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Comment by drexel | Hacker News Reader

The book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe (book and author pretty much universally lauded by the strength training community) is also a great starting point.

Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints and training methods presented to them when researching strength training but (besides avoiding injury by maintaining proper form and generally listening to your body to allow sufficient recovery time) the most important thing by far in anyone's fitness lifestyle is simply consistency in actually working out.

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> Beginners can often become overwhelmed by all the differing viewpoints

Yeah, I'm in this position. I've been using the machines at my gym (more for variety than any other reason) and when I started looking into strength training, I was swamped with competing methods, many of which instantly sent up red flags in my brain reading "SCAM".

It's difficult for someone from outside the fitness world (me) to judge whether a method is legitimate or if it's simply the fitness equivalent of a get rich quick scheme.

A good source of information for this is fitness.reddit.com

Be sure to read the FAQ there. The TL;DR version is to pick up one of the two programs mentioned above (5x5 or starting strength).

I've been a meathead (and nerd) for over a decade, when people ask me for advice on where to start, I recommend group exercise. If your gym has classes called Body-sculpt/Body-pump/Body-something, try them. It'll be a good mix of strength and cardio... you can build and branch out from there.

I second this advice.

I've noticed men avoid these classes because tend to be a majority female attendance (at least at my gym). I do feel like the classes are also geared towards women, but that could just be me or my gym (they call is body-design). I'm not intimidated by that, but I feel like many guys are.

I do these with my girlfriend usually, which helped get into it initially, but I'm often the only guy. Doesn't matter, it's a killer workout. Even though I lift, I still do classes like this each week for general fitness.

Like software development, fitness has many methods and plenty of adherents that will swear by each one. Unlike software, however, human physiology doesn't change very quickly. Generally, simpler is better.

In general, you should mix cardio work with lifting heavy things. The ratio will depend on your goals, as will the kinds of lifting you do. All things being equal, exercises that involve more muscle groups and larger ranges of motion will burn more calories than isolation lifting (which is what most machines are set up to do). If you have weak joints or other physical constraints, machines can be a good place to start, as they will provide you some degree of support and help with your form.

Part of the reason you hear about so many methods is that so many of them work. Most are greatly oversold, and in the long run you'll find out what works best for you and ignore the cookbook-style exercise plans, but anything that motivates you to create a fitness plan and stick to it in a disciplined fashion is a good place to start. In fitness, consistency creates more progress than efficiency, and premature optimization is still the root of all evils.

> If you have weak joints or other physical constraints, machines can be a good place to start, as they will provide you some degree of support and help with your form.

This is one of the main reasons I've stuck with the machines. I have a rotator cuff issue in my left arm that makes that arm very unstable. Lifting heavy things with that arm without any support makes me very nervous, even after doing PT exercises for 4 months.

Understandable. Without knowing the details of your issue, all I can say is that even light lifting with free weights will help develop your secondary/stabilizer muscles. You may or may not be able to make it a mainstay of your exercise program, but light to medium free weight exercise will improve your joint condition over time as well. If you do anything that feels iffy, just be sure to get a spotter. Pretty much anything you do in a gym will make you stronger, except getting injured.

I second this -- if lifting heavy things makes you nervous, try lifting lighter things. There's a lot of small stabilizer muscles in your body that will be really weak if left unused, and lifting any free weight will help build them up.

I would just like to add that although machines have their place and are great at helping beginners learn certain movements and build up strength, I would advise against using them longterm.

The reason for this is because many machines have a set path and range of motion. Because not everyone's body is made the same, this can cause problems down the line since the movements are not natural. You are also recruiting less of the smaller muscles in your body that help with stability and balance, while only developing the larger/dominant muscles. I believe that to truly be strong you must train all your muscles to work effectively as one system.

Ironically, some of these types of issues can be exacerbated by machines. They often limit you to a fixed range of motion which doesn't line up with your anatomically natural range of motion.

Obviously limitations from injuries are extremely specific to the individual, so your issues may legitimately cause some barbell lifts (particularly bench presses) to be a bad idea. But I do also personally know of a lot of anecdotal evidence that points to freeweight exercise reducing the impact of people's injuries: e.g., knee pain from squats in a smith machine disappearing when performed in a power rack.

Try this article out: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-abou...

The basic approach to getting strong hasn't changed over the past several hundred years, despite Nautilus' and personal trainers' best attempts.

Lift heavy shit over your head. Put it down. Repeat.

To this end, barbell training is pretty much the gold standard in gaining strength. Machines are suboptimal in that they stress muscles in isolation from one-another, and remove the need for compound, coordinated muscle contractions that occur in literally every situation where you would want actual strength. Proper barbell training with compound lifts (squats, deadlifts, overhead press) trains whole groups of muscles at once, including the crucially-important stabilizers which are often neglected in machine-based training.

Starting Strength and Stronglifts are two extremely similar barbell training programs with a very large number of success stories. I've been doing the Stronglifts routine for three months, and am transitioning into Starting Strength as I make my way through the extremely thorough book (which goes into extremely helpful detail about performing the lifts with correct technique). In three months, my squat is now 195lb, deadlifts are 235lb, overhead press at 90lb, bench at 125lb, and barbell rows (which I'm phasing out in favor of power cleans) at 125lb. And I continue to add weight almost every single time I go out.

The numbers aren't super impressive by themselves, but for only three months from having starting at the weight of the empty bar (45lb), I'm seriously thrilled.

