This article is designed to help you cut through all the useless tat in your gym, and get straight onto the stuff that works. At this early stage in your lifting career, get the basics right and you won't waste the months, and years, that most people waste while they try to figure out what experienced people already know - that simple hard work, simply works!
A couple of ground rules:
1) If you're totally new to exercise, it's probably a good idea to visit your doctor and get your blood pressure, cholesterol etc tested. If nothing else, it'll give you some good data to improve upon. Pay particular notice to your blood pressure and heart rate, because these will change for the better with proper training.
2) Try to stick to the things in this article. Don't get swayed by the gym PT trying to tempt you into BodyBlitz or VibroClass. Equally, don't let Big Dave get you following his latest split programme that involves a forearm and neck training day!
The Basic Planes of Movement
Your body has six basic planes of movement. These are:
Quad dominant (anything pushing with your legs)
Hip dominant (anything pulling with your legs and hips)
Horizontal push (e.g the old favourite, bench press)
Horizontal pull (anything pulling an object towards you)
Vertical push (anything pushing above your head)
Vertical pull (e.g pull ups, chin ups)
All of that might sound overly complicated. It isn't - this article is going to show you a specific exercise to do for each of these movements. Your first eight weeks of training will consist of doing just those exercises - remember, we're going to keep things very, very simple. Why? Because simple WORKS!
The Exercises
All of these exercises below assume that you are in an average-to-well equipped gym. I won't make any excuses for saying that a gym that doesn't have a squat rack or a chin up/dipping station can't really call itself a gym. If that's the case with your 'fitness centre', seriously consider moving gyms.
Squat (quad dominant):
Straight Leg Deadlift (hip dominant):
Bench Press (horizontal push):
I know most guys reading this will be thinking 'yeah, I've got this one, I don't need to watch a video on it'. Well, yeah, you really do need to. I don't think I've ever seen more than handful of people in gyms benching properly. It's not just a case of throwing the weight up and down. So watch! And yes, I know the guy teaching doesn't look in amazing shape, but this guy has forgotten more about weight training than you or I will ever know. Looks, occasionally, can be deceiving!
Bent over row (horizontal pull):
Military Press (vertical push)
Chin-ups (vertical pull):
A little bit of clarification here. Most people new to training simply can't do chin-up. That's ok - you're not expected to be able to straight away. There are ways of building up to them. One way is to use the lat pulldown machine in the gym. It works broadly the same muscles, but unfortunately, it doesn't recreate any of the stabilising work you need to do in a chin up. I'd much prefer you to jump onto the chin-up station, and try these instead:
Negative chin ups are an awesome way of learning how to do a full chin up. You'll get stronger in the basic movement, and before long you'll have the strength to attempt a full normal chin up. And you'll get that strength far quicker by doing negatives than you will by playing around on the lat pulldown machine.
Of course, if you ARE able to do chin-ups, then go for it!
The Programme
There's just six exercises there. No more, no less. There's no need to do any more than that. In fact, once you get good at each exercise and start to increase the weight you are using, you'll probably find that the workouts become too hard. So next time you look at the programme that the gym have given you to follow, ask yourself what is the point of doing 10-15-20 different exercises?
For the first four weeks, you are just going to do two sets of twelve reps of each exercise. Two sets, of 12 reps in each set, using a weight becomes a real struggle for the last 2 or 3 reps of each set. By 'real struggle', I mean it's hard work to do the exercise properly. You should really need to grit your teeth and grind out the last couple of reps. Don't, however, throw all the good technique from the videos above out of the window. Try to strike a good balance between working hard, and working smart.
Make sure you time your rest between sets. Aim to take no more than 60 seconds rest between sets.
You'll probably need a couple of practice sessions in the gym, learning how to do each exercise. That's fine - take a week to go into the gym and play around. Learn the moves, get comfortable with each exercise without really doing a 'full' workout. That's not a wasted week, believe me. I still do that before starting a new programme. It helps you to understand exactly what you are about to do, and means that you are ready to start working properly on the first training day.
When you start, aim to train three times a week. Monday - Wednesday - Friday works for lots of people. Tuesday - Thursday - Saturday tends to be quieter in the gyms as a result though - so you might find that's a better way to work. Whatever you choose to do, leave at least one day in between training sessions. And yes, in that first week you will ache. It gets better, I promise!
As you get used to the exercises, and they start to feel easier, add weight. Not much, just an extra couple of 1kg plates, or more if you think you can. Try not to use the same weight as the last session. Always aim to improve.
For the next four weeks, jump up to three sets of eight reps. This is going to allow you to use significantly heavier weights, yet still lift for as many reps. It'll boost your strength, and you'll start to see some size improvements/fat loss too. Expect to be able to lift anywhere between 20-30% more weight than you were handling at the end of your first four-week period. Keep your intensity levels as high as before - including timing those rest breaks.
This four week segment will be hard work, done properly. Once you've got this bit done, you'll have eight weeks of solid training under your belt. You'll be significantly stronger, and depending upon how good your nutrition has been, you'll be seeing major changes to your body. At this stage, you'll want to streamline your training a little, and cut down on some of the exercises in order to focus on really working hard. Keep an eye out for a future article that will show you how to break down these exercises further and keep you making progress.
So go on! Get started! Feel free to contact Real World Fitness for any help or advice on starting out. We're quite happy to do one-off sessions for form-checking and programme design, as well as longer term PT arrangements for people who want more targetted help.
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