WEIGHTLIFTING PART THREE

WEIGHTLIFTING

PART THREE

9) When developing your plan, keep these time restraints in mind. Muscles which have been worked hard and fitigued to failure must rest 48 hours. One needs to work at least three days per week.

10) Traditional weightlifters divided their bodies into five areas: shoulders, back, chest, arms and legs. To this, we must add the most important area of all: the core. (It is important that you gain some knowledge of the major muscles and muscle groups of your body. It will take a little study but will aid you immensely as time goes by.) Plans can be made that have you work one, two, three or all body areas at each session. If you have the time, you could work two body areas one day and two or three the next. This way, you could have a schedule that has you lifting six days in a row and still give worked muscles 48 hours to rest. (I would discourage lifting 7 days in a row) Weightlifters with the primary goal of gaining strength more often use this kind of schedule.

11) An alternate plan is to design a whole body workout. This type of plan can only be done every other day. It is usually used by those with the primary goal of losing weight. Rest between exercises should be minimized.

12) You are about ready now to sit down and make your plan. No matter what you write, it will go through some adjustment as you put it into action. Don't let that deter you, it is a must that you write down your plan. The plan must include each exercise in order, the type of resistance to be used, the amount of resistance and the number of repetitions. (for example: bench press - barbell - 160 lbs - 10 reps) Write out every one. Make sure you've covered all the muscles in the group for this session.

13) Mark your paper after each exercise. Note how many perfect reps you actually did. If you were shooting for 10 reps and you did them, next time increase your weight by 10%. If you did less than 7 reps, lower the weight for your next session.

14) Mark the time at the beginning and end of the session. Did the total time fall into the proper time frame? If not, adjust you plan.

15) Keep track of how much time you are taking between sets and between execises. you shouldn't need more than a minute or two to recover between sets. If you do, you may be using too much weight. Between exercises, try to limit your time to two to three minutes. For those with the weight loss as primary goal, limit these times as much as possible. Later we will talk about using zero time between exercises which we call super sets.