Losing bulk without losing strength

[sampaguita]

It seems I'm just the type who gets bigger legs without doing too much.   After 2 months of squats with 2x5lb dumbbells + heel raises (also with 2x5lb dbs), doing it 2x a week, my thighs and calves have increased in size significantly, and they've already started to get the "tree trunk" shape.

I used to be really proud of the shape of my legs (before I began squats) and I want that back. I've searched the net for advice on this matter, and they're not consistent. Some said to just give up leg exercises completely; others advocated running; and some said that doing squats are okay. What I want though is to lose the bulk but to keep most of the strength.

Has anyone here tried that? I'm going to stop the heel raises, but I was wondering if I should continue with squats without weights or do wall sits instead. Or is it just wiser to stop leg exercises (except skating 2x a week)?

[fsk8r]

Is the bulk on your thighs fat or muscle? If it's fat losing weight will help, if you're built muscle from doing the exercises, you can't really lose that and maintain strength.

[supra]

As a guy I like girls with bigger legs. Most good skaters I know have pretty big legs relative to their body anyway. Look at like, Midori Ito in the 80s sometime. Powerful as all hell skater.

I'd say just learn to embrace it. As long as your bodyfat is in a healthy range, I don't get why you'd wanna lose muscle. If your bodyfat tests (however you get them) come out good, then there's not much you can do.  Even people that don't really do much heavy strength training (or any strength training) will generally come out with bigger legs/glutes from just skating alone. Just the same way cyclists will have bigger legs than the average person. It's just an adaptation your body makes.

[AgnesNitt]

I've been reading about exercise, stretching, and weight lifting for 40 years.
No one has a clue.
It's depressing. No matter what you read, there's another article to countermand it.
Like sampaguita, I do squats, I get the tree trunk legs. That's not supposed to happen to women. I have calves like oak too.

I stretch and find there's absolutely no scientific publication at all that shows stretching has any benefit at all in improving your flexibility. The nearest I've seen is that one dr. posited that you have a natural flexibility and stretching can help you get there, but not further. So   just don't expect to get a beilmann if you don't have it in you.  No benefit in preventing injury either. The most promising thing is that stretching may turn out to be a specialized kind of warming up and there are ways of improving it.

Like I said, all the pop exercise experts change their stories by the decade. I've seen it. No one has a clue.

Anyway, back to you sampaguita, have you tried pylometrics for your jumps?

[amy1984]

I would try more reps with less weight.  For example, squats without the weights in your case, or smaller weights, but an increased number of squats to keep up strength.  I've heard that this is better at producing less bulky muscles instead of the bulky muscle that comes with heavier weights.  Just a thought.  I have the same problem.  With my trainer now, we do long sets of not so heavy weights.  I also choose my activities carefully.  For example, I don't think I'd ever take up cycling   Running is probably better for the look I want to have.  Or dancing.  Or yoga.

I'd ask a trainer though.  I'm sure they would have an idea of the exercises you could be doing.  I'd imagine a less isolated movement (more of a whole body exercise) might be better as well but that's just me thinking... not scientific fact

As Agnes said, everyone says something different and different things work for different people.  It might take a bit of experimentation to figure out what sort of exercises and routine works best for you.

[sampaguita]

I'd ask a trainer though.  I'm sure they would have an idea of the exercises you could be doing.  I'd imagine a less isolated movement (more of a whole body exercise) might be better as well but that's just me thinking... not scientific fact

As Agnes said, everyone says something different and different things work for different people.  It might take a bit of experimentation to figure out what sort of exercises and routine works best for you.

The current program that I do was given to me by a trainer. She actually wanted me to do 2-10lb dumbbell for squats, which was too much for me, so I brought it down to 5. Seems I should have stuck to lower weights, more reps, and faster speed.

It's a bummer that trainers etc act like there's a single formula to everything when there's none. And I just hate it when I read two conflicting articles by two respected trainers. It's worse than in skating!

Like sampaguita, I do squats, I get the tree trunk legs. That's not supposed to happen to women. I have calves like oak too.
...
Anyway, back to you sampaguita, have you tried pylometrics for your jumps?

Ah, perhaps we have the same body type, Agnes? I read EVERYWHERE that women aren't supposed to gain bulk even when lifting heavy. Experts should interview women like us, one day.

Actually, I don't do jumps (yet). Still working on edges because I've plateaued on jumps because my takeoff edges are not secure. I continued doing lower leg exercises because (a) it's fun and (b) I love the idea of tone, firm legs (which happened when my squats were unweighted). I overdid it by adding weights to the squats.

