Back on the other place, I do recall someone talking in one of the threads about doing a really savage weights session once or twice a week, and then resting thoroughly inbetween as being a more effective way of gaining muscle and in turn increasing metabolic rate.

Can anyone remember who it was?

I can't remember who it was, but it worked for me..

Didn't Mike Mentzer advocate that in his "Heavy Duty" training system? I vaguely remember being told about this when I used to lift.

I did whole-body compound sessions as an introduction to weight-lifting if I'd been off for a while, or just as a change to a routine. Haven't lifted for a few years though.

To be most effective you need to leave at least a day between sessions to give your body time to recover.
If you do weights every day non stop you bulk up quickly but lose it just as fast when you stop.

Must be true as it was told to me by my physiotherapist when I played volleyball for England

Yeah, I try to do a Monday - Wednesday - Friday - weekend off routine.

I used to do:

Mondays - shoulders and traps
Tues - upper back and bis
Weds - chest and tris
Thurs - abs
Fri - off
Sat - lower back and legs
Sun - off

The times I had the biggest growth were the times when I took a week off training every 3-4 months. In that one week, my muscles would be huge!

Out of interest Jon, what do you want to achieve with weights?

JonLumb pick up a copy of this :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brawn-Stuart-Mc ... 9963916317

Although he does dramatise the risk of injuring yourself and some of the bad things that go on in the weright training world, in general he cuts through the crap promoted by bodybuilding mags and similar and its a good read.

Cloaked Wolf, it was Mentzer who promoted and used Arthur Jones' short High intensity workout system and it was very controversial, with people like Fred Hatfield dedicating his life to arguing with him about it. Sadly Mentzer died some years ago a few days later (or before) his brother, Ray did too, Ray was also a pro. Bodybuilder.

Training one bodypart per week with compound exercises would appear to be a good way to stimulate growth as compound exercises have the most direct anabolic effect on the system.

Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press and Chins should be the cornerstone of a hypertrophy programme. With adequate rest in between sessions. At the monent I'm training Squats on monday with some stiff legged deadlifts then bench press and on a Friday, Chins or Pulls and some ancillary work on the rotator cuff (shoulders), forearms and maybe some direct arm stuff.

I think too much emphasis is placed in direct arm and shoulder exercises which get hit directly already by compond movements. The Anterior (front) deltoid gets mullered by Bench press and traning overhead presses on different days can lead to overtraining. It wasn't till I stopped doing direct shoulder work, except stuff to strength my rotator cuff that my shoulders grew. I wasn't doing all this fo vanity, was competing in jui-jitsu at the time and have stuck with the weights as a means of avoiding getting fat as I age.

I completely agree that compound workouts are the best. They even act on the small, stabilising muscles that are normally missed by isolation exercises. However, I found my ant. delts were weak, as were the post. delts. Though I guess I was training for appearance rather than functional weight training.

I think the theory I was following at the time was that compound exercises help build the 'mass' but isolation moves helped with the 'definition'. This is why I always started with compound exercises and used isolation exercises to then wear out the muscle further.

Example: At one point, I could barely achieve more than 20kg barbell curls 2x8, so I used to really hit the biceps hard through isolation exercises and this helped with increasing the weight I used with barbell curls.

It's a bit multi-purpose really. At the moment I am out of shape in pretty much every area you could think of; I classify as morbidly obese, seriously unfit and really not very strong (apart from my legs, because they have to shift my 22St frame around ). When I was 18-19, I used to work for my Dad doing tree work most weekends and holidays. In turn, whilst I wasn't particularly fit, I was pretty strong, and there have been numerous times since when I have sorely missed that.

From what I recalled of the original post I mentioned, I was hoping at least in part to at least work on two birds with one stone…

I have already started out with things like swimming, and light gym sessions as recommended by the gym, but if there are more effective ways of achieving certain things then I would prefer to at least be knowledgeable about them.

Best of luck with it Jon! You'll feel so much better for it, and once you've started to increase the muscle mass then you'll notice some changes.
Just back from the gym myself.

If you build muscle you wil burn more calories even when asleep. Fat weight of course doesn't do anything it just sits there. Muscle is metabolically active requiring calories to keep it there. If you are that ovwer weight I would recommend two weight sessions a week building it up, and a couple of long walks of about 45 mins in length each.

Walking first thing in the morning would burn more fat as glycogen stores are depleted and insulin levels have not been elevated, promoting more burning of fat for fuel. You might not want to work out till you have been awake a fair few hours though.

Well first of all, good luck with whatever you do!

Secondly, I don't do weights, so don't profess to be an expert. However, I would extol the virtues of "natural" training. I study ninjutsu (or did til I broke my ankle) and all the training I do to accompany it follows the philosophy of the shinobi, or ninja as they're commonly known. They used what nature provided to stay fit. Swimming, walking, push ups etc. will work wonders. We've had gyms for such a short space of time in evolutionary terms and it's my belief that they're just a product of a beauty obsessed society with tons of other excesses to compensate for.

In terms of both general fitness and fighting ability, flexibility is more important than strength. Just a thought.....

I have a 12-week beginner's programme lying around somewhere for when first starting out in the gym with lifting weights. It consists of various exercises to target each muscle group, lightly at first and slowly builds up the intensity. Can send it if required?

Remember that when you first do start, you'll go through the various weights quickly at first. This is because your muscles learn to contract together, simultaneously, meaning you become stronger, even though no (or very little) muscle growth has occurred.

A website I loved to use was www.exrx.net. My fave bit was the animated GIFs for each exercise that helped you understand how to correctly perform an exercise.