New Rules 4Women - Basic?

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landers26
landers26 Posts: 14
in Fitness and Exercise
Ok I just read the book and enjoyed it and now I am trying to decide if I want to follow his stages. I have already been lifting since mid-July and try to change things a little every 3 months. Now, is it just me or does the stage I exercises look a little...basic? There are only five of them which in reading from other posts take at most 30 minutes. Now, after reading the book I am feeling inspired to do more and lift even heavier certainly not less. And there are some exercises I really enjoy that I want to keep doing and getting stronger with. So I am toying around with the idea of doing his exercises plus a few of the others I am doing that I enjoy after. I am really thinking I want to lift heavy 45 minutes 3x a week and do 45-60 min cardio on the alternating days.

Any thoughts? Has anyone else followed the program? At what stage were you when you started (had you lifted before?). Also, did you increase cals? I am going on faith on this one and giving the cal and protein increase a shot. I am at a point where I am frustrated looking at the scale and after reading inspiring stories of others I decided to put it away and focus on getting stronger and hopefully the rest will follow.

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  • obsidianwings
    obsidianwings Posts: 1,237 Member
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    I just finished it. It is a beginners program, stage 1 is quite short workouts, but they get longer.
    If you were to follow it, I think follow it properly, so if you're not a beginner it may not be for you.

    I follow "in place of a road map" for my eating.
  • natini
    natini Posts: 347 Member
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    I just finished the entire program. The first phase is basic, but once you get into the other phases I was in the gym for 60-80min. I really liked the program because I like to follow a workout. Who needs a trainer when you have it all spelled out for you. I am now doing New Rules of Lifting for men. I am doing the fat loss workout. I am following my daily calories from the Scooby online calculator. I did not follow the calories in the book.
  • karensoxfan
    karensoxfan Posts: 902 Member
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    I recently finished the whole program too, and I had never lifted before. So stage 1 was a good introduction for me, and in hindsight, I probably should have extended stage 1, but I was eager to move to stage 2. I think if you're already familiar with the lifts in stage 1, you could probably do it for fewer workouts than the book outlines, but I liked those basics enough that I might go back & repeat them. I've also heard of women repeating the whole program from start to finish, but just with heavier weights.

    For food, I set my calories to the base recommended in the book, and try to hit the 40-30-30 macros, but I started wearing a HRM, which showed I was burning a LOT more than the 300-ish extra calories for workout days for me, so I tend to eat back my HRM calories, and over 7 stages, I lost 7 lb. I probably would have lost more if I had just used the book's 300 extra calories, but I didn't want to UNDER-eat.

    I'm 5'5" and 39 years old, and when I started, I weighed 190 lb. (obese). When I finished, I weighed 183 (still obese), but I have a picture posted in "Success Stories" where I'm pretty pleased that I *look* like I lost a lot more than 7 lb., so I'm hopeful that I gained a few pounds of muscle, and dropped more fat than 7 lb.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
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    No exercise is too basic.
  • NikoM5
    NikoM5 Posts: 488 Member
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    I have the book. I use it as reference for women I train. Remind me what the 5 exercises are. You can actually get a full body workout with just 3 (Bench/Deads/Squats),so I think it's fine. If you feel you need more of a challenge, simply use more weight.
  • landers26
    landers26 Posts: 14
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    Workout A:
    Squats
    then alternate pushups with seated row
    then alternate step ups with prone jack knife

    Workout B:
    Deadlift
    then alternate dumbbell shoulder press with lat pulldown
    then alternate lunge with swiss ball crunch

    You alternate between A and B for the first stage.

    To give you an idea of what I am doing now:

    Monday-
    Dumbbell bench press
    butterfly
    barbell bench press
    barbel front raises
    side lateral raise
    machine shoulder press
    upright barbell rows
    wide grip lat pulldown
    seated cable rows
    ab crunch machine
    (takes 30-40 min, then I follow up with ~30 min cardio)

    Tuesday:
    30-60 min cardio

    Wednesday:
    barbell squats
    leg press
    seated leg curls
    seated leg extensions
    stiff legged deadlifts
    calf machine
    quad machine
    dumbbell lunges
    (takes 30-40 min, then I follow up with ~30 min cardio)

    Thursday:
    30-60 min cardio

    Friday:
    preacher curls
    hammer curls
    seated dumbbell curls
    triceps pushdown with rope
    underhand cable pull downs
    straight arm pull down
    triceps dips (use dip assist)
    pullup machine

    From what I am doing it feels like this program might be a step down? Or not. I admit to being somewhat new to the gym in all reality and I really do like the premise of compound exercises to get a more fully body work out. At the same time, I love some of my other exercises and I worry about losing ground on them if I do something different.
  • NikoM5
    NikoM5 Posts: 488 Member
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    I think you would benefit from concentrating more effort (weight) into a fewer number of exercises.
  • IronSmasher
    IronSmasher Posts: 3,908 Member
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    With your outlined goals, I'd go with the top one and I agree with Niko.

    Alwyn has been asked about modifications to his programs before. His reply was clear, short.... and blunt.
  • mermegan
    mermegan Posts: 143
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    I like the simplicity of New Rules b/c I don't like running around the gym doing 20 different things. As one of the other posters mentioned, just make sure you're lifting heavy enough and you're fine. The workouts do get longer later in the program.

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