Im wondering if anyone can help me.
When I do squats I get a small amount of pain in my knees (especially the left one). I also get a bit of discomfort in my left thigh.
Im assuming its poor form. Ive read guides etc...but can anyone give me any pointers here?
Im only lifting a small weight (~15kg) - not looking to be a body builder!
I'm confused, how are you squatting a weight that's lighter than an empty bar? If you meant 30lbs ON the bar, I getcha
)
I'm also assuming it's poor form (presuming your knees are otherwise fine, of course). I see a lot of people who are new to squatting, who get minor knee pain in otherwise healthy knees, find that it's their foot/feet. The fact that you mention your thigh, albeit a lower level of pain, would occur if your feet were not optimally placed. OH, and I do NOT (necessarily) mean the distance between your feet, but rather the angle your feet point. Play around, *safely* of course / with a light weight (or no weight), with varying distance between your feet, and at each distance, experiment with pointing your toes up to maybe 45deg outwards. And fwiw, the feet are going to point outwards more the further you spread your legs (and there's no real "best" for how far to space your feet from each other, it simply changes the muscles worked
)
I'm now close to 50kg (159cm tall) and would like to lose 5kg considering I do no exercise now, how much should I be doing and what? In the last cpl days I've started skipping for 20min and doing sit ups but not sure how many? And cos it is winter I am limited to exercising indoors, but not sure what really to do. My stomach is the main issue I have retained my small frame but it's gone outwards and do have muffin tops slightly how do I go about getting rid of them?
1) best way is to remember that weight loss is as much, if not more, about nutrition than exercise. And by nutrition, I don't necessarily mean you have to eat healthy foods, because you don't - I simply mean that weight loss, generally speaking, comes down to nothing more than caloric deficit, ie "calories in" versus "calories out" (diet versus exercise/living). It's easier for most people to adjust the 1st factor than the 2nd
2) don't think in terms of getting rid of "muffin tops" (wow, I don't know what that means, feel old but I'm not!!) - your body has a genetic predisposition to store/accumulate fat in a certain shape (your body shape
). While you can reduce your overall bodyfat percentage, thus reducing your 'muffin tops'
, you cannot attack one area directly (yes, I do mean that 95% of people doing situps are doing them, almost entirely, in vain. Sadly :/). Think of it as "to lose 5% of one area, you must lose 5% total bodyfat". This isn't 100% the case, I'm not looking to debate any transient differences in lipid storage (in this thread anyways
), but for all practical purposes, it is.
Skinny-fat is nothing but the un-enviable situation of having not enough muscle and too much body fat. To get rid of this you have to burn off body fat and gain muscle by doing certain exercises.
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personal fitness
pretty spot-on, would just like to add:
- remember, gotta burn fat and gain muscle in separate phases/cycles ("bulking- / cutting- phases"). It's sad seeing so many people waste so much time and energy trying in vain to make big gains in bodyfat reduction while trying to gain muscle. <<As with the bodyfat-distribution "disclaimer", I'm aware there can be some fat loss during anabolism(muscle building), however for any practical purposes, muscle gain requires a calorie surplus, while fat loss requires a calorie deficit, clearly two mutually incompatible scenarios to be in simultaneously>>
- "gain muscle by doing certain exercises" neglects to mention that diet (ie, calorie surplus) is a bigger factor for most to understand than new exercises. As long as you're working out appropriate enough, and the diet is in line, you'll be fine. If the diet isn't giving you the nutes you need, it doesn't matter if you train with arnold, you won't grow.
will running after weight exercises decrease my mass? iv been hearing in order to gain some mass lay off the cardio for a little while you weight train is this true?
It will decrease it by exactly a+b calories,
a = calories burnt from the running,
b = calories burnt by the increased metabolism.
So, really depends on whether you're accounting for the running in your diet. Oh and running after training may affect your ability to get down a proper post workout shake/meal/etc, which is of use (once your overall calories/protein/fat levels are covered, of course)
And cardio HELPS to gain mass btw, as long as it's the right kind of cardio and, as mentioned, the calories are properly accounted for. "GPP"/crossfit/etc types of cardio are what I'm referring to here, things change if you're marathoning every day
Yeah, it's harder to pack on muscle mass while doing long distance running. Not impossible, though.
When doing long distance running (or any hard, lengthy cardio work), it tends to shift the body's focus from anabolism, but as you said it's not impossible. This is really only the case for "hard cardio", you can have a solid cardio program that'd actually help anabolism
