Weight lifting is the center of this website and for very good reason.
At the center of both strength training and bodybuilding, you will find weight lifting.
In order to build strength and muscle, you will need to focus on weight lifting.
If weight loss is your goal, weight lifting MUST be a part of that goal in order to look good once you reach the body weight you want.
Diet is not the only part of losing weight effectively. Weight lifting allows you to lose the right type of weight.
When attempting to lose fat, weight training allows you to communicate to your body that you want to keep all of the muscle and to just get rid of that nasty body fat.
The benefits of weight lifting are endless. I've been lifting weights since the year 2000, and I fell in love with it because of the benefits I have received.
I want you to receive all of those same benefits so I've made this page about weight lifting so you can know it as well as I do.
Strength Training
Weight lifting is the focus of strength training.
The goal of strength training is to get stronger. That's it.
To get stronger, you must give your body a reason to get stronger.
Think about this. Why would your body need to get stronger?
Strength is built when your body sees the need to build strength.
Send the Correct Signal for Strength Training
Your body is intelligently designed to build strength when you communicate to your body that you need to get stronger.
The signal that you give to your body to build strength comes through weight lifting.
You simply lift a heavier weight that your body is accustomed to lifting, and you send that communication to your body to build more strength.
As an example, let's say you've never done 20 squats with 135 pounds before. But you've done 10 squats with 135 pounds before.
If you continue to do 10 repetitions of squats with 135 pounds over and over again each workout, do you think you are telling your body it needs to build strength?
No, of course not.
A Goal of Strength Training is to Lift Weights Progressively
If you want to focus on strength training, you must lift weights that are heavier than before or do more reps with the same weight. This is how you get stronger.
So instead of doing squats with 135 pounds for 10 reps, you would increase the weight to 140 pounds as an example, or you would do 12 reps next workout.
This stimuli will tell your amazingly designed body that it needs to build strength.
At a specific muscle size, that muscle has a specific capacity for strength. You can work on building strength in that muscle at the same size and it will eventually reach a strength limit.
Then, in order to get even stronger, the muscle must increase in size.
Once a Muscle Reaches its Strength Capacity, Muscle Size Must Increase to Increase Strength
At a larger muscle size, the strength of that muscle can continue to increase again.
This is why Weight Lifting Complete recommends getting everything you can out of lighter weights to build muscle. Then, slowly increase the amount of weight lifted to build strength.
You get both muscle gain and strength gain when you lift weights using the guidelines here at Weight Lifting Complete.
Strength training is a definitely a focus and a center piece of all weight lifting workouts.
A goal of every workout should be to increase strength.
Strength Gains Tell You If You Are Moving in the Right Direction
If you are able to get stronger every workout, then you are doing well. This is a sign you are moving in the right direction.
If you are not able to increase strength each workout, then you will need to change something.
This is where the WLC System comes into play. You will first make sure all aspects of your strength training program are optimized.
Once you know you are doing everything correctly, then you will know exactly what changes you need to make to continue getting stronger.
These changes might look like this:
- Add 200 calories to your diet plan
- Get an additional 30 minutes of sleep each night
- Reset the bench press exercise as your strength has stalled out
- Change exercise choices to decrease lower back stress
- Implement specific exercise warm up to increase strength on working sets
- Drink more water around and during your weight training workouts
Within the WLC System, you will find how to optimize everything in your program to ensure you are gaining strength from each weight lifting session.
The goal is to stop wasting time and effort and to start getting results from each workout.
Your strength MUST be increasing to ensure your body is changing from each weight training workout you do. Without strength gains, you aren't doing something properly. You'll need to get that fixed so you aren't wasting any time.
Strength Training is Fun Because Lifting Heavy Weight Makes You Feel Great!
When you get results from each workout, your body changes quickly for the good.
If you aren't getting results from each workout, you'll probably stop lifting weights and start sitting on the couch more often. This is not good.
Getting stronger from weightlifting is fun and has become one of my personal favorite hobbies.
I think you'll also enjoy strength training as much as I do because it makes your life so much easier.
Normal tasks that you do every day are easier and easier as you get stronger. And you'll be able to do so much more with your life too. Weight lifting is something that I personally wouldn't want to live without.
I do love weight lifting that much.
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Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is simply building your body.
Bodybuilding is a sport because it focuses on building muscle in the right spots so that your body looks more proportioned and more beautiful to the human eye.
