• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Beginning Lifting

why

Distinguished Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
Messages
9,505
Reaction score
368
Originally Posted by Jekyll
Where is a good place to learn the exercises? Any good websites? I don't know what most of those are.

Get Starting Strength and follow it.
 

changeofpace

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
67
Reaction score
0
Here's what you do: 3 Days a week (don't lift 2 days in a row, your body needs an 'off day' to rebuild muscle. that's how you gain size): 2 to 3 sets of 8-10 reps: -Squat / Deadlift (alternate) -Bench -Dips (use an assisted machine to help you until you don't need it, then add weight with a belt) -Pull Ups (same thing as dips, should be same machine too) -Military Press -Straight Bar Curl -Bent Over Row -Ab exercise The first few weeks you lift you're going to be completely useless anyway, so make sure to take it easy and learn proper form. Don't hurt yourself. Have someone show you an exercise if you're not sure how to do it. No shame in that. More important than lifting the weight is how you eat. Take those first few weeks to find your basal, or, how many calories your body is burning naturally to sustain itself. Use a site like http://www.fitday.com to count your calories. Make sure you're eating your body weight in grams of protein. So if you weigh 155, eat 155g of Protein every day. Make sure the calories you eat count, don't eat empty calories. Drink lots of water. You also want to keep your metabolism stimulated, so eat every 3 hours (this also holds true when you want to LOSE weight). 6 small meals a day. Just divide your planned daily caloric intake across these 6 meals. A healthy rate to gain/lose weight is ~1.5 lbs. a week. If you gain ~1.5lbs, keep that up, if you lose weight you need to up your caloric intake. If you gain more than 1.5 lbs., you need to reduce your caloric intake. Don't try to be a hero with the weights. With bench especially, start with the bar. Then add weight once you can successfully accomplish 2 sets @ 8 reps each, with more reps possible. Most importantly, you need to be steadily increasing the weight you lift (every day, week, few weeks, respectively, as you reach a plateau). If you're not lifting more, you're not going to gain more muscle. And diet. Diets are very simplre, but a lot of people will complicate them. Gain weight: You need a calorie surplus. Lose weight: You need a calorie deficit. Period. It's longwinded, because I have a tendency to be that way, but I hope this gives you a good start. Use http://www.exrx.net for info on exercises. To help yourself get such a high intake of protein, get yourself some 100% Whey Protein from GNC. Make sure you drink a glass before bed (your body does a lot of recovery then, and it needs protein/extra calories to make use of that recovery period). Also drink a glass post-workout. I also use Whey Extreme which is supposed to break down faster and is better for post-workout consumption. But that's not necessary.
 

Jekyll

Distinguished Member
Joined
Jul 1, 2008
Messages
6,166
Reaction score
21
Originally Posted by why
Get Starting Strength and follow it.

I checked Amazon. It agrees with you.
smile.gif
 

Milhouse

Distinguished Member
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
1,917
Reaction score
1
Originally Posted by thekunk07
at 5'10 and 130lb, i wouldnt worry about getting huge. spend a year doing:

pullups
squats
deadlifts
dips
bench press
close-grip bench press
military press
lunges
some barbell curls

do upper body twice a week and lower twice and mix up the lifts.


I pretty much agree with this. I'd probably go simpler though.

I'd say there are four exercises you should focus on:

Squats
Deadlifts
Bench press
Pullup / lat pulldown

Do those. Rotate through 3 sets of 8 reps and 5 sets of 5 reps as necessary to keep progressing. Keep adding weight as you can. Get some coaching on how to properly back squat and front squat and deadlift. Those aren't things you should mess around with.

Do those for a while (a year like Kunk says), and then, as you start to get a feel for what your goals truly are becoming, you can get more specific.
 

Charley

Distinguished Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2005
Messages
2,605
Reaction score
6
One of the recommendations is to drink a gallon of whole milk every day. Not too expensive and will have the calories and protein you need for a buildup. The Rippetoe book - starting strength - is the most recommended one for starting out. The second edition has better descriptions and pictures of propper form. There are several web sites that have the info and discussions of Starting Strength. The book is only about $30 so it will not hurt you too much to buy it if you are serious about getting with the program.

Pretty good writeup can be found here.

Questions and Answers Part I (100 pgs of thread)
Questions and Answers Part II

Starting Strength Wiki
 

Threadbearer

Distinguished Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2007
Messages
2,747
Reaction score
652

thekunk07

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Apr 27, 2007
Messages
18,117
Reaction score
3,247
t-nation.com. gymamerica.com. if gymamerica is still around, they have cgi demos of all these. youtube also


Originally Posted by Jekyll
Where is a good place to learn the exercises? Any good websites? I don't know what most of those are.
 

thekunk07

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Apr 27, 2007
Messages
18,117
Reaction score
3,247
only concern is that keeping it this basic can get very boring for a noob. wouldn't want him to get results but give up due to boredom.

