Lifting weights for a TOTAL beginner (stupid questions!)

http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-training-program/

This is their website...everything is there. Download the program...follow the program. You will want to watch some video for proper form...a couple sessions with a trainer wouldn't hurt either. You're not going to start off with a bunch of heavy weight...you'll start off pretty light just to work form and then you progressively add weight. It seems easy at first, and it is...it's designed that way...you learn form first and then get your smaller muscles a little conditioned before you start adding a bunch of weight to tax your big muscles.

Some additional things:

1) Stronglifts kind of assumes the guy following it is going to add accessory exercises. The guy writing it is a man and he knows men will want to do curls no matter what he tells them, so it's kind of hard to follow a program exactly when it was meant to be added onto. Personally, if I were to start with just SL I would add pullups to day B and dips to day A. But if you do a quick read through BB.com you'll find that a lot of the people on there actually advocate starting out with a split.

2) Stronglifts is not 'too advanced' and you should demand your money back with any trainer who wants to put you onto machines over free weights. Most weight machines restrict your natural motion. Squatting on a smith machine, for example, is downright dangerous for your knees. Starting with a 10 lb plastic bar for squats or bench press so that you can master the form is one thing, ditching squats in favor of leg press machine or bench press for the push press machine is another.

3) The soreness is natural and will go away as you keep doing workouts. DO NOT SKIP WORKOUTS BECAUSE YOU ARE SORE. Just do a proper warmup and you'll find the soreness goes away once your body realizes it needs to do work.

not necessarily.

For someone who has never done ANYTHING like that before- even the movement with a plastic bar can cause quality DOMS.

that being said- there are people who have tremendous form issues that need to be addressed before an actual lift program can commence.

It took 4 months to get one woman to get her to be able to understand and do a proper body weight squat- her body just was so unfamiliar and she had NO conscious awareness of her body. You say flat back and she would arch her tail bone under and cat back. It was mystifying. But not everyone starts capable of doing even a body weight squat.

That being said- working toward form issues with balance/flexibility can be part of working on strong lifts- even if it's like I said- with a PVC pipe.

It took 4 months for her to learn how to keep a straight back? how does she get out of bed in a morning?

when she sat down- she wanted to curl her chest and her tail bone together.

When you only work on something once or twice a week- and you have a rounded spine- yeah.

I was super proud of her when she finally figured out how to tilt her pelvis backwards- she could do it doing somethings and not others- the concept that her pelvis could tip forward and back was like... completely foreign.

I was less concerned with how she got out of bed- and more concerned with how the *kitten* she ever had sex. seriously. oh well- she got there- just took a while.

Do not give this woman a rubik's cube