OK, so my gf actually found a gym she can afford and is joining. We got her some gym clothes, and sneakers today. She’s not really sure what her goals are at this point, just to get into better shape generally. She could probably stand to lose 15-20 lbs. as well.
Right now she is in pretty awful shape cardiovascularly; she can’t even run across a street without feeling winded. I’m thinking before she even starts with weights, have her do some 3 or 4 mile walks/jogs on a treadmill? Other than that I’m not really sure what to have her do, should a beginning girl do the same things as a beginning guy??
Start her off with 1-3 sets at 10-12 reps for most things, more reps for things like lunges, and use watered-down versions of the big lifts to start her out with. For intance, wall squats with a ball behind her back. Add weight to the hands. Then have her work on single-leg squats, with one foot on the bench behind her. Add weight in the form of dbs as she gains balance.
Have her work at all lifts with dbs until her balance and form improve (if you are starting her off light enough, correcting her form, and adding more weight the second it becomes easy you should notice significant improvement in all movements within two weeks or less).
Shoot for 1-2 exercises per body part and start teaching squatting and deadlifting right away (NOT w/a barbell! Start with the watered down versions I mentioned above. If she is more coordinated than 9/10ths of the people I’ve met, you can go ahead with the barbell, but my guess is she wont be ready).
She should be near or at exhaustion by the last set of each exercise. Let her know that she’s supposed to feel like that, and it wont kill her to miss a rep halfway
After two weeks of the above or until you can notice a significant improvement in all her movements, ask her what her real goals are for lifting. Make a program based on that.
As for cardio, you can START her with HIT. Just tone it to her scale. The most important thing with cardio is that she does it, so if she feels more willing to step on a machine before her weight lifting, have her do it then.
have her start reading the figure athlete section for tips and whatnot.
i’ve translated all sorts of stuff i’ve read from this site to my girl, but it (sometimes) seems to be a useless cause unless they wanna do it themselves.
Why wouldn’t you start her with weight training and cardio concurrently?
Also, didn’t you post pics of her on SAMA? she didn’t look like she needed to lose 15-20, I could be wrong though. Better hope she doesn’t read this thread
[quote]Oleena wrote:
Shoot for 1-2 exercises per body part and start teaching squatting and deadlifting right away (NOT w/a barbell! Start with the watered down versions I mentioned above. If she is more coordinated than 9/10ths of the people I’ve met, you can go ahead with the barbell, but my guess is she wont be ready).
[/quote]
Now that is one thing I’m going to have to disagree with you on.
AQ, if you want your girl to eventually squat and deadlift heavy, you’re better off having her learn to actually squat and deadlift.
Teach her proper squat form with a broomstick on her back. The exercises that Oleena mentioned obviously aren’t bad, but squatting with something on her back is going to make the transition from BW squats to weighted back squats much easier.
Same thing goes for deadlift. Start her off with the bar or something. If she has to start really light like that, put her in the rack and have her pull from about a 1 pin to mimic the “standard height” of a bar with 135.
