BHP Fitness

Hi to everyone

I've had some Internet issues, so I haven't gotten to post the last few days. Over this past week I've had both men and women come to me and ask what exercises they should be doing. They tell me they don't want to get big but "tone up". This word is used by a lot of people when describing how they want to look. What they are really saying is I want to lose fat and build muscle, even though they don't realize it. Lifting weights if done properly builds muscle plain and simple. Even though most people aren't trying to look like bodybuilders they still need to build muscle. The types of exercises to do this doesn't change. What does change is the amount of weight lifted, the number of sets, and reps performed. Bodybuilders ,and powerlifters build big muscles because they lift a lot of weight, and perform more sets than the average person needs to to get in shape. I normally tell people if your trying to get bigger use more weight and keep the reps in the 8 to 10 range, and rest enough(at least a minute) in between sets. If your goal is to bulid smaller muscle and burn fat move the reps up to the 15-20 range and use shorter rest time (30 seconds) between sets to keep your heart rate up. Now I need to explain the range when speaking of reps. For example if your doing bench press and your goal is to stay within 15 to 20 reps. The weight you use should cause muscle failure somewhere within that range. You don't just pick a number and do that many reps. If you stop at 20, but you could have done 25 then you need to go up on the weight. This is true for those trying to get big or just get in to shape.