http://www.worldofdiets.com/rusty-moore-interview/
Rusty Moore, author of theVisual Impact For Women program interview.
"3. Can you give me an example of a wrong piece of fitness advice that women get from magazines and gym trainers?
Anwer: Training to failure. When you take a set to failure, you create the conditions for growth in a muscle regardless of the rep-range. If you want bigger muscles, this can be a good thing. If you want to increase muscle tone it isn’t a great idea.
…so 5 reps to failure will create muscle growth as will 15 reps to failure. Women are led to believe that high reps tone and low reps
build muscle. It isn’t so much the rep range as it is how close to failure the muscle is pushed. This has been proven in a recent scientific study.
Another negative of training to failure is that it can eventually break the muscle down so badly that it weakens the muscle."
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5. Let’s talk about Visual Impact For Women and the workouts you recommend. You claim that women should not train with high reps. Why is that?
Answer: “Lifting High-Reps for muscle tone” is quite possibly the worst piece of advice. High-Reps are more likely to create a “pump” in the muscle. Creating the “pump” in a muscle is a great way to create large Vascular (veiny) muscles. This is why body builders train for the pump.
Most women don’t want large muscles with bulging veins…so probably best to stay away from high rep training. It gets even worse if they train to failure with high reps.
6. You recommend a lot of cardio in your program. Isn’t cardio supposed to be a waste of time? Aren’t there better ways to burn fat?
Answer: The trend now is to have women do resistance training circuit routines or body weight circuit routines, but there are a few problems and limitations to this as a fat loss solution.
1) These non-stops circuits can create a pump (as discussed in my previous point).
2) Cardio, when done on machines, can be adjusted to the exact level of intensity needed to hit a particular goal. Some days that might be to boost HGH levels with intervals, some days it might be to increase VO2 max, other days it might at a lower intensity for pure fat loss.
3) Cardio is the only variable that can be increased when a woman is at a fat loss “sticking point” and every other training variable is maxed out. She can only reduce the calories so low before she is starving. She can only do so many weight training workouts, before she breaks down her body. She can only do so many circuits before she is over trained. But…she can always ad in more low level cardio if needed.
4) Cardio can be done in a way to create perfectly toned legs and butt…eliminating the need for direct resistance training to the legs.
5) Cardio can be setup in a strategic way to first release fat from the fat cells, then burned with a lower intensity level.
6) Cardio can be used to systematically drop as much body fat as a woman desires. With various circuit training routines both men and women first lose weight, but then that weight loss stalls. Adding more circuit training results in over-training…so they are stuck with more body fat than they desire."
"9. Can you share some tips for women who want to tone their legs and thighs without making them bulkier?
Answer: Again…they should avoid the pump. I actually believe that strategic cardio creates the nicest looking legs and butt. If they want to ensure that their legs stay slim, they can stick mainly to the treadmill and elliptical. If they want to work the butt a little harder, they can use the stepmill. If they want to add a little muscle they can use the exercise bike.
If they do want to use resistance training, they simply need to avoid approaching failure. They can use squats to target the quads or something like step ups or dead lifts to target the legs and glutes a little more. They are less likely to get the pump if they use lower reps short of failure compared to higher reps. "
"12. How can a woman who feels that she’s added too much muscle work to create a more feminine physique?
Answer: I do have a whole chapter about “losing muscle on purpose”. Here is the short version:
Use marathon cardio with a slight calorie deficit. So jogging at a medium pace on a treadmill, but in a fasted state. I did this to lose 20 pounds of muscle from my lower body about 10 years ago. My legs were huge from doing squats to failure and a lot of resistance training for my lower body. I was sick of not being able to buy nice dress pants.
The key to making marathon cardio work is to ensure that calories are avoided both before and after the session. You also have to do it for 45 minutes minimum. This type of training sucks…but this won’t have to be done forever. Typically 4-6 months will produce great results.
Once the muscles have reduced in size, then she can use my brief strategic cardio outlined in the course…which is WAY more enjoyable."
