Everyone always explains to the novice lifter, "stick with the basic compound lifts using free weights." As simple as it sounds, it's a very sound bit of advice. However, some of these movements come with a certain degree of difficulty. And while I'd love to say that we're all born, biomechancially, to squat... learned incorrectly can lead to a number of pathological problems down the road after chronic use.
That said, learning proper form in these movements from the very beginning is probably one of the most important aspects of a "routine" if not the most important.
There seems to be a recurring problem with many trainees that I notice. Once they decide to start exercising, they want to do it NOW. As if the last 15+ years of inactivity is going to be reversed THIS WEEK in the gym. Trust me, rushing into weight training is the last thing you want to do. Take your time, learn these exercises, get some outside help if possible, practice, and very very slowly add weight to the bar as your strength, ability, comfortableness adapt and progress.
The first few workouts, for some, may entail no use of actual weight. They could even be done from home. Once you feel ready, you can start with the bar which will provide enough resistance to understand the *feel* of the weight as it moves through the planes of motion and how your body responds to it.
For some this can all be done in the first workout. As with anything, we all learn at our own pace, so take your time and do things your way. Again, there is no race and no point to rush. The more time spent learning correctly, the less chance of injury and/or incorrect execution. And I always say, it's much easier to learn something correctly from the start than to have to learn over something learned incorrectly previously.
Once you feel comfortable, and better yet, if a professional has actually cleared you for proper form, it's time to add weight to the bar.
This is how I'd go about determining the weight used in each subsequent workout. I'd first pick my rep range that I will use for the upcoming weeks in the program. Something like sets of 5 reps is a nice starting place. This is NOT a workout/program thread. You will not find how to structure a workout here. At least not yet. It's main focus for now is learning the movements. Heck, you can print some of this stuff and take it to a trainer in your gym; have him/her clarify/demonstrate some of these points.
Starting with the bar, keep performing set after set, adding weight each time, until rep speed actually slows down or form actually breaks. This is the weight you should start with the next time you train this exercise.
How much weight you add this first workout is totally dependent on your starting/current strength levels. For some, you might jump 10 lbs each set. For others, you might jump 30 lbs. As a general rule of thumb, if you are unsure, start lighter. If anything, this will simply create more time to practice the movement while you work on finding your starting weight.
Once you find the weight that seems sufficiently difficult (this does not mean you fail the set/rep, it simply means it was heavy enough to slow down rep speed or cause a small shift/break in form), each subsequent week after that, you should focus on progressively adding more weight to each given exercise.
The idea is to force your body to adapt. This adaptation is quite involved, but essentially you are forcing your body to get neurally and locally stronger by making it perform heavier and heavier lifts each subsequent workout.
Many read into this too much and think, "Hey, I can lift a lot more than the bar, so I'll just throw a ton of weigh on the bar and start with that." This accomplishes two things.
1. Most likely your form will be off. In the beginning, it's most critical to focus/concentrate on proper execution of the lift. Really focus on the form throughout the entire movement. Later, once you are more comfortable with the movement and it's second nature, then you can start lifting *serious* weight which will call for focus on the actual movement of the weight. But hopefully you can see, in the beginning, learning the *how* is most important.
2. You leave no room for progressive overload. Progressively overloading the muscle is simply the process of consistently and incrementally adding weight to the bar each time you train a given exercise forcing the body to adapt as stated above. The biggest mistake I see young trainees make (not young in years, but young in experience) is lifting too much weight too fast. You really want to *milk* this time period for all it's worth. What I mean by that is this. You want to add weight to the bar at a very slow rate stretching out the length of time you have to get stronger in this linear fashion. Depending on your current strength levels, this might be 1 lb each time you train. Most gyms don't have .5 lb plates but you can order your own to take to the gym at or a similar site. I can't stress how important it is to add weight slowly. A general rule of thumb is, the more muscles involved in a given movement, the more weight you can jump each week. So for a young male who is athletically inclined, progressively loading an exercise such as the squat which involves a ton of muscles might include 10 lb jumps each training session. On the other hand, for an overweight mother of 3 just learning the movement with poor coordination, progressively loading the squat might involve 2 lbs jumps or less each week. In a nutshell, it doesn't matter how much you up your weight each training session.... it simply matters that you do it.
