IN THIS ARTICLE:
What is newbie gainz
Building muscle vs Building strength vs losing fat
What exercises you should do
Reps & Sets
How much weight to use
Rest Times
How many times/week to workout
If you’re new to lifting weights, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, confused, and not sure what to do. You see all of the muscular and strong men and women lifting dumbbells, barbells, and anything else they get their hands on, but you don’t know where to start.
Here’s a guide on how you can build your own effective and fun workout plan. You’ll learn a bit of info about the different exercises, and how to plan to get the most out of your workouts too. If you take some of this info and apply it, I am certain you’ll see great progress in your workouts.
NEWBIE GAINZ
Here’s the truth: if you’re a beginner to lifting weights, as long as you show up and workout regularly and challenge yourself (even slightly) you’re going to make progress.
You’re going to make progress in your strength and in your appearance.
The gainz you’ll make at the beginning of your weight lifting career are the quickest and most drastic you’ll see.
This amazing progress you make at the beginning of your lifting career is referred to as newbie gainz.
During this time your body rapidly increases in muscle mass, since there was not much to start with. You can expect to see your strength improve from workout to workout, as well as seeing early signs of definition on your body.
Your shoulders will pop more. Your arms will look bigger. Your abs will be more noticeable. Your booty will stand out. Even if your workout plan and diet is not 100%, just starting to lift weights will make a difference.
After several months of consistently training, the newbie gainz period will end, and you’ll have to work harder & smarter in order to make quality progress. This is where the ability to make your own quality workout plan is helpful.
A FOCUSED WORKOUT PLAN = AN EFFECTIVE WORKOUT PLAN
Now that you’re past the newbie gainz phase, you have to be a bit more focused on how you workout. Most people start working out for three reasons:
Build Strength
Build Muscle
Lose Fat
In theory, your workouts can accomplish all three, but the more you train, and the more you focus on one goal, you may have to sacrifice part of another.
Early on in your time at the gym, you'll see results in all three areas, but as you keep going, you’ll see how there are nuances in these three areas.
Building Strength vs Building Muscle
This is something that’s taken me 4+ years to really understand. The focus that goes into building muscle and building strength are similar, but they are not the exact same.
Being strong is about lifting as much weight as you can. Being muscular is about having the biggest muscles that you can.
Your workouts can aim for both building strength and muscle, but really if you want to become excellent at one, you’re going to have to focus more on one than the other.
Losing Fat
When it comes to fat loss, exercise (whether it’s lifting weight, cardio or something else) is a tool that helps, but the main driver of fat loss is calories.
You have to be in a consistent calorie deficit if you want to lose fat. Exercising helps to burn extra calories or put more muscle on your body, which helps, but if you’re not in a calorie deficit, you won’t lose fat.
During the newbie gainz phase you can be in a calorie deficit and still build muscle and strength, but once become more advanced, building muscle or strength becomes harder to do in a deficit. It’s not impossible, but it is harder.
GREAT! NOW WHAT EXERCISES SHOULD I DO?
Let me start by saying there are no ‘perfect’ or ‘best’ exercises. Really, any exercise can be good and effective depending on your goals. That said, there are a few exercises that are generally ‘better’ in that they’re more effective for the average lifter.
Compound Exercises
These exercises that are generally more effective are COMPOUND EXERCISES. These are exercises that use more than one muscle/joint to perform (compound) and you’re able to lift heavier weight with them.
By using more muscles and having the ability to lift heavier weight, these exercises have the greatest potential for muscle growth and strength.
Imagine your goal is to push a car down the street. If you do it alone, you’re not gonna get very far, but if you have a few friends to help you and you all work together, it’ll be much easier to get the car down the street.
So by using multiple muscles to perform these exercises, you have the highest potential for strength and muscle growth.
Some great examples of heavy compound exercises are:
Bench Press - Uses your chest, shoulder, and triceps.
Squat - uses your thighs (front & back), butt, lower back, and calves.
Deadlift - uses your back, the back of your legs, and your butt.
Row - Uses your back and biceps.
Isolated Exercises
If exercises that use more than one muscle are compound exercises, then exercises that use only one muscle are called isolated exercises.
Generally, isolated exercises are more useful for workouts where you’re trying to build muscle instead of strength. If only one joint and only one muscle is involved, then there’s less of a possibility to build strength.
