Advice for a newbie

barney25
barney25 Posts: 2 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
I have started weight training, compound exercises, lifting heavy, for 5 sets of 5 per exercise. I do this weekly, along with 2 fitness cardio classes.

Is this enough lifting to see any 'newbie gains'?

Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
    Maybe. What are your stats, how many calories. What are you other goals? At the very least, there will be cns adaptations that will occur to make you stronger.
  • BrianKMcFalls
    BrianKMcFalls Posts: 190 Member
    If you really want to see gains, I would lift twice a week. Give it 8 weeks and see what you think.
  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
    Are you doing Stronglifts 5x5? I ask because you said 5 sets of 5 per exercise and compound lifts.

    I started lifting with Stronglifts back in May and followed the 3 day program. I went from using only the bar and developed relatively fast - my squat was up to about 150lbs in 6 months. My deadlift also went from nothing to 200lbs.

    I was untrained - never did any compound lifts before - and my CNS really took to it.

    As for muscle gain...that I do not know of as I was lifting while eating at a deficit. I did lose fat though and changed my body composition.
  • fretsnsoccer
    fretsnsoccer Posts: 13 Member
    edited March 2017
    Hey Barney,

    Congrats on starting your weight journey , and first yea I think compound exercises could be the right direction to go in. What I see that personally works for me that pushed me past numerous plateaus of the classic "body building split" (working one muscle group a day) is working out 3x a week and doing essentially a full body workout but making sure I incorporate switching off and on deadlift days and then squat days. This approach has changed my eating and lifting style I am so generally much stronger and can hit heavy weights even tho I don't look or even weigh more than 200 lbs I'm throwing around weight like it's fluff cuz of the programming I implement nothing more.

    For example
    M Full body and dead lift days
    W full body and squats
    F full body and dead lifts days again

    OR vice versa whichever you are looking to
    Hit harder

    And you are also correct in doing cardio twice al week the more cardio you do the more you will cut in to building up muscle , if you have any further questions about what I do daily reach out and I'll shoot you some more tips!

Categories