Reader’s Request: Weight Training 101
When I put out the call for reader’s requests yesterday, I received quite a few strength training-related requests.
For all of you who were looking for some help in the weights department, here ya go 😀
Spot Training Doesn’t Work
Back in the day, after I had lost a majority of the weight I was aiming for, I decided to experiment with weight training. The intention was good, but the problem was that I had no clue what the heck I was doing. After aimlessly wandering around the weights room a few times, I settled onto the mat and did a few crunches and called it good. Since I didn’t know how to put together a weight routine, I just decided I’d work on the parts that I thought needed the most help: my abs, arms and thighs. I worked out these muscle groups everyday and was so confused when I didn’t see a difference in my body.
It took me a while to figure this out (and I’m sure that quite a few of you know this already), but there is no way to spot train and you *shouldn’t* work out the same muscle groups on consecutive days. When our body burns fat, it burns fat all over, not just in a specific spot you’re targeting. Where you see it first is an individual thang. Some people lose weight and inches in their face first, others their arms, legs, stomach, whatever- everyone is different. The point is that we should focus on our body as a whole when we work out, not just the parts we want to change.
Our muscles need at least 48 hours to repair and recover. When we consistently tear down the same muscles (lifting weights causes tears in the muscle and recovery allows it to repair and grow back stronger), and don’t enable our body to accomplish the results we’re looking for. This is why it’s an excellent idea to have a specific weights split when you’re weight training.
How to Set Up a Weight Training Plan
There are a thousand ways to set up a weight training plan, but for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to give you three options: synergistic, antagonistic and full body circuit.
Step #1: Choose your split
-Synergistic:
Day 1: Shoulders, Chest and Triceps
Day 2: Legs and Abs
Day 3: Back and Biceps
-Antagonistic:
Day 1: Chest, Shoulders and Upper back
Day 2: Quads and Hamstrings
Day 3: Core (Back and Abs)
Day 4: Biceps and Triceps
-Full Body Circuit
Day 1: Arms, Legs, Abs, Back
Day 2: Arms, Legs, Abs, Back
Day 3: Arms, Legs, Abs, Back
Step #2: Create your workout plan according to your chosen split, leaving 1 day in between weights sessions and use this time for longer cardio sessions, a fun class or an off day- make sure to have at least one day of active recovery each week (totally off, or something that isn’t taxing on the body, like a walk with the pups or a stretch or easy yoga sesh)
Step #3: In your workout plan, choose 2-3 exercises per muscle group for the antagonistic and synergistic plans; 1-2 per muscle group for the full body circuit (here you can use compound exercises that work more than one muscle at a time, too)
Exercise ideas and workout plans:
–Intro to Iron Pumping and Intermediate Iron Pumping
–The workout page (lots of muscle-specific exercises here)
Tips for Creating the Ideal Strength Training Plan
–Create the workout plan in advance, so you know what to do when you’re at the gym and will have a back-up if a specific machine or tool is being used by someone else. Every Sunday, I take about 15-20 minutes to plan out my workout schedule. Also, if you have a plan (with an approximate time to when you’ll be pumping iron) you’ll be less likely to skip it 😉 For tips on how to incorporate cardio and other classes into your routine, check out *this post*
–Switch out the exercises you’re doing (or rotate the days that you work each muscle group) every 4-6 weeks or so. Our body is a very intelligent machine and will do what it’s expected to. Constant changes scare away plateaus 🙂
–Experiment with how much weight to use. Start out lighter and if you can easily do more than 10 repetitions with that weight, go heavier and see how that feels. Aim for 3-4 sets of 12-15 repetitions (beginners start with 3 sets of 10). If doing 3 sets in a row bores you, go from one exercise to the next and then repeat the entire circuit 2 more times.
–Warm up for 5-7 minutes with low/moderate cardio, followed weights, then follow with the rest of your cardio sesh. Some people prefer to do cardio first, but I find that if I do cardio first, I have nothing left for weights. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re aiming for weight loss, do cardio first and give it all ya got, if you’re aiming for muscle tone, go with weights first.
–Weight training will not (will not!) make you “bulky”. You will not emerge from the weight room a Hulk, I promise. Some clients start to worry that when they start weight training, their pants get a smidge snug and their weight goes up a little. Muscle is more dense than fat, so less muscle will weigh the same as a lot more fat does, volume-wise. Usually they’re initially gaining muscle more quickly than they’re losing fat, and then everything falls into place and before we know it, the scale and jeans follow. This is why I think keeping record of body fat percentage is so important– most gyms will do it for free, or see if there’s a bod pod near you.
