Weights Advice

Autumnfilly2005
Autumnfilly2005 Posts: 232 Member
edited November 11 in Fitness and Exercise
I'm looking for some advice on how many sets/reps I should be doing, and when to increase my weights.

I am a 27yo 5'5" 240lbs female. I've been doing at least 30 minutes of weights 3 times a week for about 6 weeks now. I have 8 different exercises that I've been doing with the weights. Because women typically have less upper body strength, I've been focusing on mostly upper body, with a couple core exercises and squats as well.

I started off with very light weights, and I did 3 sets of 5 reps for each of the 8 exercises I was doing. Then I had a cardio day, a weights day, cardio day, weights day, and two days of rest. After a week of that, I kept the same weights, but went to 3 sets of 10 reps each. The next week was 3 sets of 15 reps each. The week after that I increase my weight by 2lbs, and went down to 3 sets of 5 reps again.

Progress is very slow when I do it like this. I'm 6 weeks in, and I've only increased my weights once (But next week I get to increase for the second time, I'm excited about that!). Is this too slow at progressing? Is 15 reps too much? Should I just do it up to 10 reps and then increase my weights?

Another thing is that right now I'm doing weights 3 times a week, but when I start school at the end of February, I'm going to only do it 2 times a week. How will that affect the way I work out? Should I aim for a more intense workout if I'm doing it less and have more rest days?

Replies

  • tbfincher
    tbfincher Posts: 32
    Well, I'm a guy and generally lift heavy when I can. So my strategy might not work for you, but this is how I do it.

    I do 3 sets of 8-12 reps and do that for three different exercises for each muscle group I am targetting. If I can comfortably do at least 8 reps then I know it's time to increase my weight. So, for instance last week I was able to hit a one rep max of 225 pounds on the flat bench press. This week I was able to go two reps. Once I am able to hit 8 reps at 225 pounds then I will increase the weight until it gets to the point where I can only do one rep, and then I know I've hit my max again, and then focus on trying to improve my new max weight up to 8 reps.
  • KarenJanine
    KarenJanine Posts: 3,497 Member
    edited January 2015
    As a beginner a full body 3 x per week routine such as Stronglifts 5x5 would usually be recommended. http://stronglifts.com/5x5/

    There are two workouts ('A' and 'B') which are alternated so the programme would also be OK to follow when you drop to 2 x per week.

    The programme uses 5 sets for 5 reps. Once you hit all reps for all sets you increase weight on the next workout. There is an app that makes it easy to follow and track your progress.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    There are a million bajillion rep schemes out there. That might be a slight exaggeration but you can ask 10 people and get 10 answers on this one. It sounds like you are doing a full body workout, which is ideal for beginners (and people are beginners for a long time so don't take that as anything bad.) Are you following a set program or have you created it on your own? My suggestion would be to find a beginner's program and then follow its progression scheme. In addition to Stronglifts, which KarenJanine listed above, here are a few beginner's programs:

    - AllPro's simple beginner routine
    - New Rules of Lifting for Women
    - Greyskull LP
    - StrongCurves

    Some of those are on websites and NROLFW and SC are books but you can google and find the routines online fairly easily. The upsde of NROLFW and SC is that the books have glossaries in the back that show how to do each exercise. However, you can google and find the exercises online too (Youtube and bodybuilding.com have a lot of videos like this.)

    Three times a week is good but two times is good too. As long as you are consistent, you will get results. Also (back to rep schemes) you might end up finding that one kind of rep scheme works better than another for you. After 7 months, I have found that higher reps on lower body stuff works a lot better for me than do lower reps. But then mid-range works fine for me for upper body.
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