This page is a draft. I will also be reorganizing this whole page soon. I feel it's too convoluted, and I want to make it more straightforward, clear, and concise for folks looking to get started with weight training and cardio. I'll move the more exercise science-y / detailed stuff elsewhere, so starting doesn't feel as overwhelming and confusing.
An attempt to record everything I know about fitness. Disclaimer: I am not a licensed professional (am in the process of getting my NASM-CPT license). This is not medical advice.
If you’re new to exercising consistently, I recommend beginning with the Conclusion section and then reading the Mindset and Motivation section before reading anything else.
Weightlifting
Principles that apply to any lift
- Control the eccentric to maximize time under tension
- For greater hypertrophy, gives your muscles a good stretch at the start (more info)
- Full range of motion (ROM) > ego lifting, doing partial reps only
- Listen to your body -
- Warm up before and stretch after
- How to warm up? Do the exercise you’re going to do at a lower weight
Best exercises for every body part
By “best,” I’m considering potential for progressive overload, amount of tension muscle receives in most stretched position, range of motion, effectiveness (as demonstrated by research), and feel (i.e. subjectively, how smooth does the exercise feel?).
Back
- Lat pulldown variations
- Wide-grip, neutral-grip
- Single-arm half-kneeling
- Pull ups
Biceps
- Cable curls
- Provide constant tension throughout the movement (whereas dumbbells do not). This means the biceps are under consistent load during both the concentric (lifting) and eccentric (lowering) phases of the exercise.
- The nature of the cable machine helps in maintaining a more controlled movement, reducing the likelihood of using momentum to lift.
Chest
- Any kind of incline press, dumbbell or barbell: research (Chaves et al.) has shown that the incline bench press activates the upper chest more than the horizontal bench press while targeting other parts of the chest just as well as the horizontal bench press
- Chest press machine. Better at progressive overload than the incline press. Make sure it gives your chest a good stretch at the starting position.
Triceps
- Dips (weighted or assisted dips)
- Skullcrushers
Shoulders
- Lateral raise machine
Rear Delts
- Reverse fly (machine)
Quads
Hamstrings
- Seated hamstring curls are preferred over lying hamstring curls because your hamstrings are in a stretched position when seated with your legs stretched out but not when you’re lying down.
Glutes
- Romanian deadlifts
- Front foot elevated lunge on smith machine
- Hip thrusts - hard to progress on weight tho
Other
Tips
- Progressive overload. Not every workout you’ll be able to add weight or feel at your best, but push yourself in the gym.
- Rest days are necessary. Not taking rest days is not going to give you better results.
My approach
I aim to get stronger with progressive overload. I don’t have a quantifiable goal (hit X weight on Y lift in Z months) because I find it gives me unnecessary pressure. I lean most toward bodybuilding but don’t really specialize in powerlifting, bodybuilding, or calisthenics. I maingain or do mini cuts/bulks but don’t do drastic dirty bulking / cutting cycles because I want my physique to stay more-or-less the same year-round.
Resources
- Jay Cutler - top exercises for each body part (short video)
- Training frequency
Diet / Nutrition
Tips
- Calories in, Calories Out (CICO). First law of thermodynamics.
- Focus on adding to your diet rather than subtracting (e.g. On a time crunch and/or budget? It’s okay to eat frozen food. How can you add fiber, protein, etc. to it? )
- Calorie-tracking works for some, but can sometimes turn into an obsessive thing. Macro-tracking is exhausting but perhaps worth it to try once.
- Argument for calorie-tracking: helps you build an intuition about the caloric content of your meals so that even if you stop doing it down the line, you’ll always have a rough sense of how many calories something is
- A simple way to find out how many calories to eat:
- First, find out what your bodyweight (BW) is in pounds
- Then, to find out how many calories to eat, take your BW and multiply by the following numbers according to your goals (weight gain, maintenance, or weight loss)
- For extreme weight gain (generally not recommended)
- BW x 21
- BW x 20
- BW x 19
- For moderate weight gain
- BW x 18
- BW x 17
- BW x 16
- Maintenance
- BW x 15
- BW x 14
- BW x 13
- For moderate weight loss
- BW x 12
- BW x 11
- BW x 10
- For extreme weight loss (generally not recommended)
- BW x 9
- BW x 8
- BW x 7
Tracking your nutrition
My approach
- I use a spreadsheet to track my daily calorie and protein intake. If you’re curious what the spreadsheet looks like and/or would like a copy of it, feel free to reach out!
- I do not track any of my other macros
Calorie tracking apps
- MyFitnessPal
- Cronometer
- MacroFactor - not free, though
Resources
Resource: https://www.reddit.com/r/nutrition/comments/bb90l0/most_accurate_bmrtdee_calculator/
- TDEE calculator: https://tdeecalculator.net/
- “What activity level should I pick?”
- Sedentary: if you do little to no exercise and spend most of your day sitting, such as working at a desk job or living a generally inactive lifestyle
- Lightly active: if you do not work a job where you’re on your feet most of the day, even if you routinely do resistance training and some light cardio every week
- Moderately active: if you have a physically demanding job or engage in moderate exercise (longer sessions of moderate cardio workouts, like running or cycling, and/or more intense strength training) 3-5 days per week
- Heavy exercise: if you engage in hard exercise 6-7 days a week, or have physically demanding jobs along with daily exercise routines
- “What activity level should I pick?”
- For moderate weight loss: eat 300-500 cal fewer than your TDEE
Cardio
Tips
Make cardio fun for you. There is a lot of room to introduce variety to your cardio workouts: dancing, swimming, biking, hiking, boxing, etc.
If you look hard enough, there will be an activity you enjoy. Find what it is and do it. Find other people who enjoy the same activity and do it together.
Aim to do at least 120 min of cardio a week. Research suggests around 22 minutes of “moderate-to-vigorous physical activity” per day can mitigate the health risks of being mostly inactive.
My approach
- I love playing basketball and hiking.
- I have a jump rope (cheap, accessible, you can jump rope anywhere).
- I used to hate running, but I like it now! The best part about running is that you can do it literally anywhere.
Mindset and Motivation
On fitness influencers, social media, & celebrities
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xl-TM8gjHI
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7K-0UQeRnY Don’t compare yourself to what you see on screen because you likely don’t know the full story behind how XYZ celebrity got to where they are.
On being a beginner / trying new things
I used to be terrified of failure. I let my fear of failure get in the way of trying new things. But,
On overthinking
Conclusion
Get started today. If you are starting from 0, getting started is the most important thing. Don’t overthink things or worry about optimizing your workout and diet. As you keep going, you will make adjustments based on how you feel and how things are going.
Sustainable fitness (something you’ll keep doing for the rest of your life) is about finding a diet and exercises that work for you - your schedule, your likes and dislikes, your life.
Are there days in which I feel lazy and slack off? Absolutely. But it’s better to be imperfectly consistent than perfectly inconsistent. Don’t let a couple of failures throw you off.