Planning your Resistance Program

So weight lifting is an awesome way of helping you look good naked! And of course there are all those health benefits like increased metabolism, stronger bones, blah, blah blah, but ultimately you look good! There’s a couple of things to consider when you are creating your weight training program: figure out what you are hoping to achieve from the workout and how many days a week you can lift.

Do you want to get toned up? increase strength? increase muscle mass?

Here are some frequently asked questions that I have seen over my years as a health educator and trainer:

*What’s a Rep?

A ‘rep’ is a repetition. It is the number of times you execute an exercise.  

*What’s a Set?

A set is a number of reps. For example, 5-10.

A person might do 3 sets of 12 reps each. So for one set the person will perform the exercise 12 times. Rest. And repeat until all 3 sets have been completed.

*How much weight do I use? 

This is a very popular question and my answer is, it depends. You want the weight to be comfortably-challenging at all times, meaning you won’t lose proper form or injure your body. But the resistance will not be easy either. You want to fatigue your muscles at the end of every set at your predetermined reps.  Say you are doing bicep curls and you plan to perform 10 reps for every set. At the end of every set, your biceps should be so tired that you cannot do more than 10 reps. If you can, the weight is not challenging enough and you should increase weight.


I just want to tone.I don’t want to get huge. I want to get huge. I just want to be healthy. 
I hear these waaaaay too much so here’s the break down below to help guide you.

When you lift a muscle you need at least 24 hours of rest before you lift again. You don’t want to do the same routine every single day without rest. When you lift you essentially tear the muscle. For the muscle to build up it has to “scar up” and heal. If you never let it have a chance to heal, your wanted results will be delayed.
That’s some basic information for you. If you come up with any other questions please post a question OR email me at exerciseeric@gmail.com

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