Episode 20: How to start lifting weights

Welcome to the Beauty of Better Podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Hey, mamas, you know, last week, we talked about five reasons why you should be lifting heavy weights and the reasons why there are so many health benefits.

But this week, we're gonna talk about how to lift heavy weights.

And so we wanna give you those practical tips and tools on how to actually get started and so that it doesn't feel so intimidating.

And, you know, we've got two amazing resources in this field, so we're gonna call on Kelsey and Kristiana a lot in this episode.

But I just wanted to start with a question of how often should I be lifting heavy weights if I'm just starting for the first time?

I guess I'll take that one.

I think Kelsey and I are both so passionate about it, you're probably gonna hear a lot.

So, for a beginner, we would recommend two to three times a week for just how frequent that individual should be starting to add it in.

Because if you want to develop a habit, you want to adhere to it for the long term, hopefully.

And so, easing in two to three days a week is something that's gonna be maintainable, and also one that's gonna lead towards some positive results.

And listen to our Smart Bulls episode.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, so two to three days a week.

And then, if you are doing two to three days a week, this means that you're probably gonna be hitting most of your major muscle groups on those two to three days.

So, we're talking about, like, if you're starting from, like, the top going down to the bottom, we've got your shoulders.

And these are major muscle groups, right?

So, there's multiple muscles working.

A lot of times, there's more than one joint.

So, they require more effort.

They feel more challenging compared to something that's just, like, one muscle group, like, your little biceps or something like that.

So, your shoulders, your back, your chest.

I feel like your core is its own section, like, your whole, like, the corset area of your trunk.

So, that could be its own section.

And then, the front of your legs, your quadriceps group, your hamstring group, your gluteal muscles.

Some people just call that all lower body, all legs.

Your calves are also included in that, too.

But if we just think, like, big, really, it's like shoulders, chest, back, core, and legs.

Or you could say front of the legs, back of the legs type of a thing.

So, if you are doing two to three days a week, you could choose several lower body exercises and several upper body exercises that are looking at those different muscle groups and try to hit all of the muscle groups, at least once, maybe twice a week.

And, Cristiana, maybe we can talk about how many repetitions we're doing, like what are sets and reps?

Maybe we can talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, and I think along with that, as you were listing the muscle groups, I was thinking, okay, well, how many total exercises should we do?

Maybe there's that question out there, too.

And if you're, some of the exercises you do might be a chest exercise that also is incorporating the shoulders, or a back exercise that's incorporating the biceps, so some of the accessory muscles will get hit with that.

So we would say probably somewhere between six to ten.

There's not like a magic number.

It kind of ties into exercise selection, and the more multi-joint it is, the more muscles it's going to be really stimulating to develop and grow.

So that will kind of determine it as well as your time.

And when you're thinking of that, kind of one more thing to add on before we talk about sets and reps, the pushing motions is going to be more chest, the pulling motions are going to be more back.

And then typically, we recommend exhaling on exertion because we, you know, some muscles, there's, you might hold your breath if you're going down into a squat, and it's really heavy weight, but we want to make sure you're breathing through that too.

Yes, exhale on exertion, right?

So if you're doing a pushing movement, you exhale when you're pushing.

If you're doing a pulling movement, you exhale when you're pulling, and that could be for upper or lower body.

So like a squat is a pushing movement, you're going to exhale when you push up during the squat.

A lap pull down is like pulling the weight down towards your chest, you're going to exhale when you pull because the pull is the primary movement there.

And that part takes a lot of practice.

It gets a little confusing, especially if you're newer with this type of thing.

So I think if you can just remember like, exhale on exertion, which is typically the more challenging part of the exercise, you'll be in a good place to start.

So yeah, we want to keep you breathing.

So, because when you start yawning, that's kind of a sign of oxygen deficit.

So maybe that you're holding your breath or not having like full engagement of your diaphragm and you're breathing shallow.

So that's just something that to be aware of, like make sure you're, if you're going to work out maximally, like we need oxygen on those muscles.

So let's just have that pattern of breathing.

So when it comes to sets and reps, there's a couple of different things to think about.

The lower amount of reps, we do want to be lifting heavier.

So like what we could say, maybe the strength zone would be around six repetitions.

That means how many times in a row that you're doing it.

So if I pick up this pen and I go one, two, three, all the way up to six, that would be repetitions.

Now I might take a break after doing those six.

And the heavier I'm lifting, the more rest you're going to need, the less that you're lifting, the less rest you need.

And if you're a beginner, you just need to double your rest.

Recommendations we're going to give you today.

But sets is like, how many of those groups of six did you do?

