lifting_heavy_things | (no subject)

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Hi everyone,

I'm new! I used to work in a grocery store, where the job was awful, but some of the physical work made me happy - I did several sets of "rotisserie chickens" a day, and was proud of my "box of five watermelons" deadlift.

Now I work at a desk, and the pay and treatment are better but I'm getting restless. So I'm shopping for a gym membership - help, what am I looking for?

Also, I don't have the monies to pay a TRAINER - where do I start with the exercises? I can get over-enthusiastic in step 1 of anything I do, so even though I intellectually know I need a sort of limited program to stick with, my instinct is DO ALL THE EXERCISES and I don't think that's right.

My goals are to get stronger, especially in the top half - and not gonna lie, LOOKING stronger, with poke-outey arm muscles eventually is a motivation too. I'm 5'9 and 150 pounds-ish, eat what I want, turn a big stink-eye on beauty-standards-for-women, and am completely uninterested in weight loss (though I know I am probably going to have people talk to me about it at every gym I go to) I FEEL skinny, as in skinny-with-the-negative-connotations. I'm accepting diet-to-go-along-with-sudden-interest-in-gaining-strength suggestions, cos I think y'all probably get where I'm coming from.

Right now I can't do a pull up, I can do about one push up, but I can walk pretty much infinitely.

The idea of running for a reason that isn't fleeing danger makes me go ugh and roll my eyes, but I'll do it if it's in service of some other goal.

I've lurked on this blog for ages, being impressed by you all, so I've suddenly decided to jump in! I know a lot of the things I've mentioned are repeated in your archives, but 80% of the motivation of this post is "State your plans in public, so you aren't tempted to weasel out" ;)

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Yay for a better job and awesome for wanting to get stronger.

I know you said you don't have the money for a trainer, but I highly recommend either going to a class or doing a short-term training (possibly in a small group) with someone who can show you how to lift weights properly. Lifting weights with bad form is an easy way to get hurt, and you'll see more improvement if you know how to do things properly. They can also give you some ideas on what to do on your own.

At the very least, if you can't/don't want to do that, there's a lot of great youtube videos out there which can tell you what the proper form is (you just don't have the person to tell you if anything is wrong and how to fix it). I'd check out crossfit.com for various descriptions of weightlifting moves and some links to videos, as a start.

I've seen a lot of people say very good things about the book The New Rules of Lifting for Women - I don't know it myself, but it's probably worth checking out.

And good luck! Getting stronger is a ton of fun and it's really exciting to see results.

(I get the weasel out thing - part of the reason I do CrossFit, in spite of the high price tag, is because I have a coach right there keeping me from giving up when it gets hard)

Your motives are awesomecakes!

So I'm shopping for a gym membership - help, what am I looking for?

In my totally biased opinion: a good free weights area. Bonus points for interesting weights like kettlebells, and some machines (like assisted pull-up machines) can be nice, but a decent free weights area is the key thing.

so even though I intellectually know I need a sort of limited program to stick with, my instinct is DO ALL THE EXERCISES and I don't think that's right.

You are wise to think that's not right!

On the whole, if you want functional strength, it helps to pick a few compound exercises (that work large muscle groups at once) rather than lots and lots of isolation exercises that try to work each muscle individually.

Stumptuous has some good simple programs, and I know some people here have been enjoying the New Rules of Lifting/New Rules of Lifting for Women/New Rules of Lifting for Abs.

Or you could build it round your interests: if you want to work on push-ups and pull-ups, then throwing in a row movement of some kind and an overhead push (like a shoulder press) would take care of your upper body very nicely. Then maybe something like squats and/or deadlifts for legs and back, and add something like planks for core strength.

Something like that would get you off to a very decent start, and then you can vary it up as and when you get bored (or find other exercises that sound like fun).

(If you do want to work on pull-ups, btw, I have useful links and recs on that! Pull-ups are a great goal if the idea inspires you.)

I'm accepting diet-to-go-along-with-sudden-interest-in-gaining-strength suggestions, cos I think y'all probably get where I'm coming from.

This is pretty simple. Aim to eat a) enough calories, b) enough protein in particular, especially if you're looking to gain muscle mass, and c) if possible, make sure you get a decent dose of protein and carbohydrates in the one-to-two-hour window after strength training.

Btw, running will not make you stronger, unless you have very very little leg strength to begin with. If you don't like running and don't want to run, you don't have to (um, unless you are actually fleeing danger).

I mentioned running cos it is literally the number one and the ONLY one thing that anyone would tell me when I confront them with "I am not fit, want to get fit, and don't know how"

Though I was ready to believe that it was a necessary supplement to whatever else.

I am reading through Stumptuous articles right now, thanks for the link :)

Though I was ready to believe that it was a necessary supplement to whatever else.

