Weight Lifting Workouts

Here’s my basic guide to an effective weight lifting workout.

Give Yourself a Cardio Warmup First.

The idea of this pre-workout warmup is threefold: to get physically warm, to get your heart rate up and to loosen joints and tendons. You don’t necessarily need to stretch extensively before your weight lifting workouts (and hardcore strength or power athletes may not want to, as stretching can decrease the elasticity of your muscles and actually mean you lift less), but you should definitely perform a light cardio warmup. 5-10 minutes on the stationary bike or rowing machine is more than enough – just do enough to work up a bit of a sweat and get the blood flowing.

Warm up Specifically for Each Exercise

…and do it thoroughly. To me, this means a couple of light, high rep sets just to get your specific muscles and joints warm and loose, and then some heavier “acclimation” sets of maybe 80-90% of your working weight, for perhaps 1-2 reps each. The acclimation sets serve the purpose of conditioning your muscle fibres and nervous system for the lifting that you’re about to do – they “get you used to” the heavy weight that you’re about to lift. Very effective.

Do Compounds First

Do the big, taxing multijoint exercises first. They are the ones that give you the most benefit and are also the hardest to do. Do squats before leg extensions, shoulder presses before raises, bench press before flyes… you get the picture.

Aim for Workouts no longer than One Hour

The longer you stay in the gym, the more cortisol (the stress hormone!) builds up and the less anabolic your physiology becomes. Long, 2-3 hour weight lifting workouts can be very counter-productive. Short, sharp workouts are the way to go – some routines such as Max-OT even have you in the gym for as little as 30-40 minutes per session, which is ideal. This might sound difficult but if your routine is mainly comprised of basic compounds, it becomes very doable.

Also, drink a protein shake immediately after for maximum benefit and to start rebuilding muscle fibres as soon as you leave the gym.

A solid weight lifting workout for legs is kind of like marmite – you either love it or hate it. Certainly when you’re new to recreational lifting, it’s often all about the chest and arms and you can’t see why anyone would want to bust their ass with hundreds of pounds on their back in the squat rack just to be unable to walk the next day.

Leg training is important though – there’s no way you’re going to build a powerful physique, strength or size-wise, without it. Also, it’s kind of an acquired taste. There’s something very special about first hitting two, three or four plates a side on your barbell squat, and feeling that pumped vastus medalis bulging after your workout.

Here’s a typical weight lifting workout for legs that will be sure to pack on some size and strength gains. It’s basic, simple, and you should perform it once or twice a week (twice for strength, once for size) and do high reps ( 8-10) for size, and low reps (4-6) for strength, except on calf raises, where you should go no lower than 8 reps regardless.

Weight Lifting Workout for Legs

Barbell squat – three sets
Front Squat – three sets
Stiff-leg or Romanian Deadlifts – three sets
Standing Calf Raises – three sets

The barbell squat is the king of leg exercises and is the primary strength mass builder in this workout. You can expect to pack on a lot of size in the glutes, hams and upper thighs with this one.

The front squat is a more specialised exercise and takes a while to perfect the form. Once you have it though, it’s perfect for more focussed quad work, and really helps to develop that sexy “teardrop” muscle at your inner knee.

Stiff-leg and Romanian deadlifts are probably the best hamstring exercises you can do. I prefer the Romanian deadlift just because it feels more dynamic and natural.

Standing calf raises are essential for good calf growth. I personally don’t believe in 20 sets for calves – it’s fairly well known that calf growth is heavily determined by genetics, and if they’re gonna grow at all, then they’re gonna grow with 3-4 sets, and that’s enough.

Here’s probably my favourite weight lifting workout for arms for anyone looking to add serious mass. It’s simple and based around heavy compounds, and won’t take you more than 40-50 minutes. Feel free to split the exercises up and work triceps with chest, biceps with back, etc, or use it as a stand-alone arm workout.

If you’re training for size, you want to hit each muscle once or twice a week, so this workout once a week would be sufficient. Train for strength, and you might want to go a little heavier and a little more frequent.

Weight Lifting Workout for Arms

Triceps

Close Grip Bench Press - 3 Sets – 8-10 Reps
Two Handed Overhead Dumbbell Extension – 3 Sets – 8-10 Reps
SkullCrushers – 2 Sets – 8-10 Reps

Biceps

Close-grip Chinups – 3 Sets 8-10 Reps
Standing Barbell Curls – 3 Sets 8-10 Reps

…and that’s it. I told you it was short! But it is, in my opinion, pretty much the best weight lifting workout for arms you could do in one session.

The close grip bench press is the primary mass-builder for the triceps, and in my experience there’s none better for adding mass. The overhead work is necessary to fully activate the long head of the tricep, and skull crushers hit the short and medial heads effectively. Notice the lack of cables or machines… then notice how quickly your triceps grow on this workout.

On the bicep side of things, it’s most definitely minimalist. I promise you, however, that if you give it a go for a month you’ll see more growth in your biceps than you would with two months of endless dumbbell and cable curls. Close grip chins are THAT good for biceps. There’s a number of reasons for it, and if you want to know more you may want to google the benefits of closed-chain bodyweight exercises.

The barbell curl is thrown in really just to satiate every lifter’s need for some sort of curl… but really, you’d do just as well or better with weighted close grip chins twice a week, adding weight continually and stopping short of failure.

Give it a go for a month and feel the difference.