Beginner Strength Training Questions

teicu1

I’m slowly coming out of a lower back soft tissue injury (just strained muscles--no disc problems or damage) and I hope to start into an organized, serious strength training program in the next few weeks. I’ve never done serious lifting and my only objective is rebuilding strength lost due to too many years of sedentary living.

The little “health club” where I live has an old 3-station weight training machine. It’s a cage-type thing with a cable-pulley-plates weight system. The exercises the chart shows are: Pulldown, Tricep Pushdown, Seated Row, Arm Curl, Standard Upright Row, Wrist Curl–Flexors, Wrist Curl–Extensors, Back Extension, Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Single Arm Curl, Standard Bicep Curl, Single Arm Row, Upright Row, Lateral Shoulder Raise, Deltoid Raise, Chest Crossover, Tricep Pushback, Side Bend, Leg Kickback, Abdominal Leg Raise, Abdominal Crunch, Standard Chest Straight Motion, Standard Chest Inward Motion, Standard Chest Fly Motion, Shoulder Direct Motion, Shoulder Inward Motion, Shoulder Fly Motion, Tricep Press, Leg Kick Outer Thigh, Leg Kick Inner Thigh and Overhead Tricep Extension.

I also have my own barbell and dumbbell handles with more plates than I could handle these days.

Question #1 -- Would building a program around what I can do on that machine be the best idea or would going with available barbell and dumbbell programs (SL5x5, dumbbell challenges, etc) be more productive?

Question #2 -- Are those “suspension trainers” (Lifeline Jungle Gym XT, etc) that you hang on a door a worthwhile piece of home PT equipment?

giantrobot_powerlifting

Barbell training, that is, prioritizing the major lifts should come first if you have access and resources to train that way. All other exercises should become secondary and folded under the . A program like Starting Strength, or SL, would be a good investment of your training time.

With that said, the machine and its various exercises you've listed could be used as accessories to the main lifts above (if you have access and resources to them) or if primaries, priority should be given to exercises like Cable assisted glue raises, cable Flyes and presses, cable lat Pulldowns etc. Work compound movements first.

Are suspensions trainers worth their cost? Yes, they can assist you squatting, push-ups, inverted Rows, etc. I've used it a lot for my clients and seen results. But, you can cut cost on that and buy a pair of gymnastics rings for pennies if what a suspension trainer like a TRX costs and do many of the same exercises I just listed,