How do I go about doing this?

There are so many "ways to exercise" out there. All my friends tell me different things. Go to the gym everyday, work a different muscle group each day, go to the gym 4 times a week, go to the gym 3 times week. I don't know who to listen to! How many days per week should I be lifting weights? If I'm not supposed to go everyday (which I doubt I should be) which muscle groups do I work and on which days?

Thanks in advance!

 

 Heh, the confusion most likely stems from all of the possible answers being right - and wrong.

 Which is right for you depends a lot on your goal and your training age, you see - a beginner's workout schedule and that of someone who've been at it for years bears only a vague resemblance.

 And training varies wildly between goals as well; so the place to start would be by figuring out your goal, and then find a training program designed to take you from where you are to where you want to be.

 Which is of course completely unhelpful if you have no idea where you are or where you want to end up :-P

i have an awesome fitness center where i work so i spend my lunch hour in the gym. Here they have steps and toning class every day of the week during the lunch hour. I tried a few classes and found the ones i enjoyed the most and found the most challenging and attend them without a break.

Check in fitness centers near where you work or near home so tat the drive to the gym doesnt discourage you. Also when you join any fitness center you will can request for a session with a personal trainer to figure out whats the best plan for you based on your goal.

I have a membership with Planet Fitness. The one that I go to has personal trainers, but I'm not sure I want to be spending money on that right now. I started the couch to 5k routine about a week or so ago.

The basic reason I want to go to the gym and lift weights is because I want to be able to keep up with my friends, and hopefully someday, my kids. My boyfriend has this one particular friend who is an ex-marine and he puts us all (even the athletic friends) to shame. Recently we went rock climbing with him and I was terribly discouraged when I couldn't climb the routes that were made for 5 and 6 year olds. This made me want to start lifting weights. I can't do one push-up, this also made me want to start to lift weights. I also want to tone my body a bit. But mostly I want to increase my upper body strength, and maintain my lower body and core strength.

Right now I can lift 30lbs. : ( It's undeniably depressing. I want to know if lifting every other day will help, 3 days a week, 4, no, yes, maybe? I have no clue!

Find something that you truly enjoy and do that.  Doing weight lifting to improve the activity will follow naturally.

Couch25K is a good cardio program, so you're covered there. When it comes to strength training, there's a quite a few options to choose from.

 You've got your basic barbell training like Sean10mm's "stripped" 5x5 routine - personally I lean more in the Mark Rippetoe Starting Strength direction for beginners to lifting, but there's only minor differences between them. Either of them are good, solid starter programs that gives you a foundation to build on, focusing on the fundamentals that beginners to strength training should spend most of their time on.

 Alternately, there's 20 for 12: Back to Basics by Olesya Novik which is also a very good beginner program though constructed around slightly different principles than the others.

 And of course there's Krista's kompleat kompendium of workout routines from Stumptuous.com.

 The thing to do is to pick one of these programs as your starting point and use it until it stops working for you, and then simply pick something else. 'Cause that's the interesting thing about being a beginner - any sane program will work for you. And by the time you're not a beginner anymore, you will have a handle on what works for your goals :)

Ditto to what SMWHIPPLE wrote.  A good, extremely fit friend of mine told me once that none of the hype matters, just get out there and do something. 

If you are disciplined and need to follow some sort of routine, find one that you like and do it.  But don't stress about things like "is it best to workout in the mornings" or "does drinking a protein shake before my workout increase effectiveness" because, frankly, stuff like this gives you reasons to NOT do your workout.  Like, "well, I guess I missed my workout this morning so since it's best to workout in the mornings I will just skip today and do it tomorrow." 

Good luck and overall, have fun!!! (of course, please make good choices and be careful to not hurt yourself.)

