Hi Friends. So, I'm dipping my feet into resistance training. Hubby got a weight set for Christmas and I want to get started. I found a beginning dumbbell routine on Scrumptuous, but I have some questions.

She recommends "lower back exercise of choice." Well, I have no choice because I don't know what exercise work the lower back. Any recommendations?

Regarding squats, my knees bother me sometimes. I'm hoping that it's just because I'm carrying so much weight and that they won't give me any trouble in the future. Are squats a good option if I already have some knee pain sometimes? What about the sitting exercises done against the wall with a exercise ball behind our back? Would this work the same muscles as the squat? I'd like to run again one day, but I need to support the knee. Is the squat enough to strengthen the butt, quads and hams?

Thanks in advance for you advice.

Overall, you want to work your core to help support your back and your body overall.

This site includes some lower back strengthening exercises:
http://www.bigbackpain.com/back_exercises.html

Also, I have knee issues and I do squats but the most important thing to remember is that your weight needs to be on your heels and your knees shouldn't pass beyond your toes. The same is true for lunges. Squats will strengthen your legs and your knees if you do them right.

You can also do wall squats but I'd mix in some non wall squats as well. I think wall squats tend to work your quads more than anything but I could be wrong.

I agree with Nelie, you really have to watch your form when doing squats, lunges, etc. What can also strengthen your legs, knees, etc (I've had knee/back issues forever) are isometric exercises which uses your own body weight as a workout. I do it with my trainer and I burn a ton of calories.

Wall squats are good if you engage all of your muscles, it should be your quads, hamstrings, calves, etc. all should be engaged in order to hold the squat. Also, if you are holding it for more than 2 minutes, you aren't holding the position low enough - legs should be parallel to the floor.

Good luck!

Bodyweight/air squats are a good place to start, and glute-ham-developer style hip extensions (you can watch videos on crossfit(dot)com, then figure how to fake it...you need a bench or swiss ball and something like a heavy bedframe or power rack with a low bar you can hook your feet under). Deadlifts are another good one. The site above has good videos online for all these movements, and they are all good for strengthening the lower back. Supermans are a static hold that you can do, that will also strengthen those muscles, but deadlifts are more fun.

What Nelie said about knee pain and squats/lunges. It's usually a form issue, not squatting or lunging. When I was working on my own at home, squats and lunges hurt my knees. I thought they were stupid, or I was too heavy to do them. As soon as I had a trainer to fix my form, no knee pain, so it turns out I was just doing them wrong and hurting myself with my bad form.

Thanks to each of you for your advice! I'm ready to get started now and look forward to the wonderful changes to come. I especially can't wait to see what lovely things the squats will do for my bum!

Seba, here's a good video to study, for learning some important elements of the air (aka bodyweight) squat. I'd definitely start with a higher "box" like squatting to the bed (which will also catch you if you start to fall backward, which in the beginning is a good sign that you are pressing down through the heels, rather than putting weight on your toes...to test, lift your toes off the floor and wiggle them). Raising the arms just helps to keep the chest up and the back arched...my trainer's cue for this is "stick your boobs out" lol. Start with squatting to the bed, then when you can control that, you can free squat or squat to a slightly lower platform until you can get to just below parallel (which may take time, and that's fine, there's no rush). Hope this helps!

Learning this movement will help with all barbell lifts involving picking a bar up off the floor (like deadlifts), and those with squats (like barbell back squat, dumbbell squats, etc). Heels, tight back, big chest...these are pretty basic to everything you do, even sitting and getting up out of a chair, picking a box of books up off the floor, etc, so good to learn even if you didn't want to lift weights!

http://www.***********.com/video/x20...-therapy_sport