How to Get Lean and Not Build Muscle
Big muscles can be an asset in sports like football or wrestling. However, they can be so much dead weight in sports that require speed and agility. It is possible to lose fat and become stronger if you know and apply a few simple principles of getting lean.
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Things You'll Need
- Running shoes
- Bicycle or other aerobic exercise device
- Free weights or weight machines
- Body fat calipers or body composition scale
Instructions
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Eat lean. For a lean body, you'll want to eat lean. That doesn't mean you'll have to give up fat altogether. Fat in the diet has gotten a bad rap. Healthy unsaturated fats like vegetable oils not only provide energy but also satiety. Satiety, from the same root as "satisfy" and "sate" is the feeling that you have had enough to eat. The low fat, high carb diets advocated by some authorities are hard to stick to because they lack the fat that lets your body know that you have had enough to eat. So trim your steaks of excess fat and go easy on the butter, but don't be shy about using olive oil (and vinegar and spices) on your salads.
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Do aerobic exercise. Walking, running and cycling are the kinds of exercises that burn fat without building huge muscles. If you cycle a lot, especially by pedaling uphill, your thigh and calf muscles will get harder and stronger but not particularly larger. For maximum leanness, it's better to exercise for long periods of time at low intensity. When you exercise for a long time, your body exhausts the glycogen stored in your muscles early on and then switches to stored body fat as its primary fuel.
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If you lift weights, use heavy weights and low repetitions. Whether you use barbells, dumbbells or machines, the principle is the same. Use the heaviest weights you can safely manage and do just a few reps of each exercise. This is the way to get stronger and leaner without adding muscle bulk.
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Keep track of your progress. There is an old saying. "Performance measured is performance improved." Recording your weight and lean body mass will help you stick to your plan. To determine your lean body mass, you can use body fat calipers or a scale that measures body composition (lean body mass versus fat) such as those made by Tanita and Homedics.
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Tips & Warnings
Start slowly. It is easy to get excited and overdo it in the beginning. Pace yourself and you are more like to stick to it. Never use free weights without a spotter.