So for a beginner, we would recommend anywhere from one to three sets of a particular rep.

So strength would be six.

There's also some other zones, hypertrophy, power, and endurance.

Kelsey, do you want to touch on some sets and reparations for those other zones?

Yeah.

So I think if you, again, if you're new and you're just like starting doing this, whenever I've had brand new clients who've never trained before, I always start them off with higher repetitions.

So repetitions that are basically 10 or above.

Like these are, you know, if we're talking anywhere from like 10 to 15 repetitions of something, that's going to be more practice doing it, right?

Because you're doing it more times, so the weight is going to be lighter.

And you get more practice performing the actual movement with a weight that's more manageable, so that you can get good at the movement, make sure your form is good before you actually jump into stuff that's super heavy.

Yes, ideally, ideally, we all want to be lifting heavy at some point, but to get to heavy, you have to like get the form right.

And then we get heavier eventually, once it's appropriate to do that.

So if you want to start off with some of the higher repetitions and less sets of the exercise if you're doing more repetitions, right, so maybe, maybe just a couple sets.

If you're doing like 12 reps of something is going to be a better place to start.

If you have been doing that for a month or two and you're like, okay, I'm ready for like a little bit more of a challenge, we could drop it down a little bit and focus more on actually building the size of your muscle, which please like, don't panic and think that you're going to get big overnight by like breathing into breathing in a gym like you won't.

It actually takes so much effort to build muscle.

And women have, I mean, men have like nine times the amount of testosterone that we have, so it is so much easier for them to build muscle and you actually have to work pretty hard to do that.

And it's going to look very different based on your body shape and how tall you are and your bone structure and all of those things.

So you really don't need to be worried about, oh, I'm working too hard, I'm going to get big.

Like you will not get big, it is not that easy to do.

So just a little caveat there, I just want to throw that out.

Because I feel like every woman has believed that at some point, like I'm going to get big from lifting these weights and you just won't.

So what you will gain though is, you will gain more muscle mass on your body if you're lifting really anywhere between like 6 and 12 repetitions.

Sometimes it's 8 to 12.

We could just say 8 to 12 is going to build the size of your muscle a little bit more, and that might be better to do once you've been practicing some higher reps.

Just drop it down a little bit, so now the weight is heavier, and you're going to need to rest a little bit more in between, but that's also fine, and the rest is like when you basically get that energy back that you just use so that you can go do it again.

And yeah, so eventually, we want to get to training for strength, right, which is like basically six reps or less.

But another thing that I think is important, too, is when you're starting off, it's better to do things slower to get the form correct, even with warming up, right, or doing the actual exercise session.

Like when you're moving a load, if you're not good at it yet, you should not be doing it fast.

That literally does not make sense to like jump into something and try to learn how to do it and then speed it up.

That always is going to make it harder.

Sometimes the weight that you're lifting makes the exercise feel harder because it's heavier.

Sometimes the speed of it is going to make it feel harder, but really doing things fast should not be happening unless you've been doing it for months, and months, and months, and you feel really proficient at the actual exercise.

So I just wanted to toss that little nugget out there too, because I feel like a lot of people want to do fast things because they look like they're fun.

And they are, but they are fun once you're prepared to do them.

So I think something to add to is, mamas, if you're just starting for the first time, and this even sounds overwhelming, or you have more questions, or want to see demonstrations, we are working on creating videos on our website through a subscription where you can actually go into more detail on how to be lifting these weights and what your session should look like.

And so this is just an overview today, but just know there will be more details in our website to come.

Yeah, and quality and safety is really our heart here.

So just as Kelsey was saying, slow, it doesn't mean that the exercise session doesn't count.

Actually, that's more time under tension.

So if you think of those of you guys who like dancing, you think of the beat counts of songs, right?

So it's like you can be going down into a squat for a four count, coming up for a four count instead of up, down as quick as possible, right?

That's more time under tension.

But yeah, just focus on that form.

Often doing it in front of a mirror can help you kind of cross-check yourself as well too.

And then giving yourself a little bit of grace in that, like you're not going to be perfectly kinesthetically aware.

And so it's going to take time to develop that skill set if it's not something that you've done before.

So kind of recognizing, hey, do I feel more confident starting on a machine versus starting with dumbbells or barbells or kettlebells?

And just taking your own pulse of where you're at, that's going to add to that exercise adherence, I think is important to consider to be able to have just long-term success.

Smart goals again.

Yes, smart goals again.

Listen to the episode.

I wanted to ask a question.

So, Christiani, you had said about, what was it, eight to nine exercises to kind of start with?

Yes, I said six to ten, just full body.

