I've been doing cardio for about a month now and I want to start doing some weight lifting to get my muscles more toned and become better fat burners! My boyfriend is sooooo confusing when I ask him what to do.. I just want to do the circuit at the gym since it's easy to follow. After I get more advanced ill move to free weights but I'm still lost as to what muscle groups to do on certain days.. I've heard before it's better to let your muscles rest between lifting. When I asked my boyfriend what muscle to do every other day or every three days he says stuff like "do your triceps and back one day and then biceps and shoulders"... why can't I just do ARMS one day and then BACK the second day and then SHOULDERS the third day and CHEST the 4th and then do ABS and LEGs everyday since they recover the fastest... so ive heard.. that means I workout: ARMS, BACK, SHOULDERS, CHEST, ABS, AND LEGS... that's all I need right? He says it's not best to do it like that and that I should mix it up.. but that just makes it more confusing for me.. gah!
So I'm going to the gym now and I'm gonna do ABS and LEGs and ARMS and by this I mean that in the weight room where the circuit is I'm going to do every machine that involves ABS, LEGS, AND ARMS... and skip the back, shoulders and chest.
Can someone explain to me why this isn't the best way?? I'm frustrated and confused. I've tried googling this stuff but I couldn't find an explanation..
You'll get loads of answers. Here is what I used to do:
Mon: Cardio
Tues: Upper body
Wed: Cardio
Thurs: Lower body
Fri: Cardio
Sat: Upper body
Sun: Rest
The second week you can start with lower body, then thurs will be upper and sat will be lower...
gives you lots of time to rest. Body4Life (book) talks about this. try googling that and see what it gives you!
Hey Jessica- there is an AWESOME weightlifting forum here on 3FC... I'm a new lifter too, and the ladies in there are AMAZING and have tons of information and articles! Going through those posts totally helped me figure out what to do and when! If I knew how to link it, I would... but you can find it at the bottom of the front page of the forums!
I use a plan from stumptuous.com, which you'll see mentioned a lot in the weight lifting forum.
My gym membership includes a strength training routine. I meet with the trainer person once every 6 weeks to get a new routine. See if your gym covers this sort of thing. They should be able to at least give you a little advice.
IMHO there is no reason for you to be doing body part splits like that. Why not do full body workouts (utilizing larger compound movements) 3 days a week instead? Full-body circuits are sometimes referred to as metabolic circuits or fat-loss strngth routines. Not knowing anything about you except your stats and what you posted, i think you will get alot more benefit from these types of workouts. Your caloric burn will be much greater than doing straight sets of "arms" or "chest". And overall caloric burn is going to give you the most bang for your buck. Body splits are generally for lifters with more experience, or for people who might be more sensitive to overtraining, or for people with different goals...such as strength or hypertrophy. That doesnt mean you CANT or SHouldnt train that way, it just might not be the most effective in your situation. I, for instance, cannot do full-body/supersets when i am trying to lose fat. Its too hormonally disturbing, and i cant lose fat. I have to keep the training intensity down by doing body part splits with the purpose mostly being just to maintain muscle mass.
exactly... thats what i was thinking, but everyone i run into says its better to break it up.. but no explanation as to why.. just that there have been studies that show its better.. oh well.. I think i'm just gonna go with this:
Yay! Another weightlifter!! I love the Chalean Extremem program, it has a great lifting workout, and has finally pushed me off of a plateau and into losing again. PLus I LOVE the visible results. The scale never moves fast for me, but with weightlifting, I SEE the results WAY MOTIVATING
I've been doing the seated back row? and the assisted pull up machine and then free weights.. There is this really great app for the iphone/ipod touch by Jillian Michaels and you tell it what muscle you want to workout and then it jumps to a youtube video of jillian showing you how to work those muscles!!! I LOVE IT and it was free!!
I second New Rules of Lifting for Women, takes all the thinking out of it! You got a six month program right there, as well as some meal ideas and some information on misconceptions in the weight loss industry.
My weight doesn't budge that easily but lifting is doing things for me I never imagined at my weight. My legs are the most amazing, I have the legs of a skinny girl now! Arms aren't so bad but my stomach needs to follow along
new rules of weight lifting is an awesome book! I have read it but found it wasn't what I wanted to do at this moment but I will pick it up when I'm more ready. It takes you step by step, has pictures and explains the importance of free weights vs. machines, TOTAL body workouts that are natural bodily movements and even gives you specific amount of rest time in between sets.... best advice that has reason behind it because I also heard about arm days and leg days and when I asked why the answer was always "oh because that is what I was told" lol.
Weight lifting?
WAY MOTIVATING 
