Starter Weight Lifting Workout

If you're just starting out with weight lifting or interested in figuring out how you can exercise your whole body and lose weight then this is the page for you. Weight lifting is the less discussed half of complete fitness. No doubt you've heard or know how important cardio is but weight lifting is just as important. Many people who attempt to lose weight simply go on a diet and maybe do cardio and they do lose pounds. However, if you're losing a lot of weight you'll be left with loose skin and an unhealthy body. As you lose fat you'll also be losing muscle unless you are building muscle as you lose weight.

I recommend two workouts below that you should alternate between allowing a day of rest before each. The workouts will tell you the exercise to do and then how many sets by how many repetitions for each workout. A set is a certain amount of repetions in an exercise. So, if you see 5x5 it means do the exercise 5 times then rest for a minute or two, then repeat until you've done it 5 times. The first number is the number of sets, the second is the repetitions. If you see an F it means until failure. This means do it until you break the exercise form which means you should stop.

It's important than you rest to allow your muscles time to recover. Weight lifting actually tears your muscles fibers which makes them rebuild stronger. If you don't let them rebuild then you'll simply be damaging your muscles over and over and won't make any progress.

Workout One

• Squats - 5x5
• Bench Press - 5x5
• Inverted Rows - 5xF
• Push Ups - 5xF
• Reverse Crunch - 3x12

Workout Two

• Squats - 5x5
• Overhead Press - 5x5
• Deadlift - 1x5
• Pull Ups - 3xF
• Prone Bridges - 3x30 seconds

These two workouts will exercise your entire body and build muscle mass, strength, power, increase cardiovascular levels, overall health, and help you lose weight (unless you're skinny it will make you gain weight).

It is very important that you eat healthily during this workout routine. Your body will be building a lot of muscle and without fuel you won't get anywhere. Eat a lot of protein (meats), fruits and vegetables, and drink plenty of water. Don't worry too much about what you eat as long as you're getting a lot of the three components I just mentioned and focus on eating healthy foods.

Correct form is extremely important as well during all of these exercises. You can injure yourself very badly if you perform the exercises without proper form especially when you get up to higher weight amounts. Here are links to explainations of how to perform each of these exercises with correct form.

Squats, Bench Press, Inverted Rows, Push Ups, Reverse Crunch, Overhead Press, Deadlift, Pull Ups, Prone Bridges. While this may not seem like a lot of exercises they are quite intense and a few like squats will exercise your entire body at the same time.

Equipment Needed

To do these workouts you'll need the following equipment. Make sure you stick with what I mention here or you might end up with something that will break and injure you or simply won't work.

• Olympic 7 Foot Barbell
• Weight Plates For Barbell
• Flat Weight Bench
• Power Rack

That's all you need. However, this will cost you hundreds of dollars. A good power rack will cost you around $400 which is wher most of the cost comes from. However, if you're on a budget you can simply buy the barbell and weight plates. This will only cost you around $150-$200 total.

Budget Equipment Workout

If you decide to only buy the barbell and weight plates here are the two workouts that you should be doing instead. These can all be done with only a barbell and weight plates but they won't be quite as effective as the exercises above.

• Squats (Power Clean or Steinborn Lift into position)
• Deadlift & Barbell Rows (No bench/power rack needed)
• Overhead Press (Power Clean into position)
• Floor Press

This covers how to do any exercises above that would normally require a power rack or bench. Here are links explaination how to Power Clean, Steinborn Lift, and Floor Press.

Every time you do these workouts you should be adding weight to your barbell. If the weight is too much to lift while maintaining proper form for all the repetitions then simply do as many as you can. Next time use the same weight but try to increase the amount of reps you can accomplish until you're able to do all of them. Then start adding weight again.

This workout should last you around 6 months before you're simply unable to continue adding weight every workout. At this point you'll need to look into intermediate workouts where you'll only be adding weight about once a week.

I hope you've enjoyed this article and will start weight lifting as part of your exercise routine. It's a very important part of fitness in general and one that can be very enjoyable as well. Take care.