Newbie questions

Some Answers

Hi

There's a lot of misinformation about muscle definition. The first and most important step is to lose as much body fat as you possibly can. at around 7% body fat you'll see your abs clearly. 4% is what bodybuilders shoot for in general. 2% and below is what male Olympic gymnasts have and it's the lowest you can get without getting health problems.

Without body fat you will look defined, no matter how small your muscles are, but it will probably not look healthy. Imagine professional marathon runners. They also might not look "defined" to you, although that's subjective. Most likely what you want is the look of Bruce Lee. He too had body fat as low as it would go, and he also had big muscles. You can only see all the different grooves and curves of your muscles when they are a certain size. If they are too small then the thickness of the skin alone (which also has a layer of fat, which you cannot lose if you want healthy skin, and that's something you should want, because it's the biggest organ of your body.

So, the way to achieve muscle definition is, first, to lose excessive body fat, second to increase muscle size to the degree where you are happy about the detail you can see. You can see more muscle detail/definition on huge bodybuilders than on skinny marathon runners. So, pick a place somewhere in between there or go for one or the other extreme.

The myth about many repetitions with low weights probably comes from the fact that many lean athletes indeed train that way. That's not how they got there defined bodies though. That's simply how they train their muscles to be more enduring. If you want your muscles to be able to lift a relatively low weight for a longer period of time then go for that approach. Your muscle memory will adapt to the exercise and you will get better and better at doing the same movement with more precision, more effectively, with less waste of strength.

The only way these endurance exercises with weights help you to get lean is by burning calories, thus helping you lose body fat. Just like running, climbing stairs, swimming, and other classical endurance exercises.

If you want to lose body fat and increase the size of your muscles at the same time then you can do heavy weight exercises combined with cardio training and a negative calorie balance, but with emphasis on a huge amount of protein. You can set your fitness goal to "bodybuilding" or "increasing mass/strength" or something like that on dailyburn. I forgot what it was called exactly but you can find somewhere under the Locker Room tab. "Profile settings", perhaps. That will show you the right amount of protein. You will most certainly need protein drinks to achieve the protein goal. But: losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time is possible. It is hard but the two processes can run "at the same time". Meaning, they could happen both all day long or the body might switch between one and the other at different times throughout the day or throughout the week. That's not really know, last time I checked.

To keep track of your progress you will definitely need a way to measure your body fat regularly. A scale that can measure it or calipers. Also, regularly making progress pictures always helps.

In the end I want to say that you can't hurry the process. It takes months and years, not days or weeks. You can only give yourself an extra edge, by using fat burners, and by taking Omega-3 as well as CLA daily. Those two substances will change your body composition all on their own, because the influence how fat is stored and used up. You need to take 4 grams of Omega-3 every day to get the effect (more does not give a stronger effect, according to the studies I read) and I'm unsure about how much CLA you need. I myself will order CLA tablets for the first time now. I'm not done researching the right dosage yet.

P.S.: another factor of how defined you look is the color of your skin. The darker the more defined your muscles will look. And there is a temporary way to increase definition and vascularity (how much your veins show through) by applying vasodilators. Some substances have vasodilating effects when you add them to your diet (products like NO-Xplode come to mind) and some others are available as sprays that you use topically.

Posted by Raphael_D on Nov. 02, 2010 at 02:11PM