Ok, first off I just want to say I love your attitude, and your figure :). You’ve definitely got potential. And secondly, I want to say that your posts show a lot more thought and previous reading that most beginners’ threads start with.
I want to personally thank you for that because it makes it easier on us! We still need a particular goal for you–what’s your ideal physique? Do you want to compete in figure, etc? Stuff like that.
Good advice from most people here.
A few thoughts of my own:
A) Get used to conflicting opinions. They never stop in a field like this. The important thing is to concentrate on what all these different opinions have in COMMON, not where they differ. Focus on doing what all of them share in common, and experiment with each of the differences on your own to find what works for you.
Yes, it gets confusing with information overload, but the easiest way to deal with that is by simplifying what you know down to central common concepts. The greatest strength coaches and most successful trainees all agree on 90% of the info–but it’s the last 10% that gets most of the publicity.
B) As a beginner to weight training, the single most important thing for a beginner is form, form, Form! As a beginner, you don’t need a complex, wave-loading, cybernetically periodized blah-blah-blah. You need to practice getting things right. You will make progress on just about any program, high/low weight, high/low reps, whole body/split, doesn’t matter. So focus on form and not on weight.
C) One more time for emphasis–You’ll make great progress on any program as long as you work hard and are consistent w/diet!
D) As a corollary to the above points, I highly suggest you start with higher reps. This is because 1) you need to work on form to avoid getting bad habits in your most formative lifting stage, 2) because your body does not have the proper preparation to lift things below 6-8 reps–tendons, CNS, coordination are all not used to any heavy strain, you must condition them first, and it may introduce bad habits. I learned the hard way and 3) There’s no use in rushing to do too much too soon.
My personal suggestions are 12-15 reps most times, and no lower than 8 reps for the first 8 weeks. Trust me, a hard set of 12-15 is very beneficial to you, especially for conditioning. By hard I mean very close to failure when doing the last rep. If you’re not there, add weight for the next set. After 2 months of consistent hard work, you can drop to using the 6-12 rep range as you see fit.
E) Be careful of personal trainers at most gyms. They want to coddle you because you’re a woman, and won’t advise you toward serious lifting because most of them are idiots in the first place. However, there are good ones hiding everywhere, they just take more time to find.
F) RE: your exercise program–I like the program for the most part…but not for you. My feeling is that it doesn’t look like much to you now, but it will be much more than you bargained for when you try it. Especially if you haven’t had any serious physical activity for a while. Even if you have general activity, lifting weights is very different from most types of “soreness”.
Where did you get this program? Could you link us to it? Just type in the address and it will automatically link in your post.
It looks somewhat advanced for a beginner. You don’t need triple supersets right now. At all. I would at the very very least add 4 reps to each exercise, drop 1 set from each exercise that currently has 3 or 4 sets, and not superset. I’d really really advise against 7 exercises in a training session. You don’t need more than 5 right now (not counting abs).
G) RE: Cardio–if you have a background of running a lot, then check out high intensity interval training (HIIT) 1-2x a week. If you don’t, start with low intensity “regular” cardio. HIIT is kinda like another weight workout, very strenuous. So, put 2 days of ‘regular’ cardio in somewhere for the first 4-6 weeks. Then go to 3 days cardio. Then evaluate whether you want to try HIIT or not.
Final note–I’m telling you all this because you’re about to make a major life change. If you concentrate on trying to do too many things at once, you risk burnout. Be consistent, first and foremost. The rest will take care of itself in time. Build your foundation slowly and carefully, because if you rush things, you’ll only collapse in the end.
Hope this helps.