This sport takes plenty of patience and a muscle building intelligence to get your body proportions correct.
The right weight lifting exercises and workouts allow you to add slabs of lean muscle mass exactly where you need it.
Find Your Muscle Strengths and Weaknesses with Bodybuilding
If your chest is a strength and your calves are a weakness, you must prioritize your calf muscles to bring them up to where they need to be.
Remember, this is all about building the perfect proportions within your body.
Think about an X. Your body should try to imitate the shape of an X. This means a tiny waist, large legs, and a big upper body. This is the appearance bodybuilders should strive to reach. This is called the X-Factor in bodybuilding.
Fat loss is also a huge part of bodybuilding because a very low body fat percentage allows the development of muscles within your body to be seen even better.
For example, you won't see your six pack abs with a high body fat percentage.
You may have absolutely beautiful abdominal muscles under the body fat, but right now, you just can't see those amazing stomach muscles.
Before a show, most body builders use the past several months to cut down to a very low percentage of fat.
They do not stay in this shape year round because it's difficult to maintain for most people.
Two Types of Cycles in Bodybuilding: Bulking & Cutting
Within the sport of bodybuilding, you will hear people talk about 2 different types of weight lifting cycles:
- Bulking
- Cutting
For bulking, bodybuilders attempt to add as much muscle mass as possible.
Some bodybuilders don't care about adding too much body fat during bulking so they eat a very large amount of food and don't really care if it's junk food.
To eat this many calories, some people believe they must eat junk food. Eating around 6,000 calories per day is not an easy task.
Natural bodybuilding is a much safer way, and you'll live a much longer and happier life. Natural bodybuilders cannot compete against those bodybuilders who choose to use illegal drugs.
The advantage of steroids is too much for natural weight lifters to overcome.
This is The Recommended Method of Bodybuilding for Natural Athletes
The recommended method of bodybuilding here at Weight Lifting Complete is to use lean muscle building cycles followed by fat burning cycles.
The goal is to slowly add slabs of lean muscle to your body without adding body fat.
This works much better than gaining too much fat during bulking cycles and then losing too much muscle during cutting cycles.
With the WLC System, you won't be eating junk food at all at any time. Junk food is no good at any time and can harm your body greatly.
You will not sacrifice your body to gain muscle mass. Instead, you will use good foods that help your body and you will slowly add lean muscle mass versus attempting to add maximum muscle mass no matter the cost.
Many bodybuilders sacrifice their health and their life over the goal of adding maximum amounts of muscle through weight lifting and eating. This is not worth the cost. I had this same mindset at one time and quickly learned this is not the way.
When you're young, you don't care about your body. But let me warn you: you should always care about your body!
Body Building is Art and Your Body is the Canvas
Bodybuilding is an art and your body is the canvas. Paint away. You need the best tools to produce the best art possible.
Weight lifting is one of your main tools, but you need to know how to use the right exercises, weight, reps, sets, and methods to build muscle in the right muscle groups.
Compound weight lifting exercises are a big part of bodybuilding, but isolation exercises also play a major role.
Your goal is not maximum strength or maximum muscle. Instead your goal is a perfectly proportioned body with higher than average amounts of muscle.
Since compound exercises work a large range of muscle groups, sometimes advanced bodybuilders can't do them because this might accelerate muscle growth in a muscle group that is already a strength.
Some of the Best Weight Lifting Exercises Aren't the Best Bodybuilding Exercises
Bench press really works the front deltoids and chest muscles very well.
If chest is a weakness and front deltoids are a strength, bench press wouldn't be a good choice to bring up a lagging chest muscle.
Instead, you would choose a weight lifting exercise that isolates the chest muscle. A chest isolation exercise is the correct choice.
Many weight lifters would say, “That's crazy. You shouldn't do an isolation exercise over the bench press.” But with advanced bodybuilders that's exactly what they should do in that situation.
Before you get into advanced bodybuilding, though, compound bodybuilding exercises should be used first.
You need to know what your canvas or body can look like first by using compound exercises. Then you can start the detailed art work once you know your muscle group weaknesses. You might not even have many weaknesses, which means you might be a top-notch bodybuilder one day.
Who Should Pursue Bodybuilding as a Sport?