 

Personally, I'm not someone who enjoys going to the gym. I can stick with it for a week or two or three and then I'm bored and done with it.  I can do group classes.  I love dancing so in any given week I do at least 3 hours of dance classes and another 3-10 hours of dancing either at dances or practicing with a partner.  I also enjoy martial arts.  I pay the monthly fee electronically so I'm already paid for it and I tend to go to more classes that way.  I'll skip a class if I'm sick or sometimes if I'm going to be late for it, but I usually go.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the gym. And I'll only not go if I'm passing out from exhaustion. I was going three days a week, because of the "let your muscles rest" thing. Then I started going 5 days a week, because the gym is next to where I work. Then 6, but after that I felt like maybe I was just overworking myself and not getting anywhere. So I just wanted to know what's most efficient.

Oh and I also wanted to add that:

Melkor, I took a look a the plans you posted. They tend to be for free-weights and/or dumbbells. Going over to that part of the gym (especially after work when it's the busiest) can be super intimidating. Especially to a person that can't even lift the bench press bar let alone any weights on it. I was looking for something more geared towards Nautilus machines and such. Thank you though, it got me started on some ideas. : )

Don't be intimidated by the free weights, seriously, they are much better work than machines. It takes some getting used to, sure, but once you get used to it you'll love it.

And most gyms have lighter bars you can use if the normal bar (45 lbs) is too much.

Oh, and women in the free weight section=sexy as hell ;)

Original Post by smartjock256:

Don't be intimidated by the free weights, seriously, they are much better work than machines.  

True that, better for strength gains and joint health (source).

I totally second that motion, girls in the free weight section are made of WIN.

A good rule of thumb is to go into it thinking "I want to lose bodyfat" and not "I want to lose weight". Get your bodyfat % taken and other measurements like waist, etc. Get new measurements done every two months or so to track your progress. If you go into it wanting to lose bodyfat, you will be better off. When people try to lose weight, they end up starving themselves, and doing too much cardio causing them to lose muscle. Your scale weight is actually the last thing you should be monitoring. Go by your bodyfat % test, how your clothes fit, and how you look in the mirror.

I have gotten fantastic results doing the following three things..

1) Nutrition. Most important hands down. A lot of people think that with tons of exercise, they can get away with eating whatever they want. Not true. You not only have to eat the right types of foods, but get the right amount of calories. More often than not, people aren't eating enough. For example, I used to only get 2000 calories, and I was working out 5-6 days a week. The doctor told me that someone as active as me should be getting at least 3000 calories. I was skeptical and worried I would get fat. However, now that I am eating the right types of foods, and getting 3000-3400 calories per day, I have gotten the best results of my life. The general rule of thumb is 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, 1.5 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight from whole grains (whole wheat pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread) and vegetables, and 30-60 grams of healthy fats. Plus at least 1 gallon of water per day. Overall, the amount of calories you eat, depends on your weight and the amount of activity you do per week.

2) Lift with intensity 3 days per week. Use free weights. Work two body parts per day doing three exercises for each body part with 3 sets of 6-8 reps per each. The reason you only lift 3 times per week, is so that your muscles can get the rest they need to recover and grow. A split that has worked for me - Mon (Legs/Shoulders), Wed (Back/Biceps), and Fri (Chest/Triceps).

3) HIIT cardio (High Intensity Interval Training). This mixes fast intervals going as hard as you can (10-30 sec) with slower recovery intervals (40-60 sec). You switch back and forth between the two for 15-20 minutes. This keeps your body from adapting and really speeds up your metabolism. It also attacks bodyfat and spares muscle. When people do too much cardio, they end up losing muscle, instead of fat. Do this 2 days per week on your non lifting days. Then for your other two cardio sessions, do 20-30 minutes on a cardio machine after you are done lifting two days a week. Total, you should never exceed 120 minutes a week for cardio.

Eating more calories of the right types of foods, lifting hard, and doing HIIT cardio has made me lose 7% bodyfat in 10 weeks, and my overall strength gains have increased a lot. Like I said, this is what has worked for me, but I based it all on the advice of my doctor and things I had read on the net in regards to exercise.

Woh seriously? Damn someone told me it was how much you weigh per KG for per gram of protein...

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