Building a bit of muscle

[Tomatojuiceandvodka]

Hi everyone. I’m hoping someone with experience can give me some beginners advice. I am 37 and pretty fit in the cardio vascular sense. I run 20-30k a week. I’m a healthy weight of about 56kg at 165cm. I cycle occasionally and have a job that’s not too sedentary. My diet is pretty good.

I’ve got my mind on investing in my health and I try to think in terms of my “old lady body” rather than how l will look in my bikini this summer.

I have no muscle. My arms are the same size at the top as on my forearm. My leg muscles must be reasonably strong from the running I guess but I don’t really have much tone. Again, this is less about my appearance and more about my strength. I’m from a naturally skinny family so I know building big muscles is unlikely but the nhs guidance recommends some weight/body weight exercises for women of my age.

where do I start? I have a gym membership but honestly usually on use it once a week and it tends to be a treadmill run when the weather is bad. I can commit to realistically two short midweek gym visits at which I could do weights but could do further exercises at home. I enjoy running and it makes me feel good but just think weights won’t be enjoyable so I’m looking for short activities which I can get through for the sake of my health and then onto the bits of exercise I love.

all advice is gratefully received!

Two weights sessions a week would make a big difference. The main thing I imagine you might struggle with is that in order to build muscle you'll have to eat more. Running burns a lot of calories as you'll know, and you can't build out of nothing!

Do you have scope for a couple of PT sessions? If you're training twice a week you are best doing compound exercises, ie ones that work multiple muscle groups at once, for a full body workout. Compound exercises will make a big difference in strength. Its best if possible to start with a PT or someone who can show you the exercises in person and correct your form. It's possible to learn them from videos but a bit riskier and likely to take longer.

The foundation compound exercises would generally be things like - barbell squats, barbell deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, some form of row (machines work well for this), pull ups (assisted is fine) or lat pulldown as an alternative.

Btw you wouldn't do all those exercises in one session, but split over two

Eg workout A
Deadlift
Bench press
Row

Workout B
Squat
Overhead Press
Pull up/lat pulldown

A key difference compared to cardio type training is that you don't do these back to back, eg like a circuit. You need to rest in between sets. Circuit style training, where you're moving weights and 'feeling the burn ' are fine for cardio/stamina/endurance, but for that old lady body you need to be lifting heavy*, and for that you need rest in between.

*Caveat - once you're confident you know what you're doing. It's fine to start out really light while learning the moves.

Don’t underestimate how good you can feel from lifting heavy! Different sort of high you get from running but soooo good.

A couple of sessions a week is fine, and anything you can do at home is good.

I started with bodyweight exercises like squats and lunges and light dumbbells for shoulder presses, chest press, bicep curls and tricep dips. Kettlebells for rows, swings, presses etc. Then build on them and then move to barbell squats, barbell deadlifts, lat pulldowns, machine based presses etc.

You may gain weight and look bigger but it’s muscle and it is good to have. Think of a lot of what you’re doing as building functional fitness.

Body Pump!

A couple of classes a week and you'll feel fabulous