[Outofstyle]

It was difficult! I remember being overly aggressive, too, and did walking lunges with 30lbs in each hand (for a first timer, that's A LOT), and I pulled my glute!! And I pushed through the rest of my routine with a pulled glute. I was a little afraid to workout for some time after that. So your instinct is right: start focusing on strengthening the muscles you wish to later build, or you will end up injuring yourself as I did, and you don't want that! You can start with light dumbell weight for free-weight exercises, or very light weight on the machines, and then gradually increase. I should think that you won't have to work on strengthening for more than a month (if you are exercising twice a week) at the absolute most! I'd say optimistically you should be able to start increasing your weights gradually after the second week, but if you are not ready at that time, don't worry about it and take your time. Everyone is different and it is important to listen to your body. But, once you are strong enough to start increasing the weights, you will find that you will grow stronger at an increasingly faster rate and will probably increase your weights every week to every three weeks (again depending on the exercise). At that time, it's ok to be aggressive and actually you will need to be aggressive to shock those muscles and force them to grow!

When you say you picked up the bar, you are referring to a barbell, right? Hunny! Haha of course it was too heavy for you Tongue Those bars can weigh anywhere from 35-45lbs (well, the ones I have used), without the weighted discs!!! Look at you being aggressive Wink After you have the body weight squats down (it is important to work on your form first), then start with dumbells. Then you can work your way up to the barbell. Smile I'm impressed that you got that barbell up on your back! Woooo girl! Get it!

Okay thanks for the advice! Ohmygosh that last part gave me a good laugh! Yea I wasn't expecting the bar to be heavy at all. Okay regular squats it is for a while!