Help With Weight Lifting Basics

I'm fairly new to SL 5x5 (heavy lifting) but based on what you say I would do free weights because it gives you more of a workout because you are working your stabilizer muscles instead of just the group associated with that exercise. On a machine you only use the group with that exercise because the machine balances for you instead of your stabilizer muscles. you can go to stronglifts.com and they will give you for free the routine and lots of videos on form. I have watched those instead of using a trainer and seem to be fine. (no injuries and no wtf looks from the muscle head guys at least) I would say 3 days of lifting total body and 2 days of cardio is good. If you want a more sustained burn like I do because I have a crap ton of weight to lose I do about 25mins of cardio after I lift. SL 5x% explains C. Either way whatever you decide I would take the time to watch form videos on youtube for free.

A) HOW to lift
i.e. free weights vs machines - Pros and Cons
Outside of Abs and Bench, what are some must muscles to hit?

Any lifting is better than none, but free weights in general are better than machines because with free weights you also forced to engage the stabilizing muscles to perform that lift where as machines the muscle is more isolated.

If you have the option to use free weights (kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells) then go with that as you will get more strength bang for your buck.

If you're doing free weights then you really dont need to explicitly work out your abs since if you're using good form you will be engaging them and the rest of your core anyway. strong lifts, starting strength are good places to start because they will have you work the compound movements : squats, deadlifts, bench press, BB row/pull up and overhead press

WHEN to lift
Assuming 5 day schedule. 2 Cardio, 3 weight lifting?
Abs/Core all 3 days, two days of upper body, one day lower body sound about right?

i follow a 5 day schedule as well
Sun/Tues/Thurs : strength train : usually 2 days pushing my limits : Deadlift/Bench and Squat/Pullup progression/Cleans. the 3rd day is for more overall strength with stuff like plate pushes, KB swings, turkish get up, etc
Mon/Wed : cardio


Once again, you dont need to do core if you are properly working with free weights.

I am old(er than I wish) and it takes me a while to get going so I do usually warm up with a little cardio before I do much of anything.

I'm older than you 42 and have some past sports injuries and my warm up usually involves running 400m, dynamic stretching and doing warm up sets on the weights. total warm up time is like 15 minutes at most

C) Reps Vs Weight
Weight to add size and reps to add endurance? Any other keys?

weight to add STRENGTH , reps to add endurance. it's quite possible to get smalller and stronger. or to be small and strong (check out some of the female olympic athletes, in fact i just the crossfit games and watched some women who was around 135 pull a 430 pound deadlift.
To add size you need to both do the work AND eat at a surplus

Any other basic advice to get this novice in shape?

work on learning the basic form for each exercise before being worried about adding crazy weight. while it's true that for some movements you really dont start learning good form until you get some weight on the bar, you want to at least have a good idea of what you are shooting for form wise

I had an appointment with a cheap personal trainer and got my money's worth. She mentioned to press my limits as far as weight goes but then said to do 4 sets of 12-15 reps. I have never done that many reps EVER.

aint nobody got time for that :laugh:

I often struggle with my second set if I push enough in my first. Do you cycle through the day's weights then go back to the 1st or stick with a muscle and do all your sets before moving to the next exercise?

not sure i quite understand the question.. but for the first part, this is why we rest between sets. the higher % of your max you are working, then the more rest you will require between sets.