Pretty simple: Core Excercises-1)squat, 2)deadlift, 3)bench, 4)pull ups. Eat right, 1)little or no sugar, 2) 1 gram of protein/lb of bodyweight, 3)plenty of water. No “juice” until you have trained intelligently for several years and have come close to your potential naturally.
This is knowledge given to me, and needs to be passed down to newbies because it changed my body building life. it’s short and sweet; TRAIN LESS! work very hard on a limited number of sets, and rest. eat alot of food and rest.
i train with a guy who was very into weiders 4 sets of 15,12,10,8 on each exercise. we changed his training (and thinking) and got him to eat and rest and boom, within weeks, a couple of pounds heavier and way stronger.
The best advice I could give to a newbie is, do it for yourself. Don’t lift for superficial reasons that are fueled by society. Lift because it what you want. You will find immense quality of life improvements from the increased self-esteem, self-confidence, and mental toughness that follow hard training. You have to enjoy lifting, if you feel it is a chore to go to the gym, and you can’t find any internal motivation, perhaps you should try something different. Hard lifting is mentally and physically demanding, if you don’t have a strong heart and mind you will struggle down the iron road. Build your mind and heart first, and the rest will follow. Trying to use cutting edge workouts, and eat perfect without a solid mental foundation is like trying to put racing fuel into a Ford pinto.
Begin with the core exercises, like squat, deadlift, military press, bench press, barbell curl or chins, and just start by using light weight, or an empty bar, whatever you feel comfortable using, and do each exercise concentrating strictly on your form, don’t worry about how many reps you can crank out, or how much weight your using, just try to use the best form, once your done with that, and if your not too sure about form, or exercises, type it in the search engine here at t-mag. Reading many articles from t-mag will give you more then enough knowledge on bodybuilding/weightlifting. Once your done with form on exercises, then start a routine for about 2 months or so around these core exercises, you can add in a couple other good exercises, but i prefer you to stick with the core exercises for now, then move on. Start with between 2-4 sets, and a good rep range would be 8-12, for 2 or 3 days a week for best results and don’t forget to eat well, and get plenty rest, have fun!
My first bit of advice is get a good book on Bodybuilding and educate yourself on putting together a training split, what a bodybuilding diet consists of, and how each exercise is performed properly. I like the new edition of the Arnold Swarzenegger Encyclopedia to Bodybuilding.
I personally would say to a newbie to train each bodypart once a week sticking to the basic lifts(bench, squat, military ect.), eat at least 5 times a day with at least a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and be patient with the gains. They will come.
Travis
DOn’t trust anybody. Always ask questions. No one has all the answers.
OH MAN!!
Thest best thing that a newbie could do to see success in the gym. Seems pretty simple considering most of us have made all the mistakes that we wished we didn’t. I was way too impatient when I first started at age 16. I wanted to look like Lou Ferrigno on the cover of Muscle & Fiction, and thought I could through the workouts inside and if I bought his supplements. Unfortunatly I did ever workout in the magazines, tried every different diet, and every different supplement I could afford, ( and that was all in one week!!!)
The best advice would be to first, find a program and follow through with it, quit listening to the local gym rat for advice just because he looks good, (and by the way, that’s not the gym rat’s cologne, it’s DECA!). Second, increase your protein and calories and stick with that. Muscle won’t grow out of thin air, and a diet of McDonalds and Pringles just isn’t going to cut it! And third, stay with your goals. If your goal is to “Get Buff” don’t be the guy who tries to increase all of his lifts by 200%. If your goal is to be the strongest guy in the gym, then don’t walk around like you look like a Pro BB. Don’t get caught up on gaining muscle and being 3% bf. Just be patient and realize that you’ve just made a life altering experience by walking into the gym, and it’s a good one!
Be CONSISTENT.(with your diet as well as your exercise)
Consistency. You must be consistent. That goes for training, eating, and sleeping. can’t take weeks off at a time or eat like shit for a week or not sleep more than 6 hours for an extended period of time. You must be consistent.
First and foremost, be consistent! Be consistent with your diet and training. Second, don’t read anything other than this site (not trying to be a brown-nose b/c I’m serious). I tried reading all the other mags for years and all the books I could and I just confused myself until I realized that some of these people aren’t correct in their writings. Also, don’t put too much faith in supplements b/c most of them are overrated and try to stay away from steroids until you get the most you can from your body without them and you understand what taking steroids entails. Finally, don’t train and bust your ass for others but do it for yourself!
TAPPER, I disagree with two things. Beginners should not be doing Powercleans or any of the Olympic lifts until they have a solid base of strength. These are very technical lifts and will not help a beginner until they’ve had some experience lifting.
Also, I don’t recommend not training shoulders and arms. This will only cause a muscle imbalance further down the road. I understand that if you work the basics, you shouldn’t need much direct arm and shoulder work. But I wouldn’t neglect them totally.
