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| free weights over weight advice |  upstream |
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| #1 |  melkor |
Jul 04 2008 21:09 |
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Practicing form using no weight is always a good idea, but you'll want to challenge yourself from the start and being overweight you'll have a good amount of muscle mass already. Even when being completely sedentary and without doing any exercise whatsoever any weight gain is about 13% muscle. Exercise obviously improves this, but you have muscle already which you'd want to hang on to :) Krista has a series of instruction videos for you - Lurn 2 squat good -- E-ZY! - and there's also the Squat Rx series that'll help you quite a lot. If you want a book to read, Starting Strength or The New Rules of Lifting for Women are good, but if you watch the videos you don't really need them unless you want something you can bring with you to the gym :) Sean's program is a very good beginner plan already, I don't know how much more easing into it you need. You might need to play around with the weights you use a bit to find the right resistance that lets you do the program as written, but once you're past the first 2-4 workouts you should have a rough idea of what you can handle and progress from there. Oh, and congratulations on making a wise decision, your body's going to love you for it :) |
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| #2 | upstream |
Jul 04 2008 22:09 |
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Thanks, melkor :) It's very important to me to be physically strong because of the confidence and independence that it brings. Weight training while losing weight makes perfect sense. I used to do martial arts competitively and tons of outdoor activities, but then, inexplicably, became an immovable academic and sat on my ass for years. I actually went into the gym two months ago and asked a trainer there to help me set up a free weights routine because that's what I thought would be best based on my experience and research. He insisted that I do the machines for 6 weeks first "to get things moving." I don't know what the deal was with that, or why I bought it, but I ended up injured & delayed. This time I'm doing it my way. I like Sean's program for its simplicity. I know he says not to change anything, but I was wondering if he's assuming that ab exercises and calf raises are done in addition to the three lifts each day. Most of the other programs I've seen that have been similar to his have included these two components... One other question that comes to mind - I've seen it mentioned here and there that you should do a "range of motion" warm up. Do you know what this is? Anyway, thank you for your advice. Krista's site is great! Thanks! |
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| #3 | melkor |
Jul 04 2008 22:49 |
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Initially, direct ab work is pretty much unnecessary - squats and deadlifts hit your abs pretty hard and in a way that they're actually designed for. Your abs and core in general are there to stabilize your trunk and the isometric workout they get when stabilizing your torso against the heavy weights you're going to be using will do more to build real core strength than any crunch ever will. Besides, the last thing most of us who spend the day hunched over a computer is even more trunk flexion work - you're probably more in need of developing back strength using reverse hypers ;) Calf raises are more useful; despite the overall usefulness of the squat and deadlift you can actually leave your calves under-stimulated if you don't do some direct work on them. Still, I'd hold off a few weeks before introducing them to the program - Kethnaab's writeup of Mark Rippetoe's "Starting Strength" 5x5 workout has you waiting 2-3 months before adding in anything. Initially, it's best to just focus on the 'big 6', and leave the auxiliary work for later. At that later point it's flip-a-coin whether you'd add it to squat or deadlift day - I'm leaning a litte towards deadlift day, but you'd want to try both and see what works best for you. (Edited to add:) Oh, yes - the ROM warmup; you move your body and all of the major joints involved through the range of motion that you're going to train as a specific warmup; this is in addition to the general warmup. The Mobility Complex by Jeremy Frisch is an example of a ROM warmup - I've been using that for my own workouts for the past few months and it works pretty brilliant to both warm up the muscles you're going to use, groove the motor patterns, and increase the range of motion in your joints in a useful way. |
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| #4 |  caloriecountingme |
Jul 05 2008 00:22 |
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upstream, just a few thoughts. the first is that you don't need to keep your knees straight when doing squats. your knees should always be in line w/your feet, and it's not necessary to keep your feet pointed straight ahead. play around and see what works for you. you can point them out if you want; i tend to stand sort of "natural" for me. the squat rx that melkor linked above touches on this point. the other thing is that i don't have a solution for your butt sticking out when you squat, bec it's supposed to stick out. it's actually supposed to stick out really far, in order to engage your hamstrings. check out this article on using your hip muscles to squat. if you're leaning forward excessively when you squat (or on the way up), your knees will probably be far past your toes, your back will be taking on a lot of the weight, and your "core" muscles have gone on vacation. ppl say to keep the weight "in your heels" bec it keeps you mindful that squats are mainly a leg exercise, and it's your hamstrings that are keeping you upright and rising back to start position. surprisingly, putting weight on the bar actually makes this process easier (it's much harder to do a full squat w/o a weighted bar on your back). i agree that lifting weights boosts self esteem. have fun. |
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| #5 | floggingsully |
Jul 05 2008 14:25 |
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As long, as your doing all this other reading on squats, you might also want to check out the 3rd world squat, one of my favorites. |
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