Just a few questions from a newbie
 

I am very interested in starting weights, and I'm slowly looking over the links from the stickied posts here... but I have a few questions!

How often did you lift weights in the beginning? (What was your first routine really??)

Did you have a trainer yourself? I can't really afford one, I can't even really afford the gym, but since I'm working there now I get a free membership ;)

Thank you in advance for your help and ideas!

I starting with weights a looooong. looooong time ago and sort of bumbled my way around with no idea what I was doing. I watched other people, which wasn't easy because women were banished to the "women's weight room"- about a 15X15 room with very little equipment and even less knowledge.

When I was losing the first chunk of my weight, I settled into a sort of full body circuit workout including (LEGS) lunges, dumbbell deadlifts, dumbbell squats, (BACK)one arm rows, (CHEST) chest presses and flys, (SHOULDERS) overhead presses, side raises and front raises, (ARMS) curls, and overhead extensions or kickbacks. I threw in lots of ab crunches and an 8 minute sprint on the recumbent bike as part of the circuit. My primary goal was weightloss while I was doing this routine, not muscle building. I did almost everything with dumbbells or a bar because I workout out mainly at home.

If you have a gym membership and are a real newbie, if you can get the time, you might want to try a class to learn some of the basics if you can't afford a trainer. The advantage of the class is that they use free weights and you will do the basic exercises. The disadvantage is that they use very light weights and do about 135 repetitions. Look at the class descriptions for things called something like "Group Power", "Body Sculting", etc.

Another way to learn without investing a lot of $$ is with videos. The exercise forum has a lot of info on which ones are good.

If you work at a gym, I'd talk to the manager or head of training and ask if you can get a session or two- even the standard member orientation. Where I work, all employees go through the fitness check and gym orientation (one hour session with a trainer) so that they can answer member questions if nothing else! You'd be a more efective employee if you had some knowledge about the gym ;)

Mel

Mel,
thank you so much for your reply!! I will look into at the very least an orientation setting with a trainer! But since I work at the YMCA, we don't have much in the way of weight classes... but I'm thinking of suggesting something now! :lol: