Quick question, what do you think would be some reasonable weight lifting goals to set for June? I’m doing a weight lifting class in school and I’d like to know what I could expect before summer.
I’m 18, 140lbs, 5’8", and have only been lifting for 12 weeks.
Bench: 140 (125 @ start)
Squat: 230 (195 @ start)
Powerclean: 135 (105 @ start)
Thanks in advance!
Do NOT push your self beyond what you can lift …Listen to your body ,Do not tear your self apart trying.
Many people try too hard too early in the 45 minutes-to an hour,( that they are going to train) that day.
That said. I Think you should never try to attempt THEIR max lift EVER !
You should look at heart rate at resting … http://www.ottawarun.com/heartrate.htm
You should always warm up 5-10min. get your heart rate up then work into the program or Set of muscles to be worked that day.Many people will do whole body work outs ,one day a week for the first three months.And calves and ab’s.
Opposing sets of muscles …Chest-Back,then calves and Ab’s…Ham strings-Quads,calve & ab’s…shoulders-lat’s.then…Yes Calves and Ab’s …If you skip one day of Calves&Ab’s then …O.K. no prob. hit them the next day .
If your calves & ab’s are great then no prob. but most need work.
Rep out 10 15 times go slow If you can only hit eight reps your doing great (it’s a perfect weight ) .when cadance is slow
you can tell how you are doing .
If you hit 10-15 reps slow (with a cadance of a four count )…you Need More weight.
Rest for a diabetic and feeding your body is a MUST to recover and heal,so you will be ready to take on the next day of lifting.
I’ll be back.
Donovan
Hey, found this for ya …http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/1rm.htm
Great calculators,Heart rate, Max rep, Carb intake
Remember NO one is like you, EVERY one is different.
I speak from experience and many people will explain what works for them,just as I am doing.
The few rules I found helped me for weight gain and recovery are,
Balance ALL your meals Think Mercedes symbol ,Protein-Carbs-Greens.
Protein comes in many forms -Greens, fresh spinach under everything ( eggs,chicken breast,stir fry with chic or tofu, Grains look into Quinoa,Beans and Tofu, although not as BV bioavailable.Egg whites 1/2c added to a whole egg has top BV and chicken is also great.The best protein for the money is whey but some have a hard time digesting it.
Protein in powder is best ingested over hours not guzzled ,I’d drink 1/4 of my drink bottle (1/2c) before workout, then finish off (1 1/2 cups) on my way home .
Carbohydrates are Just as important if not more important.They are from fruit in the protein shake.Potato’s baked without fat loaded toppings .I use a little salt and low fat cheese.If you are working out it won’t take much insulin to go through Bkd potatos
Try topping the Baked potato with Light Chunk Tuna in water (I’ve read light chunk is better{less mercury} than albacore…??).
then top with cheese -hit it with the microwave and place on a bed of fresh spinach. OH MAN .
Add a tin of Tuna or Salmon to ANY tomato sauce for spaghetti wow.
Try a tin to a can of healthy choice cream of mushroom soup OOOHH YA .
Eat the same sort of size meals on each day you plan to workout and the day after a HARD workout.
If you plan not to do to much on off days …be aware the muscles are now more efficient at processing your fuel.
Remember to pick up a Gatorade to carry with you.Pick up some glucose tablets to have on you.Do not work out if you forget them at home and have nothing to save you from a reaction.
With more efficient body you will have to be ready to adjust your insulin on your own.
It looks like you are active and have a good handle on things.So I feel confidant you will heed the warnings and gain strength and size if you want to go that far.
I’ll be back.
Donovan
Hey Timmy,
I’d like to second a lot of what 1type2go said. You have 7 months to go before next summer so you have plenty of time to set and achieve goals. Like 1type2go said, proper nutrition and proper rest, especially for a diabetic, are key. Proper carbs and protein are defintely key to fueling your workouts and recovery, but you have to let your BGs tell you how many carbs you can tolerate. If you require longer recovery to refill your glycogen stores, so be it.
You have a huge advantage going for you in that you are YOUNG but you still have to give muscle groups plenty of rest between work outs. Like my strength coach told me though, if you aren’t feeling a reasonable amount of muscle soreness (not pain) 24 hours after a workout, you’ve adapted and probably need to shake things up a bit.
That being said, you are pretty much exactly like I was when I started lifting weights to put on muscle mass and weight. Other than rest and nutrition, the most important thing is to establish a routine that works for you. We are all different. 10-15 reps might work for some, while 3-5 might work for someone else, so use any program you find as a general guideline, not necessarily as hard and fast rules. I can tell you though, if you have 7 months to train and will be working out at from 3 to 5 times a week for a class, your goals are extremely modest. I imagine you’ll be reevaluating your goals in a couple of months.
