How can I get into lifting

Set some goals, that makes it more fun that just lifting to lift, also try to add some variety.

Have goals. Lift more weight or more reps at your current weight.

It's like any other fitness endeavor.

Alan

The first time I broke 18:00 in a 5k, or 16:00 in a 5k or the first time I benched 225 or squatted 315 are all the same feeling of accomplishment.

Alan

how much do I need to eat? it seems like going from being a (fairly but not extremely) skinny runner to someone with actual strength is gonna take a shedload of calories, but I could be wrong

Read Pumping Iron by Schwarzenegger. It’s pretty dated but covers the basics. Worst case, you can look like him in his prime.

Do some upper body HIIT. Great way to get stronger and help maintain cardio. Lots of stuff on the internet to keep it fresh. Doing the same lifting exercises all the time gets boring. So the variety may help with mental health.

Can you find a partner, a friend to lift with?

After your leg heals up, find a program like Starting Strength and progress until you stall out then hop on an intermediate program like 531. Eat at a caloric surplus but not too crazy.

Five years ago on a whim because I had time on the schedule, I dropped down from the 800m to the 200m at the Master's National Indoor Championships. The first thing I noticed was that these guys were chiseled "V" shapes compared to the skinny greyhounds I raced with in the 800m. I made it to the finals and finished next to last. I decided that if I wanted to be competitive, I needed to look more like these guys.

Here is what I did and what I recommend you do.

- Join a fitness center with a great trainer. If you don't learn proper form, you will hurt yourself.

- Keep a journal. Log your reps and weight. It was a great sense of accomplishment when I maxed out at 74 pushups and a 5-minute plank.

- Once your form is great, do HIIT. Not the Crossfit HIIT, but real HIIT. That is, 6-8 sets of 8-30 seconds of all-out effort. If you're lifting, use reps instead of seconds so you don't go so fast that your form breaks down and you injure yourself.

- One other thing I did to keep it interesting. I broke down every lift into total weight lifted and then added the total for the workout. A good workout was 20,000 lbs. On leg day, I might hit 30,000. My goal the first year was to lift 4 million pounds. I only made it to 2 million pounds, but it was a way to make sure that I stayed on my lifting program.

Has been who never was wrote:

After your leg heals up, find a program like Starting Strength and progress until you stall out then hop on an intermediate program like 531. Eat at a caloric surplus but not too crazy.

Not bad.

Really any sort of linear progression will do.

Newbies will respond well with high frequency so even a 3 day a week total body compound lift routine will work then move towards a 4 day upper/lower or push/pull.

So 3x total body may look like:

Day A: Back Squat, Bench, DB Row, Leg curl, bis/tris

Day B: Deadlift, Military Press, Lat Pulldown, Front Squat, bis/tris

Just keep rotating A and B days for 3 days a week.

Alan

Eat a bowl of nails for breakfast.... without any milk

Start picking things up and putting them down

Start listening to kill switch engage

Buy a gun

Get tattoos

Wear sunglasses

Juice Springsteen wrote:

Start picking things up and putting them down

Start listening to kill switch engage

Buy a gun

Get tattoos

Wear sunglasses

Do Step 1 and repeat. Skip Steps 2-5.

coach wrote:

Can you find a partner, a friend to lift?

Fixed.

Congrats. I think you may have asked the first question in the history of the forum that can't be answered by the proverbial 'more miles.' But i could be wrong.

fisky wrote:

Five years ago on a whim because I had time on the schedule, I dropped down from the 800m to the 200m at the Master's National Indoor Championships. The first thing I noticed was that these guys were chiseled "V" shapes compared to the skinny greyhounds I raced with in the 800m. I made it to the finals and finished next to last. I decided that if I wanted to be competitive, I needed to look more like these guys.

Here is what I did and what I recommend you do.

- Once your form is great, do HIIT. Not the Crossfit HIIT, but real HIIT.

Did you improve or feel that your program helped you with 200m speed? Also, why not the crossfit workouts?

Runningart2004 wrote:

Has been who never was wrote:

After your leg heals up, find a program like Starting Strength and progress until you stall out then hop on an intermediate program like 531. Eat at a caloric surplus but not too crazy.

Not bad.

Really any sort of linear progression will do.

Newbies will respond well with high frequency so even a 3 day a week total body compound lift routine will work then move towards a 4 day upper/lower or push/pull.

So 3x total body may look like:

Day A: Back Squat, Bench, DB Row, Leg curl, bis/tris

Day B: Deadlift, Military Press, Lat Pulldown, Front Squat, bis/tris

Just keep rotating A and B days for 3 days a week.

Alan

Lat pulldowns? That's just embarrassing.

Bump

tarpon wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

Not bad.

Really any sort of linear progression will do.

Newbies will respond well with high frequency so even a 3 day a week total body compound lift routine will work then move towards a 4 day upper/lower or push/pull.

So 3x total body may look like:

Day A: Back Squat, Bench, DB Row, Leg curl, bis/tris

Day B: Deadlift, Military Press, Lat Pulldown, Front Squat, bis/tris

Just keep rotating A and B days for 3 days a week.

Alan

Lat pulldowns? That's just embarrassing.

Why is that? I doubt he can do many pullups.

But pullups, hammer strength iso lat pulldown or high Row will also work. Any sort of vertical pulling which you can progress.

Alan