Beginer?

[Rockaho]

For all practical purposes I am new to weight training (It's been years). I hear a lot of talk about overtraining and don't want to do anything counter productive.
I know that I can workout to often and to long. I hear people talking about lifting to failure and beyond failure. Exactly what is lifting to failure? You obviously don't mean lifting till you can't because you can always take a break or decrease weight.
Also I know some people start light and work up and some start heavy and work down, which is proper/best?
Arn't some muscle groups harder to overwork? I used to workout with a guy that said calves and shoulders could take more punishment than I could give them twice a week. Is this true?
Please help.
I want to build up not phuck up.

 

[TRAIN HARD!!!!!]

ROCK WHY DONT YOU START OUT DOING BASIC COMPOUND MOVEMENTS BENCH DEADLIFTS AND SQUATS TRY THIS: MON CHEST AND TRIS
TUES BACK AND BICEPS
WED LEGS AND DELTS
THURS TRAPS AND CALVES
REST 2 DAYS REPEAT CYCLE...
I WOULD DO NO MORE THAN A TOTAL 9-12 SETS FOR EACH BODY PART PICK 3-4 DIFFERENT EXERCISES FOR EACH,DONT GO TO HEAVY SINCE YOUR JUST STARTING OUT FRESH AGAIN. DONT WANNA HAVE NO INJURIES!!!
JUST MY .02 CENTS GOOD LUCK HOPE THIS HELPS

 

[cyberflash]

lifting to failure means you cannot do more repetitions in a set because you cannot move your muscles anymore ... so you hands may even drop the weights because it is not working .... that's muscle failure .. you have no more control of your muscle and you just involuntarily drop the weights .... because your muscles don't work ..

 

[Rockaho]

bump

 

[GenetiKing]

When people say "Do this set til failure" they are usually referring to concentric muscular failure. All this means is when you have performed a given exercise for enough reps so that you cannot perform the positive (i.e. the "against gravity" part) by yourself.

Since it's a simple exercise, let's use the bicep curl for an example. You have reached failure here when you can no longer curl the weight from the arms straight position all the way to the top by yourself.

There are other kinds of failure (isometric, eccentric) but that's really all you need to know as a newbie about muscular failure.

For bodybuilding purposes, most of your sets should end in failure around 6-8 reps. If it takes more, you are probably going too light and if it takes less, you're going too heavy. Good luck.

 

[JeetKuneDo]

GentiKing...

With regards to "going to failure" ....... say i do 6 sets of 10/8/6 ...... sould i be going to failure on all 3 sets? or just on the last one?

 

[GenetiKing]

JeetKuneDo,

I always take my "meat sets" to failure (sometimes beyond), regardless of the intended rep range (usually 6-8 but sometimes 10 for me).

Warm up sets are the only exception.