Free weights

I have read in many places this is the best for way for starting a strenghtening programme rather than using the machines in the gym.

 Can anyone recommend a good link for a good exercise plan?

Melkor's List of weight training programs

Thanks amethystgirl, there is loads on there! Ta Melkor for doing it also!

There are two trains of thought :

1) Full Body Routines - Stronglifts.com has a 5x5 program that is very popular and apparently very successful. You do it three times per week and it uses all free-weight compound exercises that work many muscle groups at once. The thought there is that since they are compound, they build more strength and muscle overall. There are two workouts. Workout A - Squats, Bench, Barbell Row, and Dips. Workout B - Squats, Overhead Press, Deadlift, and Pull-Ups. On both workouts' you do the main three exercises for 5 sets of 5 reps. Once you are able to do a certain weight for 5 reps @ 5 sets, you add 5 pounds. Hence the 5x5 name. You keep switching off between workouts. For example - Mon is workout A, Wed is workout B, and Fri is workout A. Then the next Monday you start with workout B and so on.

2) The Split - This is the other way people workout, where they split bodyparts up into different days doing a lot more isolation exercises. For example, Monday you would do Chest Triceps, Wed you would do Back/Biceps, and Fri you would do Legs/Shoulders. On the split, you are allowed more recovery because you work each muscle group less. The main argument with this however, is that muscle only takes 48 hours to repair itself, and the time that is spent not using it after that is a waste.

I was on a split routine for years, and I recently switched over to the 5x5 program on stronglifts just to try and get a basis of comparison. I really like the stronglifts program so far.

Thanks, have had a look at it...like the vids that show you how to do the actual moves/lifts. Will have a good read and a go at it. My only problem will be getting the guys in the gym to let me have a go on the bench press exercises! They dont shift from that bench! But I reckon once I have had a proper read of it you may be able to do it in the ladies gym with free weights....

Splits are really for more advanced lifters, though

Original Post by spirochete:

Splits are really for more advanced lifters, though

 I second that!

A lot of people don't realise that even the top professional Bodybuilders started off with simple but effective whole body strength routines with lots of compound movements.

Like Vyper said you should check out www.stronglifts.com

It's so simple to follow and so effective.

Original Post by littlesimongeorge:

Original Post by spirochete:

Splits are really for more advanced lifters, though

 I second that!

A lot of people don't realise that even the top professional Bodybuilders started off with simple but effective whole body strength routines with lots of compound movements.

Like Vyper said you should check out www.stronglifts.com

It's so simple to follow and so effective.

 Just in time!  I just finished NROL HYPI and am looking for a 5X5 routine.  I was going to do HYPII next, but am not looking to do 25 reps, even if it is once every 4 workouts!   I need a break from the high reps after HYP I and also a break from the upper/lower body splits!  I am going to do this next!

Original Post by yogagirl6853:

Original Post by littlesimongeorge:

Original Post by spirochete:

Splits are really for more advanced lifters, though

 I second that!

A lot of people don't realise that even the top professional Bodybuilders started off with simple but effective whole body strength routines with lots of compound movements.

Like Vyper said you should check out www.stronglifts.com

It's so simple to follow and so effective.

 Just in time!  I just finished NROL HYPI and am looking for a 5X5 routine.  I was going to do HYPII next, but am not looking to do 25 reps, even if it is once every 4 workouts!   I need a break from the high reps after HYP I and also a break from the upper/lower body splits!  I am going to do this next!

 Yeah give it a go, it's an excellent program!

 I still prefer the original Starting Strength to the version from Stronglifts- for one thing, progression to useful loading is faster in the original version from Rippetoe.

 The lift descriptions and coaching from Stronglifts is good, but program design is pretty meh - the original Bill Starr 5x5 workout that everyone's been cribbing for the past 40 years had trainees do ascending sets with just one work set at your top weight. 2-3 warmup sets and 3 sets across work as well as ascending sets for a beginner since the minimum essential strain to have a training effect for a beginner (and someone who can't reach the 1RM strength standard for an intermediate trainee is a beginner) is at 60-80% of your 1RM - and in Starr's original 5x5 you'd cross that MES threshold at sets 3-5.

 Rip would tell me that I'm overthinking things and to just lift the damn weights, but the guys I've trained using the Starting Strength progression got up to respectable weights pretty fast; a lot faster than they would have if we'd been using the Stronglifts progression model.

Hey Melkor - is there somewhere I can get a list of the exercises in the Riptoe 5X5 without purchasing the $30 book?  I have been laid off since Feb and would rather not spend any $$.

 I heard he has alot of good descriptions in there, but I am pretty comfortable doing the exercises correctly, like deads and squats.

Right there in the Wiki, actually - I still prefer the book because Rip goes into almost horrenduous detail on how to properly do the lifts, including a whole bunch of tricks on how to do self-coaching and ways to correct the common flaws in the exercises.

 There's a whole bunch of videos of Rip coaching too on the Wiki, which is interesting even for people who've been at this for a while; you can almost always pick up on somethign new just by watching someone else teach ;)

 Doesn't replace the book, but it's a nice adjunct and if you're comfortable with the exercises already you can make do without it. Even if I am a total Rippetoe fangirl ;)

Oh great site... thanks!   A couple questions though:

It seems that this is contradictory to Cosgrove as in the length of time to do the workouts.  Cosgrove only has you doing 4-8 weeks per "stage/program",at most where Rip says 9 months! 

