Starting weightlifting is a significant effort for both body and mind. Weightlifting makes a pressure on the muscles, joints and heart and blood vessels.
So, it is necessary to prepare the body for training and plan progression of training sessions.
A beginner in weight training can be an adolescent, active athlete, recreational athlete, middle-aged and elderly person.
Each of them needs to adjust the training program, and there are basic rules that help in the correct start of training.
Weightlifting Beginners Guide
Getting started on weightlifting can be intimidating and beginners should probably consult a fitness expert first to obtain advice on what would be the appropriate equipment to use.
It is a good thing that all gyms or fitness centers these days have fitness consultants to take beginners in hand and guide them.
Simplicity is Key
New weightlifters will do well not overcomplicating matters. It would be good to work with the basics first and then move on to more advanced and more difficult lifts and reps or sets plans.
The goal for beginners is to focus on lifts that will target the body’s major muscle groups first like the chest, legs and back.
Later on, they can narrow down their program to focus on the stabilizer muscles. The recommended lifts for the chest include the bench press, decline and incline press and pushups.
Pulldowns, seated row, cable row and bench pull are ideal for the back muscles. The leg muscles will benefit from squats, hamstring curls, knee extensions, leg presses and calf raises.
The arm muscles can be developed with dips, shoulder raises, bicep curls and tricep pushdowns. For the abs or the core muscles there’s weighted crunches, back extensions and Russian twists.
See also: Best Cardio Workouts For Abs
Maintaining Balance
For starters, new weightlifters should focus on all the major muscle areas on their first few trips to the gym.
Once the lifter gets adequate experience, he can start focusing on one area per gym session and then give the area rest for a day or two while working on another area.
Workouts should always start with some cardio exercises for about 10 minutes before lifting. This is to increase the heart rate and the body temperature.
It would also be good to mix up the cardio exercises, like jogging, biking and rowing. The lack of warm up will result to muscle pains later on in the session.
A way to determine if one is adequately warmed up is if the sweat is dripping from the forehead.
Cooling down after a lifting session is also important and the best form of cooling down is stretching.
This will start the muscle recovery process and enhance body elasticity. Two to three static stretches for every major body area would suffice and the stretches should be held for a minimum of 10 seconds before repeating.
See also: How To Build Muscle At Home
Machines
Machines are recommended for new weightlifters for learning and safety reasons.
Every type of machine will usually have a diagram or a picture showing which muscles they work out making for an easier exercise selection.
But soon as the beginner feels confident about their capabilities they can do away with the machines.
There is certainly no need to rush into things. What’s really needed is for the lifter to focus on the quality of their lifts and how much weight they are lifting.
One should carefully monitor their own progress and it would be best to start out with two, non-consecutive sessions of weightlifting every week.
During the first month, the focus should be on very light weights without increasing the load. Perform every lift with an even tempo and slowly ensuring that a full range of motion is used.
Weightlifting For Beginners: Tips
First Training
Everyone has got to start somewhere and if you are one of those people who are shy to ask for help on what you should to on your first week of lifting weights then this simple guide can help you go through it.
For warm up, spend 10 to 15 minutes on the treadmill followed by 5 minutes of dynamic stretching making sure that the whole body is moving.
You can do arm circles, windmills, leg swings, torso rotations and toe touches.
You can then do three sets of 10 repetitions of either lateral pulldowns, leg press, bench press or dips.
Follow this up with static stretching for 10 minutes. There should be at least two minutes of rest between every set to prevent the muscles from being over-taxed.
After a few weeks, you can move on to more strenuous stuff.
See also: Strength Training Exercises For Weight Loss
Train Hard but Without Pain
You have to grit your teeth and work hard to achieve results, but be careful. Mild inflammations are normal, pain is not.
If you get injured, take enough time for 100% recovery before you start again, or you will create an even bigger problem.
Take A Break
Muscles grow while you rest, not while you lift weights! You have to have a rest. Do not train when rest day is planned in order to gain weight faster. You will just overtrain and ruin the results.
When it comes to breaks between series: many programs have a different philosophy in this regard, but in general it is not so important in the long run.
Between 1 and 3 minutes is quite enough. I rest for about 2 minutes for complex exercises and about a minute for isolation exercises.
