New to Lifting Weights? How to Start the Smart Way

There are veritable heaps and loads of articles all over the internet explaining how to build bigger biceps, more massive pecs, bulging glutes, and so on. But, there are surprisingly few that tell you where to begin. As an online coach, I get asked at least once a week, “how much weight should I be lifting?” and for those people I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the answer is most often “it depends.” The good news is that I can give you some guidelines to help you get rolling.

First, let’s review some helpful items from a past article called How to Start Weight Training

The Major Muscle Groups

Before you start throwing huge weights around, let’s review the groups of muscles that you will want to target.

Upper Body Pushers: This group includes the chest muscles (affectionately called your pecs), your shoulder muscles (referred to as your delts), and the back of your arms (known as the triceps). These upper body pushers are responsible for pushing heavy things away from you or above you.

Upper Body Pullers: The upper body puller muscle group includes your upper and mid back area (your lats) and the major muscles in the front of your upper arms (your biceps). To be honest, you’ve got a bunch of tiny pulling muscles all over your upper body, but the major ones you need to know about to begin weightlifting are the lats and the biceps. Obviously, these muscles do the opposite of the upper body pushers and are used to pull heavy objects closer to you.

Lower Body Pushers: Just like the upper body pusher muscles, these push stuff away from your lower body. Your quadriceps and your calves are your two major lower body pushers.

Lower Body Pullers: Technically, some of your lower body pullers also work overtime and also act as pushers. It has been speculated that this is why they tend to get injured so often. When someone says that they “pulled a hammie,” they’re referring to that muscle on back of your thighs called the hamstrings, which are your major lower body pullers.

The Core: Core is a catch-all term for all of your mid-section and lower back muscles. You can think of the core like one big muscle belt that wraps around your entire mid-section. The core is very important because it connects your upper body pushers and pullers with your lower body pushers and pullers. Without the core, we wouldn’t get much done.

Work Each Muscle Group

When you begin weight training, it is a good idea to hit each of the five major muscle groups at least once a week. If you just focus on one muscle group, you risk overtraining that one area of your body and as a consequence, undertrain another. For example, if you make the mistake that many guys (in particular) make and all you do is upper body pushing, then you’ll be all chest and no back. You may also develop a back that is slouched forward due to excessively tight chest muscles and weak back muscles. 

Additionally, by knowing and using each of the five groups, you will be able to put together a highly effective workout. We’ll get to that in a bit. 

Sets & Repetitions

Knowing the terminology isn’t all that important for executing the workout, but it is helpful when you are researching workouts.

Set – a set is when you perform one specific exercise a certain number of times through, without stopping. In most workouts, you would repeat a set of an exercise anywhere from one to five times. Some bodybuilders will do up to 20 sets for just one muscle group, but that is only done in very specific circumstances.

Rep – a repetition (or rep) is the number of times you perform the exercise in one set. For example, one squat set could include 15 reps of the squat movement.

An effective way to start your weight lifting program is to perform two to three sets for each muscle group and complete 10 to 15 repetitions per set. After you do that for a while (and like the results you are seeing) you can increase the weight you are lifting and drop the reps to five to eight.

How Much Weight?

The amount of weight you choose will be determined by whether or not you can complete those 10 to 15 reps (or eventually the five to eight).

For example, if you find that you can do more than 15 reps of a bicep curl with a 10-pound dumbbell, then you will want to choose the 12- or 15-pound dumbbell instead and try again. On the other hand, if you can only lift it six times (when your goal is 10 to 15), you will want to try again with a lower weight. Make sure you write down the weight once you have it figured out so you can jump right in with the correct weight during your next workout. 

The amount of weight you choose will be determined by whether or not you can complete those 10 to 15 reps (or eventually the five to eight).

Pro Tip #1: Until you have a good idea of how much weight you can lift, start on the conservative side. I would rather have you lift too little the first few times and “waste” the workout rather than lift too much and end up hurt or discouraged. 

Pro Tip #2: Don’t be afraid of soreness, but don’t overdo it either. It is natural to be a little stiff and sore for 24 to 36 hours after a good lifting session, but if you have to take the majority of the week off to recover, that is counterproductive. 

Which Lifts to Perform?

When you are beginning a resistance training program, you can’t go wrong with these basic bodyweight exercises:

• Pushups – more at Go From Push-up Zero to Push-up Hero
• Pull-ups – more at Do You Have a Pull-Up Bar At Home?
• Squats – more at 5+ Benefits of Squatting and How to Prepare
• Planks – more at How to Plank Like a Pro

When you are graduating to using weights, I would suggest that the foundation of your routine consist of these compound lifts: squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press, pull-ups, rows, dips, snatches, power cleans, cleans, and jerks. You can slice and dice those exercises any way you like. Just keep in mind that you want to hit each of the five major muscle groups at least once a week and you will be posing in the full-length mirror in your undies in no time.

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