Noooooo. I would now be considered pretty fit, I think, and do not run at all (barring the occasional bout of Tabata sprinting in the park when it's sunny, but that happens about twice a year, literally). One of my friends loves running and likes to tell me about his 10K races just to make me whimper in horror.

If you enjoy walking, it's a decent exercise for overall health (though it won't do anything for strength or building muscle). So it can be a nice complement to strength stuff. But if you can walk "indefinitely", it sounds like you've already got that covered.

I am reading through Stumptuous articles right now, thanks for the link :)

I can also rec Gubernatrix as a source of info and inspiration.

Biking will increase leg strength and endurance, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for. Not the same way lifting weights will, of course, but definitely more than most running.

I mention this because I put the weight lifting on hold while working on the biking habit, and my legs are noticeably stronger. I'm not a particularly fast cyclist, though my commute does have a pretty sucky hill. I just do it a lot. As in, today I will pass 1000 miles of biking for the year. o.O

Also: New Rules of Lifting for Women is awesome, but I found the workouts just got too long in the later stages, and that's one of the reason I let the lifting slide while biking. Others have done better with this than I, but it might be good to start off with a library copy and only buy it if you like it. I understand the For Abs book has shorter workouts; and now there's a New Rules of Lifting for Life, which I haven't read but is getting good reviews.

Btw, running will not make you stronger, unless you have very very little leg strength to begin with. If you don't like running and don't want to run, you don't have to (um, unless you are actually fleeing danger).

I'm another newbie and I want to ask a question about this: I'm starting strength training. My main focus is to get stronger, but the reason I'm doing all this is that one of my job responsibilities is international emergency management -- I really want to build strength/endurance so I'm useful and not dead weight when the shit hits the fan. Am I right in thinking that building leg strength through lifting will get me strong enough that I can run in an emergency if needed or do I need to run regularly in training too?

This is a good question, and as I'm not a runner I don't really know the answer; it might be worth starting a new post to get people's opinions?

However, as a rule of thumb, training is specific -- so the best way of training to run is to run.

Gaining leg strength from strength training may help give you some extra explosive power in a sprint, but it's not going to improve your running as much as, well, actually running.

How much running you should do by way of training obviously depends on what kind of running you might need to do (short sprints? carrying things?) and how close you are to the necessary standard already.

IMO, no, it won't.

Nothing will substitute training what you are actually training for. You want to lift, you lift, swim, you swim, run, you run. Running is less about leg strength than about heart and lungs, as you will notice when you try.

OTOH, jogging is a wasteful way of moving. It is not fast for its energy expenditure and you are usually exhausted at the end. It is tested for because it is easy to test for, not because of any particular real-life need to run slowly run for an hour.

If you do not need to train for a test, I would recommend:

1) Intervall training for sprints (the ability to run away or towards very fast is always useful). You can go up from there to run middle distance: quarter mile, half mile. It will only take minutes.

2) Walking quickly for a long time. Not exhausting (much) and a lot more efficient then a jog.

Also, maybe add some high energy endurance bodyweight exercises like burpees, jumping squats, skipping rope, for overall conditioning.

I noted that when it comes to hillwalking, I can really use the leg strength from lifting. It's not wasted.

In a real emergency, you will probably be able to run faster and longer then you ever expected. What state you will be in afterwards is a matter of training, though...

(Disclaimer: I'm not a trainer, just an interested amateur who is bad at jogging *G*)

No, that's totally helpful. I don't need to pass any sort of physical fitness test, I just don't want to be the guy panting on the stairs when you're running for the safe room and the elevators have gone out, you know? I don't really foresee a whole lot of endurance jogging in my future either way, so since I'm also bad at jogging I'll focus on strength, and sprint/interval training instead until someone professional convinces me differently!

Useful things have been said, so I'll just add a thing about running: I found intervall running (2 minutes walk, 1 minute run fast -- 4 sets) very useful in catching busses. Running any longer than that is not on my list of things to do.

I am doing "The new rules of lifting for women" and like it -- "find a plan and follow it" works for me. Some of the workouts are longish, though.

I'll add what I think about gyms: I belong to the YMCA, which has a decent sized free weight area, plenty of cable-type machines, and an infinite number of helpful dudes willing to spot me, give me pointers on form, etc. I stick to a few basic exercises most of the time, though I don't do the same ones every workout. I lift 3x a week (or more if I have time to split sets, which usually I don't) and I either take a long walk or do some machine cardio (faves are arc trainer on high resistance and rowing machine, where I can do sprints without hurting my knees). My Y offers this and there is very little posing, pickup action or BS...the other gyms around here are more expensive and offer plenty of places for ladies to do 2 pointless hours of elliptical per day.

I did take a basic weight training class in college and I would recommend having someone knowledgeable help you get started lifting. At my Y (may be different at others) you can buy a single training session pretty cheaply; I would do that if I were a complete newbie.

I always have a goal. Last year it was healing an injury; this year it's doing 10 pull-ups (currently I'm stuck at 6).

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