Weight training question

If you're new to the weight room, I'd focus on the simplicity that is full body compound lifts. Squats, Bench, OH Press, Deadlifts, Cleans/Pendlay Rows. These work everything (big time) and all you need is about 30 - 40 minutes 3x weekly. Lift 'em heavy and up your strength...progressively up your weights...look into New Rules of Lifting For Women...also Starting Strength or Strong Lifts. Focus on that strength first and those compound lifts...you will get infinitely more benefit as a noob doing this. Once you get to an intermediate lifting level you can start adding various assistance and isolation work that will help you break plateaus and target certain muscles in isolation.

You can do split days or full body days. Whatever works for you.

This just make sure if you are doing full body days that you give your body enough rest between workouts. When you do splits try to work muscles together that work together on your lifts. So chest and triceps and back and biceps together.

I work one muscle group per day and do abs and legs every other day. For example tomorrow will be chest and either abs or legs (haven't figured out which one yet); Friday: Back and abs or legs depending on what I did the day before etc.

I generally recommend a program like Strong Lifts 5x5 for beginners. And yes, it is full-body compound lifting.

Depending on what your aim is (build muscle, tone or to lose weight) you should really be working out all your major muscle groups in one setting (chest, back, arms, legs) at least 3 times a week.

I would say it depend on how often you want to lift. If you want to do it 4-6 days per week, you need to alternate muscle groups. If you only want to do it 1-3 times per week, as long as you give at least a day of rest in between, I would actually suggest full-body simply because then you're only giving your muscles 1-3 days of rest rather than 5-6.

If you're new to the weight room, I'd focus on the simplicity that is full body compound lifts. Squats, Bench, OH Press, Deadlifts, Cleans/Pendlay Rows. These work everything (big time) and all you need is about 30 - 40 minutes 3x weekly. Lift 'em heavy and up your strength...progressively up your weights...look into New Rules of Lifting For Women...also Starting Strength or Strong Lifts. Focus on that strength first and those compound lifts...you will get infinitely more benefit as a noob doing this. Once you get to an intermediate lifting level you can start adding various assistance and isolation work that will help you break plateaus and target certain muscles in isolation.

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However, let me also add that proper form on the full body lifts is crucial. Make sure you learn proper form when you start, it's much harder to fix down the road. Not to mention, wrong form can lead to some serious injuries on these major lifts, especially when you start adding heavier weight.

great info! My goal is to get stronger, tone and especially to burn fat. I've lost 68 lbs but I still need to lose more and I want a more effective metabolic burn.

I'm not sure what you mean by "metabolic burn". I am assuming you mean that you would like to burn more calories? Anywho, you basically named 2 goals, get stronger and burn fat, ("toning" doesn't actually happen, you can either build muscle or burn fat) You should be lifting to achieve either of these goals and since you're a newbie it's not asolutely necessary to specialize your lifting approach to achieve either of these goals. For now you should be lifting heavy, frequently and with full body training sessions. Some sort of progressive overload programming would be appropriate (stronglifts 5x5, starting strength, madcows 5x5, etc..) Later, you will need to decide weather losing fat or building muscle is more important and modify your diet and exercise to suit your goals.