–Go for some protein 30-60 minutes after your weights sesh. (More info on fitness fueling is *here*)
–Have fun! Once you start –or give a makeover to your- weight training, the newfound strength is empowering and it’s remarkable how consistent weight training will change body shape.
–Please check with a doc before making any fitness/nutrition changes. Be smart- your body will always tell you what’s best. Ignoring your body’s needs leads to injury.
I think that’s it, as far as the almond shell version goes 🙂 I could talk about weights all day!
If there’s anything I forgot to address, please hit me up in the comments 😀
Do you pump iron? What’s your absolute favorite strength training exercise? Where do you get your moves?
I’m off to walk the pups and head to work!
See ya this afternoon <3
xoxo,
Gina
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I love this. A lot of good tips and a few things I didn’t know or had not thought about! 🙂
Great article Gina.
I absolutely love pumping iron, it helped me to completely change the shape of my body and left me looking nice and firm and shapely after losing 50lbs.
My favourite exercise is either the clean & jerk or deadlifts – both compound exercises that really work the body as a whole.
I’ve never weight-trained before…I’ve been studying Pilates for a year and only just decided to branch out to other forms of fitness. I joined a gym recently and have been really intimidated to use the weights…thanks for the great tips! Definitely have to give them a shot.
Great post, thank you for all of this wonderful information! 🙂
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE pumping iron! My favorite strength exercise is squats! I love how round and strong it makes your booty and it gives such a nice curve of the lower back! Big booties forever! I also like any shoulder exercise and take weight lifting classes at the gym mixed with spinning and Bikram yoga.
Really good post Gina. I love to weight train and find I get good results with weight training. The only area that I find hard to train is my abs, I think my lower back compensates and when I do plank work, I only feel it in my lower back and not in my abs. I use Cathe Friedrich’s Muscle Max and Gym Styles for my strength training workouts. Enjoy walking the pups!
Such a great and informative post! Thanks! I’m currently recovering from a Body Pump class last night. I hadn’t gone in a while and that first one back is a killer 🙂 Have you taken that class? If so, what did you think of it?
I definitely agree with mixing things up. Our bodies really are made to find that plateau and try to maintain it. Cool post!
Thanks for doing this post Gina. That was a quick turn-around from my e-mail last night. I’m going to sit down with a notebook and your site and try to come up with something. Wish me luck! I’m such a hands-on person when it comes to working out, so I hope I can put together something good. 🙂
Thanks for this post Gina! Right now I follow the strength training workouts in The Female Body Breakthrough, but I would like to start making my own routines at the gym — just to keep it interesting for me.
I’ll check out all of those links tonight and come up with a plan!
Excellent post! I love the post about fueling for weights and cardio too! I was a bit confused about what to eat after working out so thanks for helping me see the light 😉 Oh, and I train with a personal trainer right now and I’m learning so much from it! I think it’s a great way to explore the world of weight training 😉
Thanks for the tips! Have a great day at work!
These are excellent tips chica! And I voted for you. 🙂
thank you!! <3
Next week I start TWO different exercise classes in the evenings… And today I’m going back to the gym. I used to go all the time but over the summer I had full time school, a full time job, and a part time job and so any time that I wasn’t doing those things I was just a dead lump on the couch. So this is perfect timing! Today I’m excited to get back (one of my jobs was chasing kids around all day so I was always on my feet). Great tips, thank you! You’re a massive wealth of body knowledge.
This was great. Thanks for the awesome tips!
When you said you used to wander aimlessly around the weight room, I laughed because that is totally what I do! 😛
I’m going to try to write myself out a plan using your tips! Thanks Gina!
I really appreciate the fact that you advocate weight training for women. 🙂
However, I have to disagree with you on the splits. I trained that way for a few years and saw moderate, if that, improvements in strength and fitness.
I’ve been doing Crossfit for two months, and that has improved my strength soooo much more!!! Our bodies did not evolve through being comfortable; they evolved through change and variety. If you needed to lift something heavy to save a life, but only worked your “bi’s w/ your tri’s”, how would you be able to use your whole body when it counts? Why not just train your whole body in a functional way? When do you ever have to do something resembling a bicep curl in real life?
Just my 2 cents. I see the value of a program like you suggest for true beginners.
yeah! go crossfit!
Yep this is for beginners- why its weights 101…crossfit is more like weights 563 😉
i do weight training on a regular basis. I used to do full body every other day, but then i decided to change it up and do Synergistic. and that’s my favorite way of doing weight training. I’m definitely building muscle. I tried Antagonistic and hated it. I found it difficult to push myself.
i do record my sessions on my blog every day. just to hold myself accountable! usually i don’t do abs because when you lift heavy and keep it up on a regular basis, your abs will start getting more defined based on your weightlifting. just make sure you keep your body aligned properly as you lift!
