I want all of you to know that I googled funny phrases about weight lifting and couldn't find one so the title of this post is all mine in its glory (sarcasm). I also want you to know that I have re-read my blog and I need to work on all the typos. I have noticed in a lot of areas of my life typos are becoming more frequent. At work, in email, on this blog...all the time. Thank goodness email does not have the iphone autocorrect function yet.
I have had a lot of feedback on facebook about strength training. The first question I want to answer is how I got started and how "heavy" I lifted at first. I was hands down the weakest person in the world before I got into weight training. My family would make fun of my ridiculous upper body strength. I could not do 1 push up. I had always done some lifting in the gym-you know 10 minutes of something after my 2 hours of cardio. I don't think I got really serious about lifting over cardio until I hired my trainer in Florida. There was just something that clicked at that moment and at 34 I am in better shape now than I was at 24.
When I say lift heavy, I mean lift whatever weight is heavy for you. Pick a weight that you can do between 8-10 reps of with the last few reps being really hard to keep perfect form. An example of this: when I first started I was using 7.5 dumbells for bicep curls. I am now up to 20 pounds. So, just go with what feels comfortable to you. Start out just doing this and then start adding in "heavy" days.
I do mix up my days into heavy days and light/normal days. On heavy days I do 5 sets of 4-6 reps at a fairly heavy weight. So for bicep curls for me that is 25 pounds-I die and I hate it at that level. I then have days where I do 3 sets of 10 reps at the 20 pounds. I do tend to do more heavy leg days because my legs are like tree trunks and I am naturally stronger in my legs. I LOVE LEG DAY. Squats and lunges are my favorite. I will talk about my leg day in more detail tomorrow.
If you feel more comfortable starting on machines, I would start on machines. It helps to get a better idea of the weight that you can do on a machine. I like free weights because I feel like I get a better range of motion and I am pulling in other muscles to do the exercise, where as a machine is isolating certain muscles.
The one thing that I love about weight training more than anything else is the work that it does AFTER I leave the gym. There is no doubt that I have been able to be a little bit more relaxed on my diet from time to time and not gain weight because of the muscle that I have put on. Now, it definitely does not allow me to just eat whatever the hell I want. Trust me, if it did I would eat pizza, frozen yogurt, Mexican and Italian 24/7, but it does allow some leeway. I have had some time where I have not been as clean on my diet and I step on the scale expecting to see a 5 pound weight gain and it is only 1-2. I can easily correct that through cleaning up my diet and I do.
Strength training is probably more important than cardio in my mind (But still do cardio), however a healthy consistent dient trumps both! Thank you all for reading and keep the questions coming :)
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