Is the bulk on your thighs fat or muscle? If it's fat losing weight will help, if you're built muscle from doing the exercises, you can't really lose that and maintain strength.

I haven't lost any fat in my legs, so they're still there. However, my gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis have become more prominent too. If I could remove the fat that would be nice, but I haven't figured out a way to do that...


I'm thinking replacing one leg day with cardio and going back to unweighted squats...

EDIT: Not sure if this helps, but, anyway: I've mentioned how my legs look, but not how they feel...my quad muscles feel swollen and tired...calf muscles are fine, though.

[Query]

You are training to be an athlete, not a fashion model. 

Strong legs are part of an athletic look. 

It IS attractive.

A ballet teacher said that optimally strong muscles needn't add much bulk, and ballerinas try very hard to limit bulk while maximizing strength. 

But the extra connective tissue that adds much of the bulk may help prevent injury.  It's there for a reason.

However, some people say that stretching after exercise might help.  May be worth a try.

[amy1984]

The current program that I do was given to me by a trainer. She actually wanted me to do 2-10lb dumbbell for squats, which was too much for me, so I brought it down to 5. Seems I should have stuck to lower weights, more reps, and faster speed.

It's important to let your trainer know what your goals are and if you aren't happy with something.  If she's simply training you for strength, then I can see why she would want the heavier weights.  For example (and I don't know if this is true in your situation... just an example) if you came to her and said 'I want to build strength in my legs' then she's being vrey reasonable.  If you're worried about bulk, tell her, and she'll adjust.  If something isn't working for you, speak up!   Afterall, you're paying for her expertise.  And she can't know you're dissatisfied if you don't say so.

[sampaguita]

It's important to let your trainer know what your goals are and if you aren't happy with something.  If she's simply training you for strength, then I can see why she would want the heavier weights.  For example (and I don't know if this is true in your situation... just an example) if you came to her and said 'I want to build strength in my legs' then she's being vrey reasonable.  If you're worried about bulk, tell her, and she'll adjust.  If something isn't working for you, speak up!   Afterall, you're paying for her expertise.  And she can't know you're dissatisfied if you don't say so.

Oops. That's what I told her. Problem is I didn't renew my gym membership. I'll see if I can find trainers around who will work on a one-time basis. Thanks amy!

supra, Query: thank you for your words of support. Would love to get ballet strong legs though, if it were at all possible.

[Purple Sparkly]

Like many things, the size of our muscles are also somewhat determined by genetics.  Some people tend to get bulky when they work out.  Others could do the exact same workout and still have lean muscles.  Other than skating, I minimize lower body exercises.

[Landing~Lutzes]

Do you do any kind of cross training? Do you do JUST strength training with little or no cardio? I would try adding in 2 or 3 cardio routines a week, if you don't already.

[sampaguita]

Do you do any kind of cross training? Do you do JUST strength training with little or no cardio? I would try adding in 2 or 3 cardio routines a week, if you don't already.

No I don't do cardio. That's my current plan now -- replace one leg day with cardio. Hopefully that will lessen the fat in my legs so the bulk won't be too much of a problem.

[Landing~Lutzes]

No I don't do cardio. That's my current plan now -- replace one leg day with cardio. Hopefully that will lessen the fat in my legs so the bulk won't be too much of a problem.

I highly suggest building a routine of cardio and strength training. I cross-train, but I am a runner and so I train more to enhance my running for 5-10ks than to lose weight. I would try a "power walking" type routine...two to three times per week. Make sure you throw in some rest days for recovery and don't over do it, stay tuned into your body, overuse injuries are no fun! :-(
Keep us posted with how things go for you :-) Good luck!

[supra]

I do sorta understand how you feel, though. I'm a guy with big legs and I've always felt weird about it until I realized most girls like them and most guys wish to have legs like me. But for me, I had "tree trunk legs" before weightlifting. I think it's mostly genetic.

For muscle fiber type, there's fast twitch (Type 2) and slow twitch muscle fibers. Slow twitch is for endurance, or Type 1. Fast twitch is for strength/power. There's actually a few different fast twitch types that I don't recall what each their purpose is. Anyway, generally people slow twitch dominant go into endurance running, triathlon, etc, type of sports. One "test" I've heard for if you're fast twitch dominant is if you have giant calf muscles without working out (because calves get worked by walking,) which I had. So there's muscle fiber types. It's a bit paradoxical, but Type II will bulk up easier to a point, but your body has more Type 1 muscle fibers. Bodybuilders usually work to develop the Type 1 fibers by doing 8-12 reps per set.

