Help making a lifting schedule...

If you have a smart phone try the jefit app..there web forum has several pre set workouts .

A workout plan is really dependent on what your goals are, what equipment you have available, what kind of time you have to spend in the gym, etc. Without knowing all that, I can't really give a specific recommendation. But here are a few rules for designing your program.

1. Never work the same muscle group two days in a row!!!! Most important rule!!! So, you can either break up total body weight training into every other day workouts or you can split the body parts so you can do weights daily without working the same muscle group two days in a row.

2. Pick a weight that is heavy enough to do some good. Light weights aren't going to provide enough stimulus to make changes in the body. If you want to build size in your muscles, the weight should be heavy enough that you can't go over 6 reps. If you are wanting to build strength, the weight should be heavy enough that you can't go over 12 reps. Any weight where you can go on for a while without rest is too light. The last rep of a set should be difficult to complete. Take at least a minute of recovery between sets (up to 5 minutes between sets if you are going heavy with low reps) so that you can let the ATP in the muscles build back up to keep up the activity.

3. Warm up, Do your weights, Follow with cardio, and end with a cool down and stretch. With weight training, specifically weights heavy enough to cause muscular changes in the body, you are primarily breaking down glucose to provide the fuel. Long duration cardiovascular activities are primarily breaking down body fat to provide the fuel. The trick is that in order to break down body fat, the body needs the by products of glucose breakdown to do it, so by doing weights before cardio you have more pyruvate available to keep the fat burning going without having to breakdown more glucose instead of fat while doing cardio. Stretching at the end will help with muscle soreness after weight training.

4. Plan your workouts according to your schedule. If you can only workout 3 days a week and they are back to back days, do a split of muscle groups so that you don't work the same muscle groups two days in a row. If you can only workout every other day, you can do total body training every time you workout.

5. Pick 2-3 exercises for each muscle group, but focus on the large muscle groups and compound movements using multiple muscle groups first. So, squats or bench press would come before calf raises or bicep curls. Use the large muscle groups and compound movements for the majority of your exercise with the smaller muscle groups being a smaller portion of the workout to round it out.

Great advice is above but I'm going to add the fact that you should tailor your workouts to your personal goals. Please read the books, workout magazines, search the web and ask friends for exercises that are going to provide the benefits you are specifically looking to accomplish. For example: stronger legs, flatter abs, stronger arms, etc… The reason I am encouraging you to educate yourself is because each workout should work a specific area of your body and unless you are concentrating on that specific area during your workout you are losing the benefits of that workout.

A great example is the leg press: http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/training/83354-dos-donts-basic-leg-press.html. I always see people doing this wrong so they are not getting the full benefit of the lift.

After you have started doing the workouts monitor your body against your goals and continue to change workouts as your needs change. For example: I want to get faster, not bigger legs, so I started doing lots of weight with the leg press and started seeing my legs getting stronger and bigger (terrible) so I changed my exercise to more reps at a lower weight and it’s going much better now.

I hope this helps…