General Introduction to Exercises
I'll start off by saying that it is assumed you are a person under 300 lbs... Any weight larger than that should discuss the possibilities of weight lifting with their doctors in order to avoid joint issues.
There are two things that should be expected of you, regardless of your goal (gaining or losing weight)...
- Cardio Exercise
- Weightlifting
Cardio could be anything of your choice. Just make sure that you enjoy what you choose. It can be anything from bike rides, running, swimming, soccer, volleyball, elliptical machines, treadmill, walking (if you are heavier or severely out of shape and need to rehab first, stick with walking for now), etc. Anything that can get your heart rate up and make you break a decent sweat.
Apply yourself as much as you can to your crardio sessions, but do not go overkill on yourself. Cardio can be done 7 days per week, but it isn't required. Some people take two days off each week and that is fine! Just keep leading an active lifestyle on your days off and keep your butt off the couch for at least a few hours.
Stuck on what to do for cardio? Grab a great pair of runners, then jog on over to Couch to 5k and join thousands of people getting off their butts and training for the ultimate goal of running 5 kilometers.
Weightlifting... Even if you are a woman! Weightlifting builds strength as well as muscles. Muscles require more calories to maintain and thus allows you to burn more calories even when you're just sitting down or even reading this website!
Women, come on now. You do not produce the amount of testosterone as men do, so it is not genetically possible for you to bulk up like your male counterparts. In fact, it's pretty darn hard to get to their size as a woman! Unless you're shoveling thousands more calories than you need into your mouth with a large amount of that being pure protein, there is a very, very unlikely chance of you packing on the muscles and losing the feminine look.
You may notice that you feel larger while you gain muscle, but this will slowly begin an athletic build as your fat layers shed away through continued healthy eating and exercising.
Stuck on where to start? I don't have my Rippetoes write-up published yet, so check out Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength routine via Google for now. It can be easily modified to fit into a regular old gym for us newbs. It consists of a day A and a day B. Alternate between the days, leaving a day in between them both and making sure to take two consecutive days off from muscle building... Remember that your weightlifting should compliment your cardio and the cardio should compliment your weightlifting. They are a team!
I'll go into more detail of the day A and day B later so that you can take notes and get started yourself! Until then, remember that nutrition is even more important than exercise. You can't allow yourself to slack in that area!