I neglected shoulders and biceps when I first began training and now they are my weakest bodyparts. You must work ALL bodyparts to make gains. Just don’t fall into the trap of doing 20 sets for biceps and 20 sets for triceps during one workout, and then hitting them again during a chest and back workout!
One point that I haven’t seen anyone state loudly enough - VARIETY! CHANGE YOUR WORKOUTS EVERY 6-8 WEEKS! How many more beginners have to lose a year or more of progress because they added 40 lbs. to their bench on a program and never changed it, thus falling into a rut of no progression after time?!? Once a program has proven effective and it is done with it’s cycle, CHANGE IT! Same goes for diet - if you found a plan that allowed you to drop 10 lbs. of fat with no loss of lean mass over a 6-week span, CHANGE IT BEFORE IT BECOMES INEFFECTIVE DUE TO ADAPTATION! Beating a good diet or training program into the ground to where it only seems to worsen your results over time can be just as bad as using a program that is ineffective due to overtraining and the like. If you want to keep making gains, you’ve got to keep your body guessing! Everything you try will work best only for a few weeks, then it will drop off in effectiveness, and the key is to watch for that time and CHANGE IT! Oh yeah, another thing to remember is to take rest periods every few months! I’ve heard recommendations of a week off every 6 weeks of training, but I personally do well with 1 week off every 12 weeks of training. Just remember to give yourself a rest from ALL TRAINING every so often and you’ll notice an increase in performance when you get back into it! Your body will respond better once it has had a rest from the abuses given to it from training.
Oh, and one last thing to all you eternal dieting kiddies out there who think that if you follow one diet after another you're going to see a ripped 6-pack in a matter of months - QUIT YER DREAMING! You're throwing yourselves into starvation mode for extended periods of time, and once you manage to force your metabolism to take a dive like that, you're going to rebound a ton of fat once you start eating normally again! When I first began training about 5 years ago, I went on an abusinve diet/cardio regimen that had me running 3 miles every day and eating only 1900 calories, and I was still a chunky 220 pounder at around 25% bodyfat! When I finally cut myself down to around 192 @ 9% bf, I looked like shit and shot back up to around 14% bf in a matter of a few months of eating normally! If I'd only been remotely scientific and taken my time in trying to reach my goals, I'd have done so much better, but it's all a learning process, so don't fall into the pit of diet doom that I did - keep calories adequate, keep cardio activity within bounds, and everything will happen in time. It's when you fall for the Body For Life bullshit where you think you can easily go from a 240 lb. lard-ass down to a lean, ripped 200 in a matter of 8 weeks that you're going to get screwed. Choose your sources for information carefully, listen to your body, and EXPERIMENT TO FIND WHAT WORKS FOR YOU AND WHAT DOESN'T!!!
There, I think that just about covers it.
When advising some one new to the iron game, it is important that they know that lifting like anything other self improvement is a progression, you do not become Mr. Olympia overnight. When you look in body building magazines you see programs designed by the “pros”, well there is reason why there pros and there programs may work for some but most people can not handle the stress of those workouts. Instead I would explain a basic periodization between heavy lifting and hypertrophy lifting. Explaining that it takes time and that you must measure your progress across months, not days, I know people who have lifted for years and still do not understand this, and the best piece of advice I would give is to come back to me when what you are doing no longer works because then they will no longer be a beginner, and will need new advice. As narcissitic as that sounds it is important that they learn from some one who has gone through the routine before, fallen pray to overtraining, undertraining, and all those outside factors that come from out of no where.
First of all, take complete stock of your life. Where does weight training fall? It needs to fit into your schedule. If you bite off more than you can chew with an unrealistically ambitious program, you are doomed to fail.
Decide on whether you will workout 4 times a week, 3 times a week or twice a week. Follow the following guidelines when designing a workout.
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Do not work out more than two days in a row.
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Limit your self to 12 sets per workout (10 may even be better for beginners), not counting warm-up sets.
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Do a good stretch before each workout, and on rest days if you can find the time. Avoiding injury is paramount!
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Limit yourself to 1 hr max per workout.
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Choose your exercises from the following Ian King’s basic movements: horizontal pushing (bench), horizontal pulling (rowing), vertical pushing (military press), vertical pulling (lat pulldown), hip dominant leg exercise (deadlift), quad dominant leg exercise (squat). THEN, if you still have sets left over, do some specific work for biceps, triceps, lower legs (calf and extensors), forearms.
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Stick to compound movements. They translate better to real world strength, and they are more efficient in that more muscles get worked at the same time.
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Get plenty of rest and sleep. If you are going through a stressful period, even reduce your workout volume.
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Get about 1.5 grams of protein per lb of body weight. Get enough low GI carbs to maintain high energy levels.
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Change your workout every 3-4 weeks. There are different theories of periodization out there, but I think Ian King’s methods are a good start.
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Finally, take a full week off every 12 weeks.
My last bit of advice would be, live your life and be happy. Maintain healthy relationships with your family, significant others, and your friends. Don't let your life revolve around weight training.
