TRAINING AND NUTRITION FOR A NEWBIE

i know that many people, especially women, are very intimidated by the weights and all the crazy machinery you find in the gym. and this is probably the main reason why women practically live on the cardio machines. the second one is that they think they'll become bulky, which is not true!

so if you want to start weightlifting, the first thing you must do is find a good personal trainer that will help you with the workout program. and if cardio is on the list from the beginning, that's not the personal trainer you need! usually there are instructors in the gym who help you out with the exercises and they should also provide you a training routine for no additional cost. of course, that training routine is not built specifically for you, so especially if you have any kind of physical issue, you must get a routine that is made just for you!

if you've never lifted before, it's good that you get confident before you move to an advanced routine with multiple splits. so a routine for a newbie, should be a total-body routine that should be performed 3 times a week. the exercises should be one for body part, and 1-2 sets for each exercise with a 60" rest period btw sets and 90" rest btw exercises.

the exercises should focus on compound movements and they should be performed mostly on machines rather than with free weights. unless you have a personal trainer that can help you and teach you the proper form, it's better that you stick to the machines.

as for the cardio: you don't need it, ok?! unless you want to become an endurance athlete who needs to work on his VO2 max. first see if you get results from your training and healthy diet. if you don't, or the results are very slow, it's only a nutrition matter. you must improve your nutrition. this doesn't necessarily mean lowering your calories, though. if you are a beginner, you should get results 100%... unless, you've been before on a restricted diet and messed up your metabolism.

before you start with the first exercise, you must perform a warm-up. this means that you need to warm the muscles you'll be working on. in this case it's a total body routine, so you need to warm the whole body. usually some jumps, lunges, body-weight squats, push-ups etc are more than enough. after this, you must stretch the muscles. now you are ready to start.

the weight you should be using for those 8-12 reps is a weight that represents 80% of 1 rep max. this means that if you can do a shoulder press with 100lbs for 1 rep, for those 8-12 reps you'll be using 80lbs. but since you are a beginner, you don't know what is your 1RMax, so what you need to do, is find a weight with which you can perform 8-12 reps. this doesn't mean 7 nor 13. you must stick to that range.

before you start with your first set, you can perform a warm-up set with a lighter weight.

at the end of every workout, perform a cool-down and a stretch.

nutrition:

your diet should be balanced. i usually advice 50% of the calories coming from carbs, 30% from the protein and 20% from fats. this is a well balanced diet that will give you the results you are looking for.

the rule is: if doesn't come directly from a plant or from the ground, don't eat it. this means, that you need to consume foods in their most natural form. stick to 1-ingredient foods, and if you buy canned stuff, make sure it doesn't contain more than 3-4 ingredients.

you should be eating about 6 meals a day every 2-3 hours:

-breakfast

-am snack

-lunch

-pm snack

-dinner

-late-night snack (no carbs, stick to casein and fats - cottage cheese, yogurt etc. see recipes on my page)

-post workout meal (simple carbs and whey. this is the only meal at which you can have refined carbs, especially sugars)

don't restrict your calories too much or you'll feel hungry and end up cheating and bingeing. also don't restrict your allowed-foods list too much. you know well that prohibited things are the most appealing. so no foods are prohibited! you can even have some junk from time to time, but limit it to one meal per week. you'll see that in time, you won't need that cheat meal anymore, cos eating healthy feels so much better.

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