Think of a bicep curl or calf raises. These exercises do a nice job of building the targeted muscle, but the exercises aren’t ideal for overall strength.
That said, I’m not saying that you should never do isolated exercises if your goal is strength, but rather how you use these exercises should be more of an ‘accessory’ instead of the main part of your workouts.
Some great examples of isolated exercises are:
Hamstring Curls
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
Dumbbell Flyes
Triceps Pushdown
WHAT ABOUT THE REPS AND SETS?
Now that you know more about the different exercises, it’s time to learn about the sets and reps you should be doing. Similar to what I wrote earlier, there is no ‘perfect’ or ‘best’ number of sets/reps to do, it really comes down to your goals.
For most beginners, the range for most exercises is anywhere from 8-20. It really depends on the specific exercise and the person who’s training.
Generally, most beginners start with 3-4 sets for every exercise in the workout. These 3-4 sets of 8-20 reps are a good starting point, but as you get more comfortable with the exercises you should use your judgment to adjust so that you continue to make progress.
If you prefer to do 3 sets with a slightly heavier weight, so you end up doing fewer reps, that's OK. If you want to make sure that you’re doing the exercise correctly, doing lower weight and higher reps can be good too. For most beginners in the gym, this rep/set scheme is a great way to start.
Just note, as you get more developed and advanced, the specific set/rep scheme that you use is really important for building muscle, or strength, or losing fat. Though as a beginner, this isn’t something you need to get caught up in yet.
HOW MUCH WEIGHT SHOULD I USE?
If you want my honest opinion, if you’re really brand new to lifting, I’d suggest that you start out with little to no weights.
I know that might not be what you want to hear, but for beginners before worrying about how much weight you can lift, it’s very important that you’re doing the exercises correctly and that you use good form.
I’d say that you should spend 1-2 weeks working on your form, and once you’ve got a handle on that, you can start using weights.
Now let’s get to how much weight you should use.
You want to use a weight that is both challenging for you, but not an absolute killer. If you go too heavy and you might not be able to do all the sets and reps you want to do, but if you go too light, you might not get as much out of the set as you could.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re doing 3 sets of 10 reps on the bench press. If you’re not able to do all 10 reps of all 3 sets, then your weight is too heavy, but if you finish the 10 reps and feel like you could do another 5-10 more, then the weight is too light.
If you don’t have a trainer or workout partner with who you’re lifting, you have to use your own judgment. It’s always better to be on the safe side, but you still want to push yourself to make those gainz.
HOW LONG SHOULD I REST IN-BETWEEN SETS?
Rest is super important.
In general (that’s for another article), but in between sets too.
Your body uses these rest periods to recover and re-energize for your next set. If you don’t rest enough in-between sets, your lifting won’t be as strong as it could.
There are times where you want to use short rest times. If you’re doing a superset, or purposely trying to keep your heart rate up, then shortened rest times are good, but if your goal is to build muscle & strength, rest times are your friend.
For most general lifting, I suggest 30-90 seconds rest.
HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD I WORKOUT PER WEEK
You’re hopefully noticing the trend here, but the answer really depends.
Ultimately, if your goal is for strength, muscle, or fat loss, how often you should workout will vary.
As a beginner, the goal, in the beginning, is about learning proper form, and building the habit so that you’re consistent with your workouts. So to start, I suggest aiming for 1-2 times/week for a couple of weeks. If you’ve got good form and are consistent, you can move up to 3 or even 4 days/week.
As you progress to working out more often per week, your workout plan should reflect that too. And as your workout plan reflects that, so should your training goals too. Depending on what your goals are, a different number of days may be better for you.
If your goal is to get as strong as you can, then you’re going to be lifting really heavyweights, and you’re going to need those days in between to rest. 3-4 days a week of heavy strength training is really solid.
The number of training days for building muscle and fat loss is kind of the same. Both can be in the 4-6 days/week range. There’s a difference in how you approach a workout for building muscle vs losing fat, but they both can be done 4-6 days/week.
THE WRAP-UP
So there it is. Here everything you need to know if you’re starting your weight lifting journey.
You have a good idea of what exercises to do, how many sets & reps to do, how much rest you need and so much more.
Probably the greatest thing you need is to do it. You will learn the most by doing it yourself, and being your own coach along the way.
The more you train, the more you’ll learn, and the more you’ll pick up on all of these ways of best planning your workouts.
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