New to strength training - question about weights

[ThatWasJustANoise]

I'm just looking at weights online and I do like the look of the three different weights on the storage stand. The weights are 1kg, 2kg and 3kg. Would you use the 1kg even at the beginning as I'm sure I used to have some and they felt quite light.

2.5kg as the bare minimum. Anything else is ridiculously light, even my 84 year old mother who has never exercised in her life could juggle multiple 1kg weights 😁

😆Thank you.

I'm going to just buy some cheapish 3kg to start with then.

Definitely minimum 3kg to start, and expect to move on to 5kg pretty quickly

I’m 69 and just started a Strength and Conditioning class. I use the 1kg and 2kg weights. I don’t know how long I will need to use them.

Upper body I still use 2.5kg maybe 5kg depending on the number of reps & type of exercise. I go much heavier with my PT where we’re only maybe doing sets of 5 reps at a time. I do a lot of les mills bodypump and that’s high reps & endurance. I can’t possibly do heavy weights for a long time. Lower body I can do much heavier.

1kg weights are for things like Pilates and barre where you are aiming to tone up but not really build muscle. TBH 3kg isn’t a whole
lot.

I’d buy adjustable weights if you want to get into strength properly as it won’t be long till you need 4, 5, 6kg etc. The whole point of strength training is you need to keep increasing the weights so that it stays tough, that’s how you keep building muscle.

What are you planning to use the weights for? Weights that light would only really be useful for holding when doing aerobics or pilates, they're not heavy enough for anything else.

https://builtwithscience.com/fitness-tips/high-reps-vs-low-reps-growth/

I’d start at 5kg. I did and quickly progressed to 8kg. If you want to follow a programme then Caroline Girvan has a great one on YouTube for free called Iron

Thank you for your replies. I"ve ordered 3kg as I'm starting from scratch and I'm not very strong. I understand I may not use them for long though

I'm perimenapausal and want to tone and just want to build a bit of muscle.

I've got a 4kg kettle bell as well.

I started with 2kg and 4kg but agree that 2kg very light. 3kg and 5 or 6 probably better.

There are some things that I couldn’t have done with 5kg when I first started. Like maybe two reps. I started with a 2kg and 3kg. I’m about to get a 5kg set. But I still use the 2kg for some moves.

Hi OP. I have been doing this year's and my garage now contains:
12kg, 6kg, 2x4kg kettlebells
10, 8, 6, 5, 3 kg dumbells.

If i go to a hotel that has a gym I will go heavier, but this is sufficient for me to do swings (12kg KB) deadlifts (8kg dumbells) and windmills (4kg KBs) as an example of the range I use them for.

Have fun!

I had a set that goes from 1kg to 5kg, an adjustable set. I am on the 5kg now and still find it very hard to do a lot of arm exercises! (I've been doing it for 2-3 months). I do a set of 10 reps, twice, of each of 6 arm exercises. I'm getting stronger, but 5kg is still a challenge for sure. I guess evenetually I'll get a bigger adjustable set, as I've no room for multiple dumbells! (it does mean I have to do all the exercises with the same weight, which I might not otherwise choose to do, but it's too much of a pain changing all the time!!).

And i only use it for arms, as I do running and hope that does something for my legs already, though I'm sure there are leg exercises I should do too...

'And i only use it for arms, as I do running and hope that does something for my legs already, though I'm sure there are leg exercises I should do too...'

I used to run, and thought I would find strength training easy but nope! They're two v different things. You would probably benefit from some lower body weight training. I do split squats, forward and reverse lunges, standing calf raises, goblet squats, Romanian deadlifts - all with dumbbells - and some other stuff with machines in the gym too

thanks, that list sounds useful. At some point I will look them up and try them as well, maybe when I get a second set of dumbbells so that I can have two different weights available, as I guess legs might need heavier ones.