Advice on how to workout at the gym?

Start with Stronglifts 5x5. You can go to their website for the full program and instruction on the exercises for free. It's a solid progressive overload, full body weightlifting program that's relatively simple and straightforward. Should take you ~45 mins 3x/wk and then you can do your running either after lifting or on alternate days.

-Start with some stretching to avoid injuries and increase flexibility ( 10 min ) I like the Stretch core thing they have at the gym

-do a light ( 20 min ) warm up cardo to get the heart rolling and a little sweat or less depending on your goals and time you can spend at the gym

-Do your heart raising cardio and burn the amount of calories you desire

-Weight lift alternating Sets, rests, and weight daily and weekly. all that depends on target muscle groups blah blah

example....
week 1 / Day 1 and 2... -3 sets 13-15 reps
week 1 / day 3 and 4... -3 sets 10- 12 reps
week 2 / day 1 and 2 -4 sets of 13-15 reps

Personally i have 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours to devote to the gym.

Warm up should be 5-10min of cardio or/and 5-10 min of dynamic stretching. The point to get the blood flowing. If you do decide to do actual cardio (longer than the warmup) than do it AFTER strength training.

1-5 reps are done for strength
6-12 reps are done for hypertrophy
13+ is endurance/cardio

Look into Starting Strength (great for technique/form advice) and Stronglifts. AllPros is also a good program

Follow one of these programs and get familiar with the moves and educate yourself on it. Don't try to make up your own routine if you are a beginner and don't really understand about full body versus isolation of body workouts on such and such day. basics count!

Start with Stronglifts 5x5. You can go to their website for the full program and instruction on the exercises for free. It's a solid progressive overload, full body weightlifting program that's relatively simple and straightforward. Should take you ~45 mins 3x/wk and then you can do your running either after lifting or on alternate days.

3rded for stronglifts 5x5. It's available for free online. It's short and consists of 5 reps (heavy lifting) for 5 sets. The reason many people pick progressive overload like the above mentioned is because it works very efficiently to firm the body. I threw cardio and high rep stuff out the window after I figured that out and my goals were to get thinner and firm up. Particularly since Stronglifts have been great for my arthritis where as the other stuff sort of cause me to run into problems with it.

I'm a puny weakling. If I can do it anyone can, don't be intimidated by it, once you start it's not intimidating at all.

Ok so it's good for the ladies too? The site is all men. I'll try it as a 3x's a week sounds great. thanks :flowerforyou:

Absolutely. It's a unisex program and you have no need to worry about getting bulky unless you're doing steroids.

One of the best things about this program is that by staying in the 5-rep range you don't get the hypertrophy you would get with some higher rep programs, so you get strong and lean without any possibility of getting big.

tagging to read later... i need to get serious about lifting...

Okay, I am going to look into this StrongLifts site. I have noticed that it is quite popular on this site!