This is going to be pretty lengthy me thinks. I appologise in advance for any mistakes I made. I gave it a read over and I changed any mistakes I found.
Anyway you will have learned some things by the end of this post
Ok firstly, Ben rather than buying weights I would suggest you go to the gym and use the free weights for several months to see if its for you.
A barbell and a good amount of weight is not cheap. If you enjoy it and want to keep it up then by all means buy buy buy.
I recomend you check out
[Only Registered Users Can See LinksClick Here To Register].
It's main focus is on increasing the weight on the basic compound lifts eg. squat, deadlift, over head press, and bench press.
Compound lifts are more important than isolation exercises for several reasons, the main being there's more carry over to real lift - We use multi joint movements in real life all the time. Furthermore it's easier to get stronger in these exercises since more muscle groups are being worked together compared with isolation exercises.
If you decide you are going to do it then I highly suggest removing :
Reverse Crunch's, and Prone Bridges. As well as swapping Hang Cleans in instead of inverted rows.
And breathe. In.... and... out. ahhhhh.
Let's continue.
Right Alec, I just recalled you saying this:
Quote:
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a couple hundred tricep curls every day
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Now I'm guessing that you are wanting to develop maximal strength not strength endurance. I'm not going to explain all of them in this post but there are several types of strength : maximal, endurance, explosive, speed, reactive, and probably a few other types I'm forgetting.
Anyway doing lots of tricep curls will increase you strength endurance but will not effect the other types. I'm going to assume that you were doing these high reps with a low weight. This will not make you any stronger in any useful way. It will build up your strength so that you can do tricep curls - or similiar motions- for high reps with a low weight.
This is a mistake a lot of people make.
They think being able to do lots of pushups or body weight(BW) squats will make them super strong. Nope it will increase their strength endurance.
What you want to do instead is develop your maximal strength -worth noting that for a long time increases in this will also increase your explosive strength, this is done using a exercise you can only do around 3-6 reps for. I will use the barbell back squat done by Mr.A as an example now. We will assume that Mr.A is horribly unfit and finds just the barbell heavy. So for his first session he does 5setsx5reps with the barbell (20kg). After a few sessions Mr.A is finding 20kg alot easier - hes not targeting maximal strength anymore. So he add's some weight to the bar, once again having him work maximal strength.
Have a drink break
Just think about what I've said so far and how it applies to you.
Now as you are new to strength training you will be able to use whats know as linear progression. The basic idea with this is that you add a small fixed amount of weight every session. On the stronglifts program your adding 2.5kg each time you do an exercise.
You get enjoy the benefits of beginner gains as you watch the weights go up every session. This is because the weight is not too heavy and your body is able to get stronger between each session.
It seems a good time to explain why I think weights are a better option for developing strength than body weight exercises. Progression! I've mentioned this elsewhere but I'll throw it in here too. It's possible to get strong using BW exerices, resistance is resistance.
It doesn't matter if it's acheived through the use of an external weight or by changing the angle of your body. However it's much easier to get stronger using weights. This is because it's much easier to progress.
I'll now introduce Mr.B - He's against lifting weights and will only use BW exerices. Now we will consider the fact that Mr.B wants to train his pressing strength. He decides to use Pushups. So he gets good at pushups, however very quickly he starts training strength endurance rather than maximal strength.
He needs to change to another pressing exercise that he finds challenging. He will then need to change again when he starts developing endurance strength again. This cycle will continue indefinately.
It's also worth noting that there is a skill element to each exercise - learning time impedes time that could be used for strength gains. Furthermore there will come points where there is no clear next exercise eg. Pushups -> Elevated Pushups -> Favour 1 hand pushups -> BIG JUMP -> 1 Handed Pushups. This also leads to problems seeing exactly how strong you are.
Compare this with Mr.A, he decides to use the bench press. He learns one exercise and then adds a little weight each week. He is able to clearly see that he gets stronger each week.
A general point directed at both of you. Your not going to get huge over night. It takes serious dedication to both training and eating to get big. Following a heavy lifting program will put some muscle onto almost everyone, but the amount of muscle is dependent on how much food is getting eaten. When lifting heavy the more good food you eat the better. Your body need's it. It will let you recover faster, increase the weight more often, and get stronger faster. You will need to eat way more than you think to get big.
Have a look at what a strongman or heavy weight lifter's diet is like. I'm willing to bet that there breakfast is more food that you eat in a day.
So eat and be merry
Alec - Theres 3 main things I would suggest to you.
1.Go to a gym and use free weights there
2. Buy more weights for your barbell. 18kg is not a lot of weight. To give you an idea I have 185g inc my barbell. You don't need that much but you need a fair bit more than you have for something like stronglifts to be useful.
3. Do a unilateral Dumbell based program. You will need to buy more weight but not nearly as soon and not nearly as much as you will be training one limb at a time. If it's this route you want to go down I'm happy to help you come up with a plan.
Hope this massive spiel is helpful.
I'm happy to answer any questions or provide some websites if theres anything you would like to research further.
Strength/conditioning timetable? 
Linear Mode