Good prospects for bodybuilding include men and women with small waists, broad shoulders, muscular legs, full muscle bellies that attach close to joints, and small joints.
These are just a few characteristics of great bodybuilders.
I, as an example, would not be a good bodybuilder because I don't have a tiny waist. I can have very low body fat levels and not a tiny waist. I do have small joints but my muscle groups also don't attach very close to my joints either. This is better for strength but not so great for the appearance of a great bodybuilder.
But bodybuilding can be a hobby as well, and you don't have to participate in the sport.
This is a great hobby to undertake as it is very challenging. Setting and reaching goals keeps you motivated and is very fun.
I highly recommend bodybuilding for everyone. Give it a shot, and you just might be the next professional body builder.
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Weight Lifting Exercises
In order to start weight lifting and to be very good at it, you need to know the best weight lifting exercises.
The best weightlifting exercises can be different for people but the same fundamental movements should be included in every weight training program.
You may notice that most of the core exercises I recommend are moving your body through space with the weight. These are the best exercises to choose and will always produce better overall results.
As an example, the push up is a better overall exercise choice than the barbell bench press because you are moving your body weight through space. I recommend doing push ups over the bench press if you have a way to safely add weight to the push up.
Here Are the 7 Core Weight Lifting Exercises
Here at Weight Lifting Complete, I use 7 core exercises to form the strong foundation of every workout program:
- Squat
- Deadlift
- Bench Press
- Row
- Overhead Press
- Chin Up
- Dip
Some type of variation of the above 7 exercises are used in every workout program. These are most highly recommended exercises that will give you the best results in the shortest amount of time.
All of Those 7 Weight Lifting Exercises Work All Major Muscle Groups Throughout Your Body
Those 7 movements will work all of the 11 major muscle groups:
- Quadriceps
- Hamstrings
- Calves
- Chest
- Back
- Shoulders
- Triceps
- Biceps
- Forearms
- Trapezius
- Abdominals
That's it. All major muscles throughout your body will be covered by those 7 exercise movements. Pretty cool, right? You can build an absolutely amazing body full of strength, muscle, and power with just those exercises.
The key is to get better on those exercises and to lift heavier weight over time. This is when your body begins to change. Don't expect changes if you aren't increasing the weight and getting stronger.
Where Are All The Ab Exercises?
Many people ask me about ab exercises and why I am not including specific abdominal exercises in the workout programs I design.
The answer to that is weight lifting exercises like the squat, deadlift, bench press, row, overhead press, chin up, and dip will work the abdominals greatly compared to any crunch or other ab exercise.
There really is no comparison. Doing chin ups with 100 pounds of extra weight around your waist will work the abs better than any crunch. Doing 400 pounds deadlifts will build stronger abs than doing 30 crunches from the floor. Lifting heavy weight in any exercise uses the abdominals. There's no need to over work this popular muscle group.
The only time I recommend adding some ab exercises is if they are a weakness in appearance. This is more related to bodybuilding and bringing up a lagging muscle group.
Heavy weights used on those 7 core exercises will make you strong all over and will build lean muscle all throughout your body.
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Weight Lifting Supplements
Weight lifting supplements are an absolutely gigantic industry.
I am not sure how this works, but there are more people searching for supplements than there are people searching for weight lifting.
Isn't that amazing?
Supplements are not meant to make up for a bad diet. They are not meant to replace bad workouts. Therefore, you should not be taking supplements if you are not doing everything else properly.
I will promise you one thing: “If you are doing everything properly, you wont even be looking for supplements. You will be getting amazing results without them. You truly do not need any foreign substances in your body for any reason.”
Let's take a look at the definition of supplement.
Supplement: “Something that completes or enhances something else when added to it.”
Weight lifting supplements are meant to add to weight lifting to enhance your efforts or complete your efforts.
Do Not Think About Supplements Until You Do This
In other words, you shouldn't be looking for supplements if you aren't exercising correctly, eating right, sleeping well, doing the right exercises, and more.
Supplements are only used as an assistance to help you lift weights better.
Yes, I have taken all of the supplements in the past: creatine, glutamine, amino acids, whey protein, fish oil, beta alanine, lean beef aminos, pre workout energy drinks, post workout formulas, waxy maize, dextrose, sugars, grape juice, vitamins, and more.
I can tell you right now that I believe many of those supplements led to health issues that I had.
