Beginner Weights Workouts

helnel

billy2shots wrote: »

Ahhhhhh, personal trainers!!!!!!!

Probably the worst people to get advice from.

My first personal trainer was great, but she left, and then I had 4 PTs in 2 different gyms, but none gave me what I wanted or needed. I also had problems getting the times that suited me.

I am now at a community gym, where I get small group (max 4 people) training at times that suit me and I can now lift A LOT MORE than I could when I joined 6 months ago.

charlotte1994

My favourite weight lifting is with the kettle bells, they give you an almost full body workout and are great at burning fat and calories.

https://kettlebellsworkouts.com/kettlebell-workouts-for-women/


I hope this helps! I love kettlebell swings! As long as you keep the correct posture, you will feel the it working!

billy2shots

billy2shots wrote: »

Get your head around that and then think about picking up a weight.

Now you understand that nutrition is THE key ingredient to fitness, muscle building, fat loss, it's time to look at the next thing.

Routines

The time you spend working out will probably contribute about 20% towards achieving your goals.Another 20% will be from rest (you grow outside the gym, not at the gym) and around 60% will come from your nutrition (boring!! you've already waffled on about that billy).

Come on then, let's get to the exciting bit. It's a new year and people just want to flog themselves to death for 2 months before giving the whole thing up again until next new year.
What's the difference between the guys and gals that do this for a few weeks vs those of us that have done it for 15 or 20 years? Simple, be realistic. Rome really wasn't built in a day, start off slow and give yourself plenty of time to learn and progress on the core lifts whilst seeking to progress at every opportunity.

Progression is key! I can't stress this enough. The body is a beautiful thing (well mine is anyway, i'm not too sure about some of you;)). What it's not good at is change. It wants to stay as it is, it's just fine looking this way so it has to be forced to change.
How do we do that? We give it the necessary signals to adapt and become better at whatever it is we are trying to achieve. If weight loss is the goal then eating 500 calories less than maintenance will work for a couple of months and then stop working. Your body has adapted and will seek to remain in it's current state, use the key that is PROGRESSION, reevaluate your NEW maintenance total and subtract 500 from that to get fat shifting again. Cardio can be used as a tool to aid fat loss, let me be clear though, fat is put on and lost in the kitchen. No amount of cardio can outrun a bad diet.
If your goal is fitness (lets say running for this example) run 1 mile to start with. Next run do 1.2 miles. 1.5 for the next and so on and so on.
There is nothing different about lifting weights. Do a certain amount of reps with X amount of weight and then the next time you do that same exercise, fight for more reps at that weight or increase the weight. Progression.

This life is so simple but people bu66er it up all the time. With diets that starve themselves which works great for a short time but their calories are so low they can not adjust any lower to keep the fat moving or they do so much cardio from the start they can't add in more (or start cardio) later on. With weights people turn up at the gym and lift the same weight day in day out and never grow. You have to force your body to adapt and it's not hard if you stick to the basics.


The good part

Ok OP (and others if you haven't fallen asleep yet) lets put something down on paper.
With 3 days to train and being new (or returning to the gym) it's hard to beat the good old fashioned full body routine. More slabs of meat have been built this way than anything else over the years.
I'm going to jump to conclusions and guess you are training naturally and are not assisted by drugs, steroid users will have the ability to train harder and longer so this won't be ideal for them. I'm also going to insist you step away from machines, they look all lovely and shiny and that big dude is using them. Yeah, but he didn't get big from using them. When you're his size then crack on.

The gym is your church and Free weights are your bible. Barbells, Dumbells , a bench and a rack is all you need.
For the first 3-6 months i would heavily recommend just copying each session 3 days a week. Get better and stronger at the core lifts and then later you can mix things up a little. You need to rest at least 48 hours between gym sessions so this will work perfectly as follows

Mon - Train
Tues - off
Wed -Train
Thu - off
Fri - Train
Sat - Off
Sun - off

Obviously you can adjust the above for what works best for you but the principle of 1 days rest between sessions applies. i'm currently doing Tues, Thus, Sat for instance.

Chest - Barbell Bench press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps C
Back (lats) - Pull ups (or lat pulldowns if you cant do pull ups) 3 sets of 8-12 reps C
Quads but also everything! - Barbell squats 3 sets of 10-12 reps C
Shoulders - Barbell shoulder press (or dumbell press) 3 sets of 10-12 reps C
Biceps - 2 sets of your choice 10-12 reps (barbell curls, dumbell curls, curls on a machine) I
Triceps - 2 sets of your choice 10-12 reps(rope pull downs, press downs, kick backs, close grip bench press etc) I


The 8-12 means 8 is the minimum you are aiming for and 12 the most.
The C is compound movements that will grow muscle and or burn calories. The I
is isolation movements. You will quickly figure out the isolation movements because all the 20 year old boys will be doing them so they have a pump in their arms when they go the club and impress the girlz init.
Compound movements activate more than one muscle group. It's these where every sinew in you strives to progress on as these are your bread and butter. They are hard and as the weight increases they will not be fun. After heavy squats or deadlifts I have been known to throw up but that is temporary, and a small sacrifice in worshiping the iron.

I have kept reps pretty high as at the moment we are focusing on perfect form. Less reps using heavier reps lead to form breakdown where you will cheat and start swinging your body in some kind of hypno dance to get the weight up. Youtube each movement to learn the movement pattern. Form comes first, do not risk injury by progressing up in weight until you nail your sets with perfect form.
As you become a little more experienced you can lower the reps slightly which will see weight increases a little easier to come by.

As a general rule

1- 5 reps is your strength building range
5-12 reps is you muscle building rep range
12- is your endurance range

It's not to say you can't build muscle doing set of 3 reps or 15 reps but it's not the optimal range to be in.

People will steer you towards Starting Strength or many versions of 5x5 training (5 sets of 5 reps) but that can come after 6 months. That kind of training is more geared to strength and will see you shifting some serious weight after a few months. You DO NOT want to be doing that with bad form!

Rests. I would aim to rest around 90-120 seconds between each set to make sure you can complete that next set. A couple of minutes between exercises and don't forget to warm up. Do a couple of sets at 30% and 50% of your intended 'working sets' to get your muscles ready.

Don'ts forget to make progression! If you complete your 3 sets of 12 bench press then next session add more weight. You should comfortably get 3 sets of 8 maybe even 10. The next session you may not be ready to increase the weight so battle to beat last times rep number, Progression!

When you have established a routine and are happy with your form you can mix things up a little. So your first and third session of the week might be as above but you second session each week may look like this

Chest Dips (or incline dumbell press) 3 sets of 10-12
Bent over Rows (BOR's!!!) more for back depth 3 sets of 10-12
Dumbell shoulder press press 3 sets of 10
Deadlifts (Real men and woman deadlift) 3 sets of 8-10
2 sets of bi's and Tri's

If you were intending to step on stage then side and rear delts, hamstrings, abs and calves would require time but we can leave that until next year:p.

Hopefully that's clear enough to point you in the right direction. Remember keep it simple, and strive for improvement/ progression as that's when change happens. Don't be like Dave, Dave goes ba11s out for a few weeks and then burns out, Dave is stupid.

TheGame21

billy2shots wrote: »

Now you understand that nutrition is THE key ingredient to fitness, muscle building, fat loss, it's time to look at the next thing.

Routines

The time you spend working out will probably contribute about 20% towards achieving your goals.Another 20% will be from rest (you grow outside the gym, not at the gym) and around 60% will come from your nutrition (boring!! you've already waffled on about that billy).

Come on then, let's get to the exciting bit. It's a new year and people just want to flog themselves to death for 2 months before giving the whole thing up again until next new year.
What's the difference between the guys and gals that do this for a few weeks vs those of us that have done it for 15 or 20 years? Simple, be realistic. Rome really wasn't built in a day, start off slow and give yourself plenty of time to learn and progress on the core lifts whilst seeking to progress at every opportunity.

Progression is key! I can't stress this enough. The body is a beautiful thing (well mine is anyway, i'm not too sure about some of you;)). What it's not good at is change. It wants to stay as it is, it's just fine looking this way so it has to be forced to change.
How do we do that? We give it the necessary signals to adapt and become better at whatever it is we are trying to achieve. If weight loss is the goal then eating 500 calories less than maintenance will work for a couple of months and then stop working. Your body has adapted and will seek to remain in it's current state, use the key that is PROGRESSION, reevaluate your NEW maintenance total and subtract 500 from that to get fat shifting again. Cardio can be used as a tool to aid fat loss, let me be clear though, fat is put on and lost in the kitchen. No amount of cardio can outrun a bad diet.
If your goal is fitness (lets say running for this example) run 1 mile to start with. Next run do 1.2 miles. 1.5 for the next and so on and so on.
There is nothing different about lifting weights. Do a certain amount of reps with X amount of weight and then the next time you do that same exercise, fight for more reps at that weight or increase the weight. Progression.

This life is so simple but people bu66er it up all the time. With diets that starve themselves which works great for a short time but their calories are so low they can not adjust any lower to keep the fat moving or they do so much cardio from the start they can't add in more (or start cardio) later on. With weights people turn up at the gym and lift the same weight day in day out and never grow. You have to force your body to adapt and it's not hard if you stick to the basics.


