General Advice about starting out on resistance training
davert123
Posts: 1,568 Member
Sorry for the waffle
Hi
If anyone can offer advice I would really appreciate it. I am 46 years old and have steadily put on weight over the years. I decided to do something about in about 3 months ago after a failed attempt last year. I am trying to do things the ‘best’ way now whatever that means . I have been losing weight at about 2lb per week and after starting to weed out the good from the chaff on the message boards I’ve started to do what I can do to get the correct nutrients into me. I am a fish but not meat eater so I supplement my diet with protein power quite a lot at the moment. My current weight is 217 lb so I’ve guesstimated I need between 120 and 150 grams of protein a day. I’ve lost nearly 30 lb so far so I am happy with this progress but I also want to get fit. I have started running a bit, walking loads, swimming and bike riding so my cardiovascular fitness is improving in leaps and bounds. I'm thinking of entering a sprint triathlon next year for the fun of it because I do love moving :-)
My questions are the following…
1) I have also just been down the gym for resistance training and I didn’t realise how weak my body had become (At the moment I struggle to press 30kg for the 3x10 reps the gym have suggested). This is where I could do with advice. As a complete novice should I be pushing myself so that I can’t do the last couple of reps (which is where I am at) or would it be more sensible to drop the weight a little bit so I can push the reps with a little to spare). I would eventually like to bulk up a little to fill my skin with muscle instead of fat but I know I have a long way to go. I’ve only been twice so far so I am a complete novice to this but I’m starting to get the shakes though exertion after the first couple of exercises.
2) As I’ve said I am doing a lot of legwork in my cardio routine, what is your opinions on strength training my legs as well. I have only a limited amount of time available because I have a young family so I am concentrating on my upper body in the gym and leaving the lower body to the swim/run/bike which seems to hit most of my legs. I have been guessing that I am going to be building my legs up (I can feel my lower legs getting bigger already) with the cardio, at least in the beginning but I am open to advice and information on this.
Edit: PS I have set my calorie deficit to -1000 per day on mfp. I have set my activity level to sedentary but I then switch on a pedometer for most of the day to catch the calories I actually burn. I've tweaked the step length over a few weeks to give me a more accurate value based on predicted and actual weight loss.
Thanks very much for reading this
Hi
If anyone can offer advice I would really appreciate it. I am 46 years old and have steadily put on weight over the years. I decided to do something about in about 3 months ago after a failed attempt last year. I am trying to do things the ‘best’ way now whatever that means . I have been losing weight at about 2lb per week and after starting to weed out the good from the chaff on the message boards I’ve started to do what I can do to get the correct nutrients into me. I am a fish but not meat eater so I supplement my diet with protein power quite a lot at the moment. My current weight is 217 lb so I’ve guesstimated I need between 120 and 150 grams of protein a day. I’ve lost nearly 30 lb so far so I am happy with this progress but I also want to get fit. I have started running a bit, walking loads, swimming and bike riding so my cardiovascular fitness is improving in leaps and bounds. I'm thinking of entering a sprint triathlon next year for the fun of it because I do love moving :-)
My questions are the following…
1) I have also just been down the gym for resistance training and I didn’t realise how weak my body had become (At the moment I struggle to press 30kg for the 3x10 reps the gym have suggested). This is where I could do with advice. As a complete novice should I be pushing myself so that I can’t do the last couple of reps (which is where I am at) or would it be more sensible to drop the weight a little bit so I can push the reps with a little to spare). I would eventually like to bulk up a little to fill my skin with muscle instead of fat but I know I have a long way to go. I’ve only been twice so far so I am a complete novice to this but I’m starting to get the shakes though exertion after the first couple of exercises.
2) As I’ve said I am doing a lot of legwork in my cardio routine, what is your opinions on strength training my legs as well. I have only a limited amount of time available because I have a young family so I am concentrating on my upper body in the gym and leaving the lower body to the swim/run/bike which seems to hit most of my legs. I have been guessing that I am going to be building my legs up (I can feel my lower legs getting bigger already) with the cardio, at least in the beginning but I am open to advice and information on this.
Edit: PS I have set my calorie deficit to -1000 per day on mfp. I have set my activity level to sedentary but I then switch on a pedometer for most of the day to catch the calories I actually burn. I've tweaked the step length over a few weeks to give me a more accurate value based on predicted and actual weight loss.
Thanks very much for reading this
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Replies
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48 Hr Bump0
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1) I don't think you need to train to failure. Your program should have you increasing in intensity over time, in some fashion. Since you've only done two pressing workouts so far I'd wait a bit before making conclusions. I would expect significant improvement in the beginning.
2) If you are getting some leg hypertrophy from your cardio I wouldn't anticipate that this is going to last very long. I would suggest you train legs.
You mention time constraints -- how many days per week do you train and how long are your sessions?0 -
Thanks very much for getting back to me :-) I will try and start to do some leg work as well to get an all over tone up. I'll also lay off pushing myself into failure at the moment. Even after 3 sessions I can feel an improvement (I can type here which I couldn't do after session 1).
At the moment I am going for 1x40 minutes (just resistance) and 2x90 minutes (resistance and cardio) and in the gym and at least 1hr in the pool (perhaps 2 if I can get up at 6)
I am sure I can switch things around a little. I really want to keep the cardio because I do have a desire to do a tri sprint but where there is a will there is a way and I have the will :-)
Thanks again for your initial advice though, I will take it on board.
Cheers
Dave0
