• Reykjavik, Iceland
Fitness/Nutrition
Lifting for Beginners. How to get started.

Lifting for Beginners. How to get started.

I remember when I was a chubby 15-year-old who was dissatisfied with how he looked in the mirror and wanted to figure out how to get in shape. After cruising around the internet and stumbling across websites like bodybuilding.com I discovered the videos and comments of a guy named Zyzz. If you don’t know who Zyzz is, watch this video here, he influenced me and a load of other guys to start lifting around a decade ago. Time to get back on track though. Essentially, I was thinking the way you are right now…. how do I get those massive arms, some chest action going on, and a v-tapered back? I’ll tell you how to get started.

If you are interested in learning more about protein powders and need some recommendations read this.

The Reality

Before I get into some exercises, I’m going to be straight with you. Depending on your genetics, it will take you 2-3 years to see some good progress. Especially if you’re tall like me, I’m 6 foot 4 inches, you honestly won’t look like you even lift until you’re around 2 years in. On the bright side if you’re new to lifting you’ll put on some noticeable size your first year, this phenomenon is often referred to as noob gains. After your first 6-12 months of lifting seeing additional change will take time, consistency, and a proper nutritional plan.

Just a heads up, but please don’t be fooled by fitness snake oil salesmen on the internet. Please ignore anybody on Youtube or Instagram saying that,” If you want to be shredded, jacked, and 8% bodyfat like me in a couple of months buy my supplements and workout programs”. To be honest, what they aren’t telling you is that they’re on steroids and unless you are doing the same you won’t look like them.

Time for the Workouts

As a beginner you want to focus on building a solid foundation of strength and muscle to build on top of before you start hitting the weights. What I personally recommend, which would have saved me from getting injured when I began my fitness journey, is to focus mainly on full-body calisthenic workouts for the first 3 months.

Here are some good exercises with rep and set counts with some links so you can see visual representations of these workouts. Also all of these exercises can be done at home:

  • Pushups – 3 set of 5-10 Reps.
  • Chin Ups – 3 Sets of 1-5 Reps. This will be hard to preform since it takes a good amount of strength to do these. Here is a good video on how to condition your body to do a full chin-up if you can’t perform one. It would also benefit you to purchase a door frame pull up bar for at home use, I personally love them. I recommend this one here.
  • Dips – 3 Sets of 5-10 Reps.
  • Air Squats – 3 Sets of 10-20 Reps
  • Lunges – 3 Sets of 10-20 Reps
  • Leg Raises – 3 Sets of 10-20 Reps

If you don’t know how sets and reps work here is an explanation in reference to the above Push Up workout. 3 set of 5-10 Reps means you will start your push-up workout by doing 5 to 10 push-ups. Take a 2-minute break. Then do another 5-10 reps. Take another 2-minute break then preform another 5-10 reps. Easy right?

Muscle Soreness

Just a heads up, if you have never done these exercises before you will experience soreness. This is known as DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness which is normal. It’s pretty much summarized as muscle soreness caused by micro tears in your muscles which in turn creates inflammation. Personally, I would perform this workout for 3 months every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Depending on how sore you are when you first start out you can even do Monday, Thursday and Sunday to give your muscles more time to recover. Also raise the rep count over those 3 months as you get stronger and the workouts become easier. You also want to make sure you get proper nutrition and sleep so your body recovers properly, these are both topics I will discuss in articles to come.

If you have any questions or want to me to answer any additional articles in the form of an article feel free to comment/send an email to thedailynook@gmail.com.