Sunday Mailbag- Weightlifting?

Q: Hi Tom, hope all is well with you. I love reading your Sunday Mailbags. Thank you for sharing with us. I have a question. To tell you a little about myself, I am 46 years old. I have depression (genetic). I have tried all coping tools such as medications or therapy. Unfortunately, they don’t work. I have always been interested in weightlifting but don’t know how to start. I am steering clear of the fitness centers. Was thinking about investing in the dumbbells and work out in my empty den. I know it’s a serious lifelong commitment. Would you be open to sharing any bodybuilding or weightlifting tips for the beginners?

A: Many people have a misconception that lifting weights is and all-or-nothing proposition for meatheads like this:

You do not need to think of weight training as something that only benefits you if you are relentlessly dedicated to it. It all depends on your goals. If your goal is to look like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, then yes, you’ll need to basically change your lifestyle to revolve around training, nutrition, and proper rest and recuperation. WHO HAS TIME FOR THAT??? But if your goal is to be healthier, stronger, more fit, maybe reduce stress… that’s something weight training can play a part in, without needing to become obsessive with it.

One of the great things about first getting started in weight training is you can go a long time getting real results without having to use and fancy equipment or needing heavy weights. Your muscles will respond to your new activity/resistance training with increases in strength, endurance, density, and size, for quite a long time doing just simple movements at weight levels that are challenging but not at a crazy overload effort. You can do a lot at home with a simple set of weights with a bench, barbell and dumbbell bars. You can even get started with nothing but body weight work, especially if you have a pull up bar. You can spend several months just doing pushups, air squats, pull ups, and a few other body weight movements and see continued results. Adding things like step-ups, lunges, different variations of movements extends the effectiveness of body weight workouts. You can get some weighted exercise balls to start adding extra resistance after a while. In this way you can work out at home without spending much money and get results.

Some basic advice on getting started:

Stretch and Warm Up- At your age, you MUST warm up and stretch as part of any exercise routine. Studies show that doing a warm up or stretch immediately before a workout does not really help much with muscle soreness, but it does get your muscles ready for more intense activity and can help prevent injury. I always do a ten minute warm up before a workout. This can be just a light run, a series of movements like jumping jacks, walking lunges, etc. Get the blood moving through your muscles before stressing them by lifting.

Stretching is more important after a workout than before. In fact I do very little stretching before I lift, but I do a few stretches of the muscle group I worked out after. Studies show that this also does not really help with muscle soreness, but I think it helps me a bit with this. Much more important is to have a stretching routine that you do regularly apart from your workouts to increase flexibility in general. Flexible, limber muscles are less prone to injury.

Don’t Overdo It- Give your body time to rest and recuperate, and don’t go gonzo at the beginning. Concentrate on doing the movements properly and with good form, and don’t worry about pushing yourself too hard, especially at age 46. Give your ligaments and tendons a chance to get used to supporting your joints through your movements. If you are a true beginner, I’d expect to spend the first six weeks doing basics workouts at an effort level where you feel energized after a workout, not exhausted. Don’t start pushing yourself to failure until you have a good foundation in form and range of movement. You will still see results at the end of that six weeks in the form of better endurance, increased strength, and harder, more defined muscles.

Form First- Injury is one of the things we older lifters have to deal with a lot more than our younger counterparts. Preventative things like warmups and stretching help a lot but using proper form is very important to keep from getting hurt. Unfortunately it’s tough to learn good form on your own. If you can afford it, go to a gym and find a trainer to put together a program for you and show you the proper way to do it. It is very important that you do not just grab weights and starts tossing them about. That’s an easy way to get hurt, especially at age 46. If you can’t afford a few sessions with a trainer, then there are many videos out there on the interwebs showing you how to do exercises properly. Just so some searching to find someone that is showing you basic, beginner type movements, not someone demonstrating advanced stuff. Don’t try and lift weights that are too heavy for you to use good form with.

Don’t Feel You Need to Be Perfect To Succeed- Many people start and exercise program with gusto and then get derailed when life gets in the way and they miss a few workouts and then give up. We are all imperfect and things happen. Don’t let missing a workout or two get you off track. Just get back in there and get back to it. Try to make your workouts part of your routine, and don’t let unimportant things keep you from doing them, but if you do end up missing a few just pick back up as soon as you can. Every workout has a benefit to your goals.

Best of luck!

Thanks to Ricky for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about  cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!