The 19 Weight Training Must-Dos For Beginners – Part 2 of 2

Last week we shared the first 9 of these tips for beginners.  Check them out here:  Top Tips For Beginning Weight Lifting.  This week we finish up with another 10 must-know items before beginning your weight training regimen.

10. Intensity Is Underrated

Whatever your routine is, do it hard.  (After you’ve gotten the form down.)  When I say hard, I mean hard.  Other than your exercise-specific warmup, you should feel like you couldn’t get another rep out of your set.  (This is different from “train to failure” which means you go past the last rep you can do – that’s not something I recommend for beginners.)  Oh, and if you can do 2 more reps than your plan calls for, then you need to increase your weight.

And heavy weight helps your progress.  To get the proper hormonal response from weight training for building muscle, losing fat, and gaining strength you have to really push yourself.

This also means that you don’t skip workouts.  I realize that life happens, and you might have to miss a day.  But with your 3x per week schedule, you can miss a day and make it up to stick to 3x/week.  If you do get to the gym and “don’t feel too motivated”, you need to psyche yourself up.  A short intense workout is far better than a long half-effort one.

11. Rest

There are two types or rest:  in between sets and in between workouts.  For rest in between workouts, that’s taken care of by only going 3x a week (see previous point).  Muscle doesn’t grow during the exercise.  It grows AFTER the exercise and if you don’t let the fibers heal, you’ll see minimal progress.

As far as rest in between sets, this is a subjective area.  Generally, if you are going for fat loss as your primary goal, you want to have only 1 minute max in between sets.  For strength or muscle gain, you might want longer.  But remember point #3 from last week?  Stick to the program.

12. Water Helps Things Grow

Muscles are mostly water.  To build muscle, you need to drink a ton of water.  Many pro bodybuilders, in a bulking phase, will drink a couple gallons of water every day.  You don’t need that much, but a glass of water (not soda, not juice) every 2 hrs would be a good idea.  And check out http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/2008/12/how-to-harness-the-healing-power-of-water-for-muscle-health/

13. Cardio AFTER Weights

I’m a firm believer in cardio, not just weights.  While this is not an article on cardio, the take-away point is that you should do your cardio after your weights.  Remember, you need a rest day in between workouts (and rest means no major exertion).   So do your cardio on the same day as your weight training.  My ideal is doing weights, then eat some good carbs and protein (see next point), and do cardio 30 minutes later.  Or you can do weights early in the day and cardio late in the day.

14. Eat:  Protein  + Slow Carbs

Entire books have been written about the bodybuilder diet, but I’ll have to be super brief.  When trying to build muscle and strength, you want about 1 gram of lean protein for every pound of bodyweight.  If you are obese, then you might want a little less protein (since so much of your existing weight is fat and you’ll need to watch calories by reducing all your intake).  For carbs, you want to avoid processed food and processed sugar.  Ideal carbs are veggies, whole grains, oatmeal.  If your goal is muscle building, eat about twice as much carbs as protein.  If you are trying to get lean, you can dial it down quite a bit.  But as a beginner weight trainer, I do not recommend super-low carb diets.  Again, this topic is wide and deep and there’s no way I can do justice in this short article!

15. Sleep To Grow

By committing yourself to getting in shape, you need to commit to sufficient sleep.  That means calling it a night early if you are working out the next morning.  It does not mean making up for lost sleep by having 4 cups of coffee.  You may even find that you need an extra 30 minutes or so of sleep once you start weight training. Listen to your body so that it can heal between workouts and be ready for the next.

16. Patience – The Results Will Come

This is the most important mental rule.  Patience.  If you are impatient, you’ll give up too soon.  But the good news, if you are truly a beginner, is that if you stick to your plan (assuming your plan follows the philosophy of this article, like Full Body Attack), then you are going to see gains pretty quickly.  But it might not be the way you think.  Gains come in three flavors:  how you look, how you feel, and what you can do. Pay attention because you might be expecting gains in one area and before you give up, maybe you’ve gained in another.  And as an advance warning – after about 3 to 6 months, you’ll probably plateau and need to re-examine your workout.  But that’s a topic for another post…

17. Get A Training Buddy

Unless you are an unusually self-motivated guy, you’ll have more success if you find a buddy with similar goals to workout with.  On your slow days, he’ll push you and vice versa.  Even better is to find someone slightly more advanced than you who’s willing to take you under their wing (even if it’s only for 1 of your workouts) but that’s hard to find.  If you can’t find a buddy to do this with you, don’t use that an excuse to sit on the couch!

18. Don’t Judge A Trainer By His/Her Physique

If you decide to get a trainer, that’s great.  Present the program you plan to use and see what they think.  Then quiz them and see if their philosophy matches this list.  If not, find another trainer. Some trainers try to get too creative and jump onto fads.  But the best practices have been tested for decades.  And don’t judge the trainer by their physique – there are some incredibly good trainers who might not look the way you want to look.  They need to be in good shape of course, and they need to be weight trainers themselves.  But going for the trainer who looks like a Men’s Health cover model could backfire as they may be the least knowledgeable of the bunch.

19. You Get What You Measure

You need a training log where you record what exercises you did, how many sets, how many reps, what weight, etc.  I was traveling recently and went to a commercial (chain) gym.  Other than me, there was only one other person in the entire gym (out of over 100 people across 3 days) who had a training log with them, methodically tracking progress.  And guess who the two best physiques were in the gym?

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Just starting out with weightlifting? Want to get bigger muscles this winter?
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Related posts:

1. The 19 Weight Training Must-Dos For Beginners – Part 1 of 2
2. Fat Burning Weight Training
3. Kick Caffeine Addiction With Intense Weight Training

Tags: beginner, program