Last week, we talked about how lifting weights was the most optimal thing that we can do in order to start to work to lose weight. If you missed that post, then feel free to go back and look at our previous blog post! So now that we have a baseline for what we need to do in terms of cardio or lifting weights, how do we go about structuring a plan that will work for us? There are a couple of different components that we are going to look over in this post today that will give a little insight into the what and the why.
Sets:
The first thing that we need to look at is the number of sets that we are going to do or the number of times that we do a certain move 10 times. This number will greatly depend on a number of factors, like your age, workout goals, what the exercise is, how tired you may be, etc. A good rule of thumb is that the majority of your workouts will be in the 3-4 set range, this will allow for sufficient time to work out to get you to a fatigued state to where you are able to constantly improve as you work through weight and all of that. Now, there are instances where you may need 2 sets if it is a rehab exercise or a "repatterning" exercise where a new move or pattern is taught to someone, but the majority of the sets will fall in the 3-4 rep ranges.
Reps:
Next we need to look at the number of repetitions that we do when it comes to these exercises, or basically the amount of times that we do them. Depending on the goals that we have, this number will also change and can be anywhere from 5-15. The reason that this number is so drastic of an incline is that one end of the spectrum targets your overall strength and how heavy of a weight you can move and the other end targets your muscular endurance, or how long you are able to lift for without getting tired. Usually, around 5-6 is the strength phase, 8-12 is the hypertrophy or the muscle building phase, and then anymore than that is the muscular endurance phase.
Rest Time:
The last thing that we will go over in depth in this post is the proper rest time when it comes to the exercises that you are doing. Again, this also depends all on your goals and what you are trying to do. The best way to explain rest time is the more energy that you exert, the more time your body needs to be able to recover from it. So, if you are walking you may not need as much rest time as you would if you are going for a heavy set of squats. You tap into different energy systems in your body, so you need different times to replenish those systems. Your energy systems are basically the different fuel grades at the gas station, you will use one for one of your systems and will need another type of fuel for a more intense workout or a more intense movement. Rest times usually can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes when it comes to this.
Overall, there are a lot of things to consider when you are lifting weights and there is a lot of components to look at, but it is not as overwhelming as you may think. A lot of what you do is very specific and can easily be determined and adapted based on how you are feeling during one workout as opposed to another. That is the good thing about workout partners and professionals helping you along the way, we are trained over the course of 4 years to be able to recognize when someone can exert more effort and when we may need to back off for them and adjust accordingly before we run into any issues. As stated above, there are some things that you are able to do and adjust when you are working out, but the one thing that having someone there will help with is being able to make sure form is correct when doing exercises so that injury risk is at the bare minimum when working out. We are trained to be able to know the exercise that someone is doing forward and backward and be able to make adjustments based off of how the client is performing the exercise.
Other things that may need to be looked into are form like we talked about, but also things like muscle imbalances, exercise selection, proper warming up, nutrition, and recovery with working out in terms of how long, water intake on a given day, what to do about soreness, and many other things that will be addressed very briefly throughout the later posts here on the blog so stay tuned. For more in depth information and to take the guess work out of everything and let a professional handle all of the steps sign up with us today and we will make sure to put you on the right path to not only look better, but to also feel better and move better! On Friday, we will be talking about fad dieting, what is it, what are the different fad diets out there, and most importantly what the best diest is FOR YOU!
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