Awesome dude!

I recommend you read this archive of Bill Starr articles: http://billstarrr.blogspot.com/

He taught Rippetoe much of what he knows back in the day. I think Starr articles are way more readable and useful than most of Rippetoe's stuff to be honest.

I want to second this! Please read "Starting Strength"! It is the most detailed and easy-to-understand guide for executing compound lifts.

Looking for recommendations to add to my home gym, which currently only consists of an elliptical, mat, pull up bar, push up grips, a couple of exercise balls, 3 and 5lb barbells.

What is safe to have at home? I want to avoid a resistance machine or similar, mostly because they look ghastly, and secondly seeing so many on CL leads to believe they are more hype than health.

Kettlebells are compact, safe-ish, and pretty fun. I regularly work out with barbells now at the gym (roughly following Starting Strength), but before I started that, I spent a lot of time swinging a 35 lb kettlebell at home, which firmed up my back and shoulder muscles a lot. I recently added 20 lb and 60 lb kettlebells to the set, as 35 lb isn't a challenge to swing, but I can't yet consistently control it with one arm above my head.

+1 for kettlebells. They are particularly great since they are really economical (mostly since you do not need many). I've been using a 35lb one for my morning workouts. The coverage you can get with a kettlebell in a short amount of time just can't be beat.

Get what is called a "squat cage" (you can build one yourself if you don't like the options to purchase.) along with an Olympic bar (it is a bar weighted to 45 lbs. along with Olympic weights.

You can do squats safely without a spotter by using a squat cage. Also, when you place a bench inside of the cage, you can use catch bars to safely bench press without a spotter (the safety bars will catch the bar at chest level when you can't lift it due to exhaustion)

Along with pull ups, bench press, squat, and deadlift are the best exercises for strength. An olympic bar will let you do both deadlift and squat with just a rack.

> "You can do squats safely without a spotter..."

Just to add that 'safely' in this context means that if you fail at a rep, the cage will catch the bar. Obviously it can't do anything to point out bad form as a spotter, or even a mirror, could.

I use the squat cage at the gym I go to and I wish they had more mirrors. A pair of angled ones so I can see a side-on view would be really helpful.

The gym I go to has a mirror running at a diagonal such that I can look front-right of me to see a view of myself half from the side. Not quite optimal for watching my form, but easier to look at without turning my head.

Use your smart phone to record yourself.

Don't use mirrors too much. In fact, you should do most of your exercises facing away from any mirrors.

A mirror only shows the front of you. If you stop looking into a mirror, you'll find that your ability to "feel" your form through proprioception becomes significantly stronger. And it will tell you things that you simply cannot view in a mirror. Try doing an entire session without using mirrors; if you find it difficult or impossible to maintain proper form, that should be an extremely compelling sign that the mirror has become a crutch, and not a very good one.

There's also the unfortunate fact that, by looking into a mirror, you're guaranteeing that your head is tilted farther back than it ought to be for exercises like squats. You never want to have your neck extended while carrying a significant load. It should be in a neutral position — for a squat position, this will equate to looking at the floor roughly five or six feet in front of you.

You can get a weight set, bench and power rack. If you can't fit a rack, a lot can be done with a weight set, but certain moves aren't perfectly safe.

With just a weight set you can learn to power clean, do front squats with decent weight, zercher squats http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq1maZuQTgI jefferson squats/deadlifts. Can also do floor press or put some planks and books under yourself to get full range of motion.

What kind of weight set, power rack, bench to buy you can discuss in equipment forums like http://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26

Spinlock bars suck though, low weight capacity and annoying to use.

"Starting Strength" is a great book. You learn a lot about technique, how to properly execute each lift, and common mistakes to watch out for. 5/3/1 from Jim Wendler (http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?pid=297...) is also great. I made my best gains on 5/3/1.

Actually, the stronglifts 5x5 workout is pretty much the same as Mark Rippetoe's program in Starting Strength (squat, deadlift, press one day, squat, bench, clean, back extension the next)

I'm about halfway through the book and I would highly recommend it.

Just started this program about a month ago. I'm stronger, fitter, and healthier than I've ever been.

It really simplifies things in the weight room, points you in the right direction, and says "now go do this."

It's pretty much gimmick free, and very straightforward. Highly recommend it.

I've read through Starting Strength (thanks to some HN thread IIRC). Quite motivational (and almost too detailed).

I'm currently looking for a correctly equipped gym near my apartment in Paris, France. Looks like free weights are not fashionable at all here ...

Good book for beginners but Mark has no shortage of critics and enemies in the strength community.

Who? In both powerlifting and strongman circles he is regarded pretty highly actually. I'm competed in both NAS (north american strongman) and IPF (international powerlifting federation) and the talk of people who actually compete is how much Ripp has done to bring real knowledge to the masses.

Mind expanding on that beyond just "Some people don't like this guy"?

I've seen a few critiques of SS. One particular one was on how he recommends doing cleans, but in general I've found it to be well accepted. I do a variation of SS right now and I enjoy it.

It's popular so it's bound to have critics.

I'm not sure why you're being voted down. I've also seen some criticism, especially with respect to older (+40) people causing serious injury to their vertebra with the loads from correctly performed lifting. Lifting weights is not for every body, no matter how well you follow directions.

Have you got links to those? I'd be interested to see them since I'm in that group. For me personally weight lifting seems to have prevented a lot of injuries that I used to get.

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