Hello,
I made the leap 2 weeks ago to start resistance training and be in better health overall.
I lost 25 pounds since October and it motivated me to start training as well. So here I am.
I bought the Renaissance Periodization 3 days full body workout with dumbbells only to start my journey. I have young kids, so starting at home is giving me the best chance to stick to a program.
With that said, over the 2 weeks, a few questions popped up and I don't know the terminology well enough to answer them and my google skills weren't good enough, so I am trying my luck here.
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I have been sedentary for a long while, even though I did a lot of sport when I was younger. Mainly competitive volley ball, so my legs are decently strong still, but my upper body, not so much. For many upper body exercises I do, it feels like my strength is really uneven, and different muscles are activated, though I make sure that the targeted muscle for the exercise is activated too. Should I stick to the same weight I use if I can reach the targeted reps with good technique (to the best of my knowledge)? Or should I drop the weight a little bit until I am strong enough?
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The program calls for myo reps. Each week, a new set is added. For each exercise, the target is between 5-30 reps. Does that mean that I should target at least 5 reps for each sets? Or if I do, let's say, 7-5-3 reps, is that good enough? Should I drop down some dumbbells weight until I can do all the sets to at least 5 reps? For push ups particularly, I don't use a dumbbell, so I could switch to knee push ups, but my first two sets are over 5 reps, but the subsequent sets are under 5.
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Today while training, I ramped up intensity a little bit and really pushed myself more than before. For certain exercises, even though my targeted muscle wasn't burning and feeling exhausted, I couldn't do more reps and the overall part that was trained was shaky after the set.
For example, I did some sumo squats. It didn't feel like my quads were toasted, but I could not push more and my legs really started to shake (it went away after a bit of rest). Is that a good/okay thing? Or does that mean I pushed myself too much and other parts of my legs weren't strong enough for what I tried? After my training, it felt like my knees worked a lot, so I think this is what limited my sumo squats.
I am aware that other muscles are solicited when doing an exercise, but I feel like the targeted muscle should do most of the work.
Thank you for your time.
Sounds like your doing a good job.
You can try different exercises for the same muscle to see which ones target the specific muscle the most if that's what your into. On the other hand it's good to do exercises that actually involve multiple muscles so that everything grows bit by bit simultaneously. That's the bast case scenario IMO. Machines that work out a single muscle are nonsensical for 99% of people. Ok, if your a world class tennis player, you need extra strong specific hand muscles, but most of us aren't so we don't.
And it's true what you say, sometimes a muscle starts hurting like hell two days after the actual workout so you think you didn't do a good job when all of a sudden you have trouble sitting down ๐
My legs are getting better today, but I feel like the right muscles were targeted haha.
I will stick to the program for the full cycle, but I am also currently looking at replacement exercises to replace the ones I don't like and see how they feel.
Thanks for the advice.