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I'll answer this question in the context of a popular strength program (Starting Strength) that I happen to be doing. Why only a few exercises? Because as a novice, you don't need complicated training to make general strength gains. A well chosen, small set of full-body barbell movements trains you in almost every way you need to be strong as a human ...

Don't use soreness to plan sets The soreness part of your question is distracting you from the proper purpose of set selection. You don't choose sets to find a particular level of soreness, because after the first couple of workouts, soreness is not diagnostic of strength gains. What matters is your ability to recover and lift more in the subsequent ...

The question is whether you can recover from the extra load during the rest period. If you can recover from the extra work, then that's great! You want to do the maximum amount of work that is recoverable. It is indeed a trial and error process to learn what you can recover from. I think developing that intuition is part of the sport of lifting, and it ...

After starting with StrongLifts (5x5), then moving to Starting Strength (3x5), I also found I wanted to do more. It's common advice in the former two to just do the sets and go home, you don't have to kill yourself, be patient, strength will come, you'll stall soon enough... That didn't however ease the feeling of not making the most of a workout--I'd ...

As a complete beginner, there really isn't a huge reason not to. What it does is give you more practice, at the expense of energy. The time to back off and just do the 3x5 is when you feel run down before you start. This is how you adapt the load to what you can do right now. When 3x5 gets you run down all the time, it's time to switch things up and go ...

How you organize your sets determines what you get out of them. Each exercise on its own: 5x5 curl, 5x5 press, 5x5 squat. Wait between sets. This is the most strength-oriented of the options. It will involve some hypertrophy and some token conditioning. Note, however, that squatting the same weight that you press and curl will not challenge your legs ...

I appreciate that you are new to lifting weights etc - but let me save you years of wasted workouts by blowing apart some common myths you have referred to. There is NOTHING you can do to control your body shape/physique OTHER than to loose/gain fat/muscle. There are no in-between activities like 'toning', 'shaping' or 'sculpting'. Pumping light weights ...

Your routine is scarily similar to mine. 12 repetitions sounds too much to me. In my case this would make me use less weight. Try to reduce this to 8 repetitions and increase 5-20 pounds the weight (gradually and according to your strength). In terms of protein, recall that the recommended "dose" is 2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. For better results ...

The Universe is an Uncaring Void I've seen sources say "3x5" (three sets of five) but denote their workouts as 100x5x3 (100 pounds, 5 reps, 3 sets). I've also seen sources say "3x5" and write 3x5 and mean three sets of five in both cases. There is no clear answer to your question. YxZ is fundamentally ambiguous. Show Your Units In physics, I was taught to ...

Number of Reps for a Novice As noted in my answer to your original question, I think sets of 5 or so are fine for a novice such as yourself. That is close enough to the strength end of the rep range spectrum, but is high enough to trigger some muscle growth (hypertrophy) in addition to the neurological improvements. Later, you can decide whether to switch ...

"It's far better to make slow, steady increases in all your lifts for months than it is to make fast, unsustainable increases for weeks; do the math and you'll see the point. There will be plenty of time later for more exercises and more elaborate programming, but as long as simple works, complex is neither necessary nor desirable." - Rippetoe Personally, ...

Short answer: 8-12 reps, whichever your goal may be (strength, mass, speed, etc). Long answer: This has actually been rather well studied in science. 8-12 reps is the ideal range for a beginner, no matter what your goal is. You can see a (rather lengthy) post I wrote about this here, or just go to my source, the 2009 position stand by the American College ...

If your main focus to primarily to gain strength, I would highly recommend you to consider a starting strength 5x5 program. There are different variations of 5x5 programs, but they basically focus on compound exercises through squatting, benching, and barbell row/cleans. There's some extensive wikis on Mark Ripptoe, Bill Starr, and Madcow programs; however, ...

If the amount you have been able to lift over time has been going down, and you're interested in muscle gain for aesthetics, I think you should do one of two things: Switch to a novice 3x5 program like Starting Strength or StrongLifts, in order to get bigger and stronger. Once you feel you are big enough, you can cut weight with cardio and dieting, or ...