Suggest a beginner program
- Thread starter TTown101
- Start date
Hyde
Legend
Won’t last you a year, but Greyskull LP or Starting Strength NLP are probably decent places to build a base for half a year, provided someone can teach you reasonably safe technique.
Consider hiring a local coach temporarily to teach you basic lifting technique to minimize risk of injury & get you going much faster than you just guessing.
Don’t try to gain a ton of weight quickly, but you should eat in a small surplus. If you are gaining more than ~1lb/wk, you’re overeating even for a surplus. If you gain no weight over a few weeks, pick up the fork & try harder. Muscle isn’t built from hopes & dreams; it takes a surplus of raw materials in the presence of a necessary training stimulus.
Consider hiring a local coach temporarily to teach you basic lifting technique to minimize risk of injury & get you going much faster than you just guessing.
Don’t try to gain a ton of weight quickly, but you should eat in a small surplus. If you are gaining more than ~1lb/wk, you’re overeating even for a surplus. If you gain no weight over a few weeks, pick up the fork & try harder. Muscle isn’t built from hopes & dreams; it takes a surplus of raw materials in the presence of a necessary training stimulus.
TTown101
New member
Hyde
Legend
I think it’s worthwhile for the upper body lifts if you can afford a pair of 0.5kg/1.1lb or 1.25lb plates for $10-20, but if you can’t afford it yet I wouldn’t let that stop me from starting. It’s more useful if you have been doing it for months already. So start saving $1/week and by the time you need them you will have already bought them.
flintinatux
New member
Another vote for Starting Strength. Or if you're like me and have less and/or greyer hair than you used to, get the sequel: The Barbell Prescription.ReformedNerd
New member
N2S19718
New member
So I’ll give you a basic answer. This really ain’t Complicated , your question is basic and simple to understand. With watching the right videos and the right people and the right reading you can learn a lot on your own
Also be careful with hiring a coach or PT , I have seen many too many that are absolutely clueless and don’t know wtf they are doing. I have actually seen more clues less coaches and trainers then trainer that know what they are doing.
So start with a split like this somehting by basic
Let’s say 5 days a week
Day1 Chest
Day 2 Back and traps
Day 3 biceps and triceps
Day4 shoulders and traps
Day 5 Legs
2 days rest a week to get good sleep and eat lots of good food
Make sure to include compound movement with free weights always. Bench presses, BB and DB rows, Close grip BP, OHPs ( over head presses) w/ DBs or BB, BB/DB Squats and BB / Trap bar deadlifts , BB curls / ez bar curls for biceps is a must and I always loved 21s for Biceps. It’s great to incorporate machines as well like Hammer strengths and cables and even the smith machine which I love. But make sure that free weights are the focus of every work out. Louie Simmons & the law of accommodation. Google it. And read what he says. Law of accommodation is real and true. Consistently change up routines and don’t do the same work out every weeks , utilize the gym completely use all the equipment and just always mix it up but again make free weights the main focus of your routine.
Make sure your diet and nutrition is in check. Try to incorporate all basic food groups. Good fats, protein, veggies and the right carbs at the right time. At minimum shoot for 150-200 grams of protein a day. Mainly through Whole Foods and try to do as much meal prep as possible if you can. If your nutrition is not right your gains will be sht. Having shakes inbetween meals is a good thing also , but again nutrition should come from food first and shakes secondary and protein bar last , not a big fan of them…You actually won’t make really any gains if you don’t eat right properly . Although at first when training gains can come fast but you will eventually hit a plateau.
Basic supplements I’d say go with fish oil and flax seed oil , along with a good Magnesium , zinc and D3 supplement and something good for joint support ( Now foods and Drs Best makes a lot of good joint support stuff ) . Creatine HCL or Creatine MagnaPower is always a plus. I like to cycle creatine. 2-3 months on 2 months off. It don’t matter when you take certain dont let anyone tell you other wise. It really don’t matter. Personally I always take it post workout with a high carb meal for an insulting spike spike for nutrition absorbtion. Most supplements are useless and not proven to do sht. There are some in general that do give nice results naturally but that all comes with consistency in diet and training. All you really need is the basic vitamins and good food and Creatine , technically that’s all you need.
I’d say start with the basic 5 day split and the basic body building routine. Learn all
About proper form and range of motion and learn how to lift properly and just eat healthy. Once you learn what you are doing , then you can start looking into bulking or cutting etc. but for now just eat clean and lift and be consistent.