To make progress, though, you do have to push yourself steadily. For my Bench and Squat, I worked from a base goal of 3 sets, 8 reps for a given weight. I picked a weight where I would be able to do the first set at 8 reps and the last set at no less than 5 reps unaided. When I acheived 3 sets of 8 reps unaided, I moved up in weight, usually in increments of 5 lbs for bench, and 10 to 20 lbs for squat. Once a month, I’d max both to check progress. Twice a month, I’d do a pyramid of 8, 6, 4, to 2 reps at 90% max. It took me a bit to figure out my routine but, in the first 7 month period of a steady routine, I probably went from a 125 bench/ 195 squat to 205/275 max.
Don’t forget to switch up your routine and work different exercises for each movement. Shake up your flat bench barbell lift with a flat bench dumbell lift. Switch up your squats with lunges. Work each muscle group from different angles and, like 1type2go said, work opposing muscle groups regularly and don’t just limit your workout goals to those three exercises. Set goals for everything.
Another thing that really helped me overall was cross-training. I saw my biggest gains in the weight room, by far, in college when I was running track.Sprint training directly helped my Olympic lifts, and vice-versa. I never maxed out in Olympic lifts, but my weight at 3-5 and 10-12 reps steadily increased. Cross training was key for increasing my insulin sensitivity and allowing my carb intake to hit up to 70% of my caloric intake with few adverse affects on my BG.
Good luck! Keep us posted!!
Thanks for the advice guys! I’ll definitely try some of that.
Its awesome when you’re able to lift something that would have crushed you a few weeks ago.
In the program I’m in at school, they expect you to increase your lifts by 15 pounds every six weeks. So far, I’ve met it (and then some)
at that rate, they’re expecting my squat to be at 290 by the start of summer. Is that a realistic goal?
As far as cross training, I might be able to do more distance running instead of sprints. For some reason my ankle doesn’t like it when do any regular sprint training. Because of that, I had to quit the track team.
You ask the question of -Is that a realistic goal?
" They’re expecting my squat to be at 290 by the start of summer."
I’d like to say Yes and I think you will demolish it ,but work up to it.Doing it “290” means no sweat, not once but to rep it out and be ready for the next set.
I don’t have large legs but even after the knee tear …Many years of training I still can leg press 360 and rep it out,stripping 3 sets and stop so I can move to the squat rack (which requires the supreme “power with in” concentration) for some lighter work.Do your power sets in an incline on a machine or hack squat.
I’ve also seen a back shift …The MOST disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed yet.He left on a stretcher
The quad is the most powerful muscle and you do have the power to rip it to shreds Right NOW Today. The same with all muscles.
I’ve seen it done and" I also have done it".Be smart and if the coach says" Do It" and you don’t feel it
"The power with in "say NO not yet.
At 16 I tore my patella http://www.arthroscopy.com/sp05032.htm in basket ball said no and the coach sent me to do laps.
Three years ago at work I tore my shoulder in two places supraspinatus tendon tear and a frayed labrum .
You are young and nothing is worth this.
If I can clarify my statement NEVER lift their MAX… I have been told diabetics will be more prone to shoulder injuries simply from over use.
The only thing I wanted to mention in last post was a stretching program …don’t be afraid of the term YOGA,call it a stretching program.Just DO IT.
Donovan
Long, slow distance running doesn’t help the weightlifting much. It will give you more endurance but it also wastes muscle mass. If you’re planning on training for cross country, you’d definitely have to rethink your weightlifting goals. Carrying around extra weight in added muscles mass is not something that’s going to do you much good over a 3 mile course.
As far as increasing your lifts by 15 lbs every 6 weeks, you’re looking at adding somwhere around 90 lbs to your lifts by summer. It’s doable, but you’re going to hit plateaus along the way and you’ll have to find a way to work through them. I found that my squats progression went a lot faster and lasted a lot longer before my first plateau than my bench.
I pulled a hamstring in a 200m race my junior year in college, but that healed without a problem and I recovered fully and i didn’t have a major injury until halfway through my 30s. I shredded my Achille’s tendon running a sub-master’s 200m and haven’t tried to sprint at 100% in spikes since…
My main goal right now is weight lifting. I just posted distance running as something that I could do. If I could get faster in sprint, it would be awesome, but for some reason the side of my ankle hurts if I run more than a single 100m sprint. It almost feels like shin splines but near the bone on the outside of my ankle.
I can still sprint if I have to (and I’m still faster than most of my friends with my 56s 400m), but I’d rather not.
When I weight train. My eyes get severely blood shot. Is that bad? I mean I breathe properly. Just wanting to know before I continue on my endeavors.
