Designing workout for girlfriend

[Davidelmo]

Hi all,
My girlfriend wants to get into lifting and improve her body.

She's 5ft4, ~95lbs so she's TINY and thin, but she has a little tummy. Her arms are so tiny she finds it hard to pick most things up!
She's done the classic girl thing of doing sit-ups etc to get rid of the tummy and wondering why it doesnt work.

I'm trying to sort the diet side of things out for her because she eats hardly anything a day, which explains how she has no muscle but still has fat around the waist.

But I need some help compiling a workout for her. She has never lifted a weight in her life and she is VERY weak. I'm very conscious of this and I dont want to injure her. Just as an example I had her lifting 2L bottles of milk in a shoulder press yesterday and she couldnt do it... they weigh ~2kg.

So what sort of exercises should she do?
Remember she has never lifted before so don't say "squats" because there's not a chance she could pick up the bar and I know she would injure herself trying.

What rep ranges etc should she do? I think that doing 8 reps of something heavy straight away might not be the best thing for her. Is there any sort of program which could ease her into this?

[Built]

Okay, here's what you do:

Three days a week, for at least a month, maybe two, do a whole body workout as follows:

Monday Wednesday Friday or any other three days, one off, one on is ideal, but if you have to do two days in a row, she won't die.

Squats 2 X 4, NO WEIGHT (legs - mostly quads and glutes)
Deadlifts 2 X 4, 5-lb dumbbells OR leg curls, 2 X 10, lightest setting(hamstrings)
Lat pulldowns 2 X 10, try 40 lbs, no wider than your shoulders for grip (lats - part of your back, on the sides)
Incline Dumbbell Presses 2 X 10, 5-lb dumbbells (this is for chest)
Seated Dumbbell Presses 2 X 10, 5-lb dumbbells (this is for shoulders)
Seated Dumbbell Curls 2 X 10, 5-lb dumbbells (biceps)
Tricep press downs (cable), 2 X 10, lightest setting (triceps)
Crunches, 2 x 10 (abs) (knees bent, hold ears, go slow-ish)

Rest at least a minute between all sets.

AFTER you do this, do 10 - 30 minutes of moderate intensity cardio, but no more. NO CARDIO before she lifts, of course.

This will be a very light workout, and she'll have to see how she feels the next day.

Train 3 days a week.

Build up this workout so that she can do 2 sets of 10 on everything without it hurting the next day or the day after (or at least, not hurting much).

Then increase everything by the smallest amount you can, drop the reps down to 2 sets of 8.
(for squats, start with 5-lb dumbbells in her hands (up at her shoulders, like a barbell - chicks have hips and holding the dumbbells at our hips is awkward for our shoulders) to start adding weight - it's reasonable to be able to squat her weight ... eventually. It took me three months to squat the bar, and a year to get up to 135 lbs. Baby steps...)

Build it back up to 2 sets of 10.

Continue with this until the new year.

Then get her started with a bodypart split. But not yet. She's got to get used to moving.

[Davidelmo]

That looks fantastic, thanks Built.

I didnt want to just drop her into WBB1 or similar but that looks like an ideal introduction!

I might as well ask for diet hints while you're here.
Should she just be on maintenance calories? Bear in mind this is probably more than she's used to anyway. She doesnt have an eating disorder or anything, she's just a student who is too lazy or too busy to cook properly. She never has breakfast, has a decent lunch and a small-ish evening meal. I tried tracking her on fitday and came up at little over 1500kcal/day.
I dont think the workout would be hard enough to justify putting her on calorie excess just yet.. she might just start putting on fat.

That's my guess. What do you think?

[muscleup]

You might try to get her to at least eat some sort of breakfast.
If you are going to start her on the full body routine 3 days a week, she is going to need all the nutritional help she can get.
You'll probably have to work with the calorie intake for about a month or 2 before you know what to keep her at.
If the only weight she is worried about is in her waist line, I wouldn't put her in a calorie deficit at all. Chances are since she is new to this type of training, everything should even out a little. Work with maintenance or even slightly (100)over for the first 3-4months.

[Built]

Good advise from muscleup. Track on fitday, get her used to a better diet, THEN worry about the calories.

[Davidelmo]

Sure, thats just what I thought was best.

I've started getting up earlier to bring her breakfast in bed just so that she'll eat it.. see what a good boyfriend I am!!

She's just really busy and doesnt make the time to eat. I'm trying to get her more organised so that she can take a sandwich to Uni with her to eat during the day etc.

[Built]

Hardboil eggs the night before. That's what I do - I eat 6 every morning, toss all but one of the yolks.

You are a VERY nice boyfriend.

[Davidelmo]

Hardboil eggs the night before. That's what I do - I eat 6 every morning, toss all but one of the yolks.

You are a VERY nice boyfriend.

:D :D thanks :cool:

And I dont think I've ever seen her eat 6 eggs.

One plus point is that she does eat healthy things - she loves fish and chicken, pasta, rice etc.. and she HATES burgers, pizzas, take-away etc.

Built, I just spoke to her and she says thanks for the help. She's extremely busy right now until Saturday (big exam coming up) but after that I'll get her to sign up here. :)

[Built]

Cool.

Lemme know how it goes.