Originally Posted by Milhouse
I pretty much agree with this. I'd probably go simpler though.

I'd say there are four exercises you should focus on:

Squats
Deadlifts
Bench press
Pullup / lat pulldown

Do those. Rotate through 3 sets of 8 reps and 5 sets of 5 reps as necessary to keep progressing. Keep adding weight as you can. Get some coaching on how to properly back squat and front squat and deadlift. Those aren't things you should mess around with.

Do those for a while (a year like Kunk says), and then, as you start to get a feel for what your goals truly are becoming, you can get more specific.
 

thekunk07

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Apr 27, 2007
Messages
18,117
Reaction score
3,247
most people will vomit or **** their pants on that much milk.


Originally Posted by Charley
One of the recommendations is to drink a gallon of whole milk every day. Not too expensive and will have the calories and protein you need for a buildup. The Rippetoe book - starting strength - is the most recommended one for starting out. The second edition has better descriptions and pictures of propper form. There are several web sites that have the info and discussions of Starting Strength. The book is only about $30 so it will not hurt you too much to buy it if you are serious about getting with the program.

Pretty good writeup can be found here.

Questions and Answers Part I (100 pgs of thread)
Questions and Answers Part II

Starting Strength Wiki
 

globetrotter

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Sep 28, 2004
Messages
20,341
Reaction score
422
while I agree about the complex lifts in principle (and that's all I do myself now) I did very well when I was starting to life by focusing on specific parts - the reason was that if you were to deconstruct a complex lift, I had different abilities for different parts of it. I espectially remember my wrists weren't that strong, and were a point of failure for some of the heavier things I wanted to lift. focusing on specific points for a few months was good for me.
 

Deluks917

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2007
Messages
942
Reaction score
29
Don't hurt your left elbow. It will hurt your progress.
 

daft

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
618
Reaction score
4
A question to all you experts out there, whenever I'm benching near my limits, my wrists are in pain and feel like they're going to snap. Does this mean I should lower the weight and build up strength?
 

thekunk07

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Apr 27, 2007
Messages
18,117
Reaction score
3,247
maybe, for now. for wrist strenght, i'd recommend some 30 second static holds and your garden variety wrist curls.
 

Hard2Fit

Distinguished Member
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Messages
6,073
Reaction score
44
Originally Posted by daft
A question to all you experts out there, whenever I'm benching near my limits, my wrists are in pain and feel like they're going to snap. Does this mean I should lower the weight and build up strength?

Yes.
 

Big A

Distinguished Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2008
Messages
2,452
Reaction score
878
If you join a gym (even the Y) you usually get a free training session. Use it to learn how to do deadlifts and squats correctly. I'll +1 the simple exercise program of: squats / deadlifts / pull-ups / dips / bench press / military press / bent over rows / crunches If you can't do a pull-up or a dip yet and your gym doesn't have the machine that helps you, do lat pull downs and do your dips on a weight bench with your feet on the floor in front of you, legs out straight. I don't think you have to work your arms at all when you start out. The compound exercises take care of your arm muscles for a while - you'll be surprised. I agree with the simple compound muscle programs listed above, except that after about 4 weeks I'd ramp up the weight so you are only doing 3-4 reps of each exercise (exception being dips and pull-ups - just do as many as you can). I made the best gains that way, as did others who have taken my advice and tried it. It's purely anecdotal, but I've found that I can add strength more rapidly that way. More weight = more muscle growth, at least in my case. About every 2 months I go to a high rep lighter weight routine for a couple of weeks, mostly to give my creaky bones and joints a rest. Eat lots of food as mentioned above, but eat "clean" (i.e., don't eat junk). Try to eat 1.5 - 2.0 grams of protein for each lb. of body weight. Chicken and tuna are your friends. A good way to identify the clean food is to avoid the aisles at the grocery store. If it's around the outside perimeter, it's usually o.k., or at least it isn't totally empty calories. Also, I recommend only doing one or two body parts per session, and only working out each body part 1 time per week. Diet and adequate rest are 66% of the program, people often ignore their importance and then wonder why they are not getting anywhere.
Originally Posted by daft
A question to all you experts out there, whenever I'm benching near my limits, my wrists are in pain and feel like they're going to snap. Does this mean I should lower the weight and build up strength?
Not necessarily. I have really, really thin wrists - nothing I do is going to make the joints thicker. My forearms have gotten much stronger, but I work out near my max all the time and my wrists tend to get sore. I bought gloves with a velcro wrap for stabilization, works pretty well
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 35.5%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 60 38.7%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.0%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 27 17.4%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 28 18.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,172
Messages
10,579,191
Members
223,888
Latest member
RoseBenif
Top