The top 5 ways to start weight training

15 Feb The top 5 ways to start weight training

From my experience, the majority of boys focus on strength and weight training and us girls focus more on cardio based activities.

But I can tell you that you need a combination of the two – cardio is important for your heart and lungs (I describe this as your engine room) and for weight control and improving your fitness. However weight training is for building strength, developing lean muscles and changing your shape. The simplest way I can summarise the difference is that cardio training is for feeling good and strength is for looking good.

Not only that but strength training improves your bone density, boosts metabolism, burns fat, reduces depression and stress, increases your confidence and will help you move better in your day to day activities.

So if you want to start weight training but don’t know how to begin, here are my top 5 tips:

1. See a personal trainer

Yes I am being a bit biased here but this may be the best place to start. Any decent personal trainer should always make good technique a priority to ensure you do the moves correctly so you are training safe and you get the results you want. Whether you lift weights at the gym, outdoors or on your own, you must have picture perfect technique, good posture, have the right range, move smoothly and have proper control with every rep.

2. Start with Body Weight Moves Only

Before you start to use weights, dumbbells, barbells or other equipment, why not first focus on body weight moves only? Squats, lunges, dips, planks and pushups don’t require anything except you. Also just using body weight means you keep the moves simple so can focus on great posture and technique.

Once you progress, develop good form and start to build your confidence, you can then introduce weights, but master the basics first.

3. Try a BodyPump class

Whenever I walk into a gym, I usually go passed the weights room and no matter what the gym, it is always dominated by the boys. And I can understand why, it can be intimidating to go to the weights area with all the boofy blokes especially if you are fairly new.

Doing  BodyPump class which focuses on strength training for every part of your body can be a good introduction to strength training. I teach about six to eight BodyPump classes a week (from 20 to 50 people in a class) and I usually have 70 to 90% females. Training in a team can be less scary, you start off with light weights, you have inspiring music to train to plus you have an instructor to guide and motivate you.

4. Buy your own weights

If you don’t want to join a gym or don’t want to spend money on a trainer, you can always buy your own weights and train in the comfort of your own home. Just pick up some weights at Target, Kmart or Rebel, get a variety of sizes, put together a program and train in front of a mirror two to three times a week. Change your program every few weeks to keep challenging your body and improving your strength.

5. Start light and easy

Anytime I teach someone weights for the first time, I insist they go light. This is to ensure correct technique but also if the moves are not done quite right, there is minimum chance of injury. The last thing you want to do is lift too heavy or push too hard and hurt yourself in some way and stop your weight program before you barely start. So be sensible, lift within your means, never substitute form for heavier weights and you will soon see a difference in no time at all.

Part of this content was used in a recent Crunch Fitness article “6 PTs Share How Women Can Conquer The Weights Room.“