Article Link NPR: "Millions of women are 'under-muscled.'" [sarcopenia-related links]

[Vintage VFer]

I wonder if another issue is that some folks, particularly women, feel insecure about the amount of weight that they lift. There are so many jokes about the "little pink 1lb hand weights."

We have some VFers who can lift very heavy weights. A weight I find too heavy would be easy for many here.

It's all relative.

There is an old FIRM workout where one of the exercisers (I think it was Jen Peluso) is lifting a hand weight of maybe 5 pounds and acting like it's a 50 pound dumbbell. She made all these faces and looked like she was about to die. It was pretty hilarious!

[warriorprincess]

LOL I'm a grimacer for sure. After filming myself last month, I decided to make a concerted effort to relax my face when I lift. Turns out I can lift just as well without scrunching up my face!

[hch]

Originally Posted by prettyinpink

There are always trends in reporting, though, so I wonder how long it will be until things shift back to talking more about cardio capacity. It is good to have both muscle and an efficient heart. As we have less and less necessity in our daily lives to work on either, it becomes harder and harder.

Maybe--and I haven't been following fairly recent news coverage as much as others have--but I've also been noticing less of what always struck me an odd model of thinking that seems happy to pit one form of movement "against" another. A specific example is discussing "the [single] best form of exercise," a sort of discussion whose heyday seems past and which I don't miss. In particular, I haven't noticed mainstream voices emphasizing strength training to the exclusion of all else.

What I've seen has been more like what I'd like to see, a different model in which a number of things are important.

I'm also reminded of continuing changes in how we see muscle and strength training. The general trend seems to be moving beyond a mindset where The Only Valuable Exercise is the right amount of cardio (and, if you're lucky, a modicum of stretching to prevent injury), with strength training treated as fairly optional, maybe even useless for health, maybe even harmful (I've seen a few old books that were very concerned about blood pressure). I can't help wondering if the old emphasis on "cardio, cardio, cardio" (despite a few decades of somewhat wider thinking) hasn't been another leading contributor to a general under-muscledness.

I'll have more replies later!

[Jane P.]

After a serious illness, I got very weak. Now my main goal is to get stronger. I do know that when I lower my food intake and lift weights at the same time, I end up getting sick, so I don't do that anymore.You've got to eat to support muscle growth.

[Vintage VFer]

I'm probably in the minority here but I usually like to keep my strength workouts and my cardio workouts separate. Making every workout into "metabolic conditioning" (or whatever it's called) doesn't work for me. Too much cardio decreases muscle growth.

It's like people become obsessed with getting their heart rate up no matter what kind of workout they're doing. Sure - a good strength workout will get your heart rate up but it's not the same as doing real cardio for me.

I read reviews where folks gripe that a certain weight workout didn't get the person into their zone. Well, it's a strength workout, not a HIIT workout.

That's my .02 on that.

[prettyinpink]

Originally Posted by Vintage VFer

I'm probably in the minority here but I usually like to keep my strength workouts and my cardio workouts separate. Making every workout into "metabolic conditioning" (or whatever it's called) doesn't work for me. Too much cardio decreases muscle growth.

It's like people become obsessed with getting their heart rate up no matter what kind of workout they're doing. Sure - a good strength workout will get your heart rate up but it's not the same as doing real cardio for me.

I read reviews where folks gripe that a certain weight workout didn't get the person into their zone. Well, it's a strength workout, not a HIIT workout.

That's my .02 on that.

I agree.

I think trackers might have something to do with that. Whether it’s zones or intensity minutes or some other metric to do with heart rate, when you wear a tracker you are seeing your stats a lot.

My heart rate does go way up during a heavy leg workout, but only for a minute or two at a time. When your rest periods are long enough, it doesn’t stay high the whole workout.

[hch]

Originally Posted by hch

(I couldn't find a more exercise-centered companion piece)

This thread, especially this post,

Originally Posted by cataddict

Yes, I also wonder if the idea is still prevalent. I think some of the concern back then (and possibly now) is that women didn’t want to look “bulky” (read “unfeminine”) as if female bodybuilders got their super muscular physiques from doing the same routine as the average woman would do. The word “bulky” has such a negative connotation.

gave me the idea to search for NPR content concerning the word "bulk" or its derivatives applied to female bodies.

This search actually led me to a 2022 piece, "Want to get stronger? Try weightlifting," and I started a related VF thread, where I intend to have my main discussion of this piece.