Here is some body I highly suggest you watch and listen too. Go to You Tube and look up -John Meadows aka mountain dog ( R.I.P.) he has dozens upon dozens of Videos of different routines. He will give you great details on how to do every exercise he shows and tells you what they do and their effectiveness. Also on you tube you can find alot of Elite FTS videos on how to bench press and squat and deadlift. A couple bodybuilders I personally think are great to learn from is Lee Priest and Dorian Yates they are sticklers when it comes to proper form they also have lots of videos on you tube.
I tried to keep it simple and basic , it really is basic and this should give you a good starting point.
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N2S19718
New member
I have fractional plates in my gym from .25 up to 1.5 lbs. they are great and 100% help with strength gains and breaking plateaus
Hyde
Legend
I think they’re very ideal for women, as well as any man who wants to focus on progressive overload strictly via load manipulation. If you don’t want to mess with waving volume & intensity, just using the micros will let you go further on linear progression.
N2S19718
New member
Yes agree. In my case at the moment I am training with progressive overload. I use they specifically
so I agree , my wife loves them and it’s clear why , since women are generally not as strong it allows them to train w progressive overload and go up in small increment’s and still get there 4-5 sets let’s say 6-12 rep range. I overall agree with your statement, but when breaking plateaus , hitting PRs these plates are a huge plus. Let’s say you have a 225bench for 3 , can’t hit 240 for 1, training with loads that’s don’t always fall in increments of 5 can without a doubt get you stronger then if you are only training with increments of 5s. So why train with 235 when u can train with 237 or 238 or 237.5.
No different with PRs , 1RM of 225 you can hit a new pr quicker with a 3 lb increment then a 5. Then you can work out that 3 lb Increments. I mean fractional plates are used every where in strongman competition as well as powerlifting meets.
Hyde
Legend
Just for the record, they are not used in powerlifting or strongman competition with the exception of record attempts.
Smont
Legend
If someone is brand new or never really followed a structured program for any reasonable amount of time I tell ppl to go for a 3 day full body. Assuming the person is younger or not a old guy with sore joints i like to see ppl do 2-4 compound moves and 2-4 additional exercises, which can also be compound moves.
It might be something like
Bench
Chins or pulldown
Squat
Db press or ohp
row
Legpress or deadlift
After a month or 2 I might add a press down and a db or machine preacher curl.
3×6-8 focusing on adding weight to the bar. Doing compound moves in high frequency as a beginner will make you good at those lifts and progress fairly easily. Eventually once your lifts start getting strong it's hard to do a bunch of heavy compounds in one workout and you may need to switch to a ppl or a bro split.
Ultimately the best workout is going to be the one you enjoy enough to stick with it long enough to see results.
It might be something like
Bench
Chins or pulldown
Squat
Db press or ohp
row
Legpress or deadlift
After a month or 2 I might add a press down and a db or machine preacher curl.
3×6-8 focusing on adding weight to the bar. Doing compound moves in high frequency as a beginner will make you good at those lifts and progress fairly easily. Eventually once your lifts start getting strong it's hard to do a bunch of heavy compounds in one workout and you may need to switch to a ppl or a bro split.
Ultimately the best workout is going to be the one you enjoy enough to stick with it long enough to see results.
N2S19718
New member
So they are used like I said. Saying they are not used then saying they are used with the excpetion is making my statement true. Powerlifting and strongman fractional plates are used. Glad we can agree I’m right
Smont
Legend
You or whoever is probably not ever going to be breaking a world record or a division record so no, you will never be able to use them in powerlifting or strongman.So they are used like I said. Saying they are not used then saying they are used with the excpetion is making my statement true. Powerlifting and strongman fractional plates are used. Glad we can agree I’m right
World records are the exception to the rule. But if you need to Pat yourself on the back or whatever to make yourself feel better that's cool. Good job on being right, your a winner sir
Hyde
Legend
Yep, you’re right. My comment wasn’t coming at you negatively.So they are used like I said. Saying they are not used then saying they are used with the excpetion is making my statement true. Powerlifting and strongman fractional plates are used. Glad we can agree I’m right
You said they’re used everywhere in those events, but I wanted to clarify for anyone else reading this they can be used explicitly for records - you will not otherwise be able to call weights with them in powerlifting, nor will a promoter ever use them in either local, national, or especially international level strongman contest for the event weights unless it’s a record breaker max lift event. Do not expect to see them otherwise.
Hyde
Legend
I would agree with you. Seemed like someone who was not knowledgeable about producing high level strength when he wrote it, but thought he did. He just so happened to have a very concrete beginner plan, so I try to look past the attitude for what is useful. You gotta pan for gold.
And I’d say the same about Rippetoe. I think a ton of his ideas and approach are purely personal bias, that could even ultimately hold back a lifter’s longterm progress. BUT he has a proven system for beginners that will get many much further than they’d likely get otherwise farting around with less fundamental progression.