Toning, not bulking

[Noctlos]

I gained about 20 lbs. last year's pole vault season. Do any of you have tips on toning, and getting stronger, but not putting on too much weight? Thanks!

[PaulVaulter]

Just a couple of questions you may need to answer to get more helpful suggestions:

1. How old are you? If you are still young and growing then that may have been the reason for your increase in weight?

2. What sort of weight was the 20lb gain? was it lean mass (muscle) or was it fat? A 20lb gain, in fact any amount of weight gainin lean muscle mass will only serve to increase your performance levels provided that your strength to body weight ratio is also improving.

3. What sort of weight training programme are you using? If you have reached the point where you and your coach feel your body shape is optimal for vaulting then maybe it is time to steer clear of hypertrophy work and keep the reps down between 3-6 per set?

A 20lb weight increase is not necessarily good or bad on its own, it is the how, what and why that needs to be known.

Paul

[fong520]

i thought hypertrophy work was when u did more weights with less reps to get big?.. which means that he should be doing more reps with less weights. or am i wrong?

[PaulVaulter]

a generally accepted range for increasing muscle cross-sectional area, hypertrophy, is usually 8-12 reps.

Lower reps with a heavier weight tend to be used to maximise strength gains with a minimal increase in mass and size. Allison Phoenix for example does a lot of her deadlifting with low reps for this reason.

Of course there are other variables but this can be used as a rule of thumb.

[Noctlos]

i'm 17, almost 18. I dont think I had a growth spurt or anything during that weight gain.
I'm pretty sure the 20lb. gain was muscle, thanks for the advice. I just don't want to bulk up too much iguess. So what is better for strength with minimal wight gain? low reps, high weight or high reps, low weight? because I think i'm at a nice weight at 170ish (haven't weighed myself for a while). I'm not really sure of much of what I should do though.

[VaultMarq26]

like he mentioned earlier, 8-12 is going to make the muscle bigger, 3-6 will make it stronger and more powerful. over 12 will not cause you to get bigger....your muscular endruance will increase

[PaulVaulter]

at 17, even 18, of course you are still going to be growing, unless you were a very early developer.

I personally don't think being 170lbs is a point to worry about 'bulking up', especially at your age. Also a lot of people use that term without realising how much hard work it takes to seriously 'bulk up' (except for some genetically gifted individuals), serious muscle bulk takes years to put on.

Another thing to bear in mind with this is that it is a lot easier to lose muscle mass than it is to put it on.

If you are still worried then you can keep your weights reps low, but again a word of warning: doing low reps is far more stressful to the bodies soft tissues, leaving an athlete far more prone to injury, the way this is avoided is through good periodisation of weight training using the full range of repetitions. There is no set way to do this as every athlete is differetn so this is something that needs to be tailored to you by a personal coach or learn how to do it yourself.

Paul