New Rules of Lifting for Women

[daedala]

I've just started the workouts in The New Rules of Lifting for Women, with my sister and boyfriend. It's been reviewed in this community. We're all doing it at home with various equipment. (The bf and I have dumbbells; my sister has a Bowflex because child fingers + free weights = squish.)

Is anyone else working through this book and interested in talking about it? We're currently working out twice a week, and the goal is to go through the entire book.

ETA: For a little while, the comments will link to my workout log for the first three stages, in case you find their explanation confusing.

Comments

[daedala]

By the way, if anyone has been interested in the book but finds the exercise logs/order/timing etc. really confusing (there are reams of posts on the forum about this), I have it pretty well sorted out at least for the first three phases.

It's weird what turns out to be a major barrier.

[lyorn]

It's weird what turns out to be a major barrier.

My major barrier is that I am afraid that if I use what I want in the gym instead of sticking to my training plan, people will yell at me. I am trying to overcome that. :-(

[rydra_wong]

instead of sticking to my training plan

Your training plan, or the training plan someone else put together for you?

IIRC, you had some trouble getting the trainer person at the gym to let you work on the things you wanted to work on -- is that one of your worries here?

[lyorn]

IIRC, you had some trouble getting the trainer person at the gym to let you work on the things you wanted to work on -- is that one of your worries here?

Training plan given by physical therapy gal at the gym.

There are two things at work here, one is my bad back, which has me worrying that the pain will come back if I do not stick to the plan, the other is a schoolyears long experience of getting yelled at by gym teachers for not doing stuff the way I was supposed to :-/

However, I was a little too negative yesterday evening. (Shouldn't post when I'm cold and tired.) I actually *do* want to do the "New Rules of Lifting" program. I'll probably replace the barbells with dumbbells, as daedala is doing. But I have not started yet. Hm. No time like the present?

[daedala]

When you said "physical therapy," I thought maybe you should do what she says, but then you added "gal at the gym" which isn't exactly a medical professional. :) ISTR that the directions from the gym person were along the lines of "machines are safer" (sorry if I am misremembering!), which, well, it's not something I personally believe.

Is your insurance/health situation such that you could talk to a credentialed physical therapist about this? Because, while I don't want to discourage you at all, if you already have a bad back being careful might be good.

[lyorn]

She is a credentialed physical therapist, employed at the gym, and her program (cable machine, mostly) got rid of my permanent back pain, so I am eternally grateful to her. But of course she has to follow the company line. And I am dissatisfied with the company line to the degree that I would switch gyms in a second if I could find a single one within easy bicycling distance that had a good focus on free weights.

To talk to another PT I'd have to pay out of pocket, or go through a doctor who probably has machines of his own that he wants to put to use :-(

I think I'll just take my chances. I've been mostly pain-free for two years now. Though I'll skip the barbell squats until I manage to get some intro class on them *somehow*.

Have downloaded you explanation. I am halfway sure that I read the book correctly, but I would like to compare notes :-)

[daedala]

Oh, wow, what a neat gym. I've never been a member of a "real" gym, just one of those 24-hr places for a while, so it didn't occur to me that they would have a real PT. My understanding is that cables are pretty good, much better than fixed machines. :)

For the squats, you can get quite a ways with bodyweight. I believe in squats, in the way I believe in chocolate. I'm convinced they're the reason I still have a knee.

I hope it helps! Let me know if you find errors or if it is also confuzzling.

[kerrypolka]

I was super confused by those as well! I am interested in working through the book, but, yes, did not understand the way it was laid out.

[daedala]

Here you go!

That won't be there too very long -- I don't want to leave it up indefinitely when it really is the heart of the book -- but it should make things a lot clearer. I'm kind of annoyed that they do such a frustrating job of laying them out for people, though.

Note that I did find an error when I started stage 1 and fixed it. Stage 1 should be good, but it's possible I goofed somewhere in Stages 2 or 3, too. :)

Anyhow, the spreadsheet is set up so that for each workout, you just do the exercises in order, resting after each one. If you're substituting exercises because of doing it at home, it might be helpful to do a find/replace. For my home gym setup, for example, I'm replacing seated rows with bent-over rows and lat pulldowns with pullovers.

[kerrypolka]

Thank you! I've grabbed it now. I agree the layout in the book is a bit frustrating, so thank you for clarifying it and sharing it! :)

[daedala]

Let me know if you find errors or if it's also confuzzling.

[daedala]

Ok, I've taken the spreadsheet down, but if someone needs it feel free to PM me.

[weirdquark]

I just started and I think I have figured out the spreadsheets, but I wouldn't mind seeing someone else's interpretation of what we're supposed to be doing.

[daedala]

Sorry, I've been busy. I've reposted it for a bit here.

[weirdquark]

Awesome, thanks. I did manage to parse out what it wanted correctly, though I structured my spreadsheet so I was tracking what I was supposed to do on each day of the week that I was doing weights.

[daedala]

That sounds helpful!

I found another error -- the bodyweight matrix in Stage 3 A workouts has too many lunges. It should be 12 reps, not 24, for the lunge and lunge jump.