Hello

[Brandon Willing]

Hey everyone, my name is Brandon. I have been lifting weights for 5 years on and off but just started doing it seriously. I am currently in the process of shredding fat while maintaining muscle, which is going good so far. I love helping other people and giving advice, so ask me anything if you have any questions.

 

[SillyGilly85]

Hi Brandon and welcome

I do a lot of aerobic exercise, ceroc dancing, tap dancing, aerobics class and Pilates class every week, but I know that using weights is really effective for sculpting and losing weight. What exercises/weight/reps would you suggest as a female beginner to weights? I'm happy with my legs and bum ( all that dancing keeps those areas in good shape) but would like to focus on core, back and chest. I don't have a gym membership and can't really afford one on top of all of the activity I do already so would be looking to get hand weights I could use at home.

Hope you don't mind me asking

Gilly

 

[Brandon Willing]

Hey, thank you for the reply. I don't really do much core so I can't help you with that.

But I can definitely help you out with back and chest. If you want to do chest but you have no equipment,
then press-ups are your best friend.

4-5 sets, all to failure. Rest before getting up, you may not be able to get up otherwise, lol. This will also give you awesome triceps.

I have a bench press at home so I just do bench-press, incline and flies to do my chest. If you get a bench press then I recommend those exercises.

For back, I highly recommend you get a barbell with some weights and perform these exercises. Dead lifts, Vertical Barbell Row, Barbell Shrugs, Bent-Over Barbell Row, Dumbbell Bent Over Row, with knee on bench. Check on YouTube to see how to perform them properly.

The key is to control the weight, and squeeze the muscle. Do not make the rookie mistake of putting a lot of weight on and throwing it around with bad form, lol.

Doing these exercises will pretty much target your entire back and not leave anything out. Good luck

 

[Brandon Willing]

As a beginner I highly recommend your sets to go like this:

Set 1: 12 reps
Set 2: 10 reps
Set 3: 8 reps
Set 4: 6 reps
Set 5: 12 reps

After set 1, 2, 3, 4, put a little more weight on to make it harder for your next set.

For your last set (5) put the weight that you started with back on and complete 12 reps.

1 minute rest-time between sets, no rest time after set 4, 2 minute rest between exercises.

 

[SillyGilly85]

Wow thank you so much for this! This is really helpful, and definitely a lot in here I could do from home. I'll have a bit of investigation of how to do some of the exercises this weekend. Have you noticed that your shape/ weight loss have been impacted since working out?