The New Rules of Lifting for Women - Stage 1

JessUK98

I've just bought this book and I'm totally confused about what I am supposed to do for stage 1, I don't think it is very well explained.
It's split into sections A, B1/2, C1/2 (I get the decrease in reps for A and alternating exercises for the last 2).
Each section has a total of 8 workouts, that's 40 sets, but is it all with different excercises?
So for Exercise A - Squats. It just gives the page number and then workouts 1-2 15 reps, workouts 3-4 12 reps etc. Am I supposed to just chose 8 different exercises for all 8 workouts myself? Or do I just do 4 different exercises twice?

I'm starting to get really frustrated and tempted to just bin the stupid book.

bethannien

My understanding is that week one, you do 2 sets at a lower weight with 15 reps. Then week 3 and 4, you up the weight so you do fewer reps, etc.

The workouts themselves are spelled out for you though. Example, week 1 you'll start with workout a (squats: 2 sets of 15 reps, push ups and seated rows: alternate these moves between sets again 2 sets of 15 reps, then step ups and prone jackknife again alternate these moves between sets but the jackknife are 2 sets of 8 and step ups are 2 sets of 15). You determine the weight you can do with these workouts but this is workout a. Then you take a rest day. Then you do workout b as written in the book. Weeks 3 and 4, you increase the weight and lower the reps (except with the prone jackknife, you'll up the reps there because that is a body weight exercise).

Hope that helps.

JessUK98

bethannien wrote: »

My understanding is that week one, you do 2 sets at a lower weight with 15 reps. Then week 3 and 4, you up the weight so you do fewer reps, etc.

The workouts themselves are spelled out for you though. Example, week 1 you'll start with workout a (squats: 2 sets of 15 reps, push ups and seated rows: alternate these moves between sets again 2 sets of 15 reps, then step ups and prone jackknife again alternate these moves between sets but the jackknife are 2 sets of 8 and step ups are 2 sets of 15). You determine the weight you can do with these workouts but this is workout a. Then you take a rest day. Then you do workout b as written in the book. Weeks 3 and 4, you increase the weight and lower the reps (except with the prone jackknife, you'll up the reps there because that is a body weight exercise).

Hope that helps.

So by workouts he means days, and they are grouped by the weeks? So workouts 1 and 2 is actually week 1 days 1 and 2? Workouts 3 and 4 is actually week 2 days 3 and 4 etc. That makes more sense now.

Still slightly confused by the workouts. Squats for example has at least 4 different variations. Do you just do the first squat exercise and stick with it? Or are they in order of difficulty so you do the next one up each week? Or just start off on whichever one is not too hard?