NROL questions...

twinmom01

So my husband and I are embarking on weight lifting together - We bought "The New Rules of Lifting For Life: An All-New Muscle-Building, Fat-Blasting Plan for Men and Women Who Want to Ace Their Midlife Exams" cause we are heading towards middle age :grumble:

I am coming off of 6 months of Crossfit so a vast majority of the exercises outlined in the book I have done on more than one occassion. My husband has done some lifting at the gym - mainly basic moves with dumbbells - he had hernia surgery 6 months ago so he is finally fully recovered and ready to step up.

A few questions...

Do you have to start with the Level 1...for example for some of the movements I feel fine with starting with Level 1...but others like the hinge I have done tons of deadlifts...should I start with the deadlifts (which I think is Level 3) and just work to adding more weight over time?

How long does a typical session take - 30 -40 minutes?

How do you know what weight you should be pulling? -because of CF I have an idea where my max is for many of the movements (although my maxes are high on some things like the deadlift because I can drop the sucker - can't do that at Golds where we will be doing a majority of our training) and can scale back to 75-80% (or more in the case of DL) in order to get 2-4 sets of 10 reps in. My husband on the other hand has not a clue - is it a matter of doing some testing and figuring out where he needs to be? We are going to head over to the gym in the morning to do some basic moves and spot each other to make sure our forms are correct (as most of the time we will be doing it separately - him in the morning before work...me after work) - I am also going to show him some dynamic stretches to do for warm up.

Anyone follow the books (any of them) and do it at home? My husband and I are thinking that maybe if we can score some weights from Craigslist we might just need to buy a basic set as an investment and just do it in our garage...I am not against this plan - but I told him I would rather give it a whirl for a few months at the gym to make sure this is something we (he) wants to stick with...

Anyone do it in conjunction with other classes/exercise types - I also do a Cardio kickboxing class 1-2X's a week (bag work and HIIT stuff) and I currently have 10 classes available to me at another local gym (TRX and bootcamp type classes). I know in the book it says to rest a day - currently I have 2-3 rest days a week...they aren't the same days every week due to my schedule so for example my week this week was Sat -CF, Sunday - Rest, Monday- CF, Tuesday - Kickboxing, Wed - Rest, Thursday - Rest, Today - CF. Do you do a NROL session in addition to another class on the same day - I.E. there is a chance I could do a session before my kickboxing class and then have the next day as a rest day...or is that not a good idea?

I am trying to explain to my husband that weight and reps go hand in hand - that we shouldn't be shooting for say 40 reps just to do 40 reps...that we should be pushing ourselves a bit so if we are choosing to do say 3 sets of 10 - but the end of that 3rd set we should almost be at failure rather then just pushing out 30 reps....He is worried about getting to bulky (I did bite my lip to stifle a laugh) - I did explain that while his muscles may become more pronouced chances of him bulking up immensely are going to be slim unless he starts eating 2-3x's the amount of protien he is currently eating and ups his calorie intake by a bunch (we both follow a Primal/Paleo eating style - me a bit better than him, but he is coming along)

perfect10isha

There is a group called the New Rules of Lifting for Woman on here that you may be able to get some answers from. I know you don't have that NR book but I'm sure the philosophy is the same, so you could probably get answers there.