Very confused as how to continue training

[SarahJane]

Hay everyone,

I am 20 years old and I have been training 5 days a week for about 4,5 months now. I do hiit cardio on the crosstrainer 5 days a week followed by weight training. My schedule looks like this:

Mon: 25 hiit cardio crosstrainer, 1,5 hour weight training legs/glutes
Tues: 25 hiit cardio crosstrainer, 1 hour weight training biceps/triceps
Wed: rest day
Thur: 25 hiit cardio crosstrainer, 1 hour weight training back/shoulders
Frid: 25 hiit cardio crosstrainer, 1,5 hour weight training legs/glutes
Sat: 25 hiit cardio crosstrainer, 1 hour weight training biceps/triceps
Sun: rest day

Since starting my training I've lost about 4 kilos, I now weigh 57 kilos and I'm 1,67.

I have also adjusted my diet. I eat about 1300 calories a day, about 120 grams protein, 110-120 grams carbs, 30 grams good fats. And I also take a pws (whey isolate).

Unfortunately I have also lost a lot of my curves. I very much enjoy working out and doing cardio, however I really don't want to lose anymore weight. Right now my goal is to increase the size of my glutes, because i find that very attractive on a woman.

I don't know whether continuing with this frequency of cardio and weight training will get me the results that I want, I don't know how big glute muscles can get without a layer of fat. Or should I be doing less cardio in order to preserve some fat and at the same time increase my glute muscles?

I have also been doing a lot of heavy squats ( 35 kilo barbell 3 sets of 8 reps) to increase to the size of my glutes, however I noticed that my thighs were getting bigger as well, and I already have powerful thighs and would prefer for them to not grow as much. So now I have started experimenting with 2 min squats without any weights, I do squats 2 min long without a break, I really feel the burn, but I don't know whether that actually helps in reaching my goal.

I would love to continue toning and tightening my body, especially my abs, my arms and my legs. And I really want to increase the size of my glutes. So am I on the right track or should I be changing my training?

[Boss Man]

The weight training is excessive for paired muscle groups. Maybe 1 hr for a full body workout, but even a full body workout wouldn't require 1.5 hours.

If you're doing loads of reps on sets, cut back to a max of 10 reps per set, increase the weight used accordingly and do less sets.

You are also not doing a Back and shoulder day for a second time, which could lead ot muscle imbalances and postural issues as training back once a week and chest twice a week isn't sound methodology.

I would say if you want to marry up muscle groups when working out, then you could try this sort of thing.

1. Legs, Chest and Triceps, (Monday and Thursday).

2. Back, Biceps and Shoulders, (Tuesday and Friday).

Saturday can be the day off, then do these days for Cardio

Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

Do the cardio on Tuesday and Friday after the weights and stick to either Treadmill or exercise bike, so you are not doing any cardio with movements requiring upper body utilisation, so you're putting as little added taxation on the upper body muscles as possible.

This is why I added those two out of the three sessions after the upper body days, not the Leg days.

Keep all your weights workouts to around 45 minutes - 1hr max and Cardio workouts to 20-30 minutes max.

Your calories are also too low and depending on the nutrient intake of your diet, some of the bone nutrients, like Calcium, Magnesium, phosphorus, Vit D, K2 etc, may be a bit low, jeopardising good bone density and if the bones thin too much and can no longer tolerate the flexing forces of weights, or shocking forces of cardio, you could potentially have a fracture scenario.

I would add another 500-800 calories a day in there. Sedentary females need around 1,800 a day and men 2,000, but you'llbe getting enough at 1,800, but around 2,000-2,100 gives you a bit more nutrition to exercise with.

Adding 1lb of muscle burns an extra 45-50 calories a day, but losing it has the opposite effect and if you undereat, your body could enter into something called a "starvation mode", where it assumes it is being starved and won't shed any fat.

I would say increase your diet by around 70-100g Carbs and 25-40g Fats daily, to get within the caloric range I stipulated.

Hopefully that all makes sense .