Some of those weight lifting supplements “seemed” to really help like beta alanine. I could really feel like I was able to do extra reps at the end of a set, and I do think beta alanine contributed to that. But, is that really worth damaging your body and giving it a large abundance of a substance that isn't “needed” in your body?
Health Issues Led Me to Stop Taking Supplements of All Types and I've Had Zero Issues Since Then
Because of the health issues I've had, I do not recommend those supplements any more.
I've had acid reflux, esophagitis, stomach issues, digestive issues, high blood pressure, and more.
This all happened after using whey protein, glutamine, creatine, energy drinks, beta alanine, branched chain amino acids, and other supplements for many years. Once I got rid of them, results increased, fat loss increased, and I feel great.
My blood pressure is back down to normal. I believe supplements were the cause as well as some junk foods.
This is why I don't recommend supplements any more as I once did. They just aren't worth the cost to your body and health.
Supplements of any type are no longer a part of my diet plan. I do take a capsule of fish oil every so often, but that is about it.
Real Food is MORE Powerful Than Any Supplement
Everything I need is obtained from whole foods.
On that point, let me state that a combination of whole foods, herbs, and spices are so much more powerful than any supplement.
For instance, turmeric is more powerful than whey protein. Wild-caught salmon is more powerful than creatine. Grass-fed beef is more powerful than beta alanine.
Why take lean beef amino acids when I can eat grass-fed beef and get many more benefits?
This is the truth as I am not here to make money off supplements as you will find at Bodybuilding.com and other websites. They provide free information so you feel obligated to purchase supplements from them.
Many people get so-called results from supplements because they “believe” they are helping them. In reality, they are not.
The #1 goal of most supplement companies is to make money no matter the cost to you and your health.
Weight lifting and healthy foods are the true reasons people are getting results when using supplements (if they are getting results).
Supplements are not providing the results in most cases.
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Weight Lifting Routines
Weight lifting routines are a series of weight lifting exercises and workouts.
Some routines you will find throughout the internet will be single workouts with a list of exercises.
I do not recommend single workout routines.
I do recommend a series of workout routines that last for a period of at least 6 weeks that are designed to help you get stronger.
Weight Lifting Routines Need A Plan Of Progression
Workouts need a plan of progression.
A plan of progression is a plan that helps you make progress.
This plan might be to increase the number of reps you are doing, or it might be to increase the weight you are lifting.
If it's a good plan, it will help you to get much stronger over the course of the workout routine.
If there is no plan of progression, I highly recommend not using that routine.
An Example Weight Lifting Routine
As an example, here's a weight lifting routine for your legs:
Exercise, Sets x Rep Range
1. High Bar Squats, 3 sets x 6 – 8 reps
2. Dumbbell Lunges, 3 sets x 6 – 8 reps
3. Cable Kick Backs, 2 sets x 12 – 15 reps
4. Standing Calf Raises, 3 sets x 12 – 15 reps
The weight lifting routine listed above uses good weight lifting exercises, but where is the plan?
When do you do this workout? How many times per week? When do you increase the weight you are lifting?
Do you do the same rep ranges every workout of every week?
Do you go to failure? Or, what is the proper intensity you should be using? Maybe you should stay 2 reps short of failure or maybe you should go to complete failure.
There are many questions to answer when you see a list of exercises for weight lifting routines.
For instance, the workout routine you see listed might be done during Week 3 of the weight lifting program. During the first week, the rep ranges might be totally different and look like this:
Exercise, Sets x Rep Range
1. High Bar Squats, 3 sets x 4 – 6 reps
2. Dumbbell Lunges, 3 sets x 4 – 6 reps
3. Cable Kick Backs, 2 sets x 6 – 8 reps
4. Standing Calf Raises, 3 sets x 6 – 8 reps
And maybe you aren't suppose to get even close to failure for this workout as it might be during the first week of the routine.
Weight Lifting Routines Need Many Details For You To Execute Properly
Here at Weight Lifting Complete, all weight lifting routines are clearly explained with detailed instructions for the following categories:
- Purpose: This might be to build strength, build power, or build muscle size.
- Type: This will be either a full body routine or a split routine.
- Volume: This will be very low, low, medium, high, or very high volume.
- Frequency: This might be once per week to seven times per week as an example.
- Intensity: This could be a few reps short of failure or beyond failure as in rest pause training.
