Started going to the gym - advice please

I did say I was looking to push myself haha, maybe my own fault. doing it for the first time on sat so I will report back with how broken I am.
 
20 mins warm up is a little excessive, at most I do 5 mins. You're better of warming up on the specific exercises that you're doing with maybe a little x-trainer at the start. If you have the patience for that routine for 6 weeks then fine, but it won't be very challenging for long. Something you could try is increasing the weight by the smallest increment possible every week on everything but the front/lateral raises.
 
Seems like a pretty daft workout to me DiCe! It's mixing steady state cardio/HIIT (kind of)/resistance all into one routine. Unlikely you're going to build any muscle or strength with that at all, while you probably will burn fat and improve cardio slightly.

Also the weights are seriously light....surely you can do lat/front raises with a bit more than 3kg? If you can't, you can't, that's fine, but have you actually tried? It's supposed to be hard. Anyone who can support their own weight should be able to chest press more than 7kg. You'd do well to take the advice already given of trying a 5x5 program if it's muscle and strength you want to build, as that routine seriously looks like something more suited to a primary school kid.

In short that workout is trying to do too much, but doing nothing well. Weights are too light to build much strength, and aren't a great mix of movements. Cardio is of too short a duration to really improve fitness. If you increased the durations and weights then mixed with a good diet, you probably will improve over time but very slowly I'd imagine. Much better deciding if you want to either build muscle or improve cardio first, then follow the advice already given in this thread.
 
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Clum said:
Seems like a pretty daft workout to me DiCe! It's mixing steady state cardio/HIIT (kind of)/resistance all into one routine. Unlikely you're going to build any muscle or strength with that at all, while you probably will burn fat and improve cardio slightly.

Also the weights are seriously light....surely you can do lat/front raises with a bit more than 3kg? If you can't, you can't, that's fine, but have you actually tried? It's supposed to be hard. Anyone who can support their own weight should be able to chest press more than 7kg. You'd do well to take the advice already given of trying a 5x5 program if it's muscle and strength you want to build, as that routine seriously looks like something more suited to a primary school kid.
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May have put the sets/reps down the wrong way, please have patience with me lol, im going to be doing 3 lots of 12

When i get home ill upload a pic and you will see why the weights are so light lol, they are the minimum and depending on how i feel i will push them up, i find it confusing as i now have two lots of advice:

1) the 5x5
2) the 3 lots of 12

will try the 3x12 when i go on sat and see how i do, when i went and just tried out the machines last week and did the 5x5 i feel i could have done more, i told him that and thats when he suggested the one above.
 
Dice, the weights program is very minimal. The only reason it would be worth doing something like that would be as a primer for a more intense routine. This would be the time to make sure form is perfect and get some conditioning into your muscles/tendons etc.

You also need to learn what it actually feels like to lift weights. As a guy with a cardio background this might be a surprisingly alien concept. But you really won't see much in the way of gains until you learn to take yourself towards neuro-muscular failure rather than a more cardio like exhaustion. For this reason you REALLY need to increase the weights as you go through the program. In fact a better way might be to increase by the smallest increment every workout.
 
Righto, Ill take your guys word over his lol

Ill put the weight up, but it was only a starting point for me. I like the idea of going up the smallest increment every workout
 
Still too much cardio and not enough weight. No one is suggesting doing too much so that you injure yourself or lose form but Im 100% certain you can life a bit more than that.

As said above try out some heavier weights and if you are going for 3 sets of 12 then on your last set you should be finding the last 3 or 4 reps quite difficult to complete. Even if you only manage 8-10 on your last set thats fine.
 
Absolutely, better to have an "ok" plan that you actually get on with and do than to perfect the ultimate plan that never gets done or gets dropped.

Also, starting light as an absolute beginner isn't that bad an idea provided there is progression involved.
 
the stronglifts programme would be a good place to start. read their forums if you have questions. I used to do a fairamount of cardio too, when I did the few weights exercises that were on my routine, I never pushed myself as much as I do on the stronglifts programme. it's hard to appreciate what its like to work your hardest, until you've had to push yourself until failure. the workout in the sticky on these forums is pretty good too from what I'm told.

stronglifts is more for burst strength than muscles size, but it'll definately get you in the right mind set. and adding weight every workout for two months is great for motivation! don't feel bad if people look at you a little, as has been said already: they're most likely just keeping an eye on your technique :)

you could google "rippetoe's 3x5 workout" too. I don't know much about it, other than it's apparently pretty good.

definately improve on your diet as much as you can. there's not much else to say that's not been said already, or that isn't a bit too much overload you with right now. if you really think you have the willpower to keep at your training and reach your goals, then take a couple of pictures of yourself now whilst you're still pretty new to this, its a great motivation tool!
 
by the way, I just realised you said that you weren't comfortable doing weights because of your current shape - they're the best way to get bigger really. or you could do strength training without weights if it makes you feelbetter, just for a while. nobody can judge you (they shouldn't judge you at all anyway, 99% don't), because you're not using any weights, nor does anyone else until they are already very fit.

example: push ups, inverse rows, reverse crunches, chinups, there are a few others too. maybe someone else can give you a better idea. it won't cover a full body workout, but it could substitute a few weighted exercises, so you won't have to feel conscious about people looking at you.

good luck, keep us updated :)
 
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