Design Your Own Weights Program: Part 2 - The Practicals

In the last post we looked at some of the types of weights training and what they can achieve. Now it is time to put it all together, and create your own program! Yah!

Your Turn:

When putting together a program, there are a number of factors that will determine what type of strength you are building. This has been neatly summarised by the well respected and highly authoritative source: Wikipedia.

 

Across the top we have our four types of strength, while down the side are the different variables. Choose your load, number of reps and sets, rest duration and speed depending on which type of training you are focusing on in that particular workout.

 

 

Variable	Training goal
	Strength	Power	Hypertrophy	Endurance
Load (% of 1RM)	80-90	45-55	60-80	40-60
Reps per set	1-5	1-5	6-12	13-60
Sets per exercise	4-7	3-5	4-8	2-4
Rest between sets (mins)	2-6	2-6	2-5	1-2
Duration (seconds per set)	5-10	4-8	20-60	80-150
Speed per rep (% of max)	60-100	90-100	60-90	60-80
Training sessions per week	3-6	3-6	5-7	8-14
Table reproduced from Siff, 2003[9]

 

Key Terms as described by Buffy: 

Load - the weight you are lifting. Duh. 

% of 1RM - stands for % of 1 rep max. With a training partner to watch you, build up to the maximum amount of weight you can hold for one complete repetition of the exercise. This is your maximum weight, 100%. From there, you do your weight training based on a percentage of that max. Every few cycles you should retest yourself to see how much your maximum has increased and readjust all your training weights from there.

Reps - Repetitions. How many times you do the action before resting.

Sets - the number of groups of repetitions.

 

 

Scheduling Your Sessions: 

 

Obviously, for beginners you are not going to be doing the large number of training sessions suggested. Be sensible! It is best to start with two workouts a week (as mentioned last time, female muscle tone starts to disappear after 4 days, so you need to be doing strength training more often than that). Within each session you need to vary between arms, legs and core.

Therefore, based on the information above and earlier, I suggest the following: 

-  If you are only doing two sessions a week, focusing just on one session dedicated to power and one session to strength is a good way to start out.

 

- As you can see, both power and endurance require very little weight, so can be done as body weight exercise (pushups, squats, crunches etc. that don't require any additional weights). Circuits are a good way to keep up the speed required for power focused workouts.

 

- Strength training will probably require you to use weights, but do a day of testing with a friend to find out what your max is first. Maybe just lifting an empty bar will be enough.

 

Key Exercises For Particular Muscle Groups:

 

These are just some suggestions on exercises you can mix and match for your training.  

Click on each link to see a demo (mostly) from the CrossFit website, where you can find LOTS more exercises. Highly Recommended. Warning, though, they often have loud music so turn your volume down before opening the link. 

 

Legs: 

Squats - this is one of the best exercises to do as you can use it for both strength and body weight training. I know they might seem boring, but once you see how cute your rear end becomes, you'll forgive them. (Also, see a more detailed description of how to perform squats without weights).

 

Lunges - these are good body weight exercises, can be done holding hand weights, and if coordinated can be done with a barbell across your shoulders.(The demon shows walking lunges, but you can also do them stationary). 

Box jumps - these are my favourite killers for power. They have the benefit of a squat, but with added dynamic power. Stand in front of a box or high step that comes up to just below your knee (you can start lower, but try to push yourself a bit, you might be amazed how high you can jump.). You then jump up onto the box both legs together. 

I was taught the key to this exercise only the other day after killing myself for ages. You should lift your feet and knees up so you land on the box in a squat position and then push yourself up. I tried to jump so that I had my legs straight when I landed on the box, which is obviously a lot harder and less effective. 

 

 

Arms:

Chest/Bench Presses - These can be done either with very light weights as a power exercise focusing on speed, or with much heavier weights for strength training. However, if you are using heavier weights, you must always have a spotter on hand to catch it before it crushes your throat. It only takes a second and you really don't recover well. 

 

Pushups - I know, I know, everyone hates pushups, but they are soooooo good for you. They get your back, your arms, your chest, and your abs. What's not to love about that? (they only hurt so much because they are doing so much good!) If you can't yet do a full push-up there are lots of variations out there, so find one at a suitable level.  (This demo is great because it takes you through variations on a full pushup, as well as some bad technique to avoid).

 

Kettlebell Swings: I'm trying to keep it a bit different and not just have 'bicep curls' and 'triceps dips' in there, though they are both good. If you haven't used kettlebells or done swings before, they are great because they use so much more than just your arms, and mimic throwing a baby around rather well.

Core:

Plank: This is a bit of a classic, but is great for building core strength that includes abs and back. There are a lot of variations, up on your hands, on one side, etc., but start with the basic and once you can hold it for a minute, then try out some of the variations.

Knees-to-Elbows: want a bit more of a challenge than straight sit-ups? Try these. Hang from a bar and try to bring your knees up to your elbows. Make sure you stay controlled on the way up and on the way down. Try to get as far as you can when starting out.

