A Lady who wants to play like the Men!

[vaberella]

Hiya,

I'm new here...As based on the title, I'm a female. I'd want to take up bodyweight training seriously and definitely love the extent of info on the site.

Okay, here's some background info and if you cats can relay some info in regards to getting started especially for someone of my background. Well I'm 5'2" , but about 230lbs. I take on muscle a lot and I have about 35% body fat or so. I can bench press 90lbs, and I've been out of the fitness loop for a while. But I can only do, one push up...very sad, my upper body strength.

I'm taking up cardio again and I want to know what the basics are I should touch on to reaching my goals of being to be in one of those BW vids...like a one arm pull up. I'm not expecting to be fit in a day, but I'd like to see growth and development and possibly success in a year.

I'd like to know besides what to start with, but also how many reps and sets. How many times a week and how much time per day? I'm coming from a weight training background so this sounds clinical, you can tell me what not to do. Also please explain some terminology. I saw a word like RM and various Tabatta? I don't know anything about it, although I'm reading them around.

I'd like to slim down but get super strong and fantastic agility. I plan on also taking martial arts, but don't feel that it would be kosher at my fitness level at the moment, since I fell down to sedentary.

Anyway I'm really happy to be here and I hope I'm not the only female, but I'll be participating. Oh, is it okay for me to start like a progress journal here? Or is that not allowed.

Again thanks in advance.

[koltz]

Hmm... So
what are your exact goals , You mentioned strength and slimming down...

I think you should do burpees with tabata with complex circuits (an 8 set circuit followed by another one after a 2 minute rest) once a day working up to 6 days a week with rmoe and more circuits until lyou reach 15 minutes and then icnreace the intensity , try to work every muscle group in your body durign them , I find then high speed high reps help strength sicne it's just a skill of nerve coordination while the slow high reps are only good for endurance which hinders strength in a way

Also do some isometric work or max effort work daily..

some people think they need to recover after every tiem they take a walk in the park , I can train with dropsets with compound movments multipile times a day all week long taking rests ocne every 10 days or so and gain strength very fast.


I think you should open a log here , and write up what works for you and what are you doing, I get lots of questions from girls who want to train mainly for aestetic reasons and I don't know how to answer them

if you want some articles and gides visit the women forums in t-nation.com there are some nutrition guides there which are pretty good...

[vaberella]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm not doing it for aesthetic reasons...my conciet in other aspects of myself keeps me bigheaded enough. :lol: :roll: It's the sad thing about being female, we kind of give that shallow aspect of ourselves, than the long term goals and advancement that some of us seek. Just treat me like a guy, if it makes it easier to answer. My mindset has been considered equivalent to a males on many occasions (it's a shame I still can't land one :? :roll: :lol: )!!

I am interested in as you mentioned slimming down, being able to do 20 pushups without stopping (just the minimal). I actually want to be fit enough where customary pushups are no longer functional, and I would need to take up protein style push-ups. I am also interested in taking martial arts, paticularly Kung Fu and I want to withstand the pre-training workout. At the moment, my athletic ability is poor to non-existent, although I'm still fairly strong.

So I'm fairly ambitious in what I want to achieve, coming from where I am now. I'll check out those articles that you mentioned, also what exactly are tabata's the link I read on doesn't give me a clear idea, although I pmed one individual who posted here to repost their video so I can check it out for myself. Since I'm training on my own, I don't want to injure myself where I won't be able to work out.

Thanks again for the response, I'll write down your recommendations and begin them tomorrow...I'll let you know how it goes. And I'll definitely open up that journal.

[koltz]

You are super strong , at your weight doing 20 pushups is a little feat
if you drop down to say 130-140 at 20%-15% BF you are pretty much around the most overall functional physique for feemale athlets , and about the same weight as feemale bodybuilders ... and I bet you could have the potential do do 100s by that time and much bigger feats like mayeb one arm pushups (I once heard that a fitness competitor was doing plyo (clapping) one arm pushups with closed legs on stage for 12 reps)


p.s , she might interest you , she has pretty nice feats accomplished by her:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tt2Y0xOhTfw look at her videos (user profile)

I would say look through the different levels and decide what appeals the most to you.

If you are into the pushups- than the push up program they have here is very good. Not only it teaches you how to build up the pushups it also works the opposite pulling exercise into the program. This is important for your posture and muscle balance.
Koltz, is the female power lifter for motivation purposes?

[vaberella]

You are super strong , at your weight doing 20 pushups is a little feat
if you drop down to say 130-140 at 20%-15% BF you are pretty much around the most overall functional physique for feemale athlets , and about the same weight as feemale bodybuilders ... and I bet you could have the potential do do 100s by that time and much bigger feats like mayeb one arm pushups (I once heard that a fitness competitor was doing plyo (clapping) one arm pushups with closed legs on stage for 12 reps)


p.s , she might interest you , she has pretty nice feats accomplished by her:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tt2Y0xOhTfw look at her videos (user profile)

Thanks for the link, she's bloody beautiful man. Wow, I was so impressed especially her doing a squat of 551 at 148, nice!! She's way hot. I'd love to do that.

I'm actually aiming for 18% body fat, I should have mentioned that, although realistically, taking into account my genetics and the my build, I can live with 22%. I'm heavily endowed on top, which makes most exercises far more difficult. And to do a one arm push up with clapping is out of this world...dude you're getting me more excited.

I actually got a kick out of doing the burpees it was way fun. Let me tell you, I was jiggling up a storm ( :shock: :? ) but it was fun! :lol:

Oh, wanted to mention, the tabata is still lost on me. I can't seem to wrap my head around the details, although I know it's 4 minutes of intensity. I like sprinting---so I might do the sprinting aspect, since that came across clearer...and I should mix it with the burpees right.

So after let's say 30 second sprint, do 5 burpees; break 10 seconds; then do it again for about 8 times? I think my classes and work are turning my brain to mush! :lol: :roll: :P

I would say look through the different levels and decide what appeals the most to you.

If you are into the pushups- than the push up program they have here is very good. Not only it teaches you how to build up the pushups it also works the opposite pulling exercise into the program. This is important for your posture and muscle balance.
Koltz, is the female power lifter for motivation purposes?

I do plan on taking on the different challenge levels listed. I'm actually far more interested in squats and building up my core. The push-ups are a just a great example of upper body strength; that the average woman appears to be lacking in. At the moment, I can only do two, which is embarassing enough. Entire physical agility, strength, and power in movement is my goal and passion.

I'm still taking on different input and scanning the site and all, I just wanted some knowledgeable opinion on workable regimes that I can do now, and build power on. To slim down I know I have to focus on diet and cardio----I wanted to build the added power behind it, and not wait for the loose skin drama (which I don't think is likely when one does cardio WITH strength training; most people just do cardio and not build the underlying muscle), to start building muscle mass!! :D :roll: :lol:

But the program mentioned on this board is quite nice. I think my chest has sort of programmed good posture in me. Most cases I hear it doesnt' for women with large bosoms (such a matronly word); but it worked the opposite, not only I went to catholic school for 18 years, the nuns still backslapped you with a ruler for not having good posture. But to get back to the program, I'm happy what the programs here does seem to do, and also I like the definition and the variety in styles to build power.

I don't know, I like Koltz. I mainly look at bodybuilder ladies with tight arses for motivation---don't ask me why it's motivating...but I get a kick out of a well formed derriere. :oops: :P :lol:

[Kartel]

Welcome to the forum

I am also new here but I will help where I can


Kartel