[BFL] 1st workout mishaps

[officerjqg]

You will soon see that I tend to post a lot. I figure that if I don’t know someone will or if I screw up (like today) that if I tell everyone they might not make the same mistake. So heregoes....
1st I was planning to start in about 2 days but after taking the L-Glutamine my muscle fatigue that I was experiencing had all but disappeared and my muscles were screaming to be abused so I complied. I went threw the book and picked the exercises that I wanted to do. Assigned the weights which is just a guess since most of the exercises are newer ones that I haven’t done in years.
I went to the gym and lined up all my barbells read the exercises and I was off. About half way threw my workout I was starting to wander how anybody could do 12 reps of a weight higher than the one that was 6 reps. :confused: So I looked at the charts in the book and saw that the weights don’t continually increase. The last one decreases. So for the rest of the workout I adjusted it and will fix it before my next UBW. But as I sit here and type I am having difficulty keeping my arm up to the key board and my triceps keep trembling so I guess it was still a success.
:q: I would like to know how you all approach assigning weights. :q: I also would like to know about the abs. Do you just do the reps like in the daily workout sheet or what? :roll:

[Natrushka]

Hi there officerjqg, and welcome to the forum :)

Sounds like you had an interesting first workout. When I first starated with BFL I had a rough idea of what I could lift but found that for the first week I rarely hit my 10s - I was underestimating how strong I was. What I do now when I switch my exercises every 4 weeks is do a practice lift of every new exercise on freeday trying to figure out my maxiumum. I then take 80% of that max one rep and use it for my 6 reps, 75% is for 8, 70% is for 10 and 50% is for 12. For the 12 after my 6 reps at 80% I'll either do the same weight as at 10 or 8, depending on how I feel and what is next. You have to keep in mind that the idea is to reach failure on the second exercise for that muscle group.

With abs, I have been doing the Ab bootcamp - something I got from Muscle Media Magazine - its a 15 minute circuit program that's tough and demanding and I do it after cardio (I do not do abs with my LBWO) I posted a link to ab bootcamp (http://forum.lowcarber.org/t25507.html) a while back - at the bottom of the thread is the link to the actual article complete with photos.

Congrats on starting, I am sure that you'll be noticing results in no time.
Nat

[Trainerdan]

Hello officer ...

regardding starting weights, over in the General Exercise forum, I posted a beginner's article that (further down) in the article lists typical starting weights for a variety of lifts.

Give it a look, hope it helps, and good luck with your program. Keep us posted.