Stick with the basics ( Bench, Deadlift, Squat ), Eat well balanced meals ( don’t worry about protein and carbohydrate content, just eat), stick with it. Look around for as much information you can get. Have Fun and try new things if it doesn’t work try something else.
These are the things I wish I had known when I began lifting:
- Stop reading most of the muscle mags for training information. Many of the programs are made up, use too much volume, and are being used by guys who are juicing.
2) Read as much as you can from Poliquin, King, Staley and T-mag. This is one of the best sites for training and nutrition information available. If T-mag was around when I first started training, I would be much further ahead than I am now.
3) Don't use poor genetics as an excuse for not reaching your potential. This is one excuse I've used for a long time. You have to work hard, stay consistent, and be dedicated to make progress. You can have a good body no matter how awful you think your genetics are. You just have to find what works for you and accept what you were dealt with!
- Don’t compare yourself to other people. You are not going to look like the guy next to you or in the muscle mags. We are all different so don’t compare yourself to anyone else. I’ve made this mistake for a long time. I’ve always wanted to lift as much as the other guy, or have arms as big as someone else. You have to focus on yourself. That is why much advice from the “big guys” won’t apply to you. Maybe they have better genetics and get away with poor training. Or maybe they are naturally big or strong. Be the best that you can be and don’t compare yourself to others!
5) Don't train for more than an hour! Once you warm up, stretch and work abs, you should complete your workout in 40-60 minutes. Marathon workouts don't work (I've tried them)!
6) Eat a well balanced diet. A rule of thumb to follow is one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Moderate carbs and fat work well for most people. Try to eat four to six times a day. Eat plenty of lean meats, veggies and fruit. It's not as complicated as people make it out to be. Find what works for you and follow it! Oh yeah, don't forget that one cheat meal or day each week!
7) Variety is the spice of life. Be sure to change your workouts once they lose their effectiveness. As a beginner, you may not need to change much for six to eight weeks. Again, this is an individual thing. I've followed workouts for months with no changes. I wondered why my progress stalled.
8) Surround yourself with positive people. If you have a workout partner, make sure he/she is positive and helps motivate you not only in the gym, but in your daily life.
9) Remember that this is a healthy endeavor. Don't follow drastic diet and training plans. You are doing this to better yourself mentally and physically not to look like some freak with 1 percent bodyfat and 25-inch arms.
10) Set goals. Short term and long term. This will help you stay motivated and should keep you making progress throughout the year.
- Keep a journal. Record your sets, reps and weights used in each workout. It will take the guesswork out of training. I wish I did this in the beginning.
12) Have fun! If it's not fun, then you aren't going to stick with it. Enjoy life, smile, be nice to people around you. Your physique reflects many things about yourself.
13) Don't neglect any bodyparts. Work them all and strive for balance.
14) Start with the basics and build a solid foundation before using all the crazy machines and isolation exercises.
Compound movements, a lot of rest, and a lot of food. Good form and weak is better than strong and wrong!
I actually am a new guy, since I’ve only been lifting about a year. I can tell you exactly what advice made the most difference to me as I started, and why:
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“there’s no such thing as a bad carb, only a badly-timed carb.” That one sentence was the key to all my fat loss and muscle gain attempts, and solved so much confusion for me. It prompted me to learn about post-workout nutrition and anabolic/catabolic diet plans.
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“You’re trying to add muscle? Then what’s with all the cardio?!” The critic who taunted me about my cardio excesses was the same guy who sent me to T-mag in the first place, all those months ago. I had never known that cardio was severely muscle-burning, or that there were better ways to burn fat.
3. "Two hours in the gym? your workout is dumb!" The most scathing words I heard when I started out, all enthusiastic and over-eager. I didn't know what "cortisol" or "overtraining" were, and I didn't know that training stresss muscle, and recovery builds it.
4. "I've had good results from Biotest's Grow! MRP." This was written to me by (no less than) the fitness editor of perhaps the number-one selling health magazine for males in the U.S., a man whose advice I respect and take very seriously. And for good reason.
- “Stimulate, don’t annihilate.” (Lee Haney). Another simple rule of thumb that made such a difference in my tendency to overtrain.
6. The "Fat Roundtable." I've sent dozens of people to that T-mag article, which I think should be a must-read for every single person who starts a fitness routine.
If you want to be successful in bodybuilding as well as life you need three things. A goal (what you want to accomplish). A plan (how are you going to accomplish it). And a commitnment (consistently working toward your accomplishment). Without these three things no amount of dieting or weightlifting is going to help you. You need to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. Lastly read T-MAG, and don’t waste money on 350 page muscle magazines that are 348 pages of advertisements for supplements that don’t work.
“Swiss Balls” aren’t what you think–they’re actually good. Use them.
"Body for Life" will start you off feeling inspired, and leave you feeling overwhelmed and inferior when you don't live up to the "after" pictures. T-mag will do the opposite. (yeah, I know it sounds like a suck-up, but who doesn't know this is true?)