Basic Weightlifting guide

I won’t go too much into the rea­sons why lift­ing heavy weights is good for you — Like the Nike slo­gan: just do it. This post is a basic guide on HOW to lift heavy weights.

Some Food for thought:

There is a bunch of BS sur­round­ing weight-lifting and fit­ness in gen­eral. Most of what works is easy to under­stand and the rest is mostly smoke and mir­rors meant to sell books, ad-space, or the lat­est gim­micky fit­ness prod­uct. I’m going to let you in on a secret: Don’t buy the hype.

Fit­ness and weight-lifting is very sim­ple to under­stand and uni­ver­sally applic­a­ble for 99% of the pop­u­la­tion.The weightlift­ing prin­ci­ples are based on how we have sur­vived in nature for thou­sands of years and evolved to our cur­rent con­di­tion. Human beings are made to pick up, drag, and move heavy objects.  It has been an inte­gral part of the human sur­vival and growth.  

Now-a-days peo­ple aren’t forced to move any­thing heavy unless by choice and this inac­tiv­ity has a large cor­re­la­tion to the obe­sity pan­demic in this coun­try.  Lift­ing weights is a basic human func­tion we all must do; male or female, young or old.  

Weightlift­ing is exactly, absolutely,  undoubtedly,  and 100% what you need to have develop any kind of tone-ness or firm­ness for men and women!

A BONUS

A huge ben­e­fit of build­ing mus­cle through lift­ing weights is the ther­mo­genic effect that your body has after you train. Your body turns into a calorie-burning furnace. Think of it as ‘car­dio’ for free–you burn calo­ries when you aren’t moving.

When you lift weights you will firm-tone-and-tighten (I hate these words but just so we are on the same page) your entire body, and after you lift weights, for the next 24 hours you will expe­ri­ence calorie-burning that will help shed the hardest-to-shed area of your body: the stom­ach.

THE 3 BASIC BAR­BELL LIFTS ARE: SQUAT, DEAD­LIFT, SHOUL­DER PRESS

Stand up, sit down, pick stuff up, press it over­head. Any human can per­form these move­ments. Maybe not with weight, maybe not with­out assis­tance, maybe not per­fectly, but they def­i­nitely can be done. The point is to start doing them and to start at what­ever point your fit­ness level deter­mines. Flex­i­bil­ity, gen­eral fit­ness con­di­tion, and many other fac­tors will come into play in deter­min­ing where you should start and how long it will take to reach goals you set for yourself.

squat

Deadlift

Shoulder press

The key is to get started, take it slow, and be safe. Do not pressurise yourself or dont get into any kind of excitement in the beginning. Do not try to lift heavy weights intially otherwise you will face serious troubles.

GEN­ERAL STRENGTH ROU­TINE GUIDELINES

1. Lift 2–4 times a week

2. Fol­low pro­gres­sive over­load prin­ci­ples (increase weight smartly)

3. Track your progress

4. Analyze fail­ure (usu­ally) with proper intensity

5. Rest between sessions

6. Train in a bal­anced way and work mobility

7.  Use a work­out part­ner and spot­ter. Be safe (if you get hurt you can’t train and that is counterproductive)

8. Eat a clean diet that empha­sizes whole foods that will improve recovery

9. Drink water

10.  Keep reps moderate-to-heavy  in the 8–15 range most of the time. Do heavy 1–5 rep sets some­times (advanced) and do 10+ rep sets sometimes

11. Use proper warm-up sets with light weight and build to work­ing sets.