I think it's wise for me to say here too, that these words are directed at the novice. The novice can withstand linear progression, meaning, they can focus on getting strong on each lift multiple times per week. As you get more advanced, which I know we have a few floating around this forum, more *creative* programming must be utilized in order to manage fatigue properly.
So with that, let's jump into some of these core foundation exercises. I'll add/modify this post at time goes on and more resources are remembered of found.
ETA: PLEASE NOTE: THIS WRITE-UP WILL NEVER AND COULD NEVER TAKE THE PLACE OF IN-PERSON, HANDS-ON TEACHING. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND FINDING A TRAINER, COACH, OR INSTRUCTOR LOCALLY TO SHOW YOU THE CORRECT MECHANICS OF THE EXERCISE. WE ARE ALL ANTHROPOMETRICALLY UNIQUE WHICH WILL DICTATE PERSONAL “TWEAKS” FOR EACH OF US INDIVIDUALLY. ALSO, I CAN GIVE YOU ALL THE VERBAL/MENTAL CUES IN THE WORLD TO CONSIDER, BUT THEY WILL NEVER REPLACE YOUR PRE-CONCIEVED MENTAL PATHWAYS THAT’VE BEEN ESTABLISHED THROUGH YEARS OF NATURAL MOVEMENT PATTERNS. ONLY A TRAINED EYE CAN PICKOUT YOUR WEAK POINTS IN THE GIVEN MOVEMENT AND CRITIQUE.
ALSO, MOST TRAINERS, AT LEAST BY MY EXPERIENCE, DON’T THEMSELVES KNOW HOW TO SQUAT. YEA, I KNOW, IT’S A LOSE-LOSE SITUATION.
I THINK IT’S BEST TO UNDERSTAND THE WHY’S SO THAT YOU CAN MENTALLY TELL YOU STUFF NOT ONLY WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO PERFORM THE EXERCISE CORRECTLY/EFFECTIVELY, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, SAFELY.
ALSO, IF ANY OTHER COACHES/TRAINERS HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD, PLEASE FEEL FREE. AS TEACHERS, WE'VE ALL EXPERIENCED DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND USED OUR CREATIVE SENSES TO TEACH THE VARIOUS LIFTS. THERE'S NOTHING CREATIVE ABOUT THIS THREAD. JUST STRAIGHT INPUT ON EXECUTION.
That said, learning proper form in these movements from the very beginning is probably one of the most important aspects of a "routine" if not the most important.
There seems to be a recurring problem with many trainees that I notice. Once they decide to start exercising, they want to do it NOW. As if the last 15+ years of inactivity is going to be reversed THIS WEEK in the gym. Trust me, rushing into weight training is the last thing you want to do. Take your time, learn these exercises, get some outside help if possible, practice, and very very slowly add weight to the bar as your strength, ability, comfortableness adapt and progress.
The first few workouts, for some, may entail no use of actual weight. They could even be done from home. Once you feel ready, you can start with the bar which will provide enough resistance to understand the *feel* of the weight as it moves through the planes of motion and how your body responds to it.
For some this can all be done in the first workout. As with anything, we all learn at our own pace, so take your time and do things your way. Again, there is no race and no point to rush. The more time spent learning correctly, the less chance of injury and/or incorrect execution. And I always say, it's much easier to learn something correctly from the start than to have to learn over something learned incorrectly previously.
Once you feel comfortable, and better yet, if a professional has actually cleared you for proper form, it's time to add weight to the bar.
This is how I'd go about determining the weight used in each subsequent workout. I'd first pick my rep range that I will use for the upcoming weeks in the program. Something like sets of 5 reps is a nice starting place. This is NOT a workout/program thread. You will not find how to structure a workout here. At least not yet. It's main focus for now is learning the movements. Heck, you can print some of this stuff and take it to a trainer in your gym; have him/her clarify/demonstrate some of these points.
Starting with the bar, keep performing set after set, adding weight each time, until rep speed actually slows down or form actually breaks. This is the weight you should start with the next time you train this exercise.
How much weight you add this first workout is totally dependent on your starting/current strength levels. For some, you might jump 10 lbs each set. For others, you might jump 30 lbs. As a general rule of thumb, if you are unsure, start lighter. If anything, this will simply create more time to practice the movement while you work on finding your starting weight.
