Saturday, February 28, 2015

Gaining muscle over 40

It is super hard for women to gain muscle....

Women are so scared to lift heavy weights they are afraid they are going to "bulk up" or look like a professional body builder.

Im here to tell you it is impossible! 

I spoke about being skinny fat....Here

I have been lifting heavier weights for 11 years now.

I started out with only 97 pounds of lean body mass...my actually scale weight was around 118.

After 11 years I have only gained 6.5 pounds of muscle! 
And it took me 11 years to do so!! 

11 years!

Last summer my lean muscle mass was 102 pounds.

I just had my fat rechecked this week and it was 103.6! So as a 41 and a half year old woman I have gained 1.6 pounds of muscle in less than a year! That is huge! And I am so proud of it!

Since last May I have changed my workouts completely.  I wanted to see how much muscle I could gain at almost 41 years old. I was so tired of doing so much cardio. Tired of my hip hurting. Tired of feeling beat up. 

I used to do cardio 3-4x a week...50 minutes to an hour each session...and mainly I ran as my cardio...I since have almost completely stopped running. Maybe 1x a month. It took awhile to get over the runners high..mentally I just wasn't sure how I would feel after 16 years of being a runner. 

Now I do it 2-3 cardio session...at the very most. And it is never more than 50 minutes. 

I have been lifting 5-6x a week. Focusing on 3 body parts at a time...while I used to do a full body routine 2-3x a week.

For example..
Mondays legs
Tuesdays chest back abs
Wednesday cardio/plyo metrics
Thursday shoulders bis tris
Fridays legs/glutes
Saturday day off
Sunday long 6 m walk


I know to some these photos don't really show a huge change like some on the internet. But to me it is huge.

1.6 pounds of muscle gained is a ton for a woman! Especially a woman over the age of 40! 

I feel like I look better now...I'm not as skinny looking and I feel like I look more fit.



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