- Number of Different Workouts: This could be a single weight lifting routine or a series of different workouts.
- Sets and Reps for Each Exercise: You need to know the exact targets so you can select the right weights.
- Rest Between Sets: For instance, this might be 1 minute or maybe even 5 minutes.
- Weight Lifting Schedule: When to do your workouts and when to take a rest day.
- Starting Weights: For week 1 workout 1, what weight do you choose for each exercise?
- When to Increase the Weight: Do you increase weight once you reach a target number of reps or something else?
- How Much to Increase the Weight: Is this 5 pounds, 2.5% of total weight lifted, or 5%?
- What to Do If You Stall: If you are having trouble increasing the weight lifted, what do you do?
- When to Terminate the Routine: Do you stop once you have stalled and reset 3 times or something else?
As you can see, there are many different things you need to know for weight lifting routines.
Do You Have Everything You Need to Start a Strength Training Routine?
You also need to know how to do the exercises properly.
You need to know how to warm up before a workout and before a specific exercise.
You need to know how to perform a rep properly for a specific program.
Rep speed might be slow or explosive. You never know unless the weight lifting routine lays it all out for you.
For WLC System based weight lifting routines, I include weighted stretching after an exercise is completed to increase blood flow to the target area and increase the muscle building stimulus.
Weighted stretching is unique to the WLC System, and most likely isn't included in other weight lifting workouts.
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Weight Lifting Workouts
Here at WLC, you will find a huge number of weight lifting workouts of all types and all categories.
Our weight training workouts focus on building strength and building muscle.
The main focus of weight lifting should be to get stronger.
When you focus on getting stronger, you won't focus on silly workouts that are designed to burn calories or increase fitness.
For example, Beach Body Workouts are designed to increase fitness and burn calories. Their goal is not to increase strength. If they were, they wouldn't be doing so many exercises that are wasting time.
Weight Lifting Complete's Strategy for Workouts Is Different Than Popular Programs
The strategy here at Weight Lifting Complete is much different than most of the popular places.
Many people fall for the same old stuff, and the people who create that trash are happy because people never get the body they want. And if they get lucky and do get results, they lose them pretty quickly. People keep spending money and coming back for more trash.
That doesn't happen here, and won't happen here.
We use cardio workouts to increase fitness levels and to burn fat. We DO NOT use weight lifting to focus on burning calories. This is a waste of time. You will still be burning calories during our weight lifting workouts, but that is NOT the focus. This is a HUGE difference.
Weight Lifting Workouts Are For Building Muscle and Strength: End of Story
We use weight lifting workouts to build strength and to build muscle. Weight lifting also increases fitness levels, but we don't focus on that for fitness.
If you use weight lifting to burn fat, you'll end up using very short rest times which isn't good at all for building strength or muscle. You will definitely burn calories, though, but you'll never get stronger.
This will lead to some results in the beginning, but you'll stall out very soon and most likely end up quitting.
Since I don't want that to happen, I want to lead you to the right weight lifting strategy.
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Weight Lifting Equipment
The right weight lifting equipment will help you to lift weights properly.
Machines with weight stacks that you find at commercial gyms are not the right type of weight lifting equipment for your workouts.
Any equipment that locks your body into a plane of motion and doesn't allow you to freely move is equipment that I do not recommend.
Again, I highly recommend not using dangerous machines as they can hurt your joints and cause issues for a long time.
An Example of Dangerous Weight Lifting Equipment
An example of a machine that I don't recommend for doing squats is the Smith Machine.
I use a Smith Machine for seated calf raises and for doing weighted push ups from a bench, but that's about it.
The Smith Machine is an example of locking you into a single plane of motion. Your body doesn't move that way.
The barbell on a Smith Machine slides along two fixed bars. So it has to travel in the exact line of those 2 fixed bars.
This is not how the barbell would move if it were not fixed by those bars. This makes it dangerous as your body is working against its natural movement.
Here's a List of the Best Weight Lifting Equipment
As I've said, the best equipment is old-school type weights like barbells and dumbbells.
I would even argue that dumbbells are even better than barbells because they can allow your arms or even legs to move independently of the other.
Dumbbells build even more functional strength and will ensure strength is balanced between arms and legs.
