mitya

Hi there - new here.

I've recently begun training with my dumbells/barbell and would greatly appreciate a few tips and answers to the following questions. A bit of background info: 27 years old; not a total newbie to training; stocky build, not huge but pretty strongly built; interested in building arms above all.

1) What's better after warming up - 15 lifts/curls/iterations with heavy but a manageable weight or 3/4 really tough lifts with a very heavy weight? Many and heavy, or few and very heavy?

2) How many lifts per exercise should one do? I tend to do 15 or so for warm-up, then up the weights incrementally and do another 2 or 3 lots of 8-15.

3) How is it best to organise my week's training: today muscle x, tomorrow muscle y, day after muscle z etc, or should sessions work several muscles using different exercises? If the latter, how many days should I wait before working those muscles again? In essense: how often per week should you work a muscle?

4) I'm a vegetarian so I work a bit harder than most to keep a strong figure. I do this with copious amounts of pasta, milk and bread. Does this sound sensible? Anything that would help the mix?

5) Am I right in thinking supplements are for those big into training as a sport, not for those who just use it as a means to get a bit bigger or refined? If not, would anyone recomment any common supplements (perhaps commonly found in sports shops or health shops) to help accelerate growth?

THANKS in advance.
Andy

ParaManiac

Train each muscle group once a week.

Eg.back/bi
chest/delts
legs
3 or 4 sets of 8 -12 reps for large muscle groups
2 or 3 sets for smaller.

Eat regular,every 3hrs or so,6-8 meals a day.Add pulses,grains,nuts and seeds to your diet.

Use a site sponsor for any supplements.Whey protein and creatine may be beneficial.

mitya

Thanks, Paramaniac, for your response.

Your advice to train each muscle group just once a week was a surprise to me. Currently (and I remind you I'm a newbie) I tend to focus on chest and arms on an every-other-day basis, so chest mon, wed, fri etc, arms tue, thu, sat... so this is too frequent for each group, yes? I had (perhaps wrongly) assmed this would lead to faster results than doing each group once a week.

Thanks again, Andy.

ParaManiac

Andy,in order to grow you must give your muscles time to recover.So once every 7 days is plenty.

The routine above is ideal for a beginner as it should involve mainly compound movements ie.bench,rows,OH press,deadlifts and squats.

Stick to the suggested routine and make sure your diet is good(especially post workout nutrition) and you will see results.

Post your diet in the relevant section if you require advice with it.

mitya

Thanks - I'll give my diet some thought and post it in the relevent section.

It'll take some planning, because I live in Russia, where a lot of the things I eat in the UK aren't available and you have to work very hard to find things like whey powder.

Cheers

ParaManiac

Whey powder is by no means essential.It is an effective supplement and will aid your gains however it is your overall diet that will determine your progress.