ARTICLES

Weight Training Basics

By Dr. Justin Lafreniere

If you want to lose fat or change your body, one of the most important things you can do is lift weights. Diet and cardio are equally important, but when it comes to changing how your body looks, weight training wins hands down. If you've hesitated to start a strength training program, it may motivate you to know that lifting weights can:

Help raise your metabolism. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you'll burn all day long.
Strengthen bones, especially important for women
Make you stronger and increase muscular endurance
Help you avoid injuries
Increase your confidence and self-esteem
Improve coordination and balance

Getting started with strength training can be confusing--what exercises should you do? How many sets and reps? How much weight? The routine you choose will be based on your fitness goals as well as the equipment you have available and the time you have for workouts.

THE BASICS

If you're setting up your own program, you'll need to know some basic strength training principles. These principles will teach you how to make sure you're using enough weight, determine your sets and reps and insure you're always progressing in your workouts.

1. Overload: To build muscle, you need to use more resistance than your muscles are used to. This is important because the more you do, the more your body is capable of doing, so you should increase your workload to avoid plateaus. In plain language, this means you should be lifting enough weight that you can ONLY complete the desired number of reps. You should be able to finish your last rep with difficulty but also with good form.

2. Progression. To avoid plateaus (or adaptation), you need to increase your intensity regularly. You can do this by increasing the amount of weight lifted, changing your sets/reps, changing the exercises and changing the type of resistance. You can make these changes on a weekly or monthly basis.

3. Specificity. This principle means you should train for your goal. That means, if you want to increase your strength, your program should be designed around that goal (e.g., train with heavier weights closer to your 1 RM (1 rep max)). To lose weight, choose a variety of rep ranges to target different muscle fibers.

4. Rest and Recovery. Rest days are just as important as workout days. It is during these rest periods that your muscles grow and change, so make sure you're not working the same muscle groups 2 days in a row.

Before you get started on setting up your routine, keep a few key points in mind:

1. Always warm up before you start lifting weights. This helps get your muscles warm and prevent injury. You can warm up with light cardio or by doing a light set of each exercise before going to heavier weights.

2. Lift and lower your weights slowly. Don't use momentum to lift the weight. If you have to swing to get the weight up, chances are you're using too much weight.

3. Breathe. Don't hold your breath and make sure you're using full range of motion throughout the movement.

4. Stand up straight. Pay attention to your posture and engage your abs in every movement you're doing to keep your balance and protect your spine.

For beginners, you want to choose about 8-10 exercises, which comes out to about one exercise per muscle group.

The list below offers some examples:

Chest: bench press, chest press machine, pushups, pec deck machine
Back: one-armed row, seated row machine, back extensions, lat pulldowns
Shoulders: overhead press, lateral raise, front raise
Biceps: bicep curls, hammer curls, concentration curls
Triceps: tricep extensions, dips, kickbacks
Quadriceps: Squats, lunges, leg extension and leg press machines
Hamstrings: deadlifts, lunges, leg curl machine
Abs: crunches, reverse crunches, oblique twists, pelvic tilts

SEQUENCE OF EXERCISES

Make sure you choose at least one exercise for each major muscle group.
The muscles to work include: Chest, back, shoulders, biceps, triceps, quadriceps, hamstrings, calves and abdominals.
If you leave any muscle group out, this could cause an imbalance in your muscles and possibly lead to injuries.

Most experts recommend starting with your larger muscle groups and then proceeding to the smaller muscle groups. The most demanding exercises are those performed by your large muscle groups and you will need your smaller muscles to get the most out of these exercises. But, don't feel limited by that. You can do your exercises in any order you like and changing the order is a great way to challenge yourself in different ways.

HOW MUCH WEIGHT TO USE?

The easiest way to determine how much weight you should use on each lift is to guess (not very scientific, huh?):

1. Pick up a light weight and do a warm up set of the exercise of your choice, aiming for about 10 to 16 repetitions.

2. For set 2, increase your weight by 5 or more pounds and perform your goal number of repetitions. If you can do more than your desired number of reps, heavy up again for your 3rd set.

3. In general, you should be lifting enough weight that you can ONLY do the desired reps. You should be struggling by the last rep, but still able to finish it with good form.

4. It may take awhile to find the right amount of weight for each exercise.

5. In general, you can use heavier weights with larger muscle groups such as chest, back and legs. You'll need smaller weights for the shoulders and arms.

You've figured out how much weight to use for your chosen exercises...what about the number of sets and repetitions? Your decision should be based on your goals. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 8-12 reps for muscular strength and 10-15 reps for muscular endurance. They also recommend at least 1 set of each exercise to fatigue although you'll find that most people perform about 2-3 sets of each exercise. In general:

For fat loss: 1-3 sets of 10-12 reps using enough weight that you can ONLY complete the desired reps.
To gain muscle: 3+ sets of 6-8 reps to fatigue. For beginners, give yourself several weeks of conditioning before going to this level. You may need a spotter for many exercises.
For health and endurance: 1-3 sets of 12-16 reps using enough weight that you can ONLY complete the desired reps.

HOW LONG TO REST BETWEEN EXERCISES/WORKOUT SESSIONS

This will depend on your goal. Higher intensity (i.e., when lifting heavy) exercise requires a longer rest. When lifting to fatigue, it takes an average of 2 to 5 minutes for your muscles to rest for the next set. When using lighter weight and more repetitions, it takes between 30 seconds and 1 minute for your muscles to rest.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends training each muscle group 2 to 3 times a week. But, the number of times you lift each week will depend on your training method. In order for muscles to repair and grow, you'll need about 48 hours of rest between workout sessions. If you're training at a high intensity, take a longer rest. Keep in mind that some amount of discomfort is normal after a workout but pain is not. If you are experiencing pain before, during or after a workout, stop the painful exercise and speak with Dr. Lafreniere before continuing.

If you have any questions, concerns, or difficulties in setting up a weight training program for yourself, please ask Dr. Lafreniere for recommendations.