Good Stuff Walter! It’s what I do for a living so happy to give any advice if you need. You will increase strength pretty quickly in the first few weeks, mainly due to neurological development (as opposed to muscular development). As your nervous system becomes accustomed to the movements, your strength gains will slow down a bit but the good news is, you will then see more gains in muscle size and adding in more assistance exercises will help with that too. Best advice to give is: 1 - know what your aiming for (strength, size, losing fat, athletic performance etc) and learn the basics of how changing your sets/reps/rest periods and tempo will elicit different results 2 - record your volume of weight lifted each session/week, and remember you program in de-loading weeks. Slightly lighter than you are used to - to allow better recovery and reduce chance of injury 3 - Film yourself on the basic lifts you are doing. What you think you’re doing doesn’t always match up with what you see on video. 4 - Buy a good book or two. Anything by Charles Poliquin is good. Poliquin Principles for the basics, and German Volume Traiing for more advanced stuff. 5 - Like has already been mentioned. Consistency is key. Another reason to program in your de-load days to avoid fatigue, boredom or inury. 6 - Ensure you are getting enough protein. As your muscle mass increases, so does your protein requirement. Around 2grams per kilo of muscle mass is a good place to start.
Very true Brady, but when done properly, Deadlifts, Back Squats, Front Squats, and Overhead presses are some of the best core strength exercises you can do!
Rabbits jump and they live for 8 years. Dogs run and they live for 15 years. Turtles don't do anything and they live for 150 years. LESSON LEARNED!
Seriously mate. Good luck. Sounds like you are doing well. But don't push it build slowly and ffs look after your back. Keep it straight. Some cardio will help. Sorry if some of this has already been posted.
Good on you mate, strong lifts is a great start purely because it's simple and focuses on the important exercises, no wasting time with endless curls, it just focuses on compound movements and shifting heavy weight. If you're going to follow stronglifts I would recommend not using a belt, straps, or wraps, it's a program designed to be done raw. The aim is to build your foundation of strength, not just of your major muscle groups but everything from your tendons to grip strength, if you can't lift it raw don't lift it, deload and work your way back up. You only need the other stuff when you get more advanced and even then not that much. Form is the key, you can get away with bad form with light weights but it will catch up with you when add plates to the bar, asking people is honestly the best way, you'd be surprised how keen people are to help, although pick wisely, it's amazing how bad some advice can be! My other advice would be to stick at it, within a few months your progress will seriously stall and you'll feel like your going backwards by deloading all the time, it's tempting to switch programs but don't, just trust the process and stick at it, you'll be amazed what you can achieve.
Cheers AT! At the minute I've been using some chalk as my hands get sweaty, but apart from that I've avoided any other aides. I've missed a week due to work and other occasions have only been able to do twice a week and not three times so it's been slow going, but I'm still increasing. I'm determined to squat my own body weight as a minimum.