The good part

Ok OP (and others if you haven't fallen asleep yet) lets put something down on paper.
With 3 days to train and being new (or returning to the gym) it's hard to beat the good old fashioned full body routine. More slabs of meat have been built this way than anything else over the years.
I'm going to jump to conclusions and guess you are training naturally and are not assisted by drugs, steroid users will have the ability to train harder and longer so this won't be ideal for them. I'm also going to insist you step away from machines, they look all lovely and shiny and that big dude is using them. Yeah, but he didn't get big from using them. When you're his size then crack on.

The gym is your church and Free weights are your bible. Barbells, Dumbells , a bench and a rack is all you need.
For the first 3-6 months i would heavily recommend just copying each session 3 days a week. Get better and stronger at the core lifts and then later you can mix things up a little. You need to rest at least 48 hours between gym sessions so this will work perfectly as follows

Mon - Train
Tues - off
Wed -Train
Thu - off
Fri - Train
Sat - Off
Sun - off

Obviously you can adjust the above for what works best for you but the principle of 1 days rest between sessions applies. i'm currently doing Tues, Thus, Sat for instance.

Chest - Barbell Bench press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps C
Back (lats) - Pull ups (or lat pulldowns if you cant do pull ups) 3 sets of 8-12 reps C
Quads but also everything! - Barbell squats 3 sets of 10-12 reps C
Shoulders - Barbell shoulder press (or dumbell press) 3 sets of 10-12 reps C
Biceps - 2 sets of your choice 10-12 reps (barbell curls, dumbell curls, curls on a machine) I
Triceps - 2 sets of your choice 10-12 reps(rope pull downs, press downs, kick backs, close grip bench press etc) I


The 8-12 means 8 is the minimum you are aiming for and 12 the most.
The C is compound movements that will grow muscle and or burn calories. The I
is isolation movements. You will quickly figure out the isolation movements because all the 20 year old boys will be doing them so they have a pump in their arms when they go the club and impress the girlz init.
Compound movements activate more than one muscle group. It's these where every sinew in you strives to progress on as these are your bread and butter. They are hard and as the weight increases they will not be fun. After heavy squats or deadlifts I have been known to throw up but that is temporary, and a small sacrifice in worshiping the iron.

I have kept reps pretty high as at the moment we are focusing on perfect form. Less reps using heavier reps lead to form breakdown where you will cheat and start swinging your body in some kind of hypno dance to get the weight up. Youtube each movement to learn the movement pattern. Form comes first, do not risk injury by progressing up in weight until you nail your sets with perfect form.
As you become a little more experienced you can lower the reps slightly which will see weight increases a little easier to come by.

As a general rule

1- 5 reps is your strength building range
5-12 reps is you muscle building rep range
12- is your endurance range

It's not to say you can't build muscle doing set of 3 reps or 15 reps but it's not the optimal range to be in.

People will steer you towards Starting Strength or many versions of 5x5 training (5 sets of 5 reps) but that can come after 6 months. That kind of training is more geared to strength and will see you shifting some serious weight after a few months. You DO NOT want to be doing that with bad form!

Rests. I would aim to rest around 90-120 seconds between each set to make sure you can complete that next set. A couple of minutes between exercises and don't forget to warm up. Do a couple of sets at 30% and 50% of your intended 'working sets' to get your muscles ready.

Don'ts forget to make progression! If you complete your 3 sets of 12 bench press then next session add more weight. You should comfortably get 3 sets of 8 maybe even 10. The next session you may not be ready to increase the weight so battle to beat last times rep number, Progression!

When you have established a routine and are happy with your form you can mix things up a little. So your first and third session of the week might be as above but you second session each week may look like this

Chest Dips (or incline dumbell press) 3 sets of 10-12
Bent over Rows (BOR's!!!) more for back depth 3 sets of 10-12
Dumbell shoulder press press 3 sets of 10
Deadlifts (Real men and woman deadlift) 3 sets of 8-10
2 sets of bi's and Tri's

If you were intending to step on stage then side and rear delts, hamstrings, abs and calves would require time but we can leave that until next year:p.

Hopefully that's clear enough to point you in the right direction. Remember keep it simple, and strive for improvement/ progression as that's when change happens. Don't be like Dave, Dave goes ba11s out for a few weeks and then burns out, Dave is stupid.

Thank you very much.

TheGame21

Thank you to everyone for the responses.

TomokoAdhami

Are you willing to proceed with bodybuilding or what?