Weightlifting Advice

[Michael Davis]

OK, so me and geormiet and CostaRicaBill joined a gym two doors down from our apartment here in lovely Costa Rica. We're all underweight and know very little about working out.

Anyways, our trainer, Marcello, has created a program that has us working out five times time a week lifting the same weight, doing a circuit of every body part each day. Now, like I said, I know very little about working out, but everything I do know says that this is entirely wrong if the goal is to build muscle. What do the 2+2 experts think of Marcello's advice?

Thanks.

-Michael

Its fine if you are a beginner.

[jakethebake]

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Its fine if you are a beginner.

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That's the thing, early on it matters much less what you do than that you're doing something. You'll gain on almost any program.

I happen to be a big believer in full-body workout programs. They're slightly different than a circuit in that you don't jump from exercise to exercise quickly. But I think most split programs are pretty silly for most people.

[irishpint]

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[ QUOTE ]
Its fine if you are a beginner.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the thing, early on it matters much less what you do than that you're doing something. You'll gain on almost any program.

I happen to be a big believer in full-body workout programs. They're slightly different than a circuit in that you don't jump from exercise to exercise quickly. But I think most split programs are pretty silly for most people.

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oh cool, the guy who spends more time on his computer than anyone else is going to tell me how to left weights. i usually dont value your opinion high. this time i dont value it at all.

[Warik]

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Its fine if you are a beginner.

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No way.

There are only two times in your life that you'll experience higher than average muscle gain.

Time #1: The first couple of months after you start working out seriously for the first time.

Time #2: Your first steroid cycle if you choose to go that route.

Why waste #1 with a bad workout?

Man... if I knew then what I did now, I would have gained so much more when I first started lifting.

When you first start, you will make good gains almost regardless of your work out. Infact, since you are new to working out, you are more prone to overtraining, which is detrimental to muscle growth.

Heres the standard link: www.bodybuilding.com
If you want to go beyond beginner, thats the place to reaad

[NateDog]

Find someone who knows WTF is going on, and gear up.

[leehrat]

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Find someone who knows WTF is going on, and gear up.

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bad advice for a beginner. the gains you make at first are substantial and you need that base if/when you choose to cross over to the dark side down the road. that said, you should be able to find some quality products in costa rica. but i advise against it.

[Warik]

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When you first start, you will make good gains almost regardless of your work out.

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That's no excuse for adopting a less than optimal workout. Yes, you'll make gains with anything... but you'll make BETTER gains with a BETTER beginner program. A full body workout 5x a week is on the wrong side of the spectrum.

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Infact, since you are new to working out, you are more prone to overworking, which is detrimental to muscle growth.

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Overworking in the sense of doing too much lifting in one day and hurting yourself, or overworking in the sense that you're not giving your muscles enough time to rest between sessions?

Either one is a serious risk with the program he's considering getting on... the program you say is "ok" because he's a beginner and will gain with anything.

I wrote overworking, I editted in overtraining. Mispoke, blah blah blah.

Anyways, what I meant is, for someone who has never worked out before this program is fine. At this point, he has no idea how to "work out hard". That being said, id say doing this sort of thing is okay for maybe a couple weeks, but after that amount of time, he shoudl have the knowledge to move his workouts up a notch. This sort of program should be used as a sort of way to get your feet wet. It does just that.

To put it in perspective, I used to do a lot of weight training for a few years. I would workout a muscle group once a week fairly hard. Anything without about 6 days rest in between would not suffice with the amount of reps/sets/weight I was doing.

I wouldnt stick some novice on a bunch of pyramids, drop-sets and burn-out sets. People cant handle those sorts of workouts without experience. Dont expect them to be able to do the 12-16 set work outs per 1 muscle group per day routine.