For those that lift.....

How many days a week do you lift? What is your general routine on any given week? I have started lifting weights and am new to all this. I want to gain strength and muscle but am somewhat clueless as to where to start. Any advice you could give me would be awesome. Thanks

It all depends on your goals, how lifting fits in with other exercise you do, and your age. Either way, allowance for soft tissue recovery between sessions (if working the same muscles) is key to the training effect. I do lower body on Mondays, upper body on Wednesdays, and core work on Fridays. But I also do 8-12 hours a week on a bike in addition to that, so my lifiting needs at age 52 take a backseat to the cardio burn I do.

I have read some interesting articles about the frequency of lifting and the actual time it takes for one to recover from the session being longer than what most tout or practice. One study I read suggested that it could be between as little as 48 hours to as long as 9 days!!!! The longer duration recoveries in the study were frequently tied in with the over 40 crowd. Again, it depends on how hard one works the muscles, what their lifting experience is, their genetics, nutrition, recovery process that is coupled with other exercise, etc... . I would say that allowing 48 hours minimum is a good rule of thumb. If you still feel the soreness (DOMS), then wait another day or two or more until that subsides so that maximum growth in the training effect is allowed to work.

Plenty of opinions and thoughts, but listening to your body always seems wise and easy to do before working the same muscle groups in lifts. I don't think anyone would question 2-3 sessions per week, nor would they questiong breaking it up into what parts of the body you are working on in your lifts.

Plenty more will chime in...

starting strength
strong lifts
new rules of lifting

start there.

^ This.

And: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

And: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/10118-eat-train-progress

Great advice, thank you everyone. I was thinking about starting with 3 days a week as that's what ive read and don't wont to over do it starting off. I do cardio 6-7 days a week about 45min-1 hour a day. Should I still stick with that or do more or less? Also for someone that is lifting 3 days a week, what should my calorie intake look like, as well as my protein and carbs? Right now I am at about 1300-1500 calories a day (more if you add in calories lost from cardio) and maintaining my current weight.

if the idea is simply to put on muscle then the cardio is not necessary, and if your not eating enough it will even hurt your progress.

not sure of your stats, but your going to want to eat about 200-300 cals extra a day on top of what your total energy expenditure (including exercise).

using MFP to tell you what to eat should be fairly accurate

Strong curves by Bret Contreras is also really good (I love this program) and Nia Shank's stuff looks good too (I haven't done it myself but I love her)

Strong curves by Bret Contreras is also really good (I love this program) and Nia Shank's stuff looks good too (I haven't done it myself but I love her)

I started w/strong curves....I thought it was a great intro to lifting .....I've since moved on to strong lifts 5x5 , 4 days a week plus 30 mins of cardio as I am trying to lose fat

I love New Rules of Lifting for Women. It is a great place to start.
It will answer all of your questions about calories, cardio, etc

Awesome. I am going to get this!!!!

I am not training for anything, honestly I am clueless when it comes to all of this, that's why I am asking, thanks for all the great advice. I will cut back on the cardio (I really don't do it for anything other than the fact that I enjoy it.) I want to put on muscle but as well maintain my weight (the only weight I want to gain is from muscle.) Im going to readjust my goals and go from there. Thanks all.

You could easily cut back to 4-5 days a week of cardio with the weights on the other days. Recover includes "active recovery" as well as "passive recovery". So a day that has a Zone 1 HR cardio workout for 30 - 60 mintues could be counted as an "active" recovery day. You could also mix on lifting days so you did 30 minutes of weights, followed by 30 minutes of "recovery cardio". However you do it, it's not bad to have at least one day off per week. And it's not bad to do nice 2 or 3 weeks of hard training, then slip in a 5 - 7 day "recovery week" where you still workout, but durations and intensities are/can be less. Read up on the "training effect" as this is all typical stuff to know.