Recommendations For GF's Routine?

Hey guys. I spent a good deal of time trying to decide where this belongs, Bodybuilding or Muscle Sorority, I chose bodybuilding because I am not a girl and girls do bodybuild.

The advice however is for my girl. She has tremendous dedication and works out for an hour or more almost every day. Now, you would think that this would cause her to be super lean, but it just doesn’t work that way.

First, she has a slow metabolism. Sure, lot’s of chicks use it as an excuse, but when I look at her sisters, who take decent care of themselves but then gain 10 pounds in a couple weeks of vacation I can’t help but believe her.

Second, when I say she works out every day, she does, and hard… however, she is doing long distance endurance running 6-10 miles every time, pulling off times that usually hover around a 7:30 mile. That requires some fucking work, and a whole lot of discipline; though most of us here realize that endurance running is not the best way to burn fat reserves.

Despite this, she still has a good deal of fat on her, not like “whoa, that chick is FAT YO”, more of a “After she took her shirt and pants off I noticed she doesn’t look exactly the same”. Most of it centers around her waist.

So if I had it my way i’d tell her to drop the endurance shit and do what I do when I want to cut fat, but I can’t do it to her because she really does love to run. So what I want to know is what recommendations can I give to her to get her to keep weight off, boost a metabolism, and look a little better without telling her to stop everything she likes doing.

Looking forward to your responses.

What the hell does she eat/What is her diet like?
Just because a person workouts “HARD” doesn’t mean one can eat anything they want.

:slight_smile:

[quote]Xylene wrote:
What the hell does she stuff in her mouth/What is her diet like?
Just because you workout “HARD” doesn’t mean one can eat anything they want.

:)[/quote]

Resisting the urge to make a joke out of your first sentence…

She eats a lot of salads, veggies… Low carb, but she drinks somewhat regularly. She eats GoLean crunch EVERY morning. I know she isn’t eating enough quality foods, but she is eating breakfast and probably undereats as opposed to over eats.

She is carefull about avoiding fats, and enjoys fish and shrimp as meat. She always chooses chicken over beef and such. So she eats “well” compared to your average joe, but not nearly as scientific as the rest of us do.

I want to get her to eat more protein, and cut carbs in the evening… She also doesn’t really eat after her runs; I am not looking for her to be a body builder, just give her tips on cutting down on some of that fat, and boosting the metabolism while continuing doing her endurance running.

What things can she do to maximize the use she gets from what she already does, and what things should she absolutely not be doing.

How often does she run, do you know how many miles per week?
does she lift at all?
does she actually want any advice?

I agree with all the above posts.

Definitely first concentrate on her diet plan before perfecting her workout routine.

Slow metabolism is easy to fix. It just means she has to eat more frequently. Instead of 3 or 4 meals a day, make sure she is eating 5,6, or even 7 times a day.

Get her diet perfect first.

Good luck!

Olesya
http://www.musclewithattitude.com

[quote]Esmee wrote:
How often does she run, do you know how many miles per week?
does she lift at all?
does she actually want any advice?
[/quote]

She runs 4-6 days a week, 6-10 miles per session.

She doesn’t lift, though she is not opposed to it.

She wants advice.

At some point she is going to have to do weight training if she wants to improve her physique.

Just think about the basic law of your body: it adapts to the stimulus given, that’s all it knows. So if the stimulus is a ton of long-distance cardio, the body is going to respond to that stimulus. That basic method of response is just going to be to shrink. Yes it will help her lose weight (you aren’t going to see many large marathoners), but that weight is going to be fat AND muscle. Muscle is “expensive” to the body in that it requires a lot of energy to maintain. This is normally a good thing as it boosts metabolism. However, if you are doing a lot of distance running, all the body is thinking is, “I gotta make myself more efficient at long distance running, this dense, energy-using muscle tissue has to go.”

So basically long-distance running will make her smaller, but it will keep her “soft.” Which seems to me to be a lot like you have described her; ie, she is not overweight but just not quite hard and toned in the areas where that is desirable. I think a good way to start would be to replace SOME of the running with lifting weights. A good start would be to replace two of the days of running with some basic, full body lifting sessions. Teach her the basics: squat, pull and press and just go from there. Let her spend 8 weeks with that change and see if the results are positive. Then go from there.

[quote]walnutmon wrote:
Xylene wrote:
What the hell does she stuff in her mouth/What is her diet like?
Just because you workout “HARD” doesn’t mean one can eat anything they want.

:slight_smile:

Resisting the urge to make a joke out of your first sentence…
[/quote]

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
At some point she is going to have to do weight training if she wants to improve her physique.[/quote]

^^^^+2

:slight_smile:

If she really only wants to run…

Can you be more specific about how she is running? Does she marathon?

Serious distance runners don’t go out and “just run” every day.

It takes a balance of tempo runs, speed work, long runs, easy runs, and rest to get optimal results. The balance depends on the race you’re training for.

If she’s not getting progressively increased results from running, she needs to run faster.

runnersworld.com has a training calendar that will set the menu for you. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean about balancing your runs.

note that this will burn both fat and muscle, and while she’ll get better and better at running, she’ll also become more and more emaciated. tread carefully…

Offer to go running with her one night per week…she sounds like she’s emotionally tied to running…can’t see that there’s a better way…trying to get her to give up the running in exchange for lifting and eating better is trying to get her to admit that you’re smart and she’s dumb.

Try tricking her by saying…‘hey…I notice you’re looking really good from all that running…can I go run with you sometime.’…she’ll become excited…after you finish running…try saying, ‘that was awesome.’ and then as if an afterthought…‘hey…you wanna workout with me sometime?’…she’ll be more open after you’ve given some of yourself to her…

You also might wanna check out this thread:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1615259&pageNo=0

The OP is some sort of mad genius…