Here's the weight training equipment I recommend:
- Power Rack
- Olympic Barbell Sets
- Dumbbell Sets
- Weight Bench
- Chin Up & Dip Station
- Cable System
- Trap Bar
- Extra Weight Plates
- Fractional Plates
- Hip Belt
You can even get started with just a set of adjustable dumbbells.
That's exactly what I did when I started lifting weights in the year 2000.
I went out to Wal-Mart as I still remember the day I decided to start lifting weights and bought s cheap set of adjustable dumbbells. Back then, it might have cost me $20. Weights didn't cost so much then.
From that point on, I have been lifting weights because I love it so much.
Start Building a Home Gym Slowly With the Right Equipment
For less than $100, you can start lifting weights at home and get just as good of a workout than going to most gyms and using their dangerous machines.
There are an absolute HUGE number of weight lifting exercises you can do with just a set of dumbbells.
From a set of adjustable dumbbells, you can start building a home gym. I added a low cost barbell set next. Then I added a power rack, a cable machine, a hex dumbbell set, and more.
After many years, I have an amazing home gym. I spent a little bit at a time and now I can do a huge number of exercises safely at home.
Here's what my home gym looks like now:
I highly recommend you do the same. Start building your own workout space at home, and you will get even better results.
As an example, I can do several weight lifting workouts per day easily if needed and get them done faster because my gym is right here.
Old School Equipment is the Best
Old-school weight lifting equipment lasts a really long time.
I still have the original dumbbell handles and the original weight plates from that set of cheap Wal-Mart dumbbells from the year 2000. They aren't going away either. They still work great.
In other words, purchasing equipment for yourself is a great investment.
Instead of spending your money on a gym membership fee, invest it into your own home gym. I highly recommend your own home gym!
Before long, you'll have a gym full of weight lifting equipment just like I do. It took me a long time, but it has all served me very well from the time I checked out at the register.
The right equipment will serve you, your body, and your health very well for a long time.
You can be sure that when you purchase weight plates that those weight plates will most likely out live you. Pass them down to your sons, your daughters, and your grandchildren.
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Weight Lifting Charts
Weight lifting charts are needed to provide that extra assistance with your weight lifting efforts.
There are all types of weightlifting charts that can help you.
I use many different charts all throughout the year when I am trying to design new workout programs and when trying to measure my very own progress.
Blank weight lifting charts for recording your workouts are extremely useful and something that I highly recommend to every weight lifter out there.
Weight Lifting Charts for Recording Your Workouts
With the WLC System, I include workout log charts for recording all your workouts.
This allows you to record the exercise, the weight used, the reps completed, and the number of sets completed.
I also show you how to find your 1-rep max for the amount of weight and reps you completed. This allows you to compare your 1-rep max as you move throughout a weight lifting program.
If your 1-rep max is increasing, then you are doing well. If not, changes need to be made.
Weight Lifting Exercise Execution Charts
I love to see weight lifting exercise execution charts with images.
These are awesome charts that help you to see quickly how an exercise should be done.
For me, this helps me remember how to do an exercise much easier. I can easily emulate something when I see images of the right movements.
There are plenty options for finding these charts.
I plan to find some more that I love and put them on the walls of my home gym.
I absolutely love weight training so these charts are the perfect addition to the walls of my home gym.
There Are An Endless Number of Weight Lifting Charts That Will Help You
I'm going to give you a short list of the available chart types to assist you with strength training:
- Blank workout logs
- Body mass index chart
- Personal calorie level chart
- Body fat percentage chart
- One rep max chart
- Warm up percentage chart
- Exercise charts
- Rep ranges chart
- Weight lifting progress chart
- Pyramid chart
- Diet log chart
There are many more charts that will help you throughout the Weight Lifting Complete website. I constantly add new charts that have helped me, and I share them with you.
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Weight Lifting Programs
Weight lifting programs are what I recommend over any weight lifting routines.
“Programs” are planned out and include many more guidelines and instructions that just a routine that lists out some exercises, sets, and reps.
Anyone can put together a workout routine, but not many know how to put together an intelligently designed weight lifting program.
If you want to lift weights, you need to do it progressively meaning you need to always be making progress towards the correct goal of building muscle and strength.
The right weight lifting programs will guide you in doing this.
Take a Close Look at the Weight Lifting Exercises Used in the Programs
One of the first things you need to look for in a good program are the weight lifting exercises that are used in the workouts.
