Beginning Strength Training
For a beginner, you need to ease yourself into a strength training routine. There’s no point going all-out in your first workout and killing yourself – speaking metaphorically of course. For beginners, a 3 day split is generally sufficient for the first few months of training. A typical 3 day training split might look something like this:
- Day 1: Legs (quads, hamstrings, calves)
- Day 2: off
- Day 3: Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps
- Day 4: off
- Day 5: Back, Traps, Biceps
- Day 6 and 7: off
If you didn’t want to take 2 days off in a row, you can make day 7 your day 1 again and start over your routine, but with the above example, you get a week’s workout all setup. While I always advocate using a heavy enough weight that allows you to perform only 4 to 6 reps, for beginners, I would suggest using a slightly lighter weight that allows you to perform 8 to 10 reps. Why? Simply because it’s crucial for a strength training beginner to start on the right foot, performing each exercise with proper form, and avoid possible injuries.
As you become more advanced, you can up the intensity by increasing the weight load, and reducing the rep range. If you were to start off your training with heavy loads, you become very prone to possible injuries – your muscles, bones, ligaments, and joints are not seasoned to handle the heavy loads, and you will not be able to perform an exercise with proper form, which could all lead to injuries.
Make sure you get enough rest for your muscles. With the above 3 day split, you work each muscle group only once a week, and give it plenty of time to recovery and rebuild. Don’t get impatient and start working each muscle group twice or even three times a week, that will lead only to over training. Remember that muscle growth happens outside of the gym, not while you are lifting weights. Aside from having a good beginner strength training program, you need to make sure your nutrition is up to par to feed your depleted muscles. No amount of hard work will help you build strength and muscle if you do not support your growth with good nutrition. Aim to get 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day.
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