Hey Jeffrey
I really hope someone replies with concrete info ,but think if it’s not just dry air …(my eyes get red at work from dry air,nothing I can do about it )and the redness is from exsurtion ,I would be very concerned the blood pressure is one thing the Dr.s are so worried about for the kidney’s and the opthamologist is most concerned about the pressures in the back of the eyes.
IF YOU SEE BLACK DOTS …floaters you MUST SEE AN OPTHAMOLOGIST RIGHT AWAY.
Ask your Dr. about them
Back soon Donovan
I think weightlifting is a great way to build strength and muscle mass. You have chosed a good core set of lifts. I would recommend the starting strength program by Mark Rippetoe (http://startingstrength.com/). Get the book, it is well worth the price and there is further information on http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki. The bench, squat, powerclean, overhead press and deadlift represent a great set of compound lifts. If you learn to perform them with correct form and progress properly, you could easily make all those goals and more. But you need to learn to lift properly and without a coach, the resources that I suggest are very important. To me, the squat ended up being the premier lift and it took me a lot of work to get correct form, but the benefits are tremendous.
There are many people that spend years lifting the same weight using unproductive exercises and not making progress. If you do this correctly, you could easily gain 25lbs of muscle and be a very strong and lean person by summer.
Proper breathing during lifting is important. The Valsalva maneuver is central to this and involves a marked tightening of your core, pinching your nose totally shut and restricting your exhalation from your mouth. You actually use the pressure of the air in your lungs to press out against your tightened core as a means of creating rigidity in your core. This is the way that you are able to step under the 300 lb bar, lift it on your shoulders and squat down deep.
The problem is that this maneuver causes blood pressure excursions. These are not unhealthy in itself, but needs to be managed. Do not “hold” your breath. This can cause a highly elevated blood pressure rise and when you put the bar down you may well just pass out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8RcDb_wZfQ). Learn to perform the Valsalva correctly and be alert to your breathing.
Finally, realize that lifting can cause eye bleeds. These blood pressure excursions may cause some of the small surface vessels on your eye to burst, making it look like your eye is bleeding or exceedingly red. This is just like a bruise and will heal in a few days. This can happen when you sneeze or when you weight lift, they are not harmful. I have discussed this with my opthamoligist. And as 1type2go says, indications of a retinal bleed or leakage, floaters etc are not normal and you should see an opthamologist promptly.
Hope that helps.
just thought I’d give an update at week 18:
Bench: 160
Squat: 240
Hangclean: 150 (I was gonna do powerclean, but I got stuck with a group that was doing hangclean… I still got my max so it’s no big deal)
and I’ve also gained 8 pounds, putting me at 148
Grats on the progress Timmy! I figured you’d blow through your initial goals.
Six months to go. What are your new goals? I don’t think a 225+ bench and 350+ squat are too much to shoot for at all. Just stay safe!!!
Saw your A1c thread. WTG. Have you noticed any changes in dosing and sensitivity yet?
Thanks for the support!
I definitely have seen some changes with my insulin in the morning, I’ve had to switch from 1-10 in the mornings to 1-20, the rest of my meals and my basal are still the same though
and about staying safe… When I did hangclean I missed the rack and set the weight down on my thighs. I almost fell, but I recovered.
and just another goal that I got (kind of a random personal thing)… I can now do a press handstand without faceplanting!
Way to go. I would have expected more progress on your squat, perhaps you are just using better form. But it is particularly important to use good form and a full range of motion and that can be much more difficult than the infamous quarter squat I usually see. Keep up the good work.
Hey Timmy,
Fantastic… but remember working with the same weight is good enough, as long as you
TAP OUT on your eighth rep and can do no more.
Keep up on the form and you will know when you need to increase the weight.(If you can’t do it with proper form for eight,
the increase can wait !!)
WOW I just came up with a great Moto
If you can’t do it with proper form for eight,
the increase can wait.
surprised myself .
I did also go heavy every once and a while with less range but this is what leads to injury.
Donovan
I had a heavy weight hang clean exercise today and got a new max! I got 155 and nearly 160! I didn’t feel like stopping on a failed attempt, so I went over to the guy next to me who was lifting 90. I guess I don’t know my strength because I managed to hit myself in the chin with the bar. I bit my lip and started bleeding pretty badly.
Lesson learned: Don’t go from maxing out to 60%… It might end badly
Not a big deal. The heavier the weight gets the more pressure you have to use. Go to a powerlifting competition and you’ll see eyes turn beet red and massive bloody noses during the squats. It’s just part of the game.
Make sure your form is perfect as you’re gaining weight. The weight is always second to form. Once you get to the really heavy weight, a small problem in your form can result in a massive injury. I’ve seen too many blown out backs in teammates during college football because they were going for the weight and lost their form.