The Beginner Weight Trainee

© Steve Holt

March 4, 2008

Here’s a quick and dirty “how-to” on weight training, designed to get you into the gym with a minimal amount of fuss.

For our purposes, the body can be divided into five main regions. They are back, chest, shoulders, arms, and legs.  You cannot leave out a region, even if you don’t care what it looks like or if you’re happy with the way it looks.  For example, when I first started lifting weights I had no interest in training legs. I wanted a better looking upper body, and thought my legs were fine the way they were.  If you do leave out a region, it will soon catch up with you. You will end up being out of proportion, you’ll look strange, and – most importantly - injuries will occur. Work on all five regions of the body.

Beginner Compound Exercise Routine   (2 Day Split)

• Start with 5 minutes on the exercise bike or walking on the treadmill to warm the body.  Definitely not more than 10 minutes of light aerobic work here.  Then it’s off to the weight room
• Prior to each exercise, have a “warm-up set” at  50% of the intended working weight.
• Make your movements slow and controlled.
• Rest 2-3 minutes between sets.
• Sip water between exercises.
• Finish up with another 5-10 minutes on the bike.

Terminology:

Reps = repetitions. How many times you lift the weight without resting.

Sets = When you put the weight down and rest for a couple of minutes, you have completed 1 set.

3x8 means you must do 3 sets, each set consisting of 8 reps.

Day 1 - Back/Chest/Shoulders

Chest - Bench Press 3x8

Chest – Pec Deck Machine 3x12-15

Back – Lat Pulldown Machine 3x8-10

Back - Seated Row 3x10

Delt - DB Shoulder Press 3x12

Delt - DB Lateral Raise 3x12

Day 2 – Legs, Arms

Quads – Leg Press 5x8

Quads – Leg Extension Machine 3x12

Quads – Leg curl Machine 3x12

Calf - Standing Calf Machine 3x15-20

Biceps – Seated DB Curl 2-3x10

Triceps – V-Bar Cable Pressdowns 2-3x10

• Find your working weight for each exercise. This takes some trial-and-error. You need to find how much weight to lift and in order to complete the required number of reps. For example, our first exercise in the list is Bench Press. You’re going to do 3 sets of 8 reps each. You need to find the weight such that when you get to your 8^th rep in each set, you can get it done, but it’s not easy.  (You would fail on your 9^th or 10^th rep.) That’s the appropriate weight for the exercise. It takes a bit of time to find these numbers.

• If you’re in doubt about the proper form of any of these exercises, go to  http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

• After Day 2, take a rest day, then repeat. Typically, you might try Mon 1, Tues 2, Wed Rest, Thu 1, Fri 2, Sat rest, Sun rest.

• Do this for eight weeks. During the eight weeks, increase the weight incrementally as you get stronger (which you will), so that you maintain the same muscle stress and thus you can barely do the last rep of your set.

• After 8 weeks, it will be time to move on to something different.