I love doing weighted squats, dead lifts, and shoulder presses!
I think this is so important….I’ve always lifted weights but mostly for training for volleyball. I am still in training right now but my favorite lift has to be 1-leg DB RDLs
i used to lift weights, but now i do crossfit and it’s so much more fun! with all the benefits 🙂
Such a great post, Gina!! I’ve only recently discovered the magic of proper strength training, and its impact on the body really is unbelievable. Your exercise guides helped get me started, and I’ve since explored some at-home dvds that use compound moves that I am loving. But it’s sooo helpful to see the basic rules laid out here… a lot of the info I find online assumes you already know how to set up a good split; a long list of good exercises is great, but it’s not always easy to know how to optimally combine them. Thanks for your insight!! x
What a great post!
I do a full body strength workout every other day. The good old push up is my favorite exercise, sometimes with my feet up on a ball. I really feel my whole body working and it’s a good feeling knowing I can hold my whole body up. I feel on the stairs a couple months ago and stopped by body from hitting the floor with just my one arm. It was awesome! I tried the 100 push up challenge, but I was stuck on week four for weeks and my shoulders really started to hurt, so I had to cut back a bit.
Weight lifting is a must! I love being the only girl in the weight room most days, when those guys see me squat my weight that make me feel pretty darn good.
Love this post….question: if I do shoulders one day and then biceps the next, would it break the 48 hour rule? I ask because sometimes I feel like I am working my biceps a little when I do shoulder exercises. I know that’s not one of the plans in your post, I’m just wondering. Thanks, Gina!
i’d leave a day in between working arms because even if you’re not targeting a specific muscle in your arms, you’re still using it, ya know?
Great Post – Thank You!!! I’m so intimidated in the weights section I really need to create a plan and stick to it, this will really help.
Do you recommend doing heavy lifting and less reps? I find that I get bored doing 3 sets of 15 for each exercise. Will I still be boosting my metabolism and helping my body? I usually do upper/lower body splits. So, today I will do lower body, thursday upper body, and saturday lower again.
I just want to make sure I am getting the best that I can get out of my weight lifting sessions. I also take some interval training classes that involve a little bit of lifting. And for cardio I do spin classes, zumba, and the interval class.
Awesome post! When I started losing weight I totally ignored strength training and now I’m working harder to tone up. And I recently bought the Women’s Health Big Book after I saw it on your blog, and I think it’s going to totally change the way I look at weights!
I love weight training! I started with a personal trainer until I felt comfortable in the gym. Lately I’ve been doing workouts from The Woman’s Health Big Book of Exercises. It’s awesome, but I do want to be able to write my own routines to mix it up. I’ve noticed my muscles adapt super quickly and I get more results if I change it up every 2-3 weeks.
My favorite moves are anything that works on my guns.
And I hate hate HATE lunges. I just get so sick of them. They’re more bearable if I do them with an arm exercise because it distracts me from them.
Body Pump! I love taking that class and have seen a huge difference in the shape of my body and my overall strength.
Well said, Gina! You explained everything in a clear and concise manner:) I always like to add, for those who are new, to not bother to worry if people are looking at you while you lift. If they’re looking at you, they’re not there for the right reasons in the first place!
My fave exercise = deadlifts!
I really like this post! It is very helpful. I have been doing full body strength training through resistance exercises and kettlebells, which I love. After I finish the resistance plan, I’ll be going back to weight training and kettlebells to keep switching things up. I was doing the Body for Life – where you do upper/lower every other day with high weights, low reps – through those exercises, I felt like the fat just melted off my body.
One minor comment, though – just a small pet peeve and my nerdy engineering-ness coming out… Muscle and fat weigh exactly the same – 1 pound of muscle weighs just as much as 1 pound of fat; however, muscle is more dense than fat, meaning the same weight of muscle takes up less volume, so when you gain muscle and lose fat, even if you weigh the same, your clothes fit better (like you mentioned).
I never thought about the antagonistic training, I will definitely need to try this out! I can’t wait to get back to my lifting routine again!
I started your Summer Shape Up 2009 and am on week 2 this week! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!! I always get bored with workouts about one week in, but this is different every day and its amazing!! Plus, the bf grabbed my arm the other night to hug me and was like “whoa! guns!” 🙂 Thanks Gina! 🙂
so awesome! glad you’re liking it so far 🙂
LOVE lifting weights! While cardio is great, I know I burn more calories doing a half hour weight session than an hour run, plus the after burn. (I always read this, but when I got a bodybugg and saw it was exactly true, I was even more stoked.)
I love squats and bulgarian split squats. And pull-ups, chin-ups and dips transformed my upper body. I finally got that ‘just standin’ around’ definition I longed for ever since Jennifer Aniston showed up on “Friends” wearing a tank top.
