Easy-to-Follow Weight Training Program For Beginners

Are you ready to get into shape, or improve the shape you're already in?  This muscle and basic-strength weight training program may be just what you need.

As with any new exercise program, visit your healthcare professional first to see if there are any restrictions on what you can do.  Also, changing your eating habits to eat a healthy diet will go a long ways towards increasing your fitness and safeguarding your health.

Before you begin this formal program, remember that any plan works well if it's designed for your body and fitness goals.  Talk to a personal trainer at your health/fitness club to see what he/she advises.

You will be able to find the equipment and free weights you need at almost any health/fitness club.  If you prefer, and you have the equipment at home, you can do your workout there.

Remember, it's important to take your medical condition into consideration before beginning.  If you have injuries, joint damage, or have just had surgery, factor these conditions into your training routine.  As your fitness level improves, you can ramp your routines up a little bit at a time.

Here are the steps to follow.  For each of the nine exercises, do one set of twelve repetitions, gradually increasing the number of repetitions, so by week eight, you are up to three sets of twelve repetitions:

1.  Warm Up:  The best way to warm up is with aerobics.  This should only take ten minutes or so.

2.  Squats or Leg Presses:  If you're just beginning, leave the squats for later and use the machine leg press for starters.

3.  Chest or bench press.

4.  Dead Lift.

5.  Crunch.

6.  Seated cable row.

7.  Triceps push down.

8.  Lateral pull down.

9.  Over head press.

10.  Biceps curl.

11.  Cool down and stretch - Yoga stretches would be nice to incorporate into your cool down.

Pay attention to your form or have a friend or someone at the health club "spot" for you to make sure you are doing the exercises correctly for the maximum benefit.

Talk to the personal trainer at the health fitness club to determine how long you should rest between repetitions.  This will depend on what your fitness goals are.  Also, have him/her help you determine how heavy your beginning weight should be.  There are a lot of different formulas to help with this.