New to lifting !

[ethonhauler]

I am enjoying going in to my gym and dedicating time to raising my strength on certain machines. Right now I'm doing incline press machine and doing about 100 per side of the machine. I feel like I've been underestimating myself because I look like I can lift a lot I just am paranoid of f*king myself up lol. But then I see guys smaller than me doing the dumbbell chest press at like 5 reps of 65 so tonight I figured out I can do about 5 reps with each dumbbell weighing 70 on dumbbell chest press. Basically all I've ever done for working out previously is lots of pushups and I sat in my room and just curled dumbbells for about 9 seasons worth of the walking dead. But I just wanted to ask if this is all sounding pretty good for someone who wants to keep getting stronger and also I feel like one but thing holding me back is my wrists so any good wrist workouts would be awesome! I am eating lots of good protein foods too. I've incorporated protein powder from (body fortress) and lots of rice and good meat. If u have better protein supplements you recommend j would love that as well.

 

[mikea92]

@ethonhauler Are you wanting to get stronger or look more muscular because my advice is different depending on which one you want

 

[ethonhauler]

@mikea92 I enjoy being able to lift more but I suppose the goal would be to look more muscular more so than that desire

 

[mommajulesberry]

@ethonhauler if you add weight over time you are training to get more muscular. if you add weight on exercises with the additional goal of showing off how strong you are on specific exercises like a barbell bench press, you are a strength enjoyer

 

[mikea92]

@ethonhauler Okay so you’re interested in sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. So for that you’ll want to aim to hit each muscle group about 20-25 times a week about 4 sessions at the gym per week with 10 sets or so per muscle group. So for example for shoulders on Day 1 and 3 hit Military Press 3x6-12 reps (depending on weight), Reverse Fly 3x20-30 reps, and Lat Raise 4x20-30 reps. Shoulder do well with high volume and you can sometimes hurt yourself trying to do heavy weights. Where as Chest for example you’ll stay in the 6-12 rep range because it does well with less volume and more weight on presses. Then I’d recommend a little cardio, not high intensity, literally just like incline walking on the treadmill for like 30 min each time you hit the gym. You don’t want to exhaust yourself just burn a few extra calories and make sure you get 1g of protein per pound of body weight and maybe get creatine to give yourself a slight boost for muscle growth.

So for me I do Day 1 and 3 Biceps, Triceps, Shoulders (high volume focused lower weights) and on Day 2 and 4 I do Chest, Back, Legs (heavier weight in 6-12 rep range). Every week increase reps or weight, always increase, always move forward and push yourself.

 

[ethonhauler]

@mikea92 Thanks brother

 

[carolinar7]

@mikea92 For most beginners, there is very little difference between those goals.