Fantastic tips! I can’t wait to use these when our gym is all back up and running.
Great post. I strength train regularly, but it’s always nice to get a refresher on the basics that sometimes you forget! Makes me more motivated to switch up my routine! 🙂
Good post! Way to help so many. :)As I still think so many woman are scared of weights…if they onlly knew!
I hit the weights hard(failure) and my favorite moves are pullups. 🙂
I’ve been following the Intro to Iron Pumping you did for Caitlin for the last 8 weeks or so, and was so ready for a change up! I am starting the Intermediate Plan today! I’m training for a half marathon in November and am so afraid of losing my love for weight training with it, so thank you for posting this! 🙂
Yay thanks for more tips. I need them since my trainer moved.
This post was so helpful! One question- so I’ve been sticking with the full body workout on strength training days (I love the challenge of compound exercises!) and I’ve been doing it circuit style (I use your “total body toning sesh”/variations of it often) and I was wondering, should I be doing more reps then the usual 10-15? I’m curious because I usually only go through the circuit twice (when I used to do 3 sets of each exercise for muscle splits)
Thanks! I’m going to vote for you now 😉
maybe try going through the circuit 3 times and doing less reps? that might be a fun way to change it up
This is an awesome post with some great tips! Thanks for the other workout ideas too. 🙂
Great post! I been lifting consistently for five years now, but I remember how intimidating it was starting out. I wish I had something like this to guide me through the start!
Although not my favorite, I get great results. I do not even know what it is called. You take two flat plats and hold them with your fingers and TRY to do a curl. It is really hard, but my pinch strength is much better. I barely could do one outside and now I can do five inside. I have not dropped the plates in a long time, which is a good thing.
Fabulous post! Very informative and broken down nicely to make it easier for beginners to understand. And its making me all giddy to get back into some serious lifting after this baby is out of me. I miss my weights!
awesome post! i can never get enough of learning more about weight lifting, especially since im really starting to get into it. i just have a question – do you still get sore the next day? im trying to really get a sculpted butt but no matter how many squats, lunges, leg presses, whatever , i do i never really feel it in my glutes and the next day im never sore :/ i used to get sore so maybe my muscles are just used to it? is it still a good workout even if youre not sore the next day?
thanks so much!
try a different exercise or try more weight! it’s still a good workout if you’re not sore, but i like to be a little sore to know things are happening, ya know?
Good post! My favorite exercises are Barbell deadlifts and bulgarian split squats, hello glutes!
I do weights or strength exercises a few times a week. I Switch it up a lot, which is why I do see results. I usually do one boot camp class per week in which we do lunges, burpees, weighted squats, biceps, chest press, pull ups, etc. I also try to hit the gym for a more focused weight session, but each time I go I switch it up so I’m not always doing the same things. And if I don’t have time to hit the gym, I like doing Jillian Michael’s No More Trouble Zones dvd at home. Really gets you sweating and your muscles fatigued!
Awesome post, Gina! Super thorough and detailed and covers both alot of basic info (i.e. you can’t spot train) to more detailed info, but it all bears repeating and re-hammering home into everyone’s minds 🙂 For beginners and meatheads alike…haha!
I think the #1 tip for me, and for most women, is to LIFT HEAVY! There are women out there are naturally more prone to getting bigger muscles than other women, but as a species as a whole, women aren’t going to get “big”. We just arent. I wrote this whole huge post on lifting heavy/fears, myths, faq’s because I was getting tired of watching girls lift 2.5 lb hand weights at the gym and readers writing me in a panic tizzy b/c they thought their 5 lb dumbbells were gonna give them huge arms and they didnt want that. Umm, no ladies 🙂
Lovely post, lovely tips, Voting, thanks for reminding me 🙂
Great post on getting started with weights. I hope it encourages more women to pick up weights (and not just 3lb pink ones) and start getting strong. I have moved more to bodyweight exercises but still weight train every so often. I love pull ups, push ups, burpees, and planks. Currently challenging myself with handstand push ups.
P.S. I’m in LOVE with yoga too!
Hey Gina, I hope this isn’t a silly question but it’s something I’ve always wondered.. I read frequently about giving your muscles a rest .. and how yoga is something you can do on your rest days.. well yoga uses your muscles so how is it resting? Is it because you aren’t literally using a weight to do it?? Help!
Thanks 😀
when you’re used to lifting weights as opposed to body weight, i consider yoga to be a “rest”. it definitely depends on what kind of yoga you’re doing though as some types are more intense than others
I agree with this post 100%. Weights are so important-they make you toned and they boost your metabolism! The more muscle you have the more calories you burn! =)