Beginner's guide to Weightlifting plans: Part 2- Basics and Making a routine

You say that like its a bad thing. The "regulars" do tend to pull stuff apart. That is a good thing in my opinion. If the advice cant hold up to scrutiny and cant be backed up with solid information then maybe its time to do a little more research.

I never meant to convey any "Bad Thing" Thats what you took away from it. It is what it is, Take what you can use and leave the rest.

mustgetmuscles1 wrote: »

redfisher1974 wrote: »

You say that like its a bad thing. The "regulars" do tend to pull stuff apart. That is a good thing in my opinion. If the advice cant hold up to scrutiny and cant be backed up with solid information then maybe its time to do a little more research.

I never meant to convey any "Bad Thing" Thats what you took away from it. It is what it is, Take what you can use and leave the rest.

Ah I misunderstood then.

No worries, Maybe it did come across that way but I never meant it to. Cheers.

espi180 wrote: »

I initially arrived at this post with many questions. They seemed somewhat answered... initially. As a beginner and someone who desires to begin a strength training regimen, I have had trouble "beginning" anything at all. There is an overload of information out there, and the above discussions seem to add to this confusion in my mind. Who's right? What's right? I simply would like to know where to begin. I have no doubt there is a right way and a wrong way. I hope I can continue to sort through all the jargon and find a starting place.

I dont think its really about who/whats right. Romey84 has good intentions making these posts and there is useful info here. I think you are going through what a lot of us go through when we started. You find some info and start putting it to use and it works. Hell almost anything will work when you first start. 1000's of guys have gotten big and strong doing the old school body part split so it doesnt make it wrong. But is is necessary? Is it optimal? Is it too much too quickly? I dont know for sure myself.

I was supersettingdropsetstofailure on my arm day. Now I look at it and think: Arm day? I had whole day just for arms?

Its almost too much to take in all at once and the amount of info is overwhelming. That is why so many people are starting to say just start with a basic program. Strong Lifts 5x5. Its fool proof. Starts light, includes the big compounds that will do 99% of the work and has progression built right in.

After a couple months you start to progress. Get in better shape. Maybe you can handle a little more. Great, jump on Ice Cream Fitness 5x5. Its basically the same as you are used to with some accessory lifts. There are a bunch of these kinds of programs available. You dont need to make your own.

That should take you really far. Maybe as far as you want to go and you never had to dredge through any of that other stuff. Lets say its not enough though. You are starting to push some heavy weight and need some more time to recover. Maybe its time to start an upper/lower split. You know what? Candito has a linear program already made and its free. There are plenty of others also.

While you are doing all this work you can continue to educate yourself. Make small tweaks here and there. Try something new. Change goals. Who knows?

I think that is what Romey84 agrees with later in this post.

bump

mustgetmuscles1 wrote: »

redfisher1974 wrote: »

It was no knock towards you, But the regulars here tend to pull stuff apart if it does not meet what they think is right. You will see.

You say that like its a bad thing. The "regulars" do tend to pull stuff apart. That is a good thing in my opinion. If the advice cant hold up to scrutiny and cant be backed up with solid information then maybe its time to do a little more research.

The OP's post is just a shot gun blast of information. Some of it is fine and parts of it are questionable, especially since it is directed towards beginners.

I imagine someone will come in and do a complete dissection of this but that will take some effort. It is easier to just say ignore this and pick a proven beginner program until you become qualified or you find someone that is qualified to create or tweak your own.

I wish I had the time to have a good conversation about this thread, but unfortunately I do not. In short, there is a lot missing, some things that are not good (i.e. training to failure all the time). As I sit here and think about this, I'm thinking this would be a huge thread that in MS Word would probably be at least a dozen pages and that would still just be my personal take on training beginners based on my education and experience. It's something that I would be interested in doing but not something I have time for in the near future.

My recommendations to beginners:

1. Cookie Cutter Programs: When in doubt find something pre-made that has some backing. StrongLifts5x5, Starting Strength are great beginners programs because they are simple, not because they are the best but because they are easy to implement. I personally prefer 5/3/1 over all of them, but perhaps that's because I have a very solid understanding of it beyond what is presented in Jim's books. I'm not going to get in a debate about beginner / intermediate programs, those are just my thoughts take it as you will.

2. Live Training: Throughout the last year of my education I have been in-school with many trainers and strength & conditioning coaches. Based on what I know and have learned from these individuals, the better certifications for trainers or S&C's are from...
- National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA): Either the Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) or NSCA-CPT.
- National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM): Either the Performance Enhancement Specialist (PES) or the Certified Personal Trainer (CPT). They have a Corrective Exercise Specialist certification as well, but that individual might work with just specific populations of people but not saying their experience isn't relevant to all. Of course, experience plays a huge roll in this as well. They also have a certification tailored towards training in an MMA environment which is probably bad-*kitten* but I know nothing about it, so I can't really speak to intelligently about that certification.

You can definitely have bad CPT's, education isn't everything by any means but starting with somebody that is certified from a strong organization is a good starting point. It's kind of like hiring somebody with a degree from Harvard versus somebody with a degree from XYZ community college.

That's just my thoughts on this subject. I don't mean any disrespect to the OP, my suggestion would be to do more research on this subject because this is not complete and post something more cohesive and applicable to the general population.