Anyway, as far as training goes, yeah, pretty much nobody can give anyone a conclusive answer about training unless they know you very well and your exact goals. And then they can be wrong. As far as my personal opinion, I think much too much emphasis is placed on muscles. The main deciding factor in anything athletic is your brain's ability to fire muscle fibers and then your connective tissue strength. If you've heard stories of a mother lifting a car off a child or something like that, it's an example. The reason the brain won't let you just lift cars all the time when not in an emergency is because it's stressful to the body to do that and generally untrained you'll blow your connective tissues/joints/muscles out in the process. So I think in this regard, power production is more like training for a skill. I think whatever happens to the muscles is secondary to what happens in the brain/nervous system.

Anyway, for the reps/sets thing. I like working with heavier weights and fewer reps, and across the board that seems to be the consensus among strength coaches, to have people in weight classed sports do fewer reps/sets, and work with higher intensity, with the science being the muscle fiber thing above. The only caveat is, when you work closer to your 1RM, your movements slow down, and obviously doing slow movements doesn't help much in athletics. Obviously the less weight used for whatever will allow you to move faster. So you have to find a balance, as power scientifically is {(Force × Distance) ÷ Time} Now I like doing around 5 sets of 5 with whatever movement, at around 70% of my 1rm (I used to like 1-3 rep sets at 80-90+% of 1rm.)

Also, unless you're limited by money/time, try to get more ice time. It's cardio and obviously you're training to skate better, right?

[sampaguita]

Also, unless you're limited by money/time, try to get more ice time. It's cardio and obviously you're training to skate better, right?

I do aim to do 2x a week skating by June (that's all I can afford for now!), but honestly, I don't feel skating is cardio...The feeling is different from, say, Zumba or Jazzercise. I don't jump or spin and I mainly work on boring edges. As I can't do stroking very well, I don't do it often especially when the rink is crowded with higher-level freestyle skaters. Maybe that's why?

[supra]

I feel it's decent cardio. I went from 210lbs to 180 on mostly skating for my cardio. Then again, I was in hockey skates and spent my time inefficiently flying down the ice. Now I can much more efficiently fly down the ice in my figure skates, so since I'm more efficient, it's less cardio now. According to my heart rate monitor I'm still burning a fair number of calories, just not as many as before. The problem with any cardio exercise is you'll actually only lose lots of weight during the time it takes your body to adapt to the exercise. Once you adapt to the exercise, you either have to significantly up intensity or volume to get the same workout, as your body's trying to be efficient. In skating's case, the efficiency curve is high, efficiency is everything.

So even Zumba/etc, will work, but after a while of doing it, you adapt the same way. This is how exercise programs like P90x got to be very successful. They have you do a bunch of new and different stuff so you cannot adapt to it, P90X uses the fancy term "muscle confusion" to mean adaptation, but yeah.

Anyway, if your stroking isn't good, definitely work on it. You could even skip the boring edge work one day, and for a cardio workout just spend like 80% of your time skating around the rink really fast like a hockey player. Kill two birds with one stone. For me personally, forward stroking I'm stupid strong in, but backward stroking I'm still not totally confident in (as in, I'm not really good at doing alternating crossovers yet...) But yeah, spend some time just messing around stroking around the rink really fast, that's probably the most relaxing part of skating for me. The edges and all that is great, but sometimes you just wanna skate around really fast and burn some energy up. In my case it doesn't do much more than psychological, as I can keep up forward stroking with higher level people. Also, in my case, if I learn like a 3 turn or whatever, I don't consider it "learned" in my head, until I can execute it while stroking at (what feels like) 60-70% max speed at least.

For me speed and power is what got me into skating, though. I was jelly of figure skaters as they could fly past me in like 3 strokes and turn on one foot while I'd be going "clack clack clack" like an idiot in my hockey skates huffing and puffing.

[Doubletoe]

It sounds like you tend to store fat on your legs, so you are trying to choose between fat only or fat + muscle.  But eventually, if you build muscle on your legs, that muscle should start reducing the amount of fat you have because muscle cells burn a *lot* more calories than fat cells.  Adding an aerobic exercise for half an hour at least 3 times a week (skating is not aerobic) will also increase your metabolism and help your body burn fat all day.

