Beginning Weight Training Workouts

Resistance training, strength training and weightlifting are synonymous, referring to a program of exercises to stimulate a person's ability to resist and exert force. Recognized organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and National Strength and Conditioning Association have set similar guidelines and positions on weightlifting. They suggest that weightlifting is the most effective type of exercise to increase and maintain fat-free body mass while also improving muscular strength and endurance.

Make a Plan

Before beginning a weight-training workout, develop a design specific to your training goals. For example, if you want strong legs, incorporate into your program exercises that target specific leg muscles. Take into consideration what type of muscle growth you want to develop. Depending on the type of lifting that you are doing, you can train for endurance, strength or power. You can train for a combination of all three types of muscle gain, but you will have to sacrifice gains in each if you try all three types of lifting methods.

Basic Principles

Specificity, overload, and progression are three things you want to always consider when beginning your lifting program. Your muscles can't grow unless they are constantly being stimulated by a weight that challenges them. Furthermore, your muscles can't grow if they adapt to a given load and you don't progress the exercise. Continue to challenge your muscles at a slow, gradual pace so that you prevent injury or excessive soreness while still being able to stimulate your muscles. It is important to train with frequency and regularity, but to not overtrain. If you overtrain, your body will not adapt favorably to the exercise and you put yourself at a greater risk for injury.

Design

When starting out, Dr. C.J. Hass and colleagues report in the journal Sports Medicine in 2001, that healthy adults regularly utilize a program that introduces one set of eight to 12 repetitions to voluntary fatigue two to three times per week per eight to 10 exercises performed. As you become more comfortable with each exercise over time, change the weight being lifted as well as the total weight per session being lifted every six to eight weeks, or whenever you can lift a given weight comfortably 15 or more times for two consecutive sets on consecutive training days.

Plan on giving each muscle group at least 48 hours of rest between successive lifting sessions to allow for proper rest and recovery from a previous bout of exercise. During the course of a single session, plan on programming for a total time of 45 to 60 minutes. This is a sufficient amount of time to facilitate training adaptions from your weight training program.