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Beginner who is starting out at strength training

Ling

Level 1 Valued Member
Hi everyone, I have been curious about strength training for some time, so I am starting to get into it lately. ^-^
I have mostly been into cardio, and I have felt quite intimidated by gyms (I guess partly because I am a short girl and the gyms in my area mostly have guys, so it has felt both a little bit scary and a little bit unusual), but I tried a little bit of strength training yesterday, and it worked great.
I have been thinking of focusing on squats, bench press and deadlift, since this feels like it would be a good combination, but I will see what happens. ^-^
 
lais817 said:
Welcome Ling, your plan sounds like a pretty standard entry point into strength training, maybe have a read of these for another woman's views on strength training and to get you a bit more familiar with Strongfirst: Get Super Strong: A Woman's Strength Training Program | StrongFirst

How to Build Physical Strength While Hardly Trying | StrongFirst

TBH though, maybe @Anna C or @Karen Smith would be better to give their 2c?
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Thaanks, yeah that looks interesting, I will check it out.
 
Hello and welcome @Ling, yes your choices sound good. Let us know how it goes and if you have questions we can help with.
 
Anna C said:
Hello and welcome @Ling, yes your choices sound good. Let us know how it goes and if you have questions we can help with.
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Zack Telander had an interesting video on a Big 3 geared towards weightlifting consisting of:

Front Squat
Push Press
Snatch Grip DL




Given the life disruption of buying house, moving, and selling house has had on my WL training this 2023 Spring season, and the fact that I have rowing regatta in July, I've been doing this 2 days a week as a maintenance mode.

(although I tweaked it to alternate PP with BTN snatch grip PP + OHSQ).

EDIT:

I don't know why the video says Unavailable.

Here is the link.
 
Thanks for all your tips everyone, it seems very interesting. ^_^

It was largely my boyfriend who got me interested in strength training, and I realise that I should be careful when it comes to this stuff;
he is a good bit more than a foot taller than me, and he weighs more than twice my bodyheight, and I have seen him bench press probably 220 lbs a few times, and that feels way unrealistic to me.
But I will just get into it, and increase weights whenever I start to feel that a certain weight has become too easy.
 
Simpler is always better when it comes to strength and conditioning. Programs such as Starting Strength and the Greyskull Linear Progression are built around tried and true basics.

Smart choices with the three power lifts (bench, squat and deadlift).
 
Hey Ling,

Moving forward you'll inevitably have many questions such as "Why this? Why that?" about strength training.
You'll seek out answers to these questions in many places, including this forum.
You've probably found that everyone both online and off, have opinions about what is "right" in regards to training.

I'd definitely read 2 books (if you haven't already):
1) Power to the People
2) Naked Warrior

These will give you a quick, very thorough primer on the science behind strength training.
You'll be able to answer a lot of your own questions and avoid drowning in information-overload, as well as better able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Enjoy your journey!
 
watchnerd said:
Zack Telander had an interesting video on a Big 3 geared towards weightlifting consisting of:

Front Squat
Push Press
Snatch Grip DL




Given the life disruption of buying house, moving, and selling house has had on my WL training this 2023 Spring season, and the fact that I have rowing regatta in July, I've been doing this 2 days a week as a maintenance mode.

(although I tweaked it to alternate PP with BTN snatch grip PP + OHSQ).

EDIT:

I don't know why the video says Unavailable.

Here is the link.
Click to expand...

Very cool, thanks for introducing this program. It might be something I'd keep in mind for a more weightlifting minded look towards strength and conditioning at a later date.
 
LoneRider said:
Simpler is always better when it comes to strength and conditioning. Programs such as Starting Strength and the Greyskull Linear Progression are built around tried and true basics.

Smart choices with the three power lifts (bench, squat and deadlift).
Click to expand...


I immediately thought of these 2 programs. They are a great starting point and match up with the lifts the OP mentioned. Be well worth running until progress stalls, they'd have a great base then, and then they'd have an idea of what kind of lifting they'd like to persue into the future.
 
solarbear said:
I immediately thought of these 2 programs. They are a great starting point and match up with the lifts the OP mentioned. Be well worth running until progress stalls, they'd have a great base then, and then they'd have an idea of what kind of lifting they'd like to persue into the future.
Click to expand...
I think that my boyfriend does a program a bit like that, although he is a lot bigger and stronger than me, and his barbell weights are practically always twice my own bodyweight, so, yeah, I better have some realistic goal there, haha.
 
And in the case of Greyskull LP, I've run it three separate times in my life and managed to come up with some cool results. Microloading (i.e. less than 2.5 lbs plate loads) and rotating lifting variants can be a way to really milk linear programs like GSLP.
 
LoneRider said:
And in the case of Greyskull LP, I've run it three separate times in my life and managed to come up with some cool results. Microloading (i.e. less than 2.5 lbs plate loads) and rotating lifting variants can be a way to really milk linear programs like GSLP.
Click to expand...
I think I will give several of the programs a try, and see which one that I like the best.
Maybe I will switch between them as well. ^_^
 
try to stay with a program until the end--you wont know if it works if you switch from one to another.Have fun and good luck.
 
rhgo1 said:
try to stay with a program until the end--you wont know if it works if you switch from one to another.Have fun and good luck.
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My boyfriend is currently using something that he has said is called the Texas Method.
But like I said, his current weights are way up at around 200-220 lbs in all exercises that I have seen him do - I have even seen him push almost 200 lbs in Overhead Press, which is apparently one of the harder exercises, and that was quite a shock - and the Texas Method appears to be a pretty advanced program (well, I am not surprised!).
But then again, I shouldn't let those kinds of things discourage me.
 
Ling said:
My boyfriend is currently using something that he has said is called the Texas Method.
But like I said, his current weights are way up at around 200-220 lbs in all exercises that I have seen him do - I have even seen him push almost 200 lbs in Overhead Press, which is apparently one of the harder exercises, and that was quite a shock - and the Texas Method appears to be a pretty advanced program (well, I am not surprised!).
But then again, I shouldn't let those kinds of things discourage me.
Click to expand...
You could do the same program as him if that makes it easier. The great part about barbells is they scale up and down easily.
 
silveraw said:
You could do the same program as him if that makes it easier. The great part about barbells is they scale up and down easily.
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I guess so.
He could perhaps use my final weights for his lighter warm-ups, haha.

But yeah, his program does seem very good.
I will give that program and several of the other programs a try for a while.
 
Ling said:
I think that my boyfriend does a program a bit like that, although he is a lot bigger and stronger than me, and his barbell weights are practically always twice my own bodyweight, so, yeah, I better have some realistic goal there, haha.
Click to expand...

Well,one way I've seen it done is start with an empty bar and add 2.5lbs for bench and 5lbs squats and dl per workout. For that reason I've always felt it was a great way to learn the lifts for absolute beginner's.

Once you Plateau Out there are lots of options for how to continue.
 
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