New to weight lifting

[sbhikes]

Hi there, I'm new to weight lifting. Thought I would join because I am asking too many weight lifting questions on Mark's Daily Apple. I'm female, 47, 5'3" and around 133lbs. I've been lifting for 2 weeks now. I have quite a ways to go. Gotta start somewhere.

[eseng666]

Hi! Are you following any program right now?

[sbhikes]

I got a program from a personal trainer. I work at a university and hired one of their trainers. She made up a list of things for me to work on to build core strength plus showed me how to lift weights with the barbells. So I have a list of bigger lifts and lots of auxiliary things:

- Squats

- Single-leg squats

- Military press

- Bench press

- Romainian deadlift

- Dumbbell rows

- Assisted pullup machine

- Cable wood chop low to high

- Bridges and planks

I do these three times a week.

I have a script that I wrote for my computer that pops up once an hour while I am working that tells me to do stuff in my office like pushups or walk up the stairs in the closest tall building or whatever.

I also run two or three times a week very slowly (180-age heart rate) and hike (1500+ elevation gain) on the weekends. Sometimes I ride my bike. Sometimes I just take a walk.

P.S. I looked at all that role-playing stuff. I think I'm too old to understand it. I have never played a video game after they got more complicated than pong.

[eseng666]

Those are great workouts. But if I may just point out, i think it would be better if you would just do negatives on doing pullups. It will truly help you doing full pullups in no time.

Btw i don't know if you have heart of starting strength and stronglifts 5X5 program. Those are great and very simple. You should check them out.

[Nuala]

I would agree with Nokia golem with the pull-ups. Arm strength is not the only thing necessary to do some pull-ups, you also need to train some side muscles in order to keep your balance when pulling yourself up. The assisted pull-up machine won't train these muscles that much, so, without ditching the machine at first, I would also add some negative pull-ups.

For the role playing part, just use this: signature generator

I made it especially to make the RPG part easier to understand and it will also generate a signature

[sbhikes]

There's nothing inside the gym itself to help me get up to the bar. There is a playground near where I run where I discovered I can attempt negatives using the little bridge to help me up to the rail. I can almost hold myself for a second or two in the up position in a chin-up grip but I can't hold myself at all in the up position with overhand grip. I have to lower right away. So I'll do both negatives on the playground thing and keep using the machine. I think the machine is really fun. I think the woodchops might help with side strength, too.

I don't understand all these goblins, gnomes and whatever. I think of myself as a Hobbit (I even have hairy feet) or a wood nymph (I lived alone 6 months in the wilderness and that became my home and the world of cars seemed weird and dangerous to me.) But the definitions of these things here seem different from what I understand.

[Nuala]

The race is not important at all You can even change it whenever you want! When I was here at first I was a mere human (no inspiration at all) then I decided to be an ent that quickly became a robot. So be whatever you like, that's just for the fun and it's not fun if you over-think it too much.

And if you think the machine is fun, then keep on doing it. Even if my workout are bodyweight based (well, I am an assassin after all ) I admit that I love the machine dips at the gym. So, I'm still using it occasionally. One word in all, don't let the rpg part bothering you. And have fun