Is 3 exercises per workout really enough?  Also is only 3 sets of 5 enough volume?  According to the charts I seem to be beginner/intermediate.  I've been lifting for 9 months.... and doing 5-9 exercises with varying number of sets/reps. 

Cosgrove has a different focus from basic barbell training - when you're combining metabolic conditioning with strength workouts and trying to cover more ground in less time like Cosgrove et. al. it's more effective for the conditioning part to change up the workout more often. Since rapid gains in areobic/anaerobic conditioning depends on pushing your body with exercises where motor skill learning doesn't play a significant role it's useful to change exercises as soon as motor skill learning becomes significant and reduces the recruitment and strain on the muscles.

 Rip is coaching pure strength training where you actually want the motor skill learning to be a part of your progression- as you learn how to move the bar correctly and how to use your existing muscle to its full potential, followed by structural adaptations once load and volume crosses the minimum essential strain value for having a training effect.

 Well, that's the way I interpret it anyway; this isn't necessarily what either of the gentlemen in question would say. And Rippetoe likes CrossFit for the metabolic conditioning aspect of training which works roughly the same as a Cosgrove-style circuit or superset as far as conditioning goes; so in essence Rip is splitting the workouts up more into constituent parts which is not as time-efficient as a Cosgrove-style workout but probably better for sports-specific goals.

 And if you're somewhere between beginner/intermediate it's possibly not enough volume, so you should look at some of the expanded variations for the slightly more advanced trainee. Though I think that you can probably stick to the basic template for far longer than people actually do - at some point boredom sets in and you feel like changing up the workout even if it's technically still working ;)

 Also, if you're lifting significant weight for the top 3x5 sets across, you should be doing 2-3 ramping sets from the unloaded barbell to your working sets; which contributes to your work volume and will likely cross the MES value for 1-2 of the ramping sets which helps things along a bit.

 Each workout may only be 3 exercises, but you're working the majority of your muscles in compound moves that strengthens your body as a unit. The missing exercises are a vertical pull (chinup, lat pulldown) and if you're doing power cleans you could argue that you're short a horizontal pull with the lack of barbell row. They do get added to the program in the beginner/intermediate versions, and considering that you're not starting from complete scratch like the most stripped-down program presupposes you'd probably be justified in looking at something like at least the advanced novice programs or even the intermediate ones. 

But try just the basics for at least a couple weeks and see if you can still make linear progress in the exercises. If you can, you still haven't finished tapping your own current potential - you might only add 20-50lbs on the major exercises and stall out after a few weeks, but that still puts you ahead of the game for when you do the more advanced versions with slower progression, neh?

  There's a whole bunch of useful assistance exercises you can add to the program once you've exhausted the potential of linear progression in the basics and have a rough idea of specific weaknesses to adress; chins, dips, barbell rows, romanian deadlifts, glute/ham raises and so on that you can use to strengthen specific weaknesses in the kinetic chain - once you've actually trained long enough to have legitimate weak points. You may actually already be in a place where it's more productive for you to do one of the more advanced iterations of the program, but try the linear minimalist version first and see if you can't wring a few more pounds out of your existing muscle ;)

Melkor,

I am thinking about swicthing over to Starting Strength doing three sets of five as opposed to the five sets of five in Stronglifts. In terms of doing squats, I think it will be much easier on my knees and a better way to avoid overtraining if I am doing nine sets per week as opposed to fifteen. I did my five sets of squats yesterday and while my quads are slightly sore, it is my knees that are more sore than anything else. I have really been emphasizing going as deep as I can with my squats now trying to hit slightly below paralell.

Thanks for the great info!!  I will be trying the basic program for at least 2 weeks as you suggest.  I will start tomorrow as my last lifting day was yesterday.  I may move to the intermediate after that... Or I may be ready to go back to Cosgrove and HYP II by then.

I will be greatly looking forward to it!

Thanks again!

Original Post by vyperman7:

Melkor,

I am thinking about swicthing over to Starting Strength doing three sets of five as opposed to the five sets of five in Stronglifts. In terms of doing squats, I think it will be much easier on my knees and a better way to avoid overtraining if I am doing nine sets per week as opposed to fifteen. I did my five sets of squats yesterday and while my quads are slightly sore, it is my knees that are more sore than anything else. I have really been emphasizing going as deep as I can with my squats now trying to hit slightly below paralell.

 Have you always had knee pain or has it started with the introduction of stronglifts?

From my understanding they stress that you must go below parallel because it's less pressure on the knees, which of course is very important with this program as you're doing 75 working reps per week.

Do you have flexibility issues with going below parallel?

Original Post by littlesimongeorge:

 Have you always had knee pain or has it started with the introduction of stronglifts? From my understanding they stress that you must go below parallel because it's less pressure on the knees, which of course is very important with this program as you're doing 75 working reps per week. Do you have flexibility issues with going below parallel?

 

 I think that might be the problem. My flexibility has never been the greatest..LOL Now, it does feel like I am, and I do get pretty deep/low into the squat. However, there is no way to know for sure without someone else watching and checking my form.