I mean, it's not a magic number.

It's really, we could do a deeper episode on exercise selection, exercise order, all of that.

But today is just kind of an overview of it.

Well, so like, say, could that then look like them going to the gym, picking six to ten different machines?

And then would you say then like three sets of like maybe 10 to 12 repetitions on those and just start there?

And then maybe do that for like a couple weeks or how long would you say before they increase that way?

I know it's different for everyone.

No, that's an outstanding question.

I think Kelsey and I could dive a lot into programming.

But I would say you want to maybe stick with a goal for maybe four to six weeks, and then it's okay to shift your goal.

And that actually is going to cause greater adaptations.

There's something called undulating periodization, which we don't need to unpack fully in here.

But just like having seasons where your training goal shifts and changed, but it's not chaotic changes, it's actually planned variation.

Planned variation, not realization.

Yes, planned variation.

I agree with Cristiana basically every four to six weeks, right?

So say you wanted to start with a higher repetition type of a goal, like training for, that's called muscular endurance.

So when you want to get good at doing something for a lot of reps in a row.

So if we did that, and we picked six exercises to do, and we had like three different days, and we did different exercises on the different days that hit those body parts that we talked about at the beginning, and you, you know, maybe you start with two sets of 12, and you just like go through, and you do the six exercises.

You could do them all like individually, but you could also pair them together, and that's, that's called basically super setting an exercise with another one.

So that's kind of a nice way to save a little time if you're short on time, which I feel like you could get a really good, I mean, my, my weight training sessions right now are like 25 to 30 minutes, and I try to make sure I'm doing something the whole time, and at the end of that, it's like, wow, that was a really good, like that was a really good workout, because I made sure that I was using my time well, and maybe you're pairing a chest exercise, and then you do a back exercise, or maybe you do an upper body, and then you do a lower body, and you do both of the sets that go with that.

So maybe you do like a set of squats, and then you do a set of chest presses on a machine, and then you go do your squats again, and then you do your chest presses, and then you move to two different exercises, and you just do that for your six exercises that you're gonna do.

That's one way you could do it.

There's lots of right ways to do it.

I always tell my clients, like if you hired five different trainers, they'd probably write you five different programs, but they might all be good, because there's lots of variety in exercise choice and the way that we pair things together.

And like Christiana said, based on what you have access to, like if you just have some weights and you're at home, you can still do that.

Like it's, you can use your body weight.

There's things that you can do that don't require a ton of equipment.

But if you do go to a gym and that feels a little bit less intimidating, do that, because something is always better than nothing.

And if we're talking about getting just a little bit better in this area, then we want to be doing something.

And that can move the needle.

Like it's better to do 20 minutes than zero minutes.

And if you do 20 minutes three times a week, that's an hour that you would not have spent doing that.

So you're going to get better at it the more you practice it.

And so I would say that's almost even better to start with less time and just do it like two or three times a week and just get good at practicing those exercises.

And I would just add one more piece to that of like spreading it out through your week, because you are going to get sore as you're asking your muscles to do something that they're not used to normally doing.

So giving yourself a minimum of 24 to 48 hours of rest to allow that recovery period before you ask that muscle group to work at that full intensity again for you would be more realistic as well.

So it's those small steps, they add up to big changes, but this resistance training really is a game of patience, right?

If you really want to see muscle being added to your body, that's something that's heavily metabolically active.

Like it doesn't want to just add if we're primary sedentary, right?

Like we have to make that overload happen to make our body actually adapt.

Okay, last thing I want to say, I think, is if you're trying to figure out also what weight you should use and you're just starting, you want to pick a weight that feels challenging for you to do.

So if you have like a rep range that you're trying to hit, like, let's say you're starting with like 10 to 12 reps of an exercise.

So you want to pick a weight that you can do in that range.

And if you can do it more than 12 times, then it's probably too light.

But if you can't do it 10 times, then it's probably not heavy enough.

But we want to make sure your form is just really good in that and that you're also hitting that number.

So that's kind of one way that might be a little bit simpler to try to figure out, like, how much weight do I use?

And that takes time to figure out too.

But I think you said-

That's a super helpful tip.

That's a really good tip.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, good.

I'm glad.

Yeah.

So I think as you're starting to pursue, you know, lifting weights and getting stronger and doing these movements that you know are good for you.

Just remember that some is always better than none, and trying to add it into your schedule in a way that makes sense for you, at a time that makes sense for you, in a place that makes sense for you is all a good place to start.

So we just hope that this encourages you to just start moving your body more with resistance, and that you can check out our subscriptions in the future if you want more info and more guidance on that.

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