you’ve ever seen pictures of female bodybuilders with massive, masculine-looking muscles (and faces), the odds are good that they were using steroids, male hormones, or other muscle enhancing drugs.
Unless you’re a “genetic freak” with a high mesomorph component, you’re not going to get too big from weight training. You’re also not going to wake up one morning and notice that you’ve sprouted massive bulk overnight. The process takes place slowly, and you’re totally in control of how you want your body to look. If you ever reach the point where you have all the muscle you want, it’s very easy to change your training and nutrition to maintenance.
FAQ #5: What if I stop lifting – won’t the muscle turn to fat?
If you stop lifting, your muscles will shrink - partially or completely - back to their original size, but they will not turn into fat. Muscle can shrink (atrophy), but it can’t change into fat because fat and muscle are two completely different types of tissue. If your muscles shrink from disuse and your body fat increases from eating too much, it can appear as if the muscles have “turned to fat.”
Elite collegiate and professional athletes often practice, train and compete for hours every day, burning staggering amounts of calories. When their athletic career ends, their activity levels drop drastically. If they continue to eat the same amount of food they did while they were in heavy training, they instantly have a huge calorie surplus. The result is dramatic and rapid fat gain, which often leads unknowing observers to assume that the formerly muscular athlete “turned to fat” when they stopped working out.
The goal of the BFFM (Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle) program is to help you develop a long-term perspective and new lifestyle habits, not to look at any changes you make as temporary. When you start the BFFM program, you’re not making a commitment to exercise for 12 weeks or even 12 months, you’re making the commitment for life. Don’t EVER plan on stopping your weight training and you’ll never have to worry about shrinking muscles and increasing body fat.
If your activity level ever does drop dramatically because of an injury or other reasons beyond your control, you must re-calculate your calories according to your new activity level and adjust your food intake.