Ok, so I read and I read. I bought Body Sculpting Bible for Women..I read...
I did 2 personal training sessions....
I read and research somemore..
Then I go to the gym and still seem to have no clue what to do...SO I end up doing and hour of cardio...
And a few squats on teh Bosu....
I am at a loss..
I am the kind of person that has to have an exact plan and I cannot afford the personal training right now...Please help.....
Amy

Did you read the stumptuous.com website? There are training plans there.

Yes I did..It is jsut hard to translate that into what I actually see whn I get to the gym...KWIM?
I have ahard time taking what I see in a picture and putting it into practice at the gym. I cant even figure out what machine or weights or whatever I am supposed to be using..
Amy

I don't know where you are, or what your gym has available. Most however will offer you an introductory session to their equipment and even give you a simple plan. It's often a "one size fits all" type of plan but it's a place to start. Or if you have a more inclusive gym, you might find a personal trainer, and it sounds like it might be worth your money to purchase a couple of sessions.

Another book I like is Weight Training for Dummies. It has routines, and little diagrams/photos. Don't be afraid to take a notebook or "cheat" sheets to the gym with you. It's the only way I can do a new exercise, or remember what weight I used for which exercise. Likewise I record the settings I use on a machine.

Persevere, you'll get it.

Thanks Pat.I guess I do need to not be afraid to take a book with me.
I did get 2 personal training sessions..But we did like leg stuff one day and chest and arms the next. After that I did not know what to do.
SHe did not set me up on a routine..And I did not ask because I thought it was 3 sessions..But the 3rd was with the nutitionist....

Hi I was wondering if this would be a cheaper personal trainer

http://www.firefightersworkout.com/index.html
He makes up a personal plan for you and you can get help at any time.

I do the same thing as you , I bought the Body for life book , but for some reason I just couldn't plan out a routine for myself and just kept doing the same workout that I had learned when I first went to the gym.
I'm going to buy his book because it sounds like it'll be easy to follow .

I can tell you how I started out.

First I did Body for Life. That program has you do alternating upper body workouts and lower body workouts, with cardio days in between. Those workouts are pyramid sets of one exercise for each body part, with an additional 12 reps of a different exercise at the end of each group. I liked this plan because I could ease into learning each exercise, using those in the book, and then I rotated them every 4 weeks. I downloaded the daily workout sheets from their website and planned my workout the night before.

Then after doing BFL for a while, I switched to a three-day split. I would do chest and shoulders on Monday, all lower body on Wednesday, and then back, biceps and triceps on Friday. For each body part, I would do 2-3 exercises, doing 3 sets of 12 for each exercise (usually increasing the weight a bit each set). Cardio on the days in between.

Now I'm following Jillian Michael's Winning by Losing plan. She does circuit training with "front" days and "back" days. So, Monday and Thursday's circuits includes chest, quad and triceps, and Tuesday and Friday's circuits include back, hamstrings/glutes and biceps. I really like this plan because it incorporates cardio/increased heart rate into my lifting days.

I know the whole thing can seem pretty overwhelming. I made spreadsheets for myself of the exercises I like for each body part. I would then pick the ones to do for each workout. I kept a notebook of with each workout in it with weights used and # of reps, and kept it for reference for the next time I worked out that body part.

Hope that helps some - let me know if you have any more questions.
Cindy

Amy -- do you have a friend that could show you around the gym a few times? I know I've done that for several of my friends and given them routines when they don't want to get a trainer... Also on another thread you mentionned the workouts in magazines, they're a good option to bring if you go with a friend...

I have one friend I go to teh gym with but she does not weight train very mucha t all..SHe is cardio queen.....SO she cant really help me there..Altough i am quite thankful to her for getting me started going to the gym!
I think maybe I will see if she is interested in starting a strenght training routine with me..Maybe she will follow the body sculpting bible with me....

