Strength Training for a Dummy - Help!

mellogrl136

I've recently seriously committed myself to MFP and have seen some success, but I realize that diet and cardio are not enough. I have formed a routine of walking during lunch everyday and going to the gym for the elliptical, treadmill or stationary bike and zumba at least three times a week. I now need to incorporate strength training into my routine to prevent losing muscle mass and to help lose inches. I think I will use the weights one night at the gym and do a kettle bell workout once a week at home. Is this enough, and is it the right stuff for beginning strength training?

Can anyone offer me suggestions of the basic exercises I should be doing at the gym? Or any websites with good instructions and illustrations of the exercises?

Help is much appreciated - Thanks!

deanadimples

I'm not sure if you are stuck on gym, but I was in same boat. I've been doing Supreme 90 which is like P90Xs little brother. It's $20 for 10 DVDs and I like them because he focuses on form and I work all the muscles with weights. I've learned from them about form, muscle groups etc.

Even if you just pick and choose which DVDs you want to do, you still get a deal at $20. But the cardio workouts are great too.

stroutman81

There really isn't any magic in exercise selection. You'll always have the people out there yelling how all you really need are squats, deadlifts, bench press, and rows. And there's some truth to that. But again, it's not all about exercise selection. Things like rate of progression (in terms of weight lifted), intensity, volume, etc are all much more important.

You can check out this article of mine that I think might help you a bit:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/resistance-training-foundation-19725

This one might be worth a look over as well:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/stroutman81/view/more-random-thoughts-on-resistance-training-19945

And I've no problems with DVD workouts for starters. The vast majority of them though are very suboptimal after a certain degree of experience lifting. I spoke about this extensively in the following thread:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/276660-i-do-dvds-so-i-don-t-need-to-strength-train

cruiseking

Pay for a personal trainer for two or three sessions. A good trainer will zero in a plan that will work for you.

stroutman81

Pay for a personal trainer for two or three sessions. A good trainer will zero in a plan that will work for you.

Good and trainer tend not to go hand in hand though, which is a real problem in this industry. Most trainers wouldn't know proper exercise form if it slapped them in the face... let alone programming.

mesafford

I would probably try to do weights at least 3 times a week. If you do 3 days a week (what I would consider minimum), you have a couple of choices- you could do a full body workout every time (it will a little longer each workout). Or you could break it down into muscle groups. Here's an example of a schedule: Monday: biceps and triceps, wednesday: shoulders and back, friday: legs and chest. You could do that plus choose a weekend day to do some stuff with your kettle bell or maybe some medicine ball work. That's just my suggestion, though.

If you're interested, my schedule is to lift 5 days a week- I focus on 1 muscle group every day, except for my arm day where I combine biceps and triceps. So, for example, my schedule this week is Monday- shoulders, Tuesday- legs, Wednesday- biceps & triceps, Thursday- back, Friday- chest. I do cardio every day after weights. I also work in abs in between weights and cardio about 3 times a week. On the weekends I usually do not do any strength training, just cardio. Hope this has helped a little!!

thedreamhazer

I just posted look for tips on how to improve my strength routine. I was told to look into "The New Rules of Lifting" and also directed here: http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/

Definitely check it out, the routine I was given looks AMAZING, I can't wait to get started!

(Beware -- just a couple moves in the routine I was given were a little advanced. I've been doing weight training for just under a year, but I still had to rule out one of the moves entirely. However, I also didn't select a beginner's program.)


Good luck!

stroutman81

Just to play devils advocate for a moment...

I would probably try to do weights at least 3 times a week. If you do 3 days a week (what I would consider minimum), you have a couple of choices-

A minimum for what? Muscle gain? Muscle maintenance? Strength gain?

In reality, I'd say 1-2 days per week are a minimum for some goals. For most around here, given their goals, I'd say 2 days per week is the minimum.

Splitting hairs maybe... but when you're in a calorie deficit, the primary goal when it comes to strength training is muscle maintenance. And we know that it requires less work to maintain muscle than it does to build it. By work, I primarily mean volume. So people can get away with a lower frequency.

And I'm a huge advocate of strength training, so the last thing I want to do is provoke people to lift less.... so don't get me wrong. If people want to train 3 days per week... have at it! I train 5 myself, but my goals are slightly different than most around here.

you could do a full body workout every time (it will a little longer each workout).

I'd agree with this wholeheartedly for a beginner. It's likely the best approach in fact.

Or you could break it down into muscle groups. Here's an example of a schedule: Monday: biceps and triceps, wednesday: shoulders and back, friday: legs and chest. You could do that plus choose a weekend day to do some stuff with your kettle bell or maybe some medicine ball work. That's just my suggestion, though.

I'd hardly ever dedicate an entire day to training the arms. The opportunity cost would be too large and the payoff too small.

I'd also recommend hitting each major muscle group at least twice per week for optimal results... which you can certainly do with a body part split routine.

Just my 2 cents... not trying to knock your approach or anything. Just offering up an alternative viewpoint so people have food for thought.

mesafford

As I mentioned in my post, I was just giving my personal suggestions. TY, though. I am doing what works for me.

stroutman81

As I mentioned in my post, I was just giving my personal suggestions. TY, though. I am doing what works for me.

I realized that. And was hoping you wouldn't be offended by my post. I was simply using what works for you as a platform to talk about what's typically optimal across large populations and in the research.

Certainly personal anecdotes are worthy of posting, so definitely didn't want to come across as shooting your post down or anything.

Beautiful daughter by the way!

mesafford

Thank you- that's me and my youngest daughter evelyn. Not ready to be out of the baby stage, but it is inevitable...

Wasn't offended, just wanted to reiterate that it was only a suggestion from my personal experience. I am definitely not a trained professional, so my experience is all I have to go by.

Seanb_us

I strength train thrice a week with a day off strength inbetween. 3 or 4 sets of 8-15 reps. Typically I work shoulders, abs, and legs each session using mostly machines. For example, lat pulldowns, incline bench, shoulder press, leg press, and some kind of crunches might be one day, then machine row, chest flys freeweight curls, and cable pulldowns, with leg extensions, leg curls, and decline situps. The third day is entirely body weight or freeweight, no machines, again full body.

5 days a week I do cardio, which is mostly elliptical (45-60 minutes) but I am trying to work in the bike (15-30 min) and treadmill (30 min 3x per week).

I have two days completely off. And, I try not to eat back all of my exercise calories, but do eat some. Plus, I try to eat protein and (except for specifically this week) lay off the carbs a bit.

Critique welcome. This works for me. It is probably a little much but my second job kicks in soon and my availability will diminish. My goal is primarily to lose weight without losing muscle.

Cheers,

Sean