Beginning Lifting

[Deluks917]

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?

Don't bend your wrists back so muck. Your hand should be almost straight.

 

[voxsartoria]

A decent way to teach yourself the relationship of movements to muscle is:

http://www.exrx.net/

In particular, you can see movements by muscle and exercise groups:

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

Obviously, there's a lot more here than a beginner would need, but it is a nice, free resource as you go along or if you are the type of person who likes to understand a bit more about what you are doing before or as you do it.


- B

 

[Davidko19]

as mentioned earlier...EAT. THat is the biggest mistake most guys make. Plus its fun having a big ole steak every night. At my peak I would probably spend $150-$200/week on food. 6 small meals a day adds up.

Stick to the compound excercises. Its amazing what you can with just a handful of excercises.

 

[NoVaguy]

Originally Posted by Charley

One of the recommendations is to drink a gallon of whole milk every day.

Be careful. If it gets hot outside, milk is a bad choice.

 

[dbtbandit67]

i reccommend taking classes. a lot can go wrong when you dont have the proper technique when weight-lifting, you could injure yourself.

in regards to the weight, since you are just starting off, you should lift weights that you can rep at least 10x. if you can't rep it at least that many times, you are going too heavy

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by Jekyll

I checked Amazon. It agrees with you.

What!! Bahahaha!
You are relying on Amazon which 'why' is copying from?

 

[beasty]

Originally Posted by Jekyll

So...I've decided I ought to start working out some. There is a YMCA a few blocks from my house, and I think I should be able to commit to a couple hours a week. The problem is I have no idea where to start. I've never even been in a gym in my life. I've never played sports, except for pickup basketball, touch football and stuff like that.


I'm 19 and really skinny, 125-130 pounds or so, and about 5'10". I don't want to be huge, but I would like to get a bit bigger.


Any ideas of where to start? Or does anyone know of any good websites that would help?

Look here.
Listen to what I say because I am known for giving practical no BS advice around here.
Not like some morons here like 'why'.

1. You are not going to read some stupid book to teach you what to do.

2. You are not going to do some fcuking squats, deadlifts, pullups.
I am not saying it doesn't work. It does.
But if you are 19, you would not be keen on learning those by yourself.

Learning those things from a book are not the same as going to Walmart to buy orange concentrate and mixing with equal parts water.

If you do learn it from a book, you are more liable than not to get injured and that will sap your remaining interest in going to the gym.

3. What you should do is go to the Y or another gym, and use the equipment there.
And hire a competent instructor.

Any competent instructor should be able to teach you how to use the machines like shoulder presses, benching, latpulldown, biceps curl, triceps extension on a universal bar, smith machine and hammer machine.

While those may not be the same as deadlifts, power snatches etc etc, those STILL can yield you some results which can make you look bigger which will more than achieve your goals.

Please note by going to gym will not be enough. This must be combine with a sensible diet and rest. The former, your instructor who is paid by you to teach you, should be able to teach you.

After doing that, you may wish to venture into deadlifts, squats etc. But I guarandamtee you, you would not do so.

WHY? I know the reason, but I wont tell you and you need not know because by following my advice, you will get what you want and not by squeezing your balls into a power suit, wrapping your knees and wearing a belt and deadlifting some weight till your face turns blue and then go to a chiropractor after that. After doing that, you would look big.
Yah. As big as Queen Latifah. No kidding, most people wont be able to differentiate hefty and that sort of big.

 

[Jekyll]

I thought I had it all figured out, and now you come along and confuse me.

 

[why]

Originally Posted by Jekyll

I thought I had it all figured out, and now you come along and confuse me.

You did have it figured out. Read Starting Strength and follow it. Ignore what everyone else says. Follow the program. It's a very basic program that will put you way beyond most people who have been in the gym for years. You'l be happy knowing you can deadlift over 300 pounds while there's a bunch of chodes doing curls every day. Then they'll be jealous of you and curl more weight and never realize what the problem is...

 

[Grayland]

Originally Posted by why

You did have it figured out. Read Starting Strength and follow it.

Beasty is a marsupial. Ignore him.

+1

 

[lefty]

Oh, beasty ...

If only you had been born a man, what a Caesar you would have made.

lefty

 

[Deluks917]

Originally Posted by why

You did have it figured out. Read Starting Strength and follow it. Ignore what everyone else says. Follow the program. It's a very basic program that will put you way beyond most people who have been in the gym for years. You'l be happy knowing you can deadlift over 300 pounds while there's a bunch of chodes doing curls every day.

Then they'll be jealous of you and curl more weight and never realize what the problem is...

I've actually had people complement me on my squats/deads and trust me I don't squat very heavy. Two months is a long time on that program.

 

[X-Calibre]

Deadlifts and squats are going to add size faster than anything else (well I don't trust you to do cleans, I don't trust me to do cleans half the time).

But here's the God's honest truth, just do something and do it hard. There is no doubt that there are specific routines that will benefit you more by 10, 20 maybe 50% but really the only thing that matters now is that you go and you work out hard, even if it's just on machines. So go find out what you enjoy, and get at it. Getting bigger is really only a function of consuming more calories than you use. If you really like running and you go running 2 hours a day, but eat 5k calories a day then you'll get bigger and probably in an attractive way. If you go to the gym with some super scientific regimine you'll hate it and stop.

 

[remn]

www.t-nation.com

 

[sootie]

If you can ignore the advertising, I recommend visiting http://www.johnberardi.com/ it's got some great articles and the general concensus on the internet is that this man knows his ****.