You’ve Been Told to Lift Heavy: A Complete Guide If You’re Starting From Zero
A physiotherapist’s guide on where to start if your intimidated by weights, deconditioned or brand new to strength training.
Being told to just “lift heavy” for your bones can feel like a joke or a completely misguided recommendation for someone who has never set foot in a gym, despite the increasing conversation in the menopause space about how important it is.
If you’re a woman over 40, I trust at some point you have been told about the importance of lifting heavy weights for your bone health. It is exciting to see that women’s health is finally becoming part of the conversation but there is a huge part that is missing. The start.
Ok, I know the end point - to lift heavy. But I have never set foot in a gym or I haven’t exercised for years.
Unfortunately it is the picture I see all the time in the physio clinic. Life takes over and exercise slowly disappears from the routine over the fast paced years of career progressions, travel, injuries, child rearing and any other curve balls that life might throw at you. There’s also the women who has just never enjoyed exercise. The one who had every excuse to skip PE in school, who couldn’t understand the appeal of ‘social sport’ as an adult and who has never and will never, set foot in a gym.
There is a huge difference between understanding the importance of exercise and strength training and having the confidence to know where to begin.
As a physio, I want to emphasise this one point: you do not need to start where you want to end up. Finding your start point is crucial, then build gradually from there towards that end point. It is ok if it takes years to reach the destination.
My gripe with the advice to simply: Lift Heavy
The messaging to lift heavy is scientifically accurate. Yes, lifting heavy weights has been researched to promote bone and muscle health, build confidence and reduce the risk of chronic diseases, however it is assuming one big thing. You know how to lift weights safely.
For some women, they can take this advice, see a PT in the gym and build weights safely into their program. Fantastic. However, for others this advice can raise a lot of uncertainty, leave them with more questions and the overwhelming sense of feeling incapable of doing enough.
It is easy to assume that if the advice is to lift heavy, then lifting light is pointless. As a physio, I am here to tell you it isn’t.
I’m at zero. Where do I start?
Before you start any sort of new exercise program, we always want to establish a baseline, where are you starting from? We can do this with a few simple functional tests to establish where the priority for exercise is.
Try these five tests:
1) Sit to Stand Test: How many times can you stand up and sit down from a chair in 30 seconds?
2) Push Up Test: Holding a plank position either from your toes or knees, are you able to lower your chest towards the floor, then push back to the start position while maintaining core control? If yes, how many can you do? If no, that is ok.
3) Plank Test: Resting on your forearms, how long can you hold this position for?
4) Dead Hang Test: Using a pull up bar or high railing, can you and for how long can you hang from the bar?
5) Sit-Rising Test: Can you sit cross legged on the floor, then stand and return to sitting without using your hands? Note each time you need to rest a hand on the floor to help.
There is no failing of the above tests, they simply highlight the priority areas to work on eg improve arm strength or grip strength.
If you are looking at starting this strength training with a persistent injury, pain or significant health condition such as osteoporosis, I would always recommend getting a qualified health professional such as a physio or exercise physiologist to help ensure the exercises are safe for you.
Now that you’ve established your baseline, how do you create an exercise routine?
Before we talk about exercises, ask yourself, “How much time can I commit to this new routine?”. Establish how many days, when on those days and how much time you can realistically squeeze into your week for strength training. I usually recommend starting two days per week, for 20minutes.
The exercises you should start with will focus more on technique, rather than jumping in to lifting heavy items. A good place to start is including the following exercises: Squats, lunges, step ups, calf raises, bench or wall push ups, chair tricep dips, dead hang holds. Obviously this will be influenced by the functional tests you completed and any injuries you might have that could stop you from doing certain movements like a lunge.
Then we need to ask, how much of each exercise?
The aim of strength training is to challenge your body so it adapts to the new movement and then over time, your body will allow you to increase the challenge. For this reason we need to make sure there is challenge enough, meaning you are feeling some fatigue in the muscles. You should finish an exercise thinking “I could probably do two more reps, but that’s it”. Usually this looks like anything from 6-12 reps depending on how complex the exercise is.
It is recommend repeating the exercises as sets. I recommend starting with two sets of all exercises.
When do you know it’s time to progress the exercises?
Progression is an essential component of strength and resistance training. Without progression it’ll simply plateau. The rule of thumb is once you are completing 10-12 reps of an exercise easily, then it is time to increase the load. This d5woesn’t necessarily mean adding weight, it could simply mean increasing the complexity of the movement. For example, you might begin by standing up and sitting down from a chair. A progression of this exercise might look like removing the chair so you are now doing squats or you could add weight to the movement by holding 2 drink bottles while you are standing up and sitting down. Both of these are good progressions of the original exercise but look different depending on what feels more suitable for you.
How do I make strength training stick?
Remaining consistent week after week, month after month is the biggest challenge. It is common to have motivation with the novelty of a new program and then after a couple of missed sessions, it slips.
For consistency, it is important to recognise why you are doing the strength training in the first place? Very few people will answer “because I want to improve my bone health” - this is the physio’s answer. For you, it is much more likely “because I want to be able to get on and off the floor easier when I play with the grandkids” or “I want to be able to enjoy my overseas travel and not ask for help with my luggage”. It doesn’t matter what the answer is, recognise this as your motivator to keep going.
Other tools that have been shown to be useful to maintain consistency include tracking your progress. This can be as simple as a paper diary, marking off the days you completed each set or it might be an app on your phone. Seeing progress over time can be incredibly motivating to keep going. It can also put into perspective that a missed session doesn’t negate all the other sessions you have already done.
The goal is to develop a routine that can become part of your lifestyle and evolve with you.
The takeaway: You do not need to be strong to start strength training. The person starting from zero is ahead of the one who doesn’t start.
If you’ve been thinking about strength training, but worried about that start point, I’m here to tell you, beginning with less exercise and being consistent is the best way to get started. You don’t need to start with lifting heavy. Build over time, work toward a stronger future self, today all you need to do is begin.
