How Do I Start Weight Training? Explain it to Me Like I'm Five.

[Bacchus]

BUT what keeps messing me up from getting going with any program is how incredibly sore I get after lifting from just 1 or 2 workouts !

All the things I read on strength training say not to lift again when you are still sore, cause your muscles are rebuilding, but if that soreness lasts 2, 3, or 4 days, what do you do? (I foam roll, use a massage gun, drink lots of water)

Give it a few months of frequent enough workouts and you won't get sore.

And, working out while sore is fine, unless its reeeeeeeeal bad - Just take it a bit easier

 

[mopo89]

One time, after not doing any strength training for months and months, I went straight into a hypertrophy program and decided to lift as heavy as I possibly could for leg day. I'm talking like.... 40lbs more than I should have been lifting. I managed to do it and finished the 30 minute workout. I then couldn't walk, legitimately, for 2 weeks. Like, I'm talking tears whenever I had to walk down a flight of stairs or go to the washroom. Ever since then, I go low and slow to reduce muscle soreness at the beginning.

 

[Kelso37]

I paid $30 for a medical provider to do a virtual evaluation and then they emailed me the LOMN.

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Well omg ! I learned something totally new today! Thank you for sharing!!

Haha my hubby is gunna flip. He already thinks I have lost it with all my research haha
But he is super lucky and super tall and has never had to diet or anything to stay pretty thin.
He might not ever get it, and that is okay
He loves me no matter what, so it is hard to fault him for his great genetics
It is funny though because over the years I have always told him, we need to take whatever “works efficiently etc” in your metabolism & bottle it up as a med and give it to me!
And what do you know, GLP1’s ! We are in the future!
Now I must have my AI assisted trainer, form coach & magnetic weight Tonal machine!

 

[powerball]

Title is self explanatory. I'd like to start weight training. And for background, I'm late 40s woman, perimenopause, mid 150lbs, sedentary, have rheumatoid arthritis which affects my hand grip, joints and mobility sometimes.

Should I just buy dumbbells and start? Do you think I need a real life personal trainer to tell me the basics? Do you think I need a gym?

Are there any good youtube videos to watch or online guides of exercises to do?

Since you already have joint and mobility issues I wonder if weightlifting is not the best option.

If you have a pool nearby swimming might be just the ticket. It's a fantastic full-body workout while not being nearly so hard on your joints and should also help a bit with your overall mobility. Plus you won't be all hot and sweaty when getting out of the pool.

Honestly, I think it's one of the most underrated forms of exercise.

I'm not saying don't lift but consider maybe starting with swimming to improve your overall fitness before you jump into strength training.

One other thing to note, weights and gym memberships are expensive. I paid over 600 bucks for my adjustable dumbells and another couple hundred for my bench. A gym is going to run 30-70ish a month in most cases. I pay 190 a year for access to the facility where I swim or if I just pay each day I think it's like 6 bucks a day so swimming can also be a more cost-effective way to work out as well.

 

[hexagonal]

Resistance training will improve general joint and mobility issues. Tons of studies on this. It's a bit more mixed on specifically improving arthritis (study quality isn't great for a lot of them), but there's no indication it makes it worse, no indication that the other benefits of it are particularly impacted, and in some studies the subjects reported less arthritis-related pain.

If you can't pick up a barbell or get access to a machine, start with body weight, resistance bands, light dumbbells, etc. Swimming or some other form of cardio is also super important to health, but it doesn't take the place of resistance training and there's no reason most people can't start slow and steady on resistance training even if you have disadvantageous conditions like arthiritis

(Edit: The forum seems to be translating the links into russian, but they're just google scholar searches for "resistance training improve mobility", "resistance training improve joint pain", "resistance training improve arthritist")

Google Academic

scholar.google.com

Google Academic

scholar.google.com

Google Academic

scholar.google.com

 

[John316]

That's a bit misleading. Weight training is very safe for beginners specifically because you're not strong enough to lift anything heavy enough to hurt yourself yet.

Some resistance bands and a set of small dumbbells are good to start with. like 3, 4, 5, and 10lbs. You can do higher reps with low weights to work on the movement patterns until you get more comfortable.

If you want to join a gym a lot have those circuit training areas with machines. If you have no idea what to do at all you can just do a round with the machine circuits. Like 3 sets of 12 for full body every other day or twice a week. You don't need to spend much time, even 20-30 min sessions are better than nothing.

There are also good apps for training for beginners. You can get the fitbod app and put it on total beginner and even set it to all body weight. RP strength also has an app you can use.

I’ve been weight training for over 40 years and what Viki said is perfect

 

[Grannuaile]

One. I would not start with weights - I too am confused, do you not have a local why where you can go swimming - it is so good for anything to do with healing. My son had pulled a muscle in his neck when he fell at the trampoline park, and the ER allowed him to go swimming, even though they took him off the ice for hockey. One afternoon in the pool with his friend, and the muscle was all healed and he was back on the ice. For me, the pool steam and the chemicals makes me wheeze and of course, with asthma, expect eczema - a public pool does terrible things to my skin. I would love to be a swimmer.

Two, with your arthritis, you will feel some aches and pains as you go - here is the most important part – learn how to nurse those and treat yourself like a professional football player and take care of yourself so you can keep going. I think most people agree, it’s 20 minutes of heat and 20 minutes of cold alternating for sore muscles. Find out if you can tolerate the smell of the cayenne, tiger balm, bengay gunks.

I meant to me I guess it’s less about the working out, and those of us who are busy, just don’t have time for all the self-care necessary to keep going.

 

[yelloeyes]

I would suggest at first going to a cheaper gym that has someone to show you how all the stuff works. Some of those places like Planet Fitness are really cheap so if you don't use it all that much you still get the benefit of occasional weight training without the "I paid so much for this so now I have to use it" mentality. You may be like me and just find that you hate gyms, but love being outside. A pair of running shoes and bodyweight exercises are a hell of a lot cheaper than a gym. Eventually you'll find that you enjoy some kind of exercise but have to find out which one.

But like Bacchus said, the best form of exercise is one you enjoy. For years I just ran and didn't do anything else because that's what I loved. As time has gone on I just kinda feel like lifting weights more so I am doing that. Now i run and lift weights so I have a treadmill and a whole gym in my basement! I just do whatever I feel like, but I make myself get started doing something. Any consistent exercise is good and will help maintain functionality and muscle if you get plenty of protein and train smart. And training smart comes with learning, and the learning comes with enjoying the exercise and engaging in it, watching youtube videos, stuff like that.

And Planet Fitness also has a 30 minute whole body circuit... so if you are starting out it will acclimate you to the machines that are available.

 

[hexagonal]

Swimming and similar cardio activities are great things to do, but they do not confer the same advantages as resistance training.

There's a lot of general health benefits to lifting, but I think his video covers a lot of interesting points about just being self-sufficient as human beings well into our 80s and the impact that strength training has on it. Language can be a bit crass at times, but I think the fundamental message is important for people to hear.