 

Back Extensions: You should never forget to keep strengthening your back. All the back injuries people have, a lot of them come from trying to do too much without building up the muscles first. Save yourself the pain, and remember your back every workout.  A lot of gyms will have a place for doing back extensions. If not, you can lie on a mat and just lift your chest off the ground.

 

Action time!

 

1. First decide how many sessions you can actually do. If beginning, just start with two and possibly work up to three. 

 

2. Next, with a friend go to the gym and test out your max reps for your key strength exercise. 

 

3. Sit down and design one body weight/power session and one heavier weights session, calculating how much load you need based on your max strength for that particular exercise, then your reps and sets, etc. 

 

4. Enjoy! 

 

Every few weeks swap some of your exercises around to keep the muscles guessing. But keep in mind the 10% rule, that you should only increase the work of an exercise by 10% at a time. Any more and you risk doing damage. So don't step up your weights too fast.

If anyone knows of other great exercises they would like to share, please feel free.

 

 

Design Your Own Weights Program: Part 1 - The Theory

I don't know why, but I've aimed this post particularly at girls. However, the theory also applies to you guys, so enjoy the information and insight into the feminine psyche... well, mine at least.

So, girls, do you want the good news or the bad news first about weights training?

Well, the good news is that when doing weights training it takes a lot of effort to really bulk up, and takes a dedicated type of training, despite what you hear. When you start doing weights you can appear to bulk up as during and after the exercises the muscles swell while being repaired. However, this is not permanent and won't leave you looking like Arnie for the rest of your life. So that's the good news (unless you want to look like Arnie, that is).

However, the bad news is that unlike the men, we lose our muscle tone really, really quickly. While I was training I was told by my coach that basically without continuing exercise, in four days you beginning to lose it. Four days!

So if you are trying to build up strength so you can take on your work colleagues in arm wrestling, doing weights just once a week is not going to be enough. If you want to maintain and then increase your strength, you need to flex all your major muscles at least twice a week.

Now, this doesn't have to be a separate workout, as will be discussed next time, but can be just three sets of squats and pushups at the end of your jog if that is all you can manage. There is absolutely nothing wrong with body weight exercises.

However, if you secretly want to sidle into the weights room and shove some macho-man out from in front of the mirror, girl power to you.

Here is some of the knowledge you need to develop a safe and effective weights workout.


Disclaimer:

As much as they are loved by female gyms such as Curves, and as easy and stress free as they seem, I do not endorse weights machines. They have one advantage in that often you can't get the movement too wrong, and so can't inadvertently injury yourself.

Having said that: they are aimed at working individual, particular muscles. But your body is not made to have individual muscles built up by themselves. You need to also be building up the stabilizers around those muscles to prevent injury.

Doing free weights adds in a risk of incorrect technique, but also allows your body to naturally build up all the elements required for the movement. As I will have great videos next week on good technique (by people who know what they are talking about, and vetted by me), I therefore recommend that you be brave and go free. 


Where to start:

There are two aspects you need to take into account to design a program:

1. the major muscle groups:

When designing a weights program over the cycle of the week, you want to make sure you have exercised all of the major muscle groups or else you are going to do bad things to your body, as well as eventually looking funny.

As a beginner, it is probably best if you try to include all the major muscles in each strength workout, as you won't be doing enough sessions to split them up.

When starting out, it's perfectly alright to think of your major muscle groups as:

Arms - Legs - Core 

(Core = abs and back... never forget your back, trust me on this.) 

Work those out for a few months, and then you can get into more specialized muscle training.


2. the different types of weights training:

All weights training does not produce the same results, and unless you are specifically specializing for competition, it is generally best to work out across at least two of the types. Now there are probably a thousand different terms and concepts that people have developed for describing the different types of training. However, for simplicity I'm sticking with Wikipedia on this one, who use a table from Siff (2003) which you will see next week. This table focuses on the following 4 types of weights training. 


4 Types of Weights Training:

Strength: While we often refer to all weights training as 'strength training', in particular this means being able to lift heavier things. The more you can lift, the stronger you are. Building up strength is useful for everyday life, such as being able to lift your partner off the ground when they tease you for being weak (it also works well on brothers, just saying.) 

Power: power is work per time. While a strong person might be able to lift 100kgs, a more powerful person can life it in less time. This can also be referred to as dynamic strength. I like to think of it as being bouncy. You know those people that just spring up flights of stairs two at a time? Well, they have serious power in their legs, and it is a great thing to have.

Hypertrophy: This is your 'make big muscles' type training. If your goal is purely to bulk up - this is your baby. It also explains why guys with big muscles tend not to be as useful around the house: none of the power, strength or endurance to actually use it all. Pah. I'm not actually a fan of big but useless muscles, so I would generally leave this one out of my training programs, but that's just me. 

Endurance: this is how long you can go for at a lighter weight. Instead of lifting up your partner, think about lifting up your baby cousin as you play aeroplanes again, and again, and again. That's endurance.

And with these strength powers combine, you too can be Captain Planet! Or at least functionally strong.

Tune in next time for how to practically design your amazing new program!