Let's say--worse case scenario--this fat just refuses to be burned off, even after you've built muscle under it.  If that happens, maybe it's time to start appreciating what your body can DO instead of just looking at the size of your legs.  I recently saw Tiffany Vise in person and was absolutely amazed at how huge her thighs were.  I mean huge.  I then saw the poster up at her home rink proudly reminding the world that she was the first lady to land a throw quadruple salchow in international competition.  Suddenly, I couldn't care less about the size of her thighs; I was just plain impressed at what they could do.

[sampaguita]

Just to update everyone interested about this topic:

I decided to eliminate weights from my routine. I switched to some Jazzercise LPs from back in the 80's, parts of which I had used before when my fitness goals were more for aesthetics than function. I was at first apprehensive about Jazzercise not being hard enough after having done weights, but I was so wrong!

1. The cardio portion was great! I was actually reaching my target heart rate without me knowing it, and I was enjoying myself! Much better than the treadmill where I never reached my target heart rate because it just felt "too hard". I didn't know cardio could be that fun!

2. To compensate for its lack of weights, the Jazzercise routine in the LPs used non-stop repetitions. Squats were also replaced by plies, which worked also worked out the adductors (something not done in regular squats). The plie routine was more than 3 minutes long, with non-stop plies and demi-plies. I felt my quads burn during (and after) the 3+ minute routine. I think it was a different kind of burn compared to weights, but I think I like it more.

3. As the workout utilizes a lot of compound movements which I am comfortable with, I am now able to work out my entire body in 1 hour (cardio and stretching included). DOMS is also minimal (I did have to modify some movements though to make it easier on my joints. ). This means I can work out my entire body 3-4x a week (compared to 2x a week before).


My legs are starting to go back to their original size. I was worried about the loss in strength. I think there was some loss, but it wasn't as much as I expected it to be (thanks to non-stop plies). I can still do wall sits at 120 seconds, and can probably stay much longer if I was ready to risk sore quads.

[4711]

sounds fantastic!

(but what are plies? First time I heard the term)

[FigureSpins]

Plié is a ballet term for an open-kneed squat.

http://www.ehow.com/video_12259103_types-stretches-before-figure-skating.html

The Poster is talking about off-ice workouts.

[Nate]

As a guy I like girls with bigger legs. Most good skaters I know have pretty big legs relative to their body anyway. Look at like, Midori Ito in the 80s sometime. Powerful as all hell skater.

I'd say just learn to embrace it. As long as your bodyfat is in a healthy range, I don't get why you'd wanna lose muscle. If your bodyfat tests (however you get them) come out good, then there's not much you can do.  Even people that don't really do much heavy strength training (or any strength training) will generally come out with bigger legs/glutes from just skating alone. Just the same way cyclists will have bigger legs than the average person. It's just an adaptation your body makes.

Midori was powerful as hell but her body line left a lot to be desired.  Debi Thomas was powerful and her body line was to die for back in the mid-late 80s.  It's why she could pull off the one piece suit she wore in her Olympic SP, but Midori wouldn't dare to wear something like that.

Quite Frankly, looking at Midori skate, outside of the triple axel and her huge triple lutz (cause all of her other jumps were ugly to watch) wasn't a pretty sight.  However, I'm glad she enjoyed herself out there.

She looked much better in her comeback, and had a much better body line.

Surya Bonaly is another skater who had so much potential to create good line and shapes even with her muscles, but she didn't have the training/coaching available to push her in that direction.

[4711]

Plié is a ballet term for an open-kneed squat.

http://www.ehow.com/video_12259103_types-stretches-before-figure-skating.html

The Poster is talking about off-ice workouts.

OHHHHHh, with the accent it makes sense. Yes, plies (with accent) are a really good workout for the legs! (I read it like pl-eyes  did not make sense)

[Landing~Lutzes]

I must make a note on pliés... It's important that when you do them to not roll in on your incepts or force any turn out (that is, if you are doing the turned out.) Make sure when you plié to make sure your knees are in line going over your toes. You can develp some pretty bad knee and ankle issues from doing pliés incorrectly! Take it from a ballerina who struggled with these issues for years do to starting off in ballet with poor training! 

[Clarice]

Yes, knees over toes is really important!  The other big difference between plies and squats is that for a plie you keep your rear end tucked under, whereas with a squat you push your rear out like you're going to sit on a chair.

My trainer currently has me doing one-legged plies, squats, whatever you want to call them - they're really sort of simulated swing rolls on the floor.  I also do what she calls "curtseys" - a reverse lunge, except you cross your leg behind the leg you're standing on instead of extending it straight back.  I also do them with little jumps - curtsey, jump in place in position, rise, repeat to other side.