Are all workouts focused around the 7 best exercises: squats, deadlifts, push ups, rows, overhead press, pull ups, and dips?
If so, you can continue evaluating the program to see if it will work well.
Do you see exercises like curls, crunches, calf raises, and kickbacks more than you do squats and deadlifts?
If you see more isolation exercises than compound exercises, you should probably find a new program unless you are a super advanced bodybuilder.
If you are an advanced bodybuilder, you won't be looking around too much for that type of advice.
What Type of Plan of Progression Is There for the Weight Lifting Program?
You need to look for a plan of progression.
This might be increasing the weight when you reach the top end of a rep range.
Or, you might be instructed to increase the weight by 2.5% each week.
You might be increasing reps and weight until you reach Week #4, and then you will continue increasing the weight lifted while the reps decrease over the following weeks.
Once you stall on an exercise, which means you are having trouble increasing the weight lifted or the repetitions completed, there should be a plan of resetting an exercise.
This might mean dropping the weight by 20% and lowering the number of reps, or it might mean lowering the number of reps in half and then continuing to increase the number of reps.
There must be a plan for you to follow.
All good weight lifting programs will be planned out for you.
Are There Warm-Up Guidelines With the Program?
Warming up for a weight lifting program is very important.
Many people make the mistake of doing too much during a warm up and wearing themselves down.
There's no reason to wear yourself out before the real sets happen.
You don't see football players out before a game hitting each other and going all out before the game.
They simply want to get warmed up and ready to perform at a maximum level.
Good weight lifting programs will teach you how to warm-up properly. With the WLC System, you will never do more reps in a warm-up set than the target number of reps.
You simply start out with light weights and increase the weight while decreasing the reps. The last warm-up set is heavy but you don't do many reps at all.
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Weight Lifting Diets
Weight lifting diets will support you in your weight lifting efforts.
You can lift weights all you want and eat an absolutely horrible diet. You will not make progress the way you could have made progress.
Some people such as powerlifters might say they can eat anything and continue to gain strength. But many of those same people sacrifice fat gain when using “their” method.
I'm not sure why anyone would want to gain body fat. It's not good for you at extreme levels.
Support Your Weight Lifting Workouts With The Best Diet
In order to support your weight lifting workouts properly, you need to be eating the right foods in your diet plan.
Diet is not some fad diet that someone came up with. I am so sick of all the fad dieting that I hear about. It literally makes me sick to my stomach.
How many times is it going to take for us to realize we don't need a new fad diet? We just need to start eating right.
Here's the definition of diet: “The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.”
Your diet is the “normal” foods that you are choosing to eat on a regular basis.
People ask me if I am on a diet when I choose not to eat junk food. I say: “No, this is just how I eat.” And I am happy with it too. Junk food makes you feel like trash.
The Best Foods Are Nutrient Dense Foods
The best foods for anyone but especially for people that are lifting weights regularly and exercising regularly are foods that will provide an abundance of nutrients.
You should be eating nutrient dense foods at all times.
Check out this simple comparison of 100 calorie foods:
Do you also see how much more you get to eat with the nutrient dense food versus the trashy food in the image above? This keeps you full versus starving throughout the day.
For example, let's say I ate 2,500 calories today. And let's say you ate 2,500 calories too. Many “experts” would say the contents of what we ate doesn't really matter because we ate the same number of calories.
I am here to tell you that the foods you choose to eat make a huge difference.
The foods I ate to make up the 2,500 calories were 6 meals filled with nutrient dense foods like grass-fed beef, beans, berries, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and fruits.
The foods you ate were a breakfast #1 meal from McDonald's, a combo #2 from Taco Bell, and a Weight Watchers Frozen Dinner.
There is no comparison. If we continue to eat the same way, I will be lean, healthy, and muscular while you will end up in the hospital fighting for your life one day.
Junk Food Includes So-Called Health Foods
Junk food is not nutrient dense. Many people believe “health foods” are healthy, but they usually aren't either. Most of the so-called health foods are junk foods.
For instance, many of the “yogurts” you will find in grocery stores are complete and utterly worthless JUNK that hurts your body.
Home made yogurt made from real milk is absolutely amazing for you while mass produced yogurt from big food companies is trash. I don't even think it should legally be called yogurt.
This is just one example.