Once you find the weight that seems sufficiently difficult (this does not mean you fail the set/rep, it simply means it was heavy enough to slow down rep speed or cause a small shift/break in form), each subsequent week after that, you should focus on progressively adding more weight to each given exercise.
The idea is to force your body to adapt. This adaptation is quite involved, but essentially you are forcing your body to get neurally and locally stronger by making it perform heavier and heavier lifts each subsequent workout.
Many read into this too much and think, "Hey, I can lift a lot more than the bar, so I'll just throw a ton of weigh on the bar and start with that." This accomplishes two things.
1. Most likely your form will be off. In the beginning, it's most critical to focus/concentrate on proper execution of the lift. Really focus on the form throughout the entire movement. Later, once you are more comfortable with the movement and it's second nature, then you can start lifting *serious* weight which will call for focus on the actual movement of the weight. But hopefully you can see, in the beginning, learning the *how* is most important.
2. You leave no room for progressive overload. Progressively overloading the muscle is simply the process of consistently and incrementally adding weight to the bar each time you train a given exercise forcing the body to adapt as stated above. The biggest mistake I see young trainees make (not young in years, but young in experience) is lifting too much weight too fast. You really want to *milk* this time period for all it's worth. What I mean by that is this. You want to add weight to the bar at a very slow rate stretching out the length of time you have to get stronger in this linear fashion. Depending on your current strength levels, this might be 1 lb each time you train. Most gyms don't have .5 lb plates but you can order your own to take to the gym at or a similar site. I can't stress how important it is to add weight slowly. A general rule of thumb is, the more muscles involved in a given movement, the more weight you can jump each week. So for a young male who is athletically inclined, progressively loading an exercise such as the squat which involves a ton of muscles might include 10 lb jumps each training session. On the other hand, for an overweight mother of 3 just learning the movement with poor coordination, progressively loading the squat might involve 2 lbs jumps or less each week. In a nutshell, it doesn't matter how much you up your weight each training session.... it simply matters that you do it.
I think it's wise for me to say here too, that these words are directed at the novice. The novice can withstand linear progression, meaning, they can focus on getting strong on each lift multiple times per week. As you get more advanced, which I know we have a few floating around this forum, more *creative* programming must be utilized in order to manage fatigue properly.
So with that, let's jump into some of these core foundation exercises. I'll add/modify this post at time goes on and more resources are remembered of found.
ETA: PLEASE NOTE: THIS WRITE-UP WILL NEVER AND COULD NEVER TAKE THE PLACE OF IN-PERSON, HANDS-ON TEACHING. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND FINDING A TRAINER, COACH, OR INSTRUCTOR LOCALLY TO SHOW YOU THE CORRECT MECHANICS OF THE EXERCISE. WE ARE ALL ANTHROPOMETRICALLY UNIQUE WHICH WILL DICTATE PERSONAL “TWEAKS” FOR EACH OF US INDIVIDUALLY. ALSO, I CAN GIVE YOU ALL THE VERBAL/MENTAL CUES IN THE WORLD TO CONSIDER, BUT THEY WILL NEVER REPLACE YOUR PRE-CONCIEVED MENTAL PATHWAYS THAT’VE BEEN ESTABLISHED THROUGH YEARS OF NATURAL MOVEMENT PATTERNS. ONLY A TRAINED EYE CAN PICKOUT YOUR WEAK POINTS IN THE GIVEN MOVEMENT AND CRITIQUE.
ALSO, MOST TRAINERS, AT LEAST BY MY EXPERIENCE, DON’T THEMSELVES KNOW HOW TO SQUAT. YEA, I KNOW, IT’S A LOSE-LOSE SITUATION.
I THINK IT’S BEST TO UNDERSTAND THE WHY’S SO THAT YOU CAN MENTALLY TELL YOU STUFF NOT ONLY WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO PERFORM THE EXERCISE CORRECTLY/EFFECTIVELY, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, SAFELY.
ALSO, IF ANY OTHER COACHES/TRAINERS HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD, PLEASE FEEL FREE. AS TEACHERS, WE'VE ALL EXPERIENCED DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND USED OUR CREATIVE SENSES TO TEACH THE VARIOUS LIFTS. THERE'S NOTHING CREATIVE ABOUT THIS THREAD. JUST STRAIGHT INPUT ON EXECUTION.
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