My husband and I bought a weight bench and weights - along with 40lb dumbbells (I returned the 30lb ones) over the weekend -

He's pretty "set" as far as what he's going to do (basically bench presses) - but I have no idea how to do any excersizes with my dumbells (except for curls - and I'm not even sure I'm doing them right) - nor do I know which excersizes target which areas -


I've seen people mention "deadlifts" and "squats" and "chins" etc - but I have no idea what those are ..
Does anyone know of any sites where I can get "instruction" ?
(or maybe someone here knows how to do them and could explain them)

Online, I'd start here at Krista Scott Dixon's website. You can also take a look at this for a short video clip of how to do each exercise.

If you and your husband are beginners (and if all he's doing is bench presses, he's a beginner, no matter what he thinks ), I'd take a look at Bill Phillips' Body for Life. You may not want to do the complete lifting/nutrition program, but it is a good introduction to how to use weights and proper nutrition to transform your body. Other good books are Exercise Anatomy, The Body Sculpting Bible and The Body Sculpting Bible for Women, all available from Amazon.

You might also just stop by your local bookstore and cruise the magazine racks for Shape, FitnessRx, Oxygen or any other fitness related magazines.

Mel

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH !! we are HUGE beginners (literally )

I also found this site -- with instructions/videos on different excersizes - including squats

Hello Mrs SmartyPants...

Also if you visit the messageboard at Bodybuilding.com and go to excercises and then excercise guide there's a list of various excercises and it will actually show you how the excercise are done.

Hope this helps you...

chiarij

My favorite site for exercise form is the Exercise and Muscle Directory at exrx.net (Mel - hope this is an OK link to post!). They have little videos and show different exercises for each muscle group with dumbells, barbells, and cables. Very useful!

If your husband is interested in developing a big bench press here is a great powerlifting resource: http://www.elitefts.com

The elite site has a bench press article by Anita Ramsey that might be of general interest: Benching for records Benching 200# at 145# bodyweight isn't to shabby.

Hi Mrs. SmartyPants,

I've found Fitsite.com to be very helpful.
http://fitsite.com/index.cfm?ContentID=10781&do=detail

I'm totally new to lifting and needed a guide to learn the basics. For example, someone would suggest I needed to do squats and I'd say, "what are those?"

It is very important to learn correct form and I would strive for that before any increase in weight/reps. The Body Sculpting Bible and one of the "Idiot" books for weight lifting are both proving to be very valuable guides. All of this is complimented by this terrific forum of dedicated ladies and gents. You'll find folks here are very generous in sharing what has worked (and not worked) for them.

So glad you're here

Keep going and let us know how you're doing,
Jean