T Nation

Best Way to Ease Someone In?

#1

I have a good friend who I will be helping get to the gym consistently. She has a lot of the normal misconceptions about getting "too big" and looking manly, just want to tone etc.

I don't want to throw a truck load of info at her at once. She will be dedicated, and I'm sure she has the will power to stick with it, but I don't want her getting overloaded and quitting because I threw too much at her.

I drove the point that consistency and intensity in a workout are more important than finding the "perfect" routine and doing it half-assed.

She already works out with weights, kind of aimlessly, using too light of weights (15+ reps all the time).

Got a good suggestion on where to start? A good article that debunks a lot of myths for women, that doesn't scare them away too soon???

Appreciate any help.

#2

Lube.

#3
#4

Read the book:

The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess

That’s how I got started, at least.

#5

[quote]buckeye girl wrote:
http://www.stumptuous.com/lies-in-the-gym[/quote]
Hi-larious! Sent this to my wife

#6

Thanks for the responses. She’s doing better than I expected already. Really motivated and best of all, she’s smart enough and open minded enough to see why the myths she was believing were wrong.

And Cal, I will suggest the lube, and hope she goes for it. If I get slapped, I’m blaming you though. :wink:

#7

Heh heh, sorry, couldn’t resist!
Stumptuous is a great site, though - worth checking out the training articles (such as “mistressing the pull-up”) and so forth.

#8

[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
Heh heh, sorry, couldn’t resist!
Stumptuous is a great site, though - worth checking out the training articles (such as “mistressing the pull-up”) and so forth.[/quote]

It’s an awesome site and the one I most often referred to when I was teaching myself to squat etc.

Your first response though was what immediately went through my mind :slight_smile:

#9

[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
Heh heh, sorry, couldn’t resist!
[/quote]

I LOL’d

#10

[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
Heh heh, sorry, couldn’t resist!
Stumptuous is a great site, though - worth checking out the training articles (such as “mistressing the pull-up”) and so forth.[/quote]

Stumptous got me started.

My first thought was also lube.

#11

stumptuous got me started, too.
then i found ‘starting strength’ (one whole chapter on squatting? yeah!!!)
there are pics of a girl in there…

then i found this:


and decided i wanted to do that more than most things.
#12

kinda hate to say it but some of the crossfit instructional vids can be helpful, too. for showing athletic, strong, non-scary women doing cool stuff with decent weights. guess that was an in-between step from starting strength and olympic weightlifting for me. takes a while to develop an aesthetic appreciation for superheavyweights :slight_smile:

#13

No reason to hate on Crossfit. It isn’t for everyone but it’s pretty damned effective for most women.

#14

I guess it is true that most chicks would show greater appreciation for some hot crossfit chick high repping ugly clean and jerks than for a superheavyweight lift a crapload of weight with close to technical perfection for one rep.

I don’t hate on them.

#15

[quote]alexus wrote:
stumptuous got me started, too.
then i found ‘starting strength’ (one whole chapter on squatting? yeah!!!)
there are pics of a girl in there…

then i found this:


and decided i wanted to do that more than most things.[/quote]

thanks for posting that. It was hypnotic and wonderful to watch. It makes me want to learn Olympic lifting.

#16

oh good she likes training?

Now send her here.

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#17

[quote]Cal Jones wrote:
Lube.
[/quote]

I’ll admit, this is where my thoughts were when I opened a thread called “how to ease someone in”.

And that video was pretty damn mesmerizing.