You said the trainer didn't set you up with a routine, but did show you some upper and lower body exercises. What exercises did you learn how to do and are fairly confident that you can do with proper form? Are there any other exercises that you already know how to do with proper form? Perhaps we can help put something together to get you started from what you already know how to do then you can try to learn and rotate in one or two new exercises every week or so from there.

Then as you gain experience and to keep things interesting, you will learn to alter the training variables such as rep ranges, set progressions, rest periods, etc. However, to get you started, it is probably best to keep it simple. A 3 or 4 day per week Full Body or Upper/Lower Split based on a handful of exercises that you are confident you can do properly is more than enough to start working out effectively.

It sounds a bit like you are suffering from paralysis by analysis and are being overwhelmed by all the information out there. It really doesn't need to be that difficult. The most important thing is to get started working out. Being new to training doing anything and getting to work is much better than standing on the sidelines while you search for the "optimal" routine.

Oh...and anyone who can do squats on the BOSU already impresses the heck out of me. Good job!

Maybe not the best squats but the trainer said that the BOSU is great for working on balance which I really need to work on.
Well, we did a combination of machines and free weights and stuff on the ball.
Legs was pretty much machines..DOnt know waht they are called but a leg press thing while holding a 4 lb medicine ball, squats, hmm...not sure what else there. Oh yea the machine where you are lying down on your tummy and you curl your legs towards your butt.
Upper body did the thing where you hold the rope and you pull down on it, and we did shoulder presses?(holding weights while sitting on ball and brining arms out to the side, we did me lying on the ball and doing the thing where you hold a barbell and lift it up, we did stepping up onto a step while doing bicep curls.

I am having memory block on the otehr stuff at the moment.
And I am the kind of person that tries to find out everything so I do things perfect..Thank you for showing me that is not always for the best. ANd thank yuo for any help you cna provide.

They are great squats!

Anyway, what are the best squats? My definition would probably be any squats that a person will do regularly. I love the squat and any variation can qualify as "best" in my book.

Your trainer seemed to give you a good deal of core stability work which is great. This is something that is often overlooked and a strong core is essential for doing many of the compound exercises correctly, effectively, and safely.

My recommendations (take them for what they are worth) would be to start out with a 3 day full-body workout done on any three non-consecutive days of the week. I know in another thread, you were looking for more of a split, but until you have a solid base of core exercises, especially compound exercises, to pull from, I think a FBW is better to start for most people. There are, of course, others who will disagree.

I would go with primarily compound exercises which will work the greater amount of muscles, work the stabilizer muscles as well as the primary muscles, which means greater overall growth as well as calorie burn.

I would go with a squat variation (your bosu one is great! Add some weight with dumbells slowly as you progress. If you aren't already using added weight.)

I would go with a chest press variation. I prefer dumbell flat bench here because dumbells not only allow you to start with lighter weight (which allows you to concentrate on form) but also works the stabilizer muscles much more than the barbell variation. Not to mention that it is safer because if you fail, you can always ditch the dumbells off to the side and don't have to worry about the bar coming down on you.

You said you already know the shoulder press. I would use that as part of the FBW as well.

Does your gym have an assisted pullup station? If so, these are fairly easy to learn and are a great compound exercise that will hit primarily your upper back but also your shoulders, arms, and require core stabilization as well. If you do not have access to a pullup station, then a lat pulldown will work. Just make sure you learn good form here if you need to do the pulldown. I see too many people doing "lap" pulldowns instead of lat pulldowns. Make sure you are lowering to the top of the chest and not to the lap.

I would also add a rowing movement for your mid/lower back. Once again, we'll start with a dumbell row. A one-arm row with one-arm on the bench is the most stable position for your back and until you really strengthen your core/back muscles, I would stick with this variation.They are also fairly easy to learn from different web videos. If you want to hit your bicep more, you can use an underhand grip.

That's 4 upper body, 1 leg exercise so far, so I would add either Dumbell Stiff-legged Deadlifts to target the hamstrings (balancing out the quads from the squats) or do some lunges/walking lunges. Did your trainer show you lunges. I'm thinking he/she probably did. If so, go with the lunges. I would prefer these for a beginner over the deadlifts simply because any type of deadlift variation not done properly can easily lead to a back injury. I would prefer that someone with experience (as opposed to a video) show you these.

