Hello, I've been trying out some Les Mills Body Pump classes in my gym and unexpectedly loving it! After 1 month I managed to survive double/triple weights for squats compared to first class but I still can't make it for upper body training even with only 5.5lbs on both sides :'(

Any workouts that I can try out with just dumbbell to improve? The bar areas are full of guys and I'm a bit shy >.<
I'm a 25 yo female, average body size ( now working out hard to be slim )

my friend is a personal trainee i guess he can help u

thank you so much for the reply, but I'm checking out some vids to try, now I just need to make sure my postures are correct

thanks for the vid Gonna try and hope there will be improvements !

If you trying to be slim, means you are eating below your TDEE.

So, don't expect to gain strength while being in a calorie deficit especially for upper body and being a girl ontop of that. Even we guys need to eat over TDEE to improve our bench press or not we will stall and not progress much.

So, eat more till you are gaining ~1KG/month steadily if you want to improve your upper body lifts.

For the exercises you can do dumbbell bench and dumbbell shoulder press.

1) How long have you been training? (if you've just started out, you're going to gain strength/muscle quick due to adaptations, but it will slow down eventually, if you've been doing this for quite some time, slow progress is to be expected and your energy intake play a big role too. However, you can still gain strength while on a deficit, it is when you start reaching the extreme points in BF that you start feeling/looking like shit and everything seems a chore)
2) Squats involve your whole posterior chain on top a whole host of other muscles, your whole body is moving the weight so it's naturally to gain strength easily in this movement.
3) Upper body training -> Please define
4) Upper body movement ( I'm going to assume Bench press, is only using half of your body (generalizing here) so of course progress will be painfully slow and if you're good with your technique (like really, really good), you should be able to also include your whole body in the movement ( lats, hip drive, leg drive etc) and that should help out a lot but you should still NOT expect progress like Squats and deads ( Are you deadlifting btw?)
5) There's no need to be shy around guys, it's a gym, everyone's there to workout.
6) Barbells, Dumb bells, Machines are all means to an end. However personally I'd recommend using free weights to start out with ( to ensure you learn your techniques). As you get more advance, you can start throwing in machine movements here and there.

Don't be shy, just approach the bar area and lift it or ask for some assist. I guess they are willing to help

Thank you for your reply! I've just started, after 3 classes I can feel more improvement on myself. I've also mustered out some courage to ask the trainer to correct my posture after the class. I can lift a bit heavier and workout better now (biceps, triceps, shoulder).

I still feel a bit nervous approaching the weights area, feels like walking in a spartan campsite.

I'm trying my best to eat clean and healthy, threw in a few HIIT too so can burn more. Really appreciate all the advises here as not much of my female friends do strength training.

Thanks everyone for the help

This post has been edited by rinverie: Aug 21 2014, 02:17 PM

Bolded 1 - Technique over Weight lifted any day.
Bolded 2 - Clean eating is a fad. There's no clear definition of "clean" eating, apart from washing your food. Watch the following videos to learn more about nutrition.








This post has been edited by razorboy: Aug 21 2014, 02:26 PM

After 1 month of hard training and diet control, I managed to shred off 5.5kg. There's also improvement overall, took measurements from the fancy weight machine that calculates body mass and stuffs, showed quite a big improvement before I start (lost around 6lbs of fat), improvement on stamina too. I'm now more motivated and will work harder towards my dream body Thanks everyone for the help.

kudos to your achievement...

u can always ask you bp instructor after class for tips and pointers. They will be more than willing to help you.

-regular pumper here-