To Get Lean Safely and permanently, embrace the lifting lifestyle.
Here’s how to get started.
Personal Training is expensive and time consuming. In person one on one training requires you to travel to the gym, or get your home ready for a visitor.
Group weight training, which I taught for years at my studio, is very effective, but it is difficult to match the weight, reps, and rest intervals perfectly for everyone in the class. In addition, the trainees who have the most success for years and years are the ones who embrace the lifting lifestyle, and learn to lift on their own.
Before you start a weight training lifestyle, I want you to know the two things that are most likely to wreck a resistance training plan.
- Injury. If you pull a muscle, twist an ankle, or inflame your knees, your training pattern will be broken. You will have to take time off to heal, and it is extremely de-motivating to start back at square one. Some people do learn their lesson and start over, but it’s much wiser to lift with caution and respect for form in order to prevent acute and over use injuries.
- Avoidance. I also call this unwillingness to train, or even: resistance to resistance. This is the impulse to skip training sessions because you perceive them as too long, boring, confusing, or difficult.
One key to embracing resistance training for life is to treat it like the sport and art form it is. Begin with the basic lifts the way an athlete or a musician would start with drills or scales. I approach each session the same way I approach the barre in ballet class, or the center steps in jazz class.
Another key is to stay within the boundaries of your skill and ability by giving yourself permission to keep the weight low until you are willing and eager to increase it. For the beginner, just performing the movements themselves with body-weight creates progress.
Key number three is to have a complete plan every time you train. Your complete plan will cover exercises, repetitions, sets, and the frequency of your training.
Here is the complete plan I recommend for your first four weeks of lifting.
Frequency: Three times per week with one day between sessions: For example Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Exercises: Three non- competing super-sets with eight reps per movement for three sets.
The first super-set is your warmup, and it should be performed with 50% of your working weight, or body weight if you are a beginner.
Super-set #1: Dumb-bell squats: 8 reps followed by Push Ups: 8 reps. Rest 30 seconds. Perform two more super-sets for a total of 3 rounds.
Super-set #2: Dumb-Bell Romanian Dead-lifts: 8 reps followed by Dumb Bell Rows: 8 reps per arm. Rest 30 seconds. Perform two more super-sets for a total of 3 rounds.
Super-set #3: Dumb-Bell Reverse Lunge: 8 reps per leg followed by Dumb-bell Curls: 8 reps per arm. Rest 30 seconds. Perform two more super-sets for a total of 3 rounds.
Gently stretch major muscle groups, and you’re done.
If faster fat loss is your goal, you can perform 8 to 16 minutes of interval training exercise, but the resistance exercises are the priority. As a dancer, I use dance steps for my interval training immediately after my weight session.
The simplest way to do beginner intervals is to walk briskly up hill for 20 seconds, then walk back down for 10 seconds. Complete 8 rounds. Rest at least one minute and repeat the interval round if desired.
Please leave a comment with any questions, and share with someone who wants to get lean and strong.
catherine@dareshine.com
All the best, Catherine
My Book: Keep the Change Transform Your Body For Good on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ql26LB
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