Begining Weight Training

You're actually right on this. I have a lot of arm issues (but I do have some kick ass arms!).

You will want to rest your arms until the pain has eased. Ice them suckers if it's the tendons. It took nearly two weeks for my arm to heal up enough to stop feeling like a knife was in it last time. I know Ace does two different workouts so he doesn't do the same one two days in a row. Allow for some healing. Anyway, I'm not a weight lifter. I just have to lift my fat ass around. That does enough.

 

Makes sense. I told this to a friend who lifts semi regularly and he suggested since my goal was more to tone up and lose weight to lift half my max and do more sets of reps. So for instance if I bench 100 as a max 5-7 times instead do 50lbs 10 times in a set and do 3-4 sets about 3 minutes apart. Does that sound reasonable?

 

You don't need to be doing any weight that you can't do at least 8 reps of.
Start off with a weight you can do at least 15 reps of with good form to exhaustion. Increase the weight over 3 sets but be able to do at least 8 reps on the last set. Concentrate on form over everything else.

You shouldn't need to do more than 3 sets of 2 different exercises per muscle group. You will see strength gains, especially if you give yourself time to heal before working the muscle group again. The muscle gets stronger as it heals, so working a sore or tired muscle group is of no benefit and only causes injury.

 

For my primary workout, I crab-walk nude around the perimeter of my yard and stop when my ass hurts from scraping against the brambles in my hedgerow. It usually takes a week or so for the lacerations to heal and then I'm good to go again. Some trainers I know said I should wear burlap shorts if I'm going to use this particular exercise — which incidentally was used exclusively by Eskimo soldiers during their invasion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 1831 — but I like the way the cold winter air feels when it blows on my ball-sack. Amen.

 

Don't you worry about scar tissue?

 

Pi, do you workout regularly?

 

Yes. Why do you ask, Johnny Rebel?

 

You just sound like you know what you're talking about. I was a workout junkie until I had kids. Now I'm a weakling.

 

I worked out a lot more before kids too. I used to go 6 days/week now I'm lucky if I get there 4 days but this year I've committed to get in the best shape of my life.

 

Did MikeNinerHunt challenge you to a race?