Although it's probably not a companion piece (for example, it's from 2022), it does remind me of how a missing companion piece may look. I wanted to start a thread about it because of other things inside, like what two speakers (the host and the first guest), both women, say about their own stories and about how we think about movement, as in what I wrote in the original post of this thread:

Originally Posted by hch

(I could write a rather long response here, but not yet. I'll just say for now that I'm reminded of how the fitness-ish world has sometimes been and sometimes hasn't been aligned with fitness. It's interesting to see how attitudes towards strength training, muscle, and the like have changed over the years.)

When the forum is ready, the article will appear.

[cataddict]

Originally Posted by Vintage VFer

I'm probably in the minority here but I usually like to keep my strength workouts and my cardio workouts separate. Making every workout into "metabolic conditioning" (or whatever it's called) doesn't work for me. Too much cardio decreases muscle growth.

It's like people become obsessed with getting their heart rate up no matter what kind of workout they're doing. Sure - a good strength workout will get your heart rate up but it's not the same as doing real cardio for me.

I read reviews where folks gripe that a certain weight workout didn't get the person into their zone. Well, it's a strength workout, not a HIIT workout.

That's my .02 on that.

I don’t think you are in the minority. I will sometimes do strength and cardio on the same day, but not as much in the same workout. I used to do the “metabolic” type workouts a lot more often, but over time I’m realizing that I’m not really getting the benefits of either cardio or strength. My heart rate doesn’t get into the “cardio zone” and the weights aren’t heavy enough to be very challenging.

I see what you mean about the heart rate and “tracker obsession.” In my case, I don’t expect a higher heart rate from a weight training workout. My gripe is when I don’t get into even a lower zone with a cardio workout when that is part of the point for me. I felt that way even in the days of the “pre tracker” old heart rate charts and taking a pulse part way through. I see myself looking at the tracker too much, though, and have to tell myself that it isn’t always accurate and it’s just a guide, not the law.

prettyinpink, like you, the only time my heart rate goes up when weight training is in an intense leg workout and then only briefly.

One instructor I use frequently has addressed the issue of heart rate/calorie burn not being the “be all and end all” of fitness training workouts. She has also stopped wearing her tracker as she felt that she was getting too caught up in the numbers.

[hch]

Originally Posted by Vintage VFer

Years ago, I had a friend compliment me on my arms. I told her I lifted weights. She said, "I don't like to lift weights."

What do you say to that????

I wonder what she started doing later and if she ever "overcame" her apparent dislike; maybe sometime I'll start a separate thread asking VFers generally about the idea of preferences being a hindrance in fitness.

(I don't have very pronounced inherent likes or dislikes for different modes of exercise, and I'm glad never to have had any. I've never wanted What I Do to be ruled by such things, as in "I like X and do it more than recommended" or "I hate Y and don't do it at all." As it so happens, I'm reading old material from a yoga teacher who happened to oppose the idea of doing or not doing things because of how much we liked or disliked them.)

[hch]

Originally Posted by Vintage VFer

I wonder if another issue is that some folks, particularly women, feel insecure about the amount of weight that they lift. There are so many jokes about the "little pink 1lb hand weights."

I've usually seen such jokes in a different context (expressing scorn not at people who can lift only light weights but instead at an idea that women should lift only light weights)--I don't claim to have an encyclopedic knowledge of how stale jokes are used (or how they're interpreted).

The 2022 NPR piece linked from a related recent thread does have this:

LAUGHLIN: [...] But there's also the gymtimidation (ph) part of it all. You know that feeling when you walk over to the weights section, and it feels like everyone is huge and lifting a million pounds, and they're so ready to judge you? I asked Casey how she dealt with that, too.

JOHNSTON: I like to compare going to a new gym to starting a new job or starting at a new school. It's like, you have to sort of give yourself the room to get to know the place and the people and just sort of, like, absorb. When you're resting between sets, you can kind of take in the environment. What are other people doing? Where do people do this activity versus that activity? Do people normally stand here or there?

LAUGHLIN: She said that even though it can feel nerve-wracking, it's important to remember that people are generally not paying attention to what you're doing. Everyone is there to focus on their own workout. But if you're a woman or just someone new to lifting, there's always a chance that someone will come up to you with a tip, thinking they're being helpful. That happened to me once, and it was mortifying.

Do you have any advice for people, like, if that were to happen?

JOHNSTON: Yes. My big one is wear headphones, and potentially pretend like you're on a call. I think you should sort of rest in the idea that it's, like, not super great manners to, like, go up to somebody and, like, comment on their form. I also like to say, like, you're paying the same membership as everyone else there, whether you're deadlifting 600 pounds or you're deadlifting 25 pounds. You pay the same amount of money. You deserve the same amount of space and to use the equipment the same way.

I've read similar advice elsewhere, though I don't know how useful it's been to different people in different environments.