Another example is the bad reputation that whole eggs have received over the years and doctors are to blame for much of that nonsense. Whole eggs from good sources like pasture raised chickens are absolutely amazing for you and will not harm you!
Raw nuts and seeds (without extra substances added to them like salt and fats) are loaded with nutrients. The fats within nuts and seeds are healthy and will not harm you or make you fat.
Yet, people have been led to believe that nuts and seeds are bad for you while the “health food” companies push some trashy supplement with chemicals that hurt you.
Big Food Companies and Supplement Companies Are Killing Us
Food companies and supplement companies are killing us slowly. Our bodies try to fight all of this off, but our bodies have issues doing so after so much abuse.
If you want to make progress with weight lifting, build muscle, and burn fat then you can't put bad foods with horrible chemicals and other substances into your body. This is not good.
All the foods eaten for weight lifting diets should consist of ZERO processing or the least amount of processing possible.
Whey protein is highly processed and something that I don't recommend. Instead, get you a piece of wild-caught salmon.
Some “experts” will tell you the whey protein is “fast acting” so it speeds up the recovery process. It won't make a difference at all. The wild-caught salmon blows the whey protein away, and it's not even close.
Whole Foods In Their Most Natural State Are The Goal of Your Diet
Whole foods in their most natural state (cooking is recommended as I am not a raw meat advocate) is what I recommend.
I don't like processing of food, canned foods with preservatives, any foods with preservatives, foods with chemicals, foods from animals that have been shot up with medicine and steroids, or anything like that.
Cows were meant to eat a diet of grass and not grain.
Milk doesn't need to be pasteurized when it comes from healthy cows in a “clean” environment that aren't sick and full of nasty chemicals and medicines. My family was in dairy and beef cattle business for many years so I know a little about this and how it works.
So pay attention to what you are eating. Look at the list of ingredients.
Protein bars are not good at all. Just take a look at the trash on the ingredients label. Stop eating them right now. If you see a long list of ingredients on anything and you don't know what they are, don't eat it.
This is the type of stuff that makes you fat because your body doesn't even know what it is and what to do with it.
Your Body Will Use Vital Resources To Get Rid of Trash From Your Body Instead of Building Strength and Muscle
Your body has to use vital resources and work harder just to get rid of trash from your body.
When your body has to work harder to get rid of trash from your body, guess what happens to building muscle and strength? Yes, it stops completely.
Instead, keep your muscle building and fat burning efforts going strong at all times with the right weight lifting diet.
I hope this helps explain weight lifting diets better for you.
If you want get strong fast, focus on eating ONLY the best foods. No fast food. No restaurant food. Make your meals on your own with food from the best sources you can find.
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Weight Lifting Techniques
In order to get the most out of your weight lifting workouts, you need to know all about weight lifting techniques.
For example, squats and deadlifts are 2 of the absolute best weight lifting exercises.
Do you know the best weight lifting techniques so you get stronger faster on these 2 top exercises?
Many people have learned to look to the sky when doing squats, but this is completely wrong and could get you injured. This is an example of a bad weight lifting technique.
Breathing the right way during a heavy set of deadlifts could help you increase the amount of weight you are lifting greatly.
Increasing the amount of weight lifted is the way to amazing results.
The right techniques will assist you in lifting heavier weight than ever before.
Learning New Weight Training Techniques is Fun Because You Can Use Them Right Now
There are a huge number of techniques you can start using right now in your workouts. These techniques are not just related to exercise form either.
For instance, safely adding weight to push ups is a secret of mine. Push ups are a much better exercise than the bench press because your body moves through space, but adding weight safely is a challenge.
The technique I use for adding weight to push ups includes using a barbell in a power rack and a weight bench to elevate my feet. I then hand weight from my hip belt to safely do push ups with a lot of extra weight. Since the weight hangs below, this is an extremely safe way to do push ups.
I will share unlimited tips and tricks for weight lifting throughout this site and through emails.
You can instantly increase the amount of weight you are overhead pressing by using the right grip and putting the barbell in the correct placement in your hand. This is another example.
There are so many “little” things you can do that will lead to “big-time” results.
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Conclusion to Weight Lifting
As you have seen, this is the most comprehensive guide to weightlifting in existence.
Each of the sections above includes a link to an entirely new section of Weight Lifting Complete.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this page as much as I enjoyed writing this page.
As always, if you have any questions about weight lifting just let me know.
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