Starting my Heavy Lifting v1.0

After a couple months of just working on increasing my base strength at home I went and signed up for a gym! The gym we had available that was affordable was Planet fitness so that was where we went. Planet Fitness isn't the most killer of gyms but they did have all the equipment you could need to do all of the different exercises. It fit our needs just fine. After I started at Planet Fitness I continued to do lower weights with higher reps on the machines for a while to continue to build my strength up to be ready for some hard workouts. In August of 2011 I decided to finally start doing free weights and go to a workout routine that was heavy weight lower reps to start working towards building muscle.

When I started to go about changing my routine I looked up a few pointers online to try and get started in the right direction. After doing a little research I decided to go for a routine where the amount of weight was just enough that I could barely finish 4 sets of 8 reps. Now that I look back on it most of the weights I was doing were probably somewhere around 70% of what I could do for a 1 rep max (as much weight as you can possibly do only being able to complete 1 rep). My goals were to continue with that weight until I could do 4 sets of 10. Once I could do 4 sets of 10 then I would up my weight a little bit so that it was hard to do 4 sets of 8 again and work my way back up. Make sure that once you can do 4 sets of 10 to do it 2 or 3 times in a row to make sure you can get repeat results. This will help make sure you don't go upping your weight too fast. I had to learn this the hard way as you will learn later on in another post about how I wound up injuring my back. If you are unsure about starting heavy lifting by yourself ask pointers from people in your gym, do some research on the internet or take a class or two to get tips from a personal trainer.

When you go about doing weight training like this to build muscle make sure you try to exercise all the different muscle groups. It is important to exercise all your muscles and build total body strength because it will make you more healthy and you also want to avoid causing imbalances in your physique. Some problems can occur if you cause imbalances in your physique. For instance if you do lots of shoulder exercises but never work your rear shoulder it can cause problems in the way your shoulder joint moves since there is an imbalance in the muscle strength in the front and back of the joint. To avoid problems like this make sure to do plenty of research to get a good complete workout for all your muscle groups. Getting a complete workout will ensure that your muscles build up equally and you will build a better overall complete strength. Also the more muscles you work out means the more lean muscle you will be building throughout your body, this will assist in raising your BMR (Base Metabollic Rate) and helping you to lose weight faster.

Also for the girls out there don't be afraid of lifting weights. I can assure you that you will not look like the crazy bulky body builder chicks that everyone so dreads. First of all it is impossible for women to look like that naturally. To do that they train 5-7 days a week on a pro body builder schedule (3-4 hours a day or more) and secondly and most important they take hormones such as testosterone (male hormones) and supplements to force their muscles to grow like that. If you are a typical fitness girl that goes to the gym 3-4 times a week and lifts some weights you will become toned and curvy, develop a nice booty, and feel more energetic. You will wind up looking like the girl below. So guys and girls make sure to get out there and after you have rebuilt your base strength start pushing yourself and lift some heavier weights to build muscle!!