If you want, you can add something for triceps. A lot of people focus on biceps, especially if they feel their arms are too small. However, triceps account for 2/3 the size of the arm but often go overlooked, especially by guys who tend to fall into the "curls for the girls" mindset and work their biceps all day, ignore the tris and wonder why their arms aren't growing as fast as they would like. While I prefer compound exercises like the tricep extension or pushdown better in most cases, since you have 6 compound exercises already, a little isolation won't hurt. The dumbell tricep kickback is easy to learn and won't burn you out at the end of a workout with this much compound work. If your workout is running too long (45 minutes would be about right) or you feel this is too much of a workload for you to handle, you can leave out this isolation exercise.

I would a warm up set or two at 1/2 and 2/3 of your working weight and then do three sets at your working weight. While there are different rep ranges for different goals, low reps for strength, medium reps for hypertrophy (muscle growth) with some strength, high reps for endurance with some hypertrophy, extra high reps (basically cardio!), I would start off with a rep range of 12-15. This higher range allows for lighter weights to be used which allows you to get your form perfected which needs to be a top priority at the outset. While this range is more for endurance, it is not too high that there will be no growth. Besides, being new, you are going to have growth regardless. As soon as you perfect form, you can drop down in the 8-12 range or whatever rep range suits your goals best. I would use rest periods of 60-90 seconds between sets to start. You will see which works best for you. I would use this time for active recovery. Do not sit or stand around. Do some walking or stretching during this period.

You should and will feel soreness a day or two after your workout but should not feel pain. If you do, have it checked out. If you feel pain while doing any of the above exercises, then stop them doing them immediately. You are either doing them wrong or they are not a fit for you physically.

For the initial workout, you will have to make your best guess as to what weight to use, but if you can complete all reps of each set, add some weight the next time because the weight is too light for you. If you cannot reach the bottom of the rep range on any of the sets, then decrease the weight slightly for the next workout.

As for the other days. I would take one day as a total rest day and the other 3 days I would do cardio and the stability ball work that your trainer showed you.This will give you your resistance training, cardiorespiratory training, and core/flexibility training. The triple threat of Fitness!

This became kind of long-winded and I'm not sure if any of this helped you at all. It is the same advice that I give all my friends who are new to working out. However, I am not a personal trainer. Although I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I also took the liberty of jumping to assumptions that you are a healthy person, medically cleared to exercise (I'm assuming the personal trainer did do a proper health screen) and assumed that your primary goal is to improve body composition while adding some muscular strength and endurance.

Wowzers DePalma ... great post.

Silverose, DePalma has laid it all out for you; it doesn't get any better than this.

One thing you might want to do is get a small spiral notebook (say, 3x5 inches). Design your workout the night before, and guestimate your weights and reps. Then, during the workout, you've got a plan to follow, and you can keep track of what you're doing, so you can monitor your progress. I don't know about you, but if I don't write it down, I can't tell you five minutes after the fact whether I lifted 5 pounds 8 times or 8 pounds 5 times.

Don't know how much weight to start with? Well, see what you can heft. Grab, say, a 5-pounder and see if you can do a tricep kickback with it. No? Then try a 3-pounder. If it's a piece of cake, try it with an eight. Don't know how many reps to do? Well, how does two sets of 12 sound? Yes? Go for it. No? Then do two sets of 10. The point is, you have to find your starting weights and reps, and go from there.

If you look around, you'll see lots of folks with little notebooks, 3x5 cards, even computer printouts. I see guy who brings a huge 3-ring binder to the gym. Works for him.

Hope this helps.

Depalma,
That is absolutely WONDERFUL advice. And I soo appreciate you taking the time to post it. I am going to print it out and review it and come up with a plan based on it! Amazing advice. Thank you again.
Amy