Ladies who lift

I highly recommend spending the cash on a couple personal training sessions to ensure you have good form. My gym (Life Time Fitness) has a great barbell strength class that has helped me figure out how to lift weights without the additional costs that personal training comes with.

Typically I do a short warmup with stretching (2 min) and them lift for 15-40 minutes. There are a ton of theories out there on reps/muscle groups/etc that may work better for you. I just try to hit every major group and to change it up so I don't fall into a rut. For instance my ab workout one day will be bicycles, and then the next time I'll do planks, and then the next time I'll do the weight machine for crunches. I try to run/elliptical/stair climb for 15-40 minutes after that and then stretch out really thoroughly for 5-10 minutes and that's it.

ive been qualified over 25 years so dont bother with the gyms now i do it all at home and develope my own routines

Warmup cardio for 7-8 minutes.

Back - weight machine; assisted pullups or high rows. This also works my biceps.
Chest - weight machine; chest press (also works triceps) or chest fly (just chest). Or just good ol' push-ups
Hams, quads and glutes - leg press
Shoulders - dumbell raise, or weight machine
Triceps - dumbell or weight machine
Abs - unassisted pullups, or weight machine crunches, or plank
Also hip abduction and adduction for additional lower body training.

That's my routine. I do everything in one day, and rest the next. I don't always do them in that order.

I am planning on buying myself a personal training session so I can learn how to do deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts. Been wanting to incorporate them into my workouts for a while!

I have started doing New Rules of Lifting for Women. I try to follow all the advice for form and I look up videos online before trying it. I also ask for help from guys who seem to know what they're doing.

This. It's really great for beginners.

Can you please give me an idea of what your workout consists of, Thanks

I do Tom Venuto's "The New Bodybuilding Workout" which you can find on the net if you google it. Basically it is a 2 day upper/lower split with 1 day a week for strength/hypertrophy of each upper and lower and 1 more day for just hypertrophy...so 4 workout days a week with rest in between days. It focuses on compound lifts such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, chin-ups, etc. with only a couple of isolation moves tacked on to the end of the workout such as curls or calf raises.

On my days off of weight training, I do cardio for about 45 minutes that consists of running or Turbo Kick...with possibly the step mill if I am feeling slightly masochistic that day, lol.

thanks for sharing. I have been wanting to start lifting but not really sure where to start. I might hire a personal trainer for a few sessions

Well, right now, I'm kinda taking an unplanned break from heavy lifting thanks to my dogs digging a hole that I fell in and sprained my ankle. It's the worst sprain the doctor has ever seen and the x-rays are being re-evaluated by a radiologist who was off work for Christmas last week when I went in, so I'm not 100% certain its not broken since it is getting worse as I try to use it. I won't be able to go heavy with my lifts even for upper body until I can walk into the gym without crutches. Liability issues, whatever.

Anyway, I tend to break my workouts up to the following:

Chest and Triceps
Back and Biceps
Legs
Shoulders and Abs

My workouts typically consist of a 10 minute warm up (or more if I'm having asthma issues), 30-60 minutes of weight training, 30-60 minutes of cardio, and a 10-15 minute stretch at the end.

For my exercises, I like the following by body part:

Chest--Bench press (flat, incline, and decline), Butterflies (flat, incline, and decline), Pec Dec Machine, and chest press machine to finish it up or like now when I'm not 100% balance wise.

Back--Lat Pulldowns, Seated Rows, Lat Pullovers, Bent Over Rows, Upright Rows, and Hyperextensions. I'll do the hyperextensions while holding a weight plate on the apparatus at the gym. If I do them flat on the floor (Supermans), I don't use weight. Notice I put lat pullovers here. A lot of places will categorize them as a chest exercise, but they are only a chest exercise if done at an incorrect angle.

Legs--Squats, Plie Squats, Deadlifts, Stiff-legged Deadlifts, Lunges (when I'm not having issues with my surgically repaired knee), leg press, leg extension, leg curl, calf raise, and the abductor/adductor machine if there is one at the gym. I also like the total hip machine at the gym but most gyms don't have them. Notice I put deadlifts here. They are a hamstring exercise. If you feel it in your back you are doing it wrong. Gotta push your chest out, pull the shoulder blades back, and keep the head up while sticking the butt out.

Biceps--Twisting curls, hammer curls, 21's, spider curls, preacher curls, and ez curls

Triceps--Rope pressdown, overhead triceps extension, triceps kickbacks, skullcrushers, and dips. Sometimes I use weight plates on my lap for the dips, but that takes building up to so I won't be doing that for a while after having to take this break.

Shoulders--Arnold Press, Standard Shoulder Press, Front Raise, Lateral Raise, Rear Delt Flies, Rear Delt Raises, Internal Rotations, External Rotations, and Scarecrows

Abs--3 point crunches, toe touch crunches, reverse crunches, Russian twists, oblique crunches, the 100, 3 point oblique crunches....and a ton more. I use to teach a 30 minute abs class where we did sets of 25 not doing the same type twice and would hit 1000 before we were done, so I have a bunch of variations of ab work. Typically, I don't use weight with them, but I have been known to grab a 10 pound medicine ball and use it for a lot of these too.

Oh, and for ideas, I have several dozen workout cards on my facebook fan page at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Training-With-Tonya/231103626354

There's also a challenge for January and videos from when I had my tv show a few years ago and from me teaching at a couple of different places. The workout cards and challenge are in the photos section.

bump

I do pre much everything but I'm too scared to dead lift

Just start out really light!

Currently I lift heavy 2 days a week, then 3 days of interval training type stuff. I warm up with 5 minutes of brisk uphill walking and cool down with stretches. Total time is usually 30-45 minutes.

Day 1: Deadlift, bent over dumbbell row, cable lat pulldown or negative pull-ups. 3-4 sets of 5-10 each.
Day 2: Back squat, single leg split squat, incline push-ups, weighted dips, kettlebell swings. 3-4 sets of 5-10 each.
Day 3: Whatever my trainer makes me do! She uses interval training (45 seconds on, 10-15 seconds rest, and so on). We always do some abs (bicycle crunches, planks, hanging leg raises), legs (straight leg deadlifts, lunges, squats) and upper body (push-ups, overhead presses), and usually some kettlebell swings. For cardio she has me do burpees, mountain climbers, and various kinds of jumps.

I also currently do 2 days a week of bootcamp (a mix of cardio and weight lifting intervals) for an hour each time but that's over at the end of this week, so I'm going to add another heavy lifting day revolving around the bench press.

Once you get your form down on the big lifts, I highly suggest working toward lifting heavy. You will notice such great results and you'll feel awesome!!!!

My gym has a system that generates strength workouts for you based on pre-set items.. and I love it!

Generally my workouts look like this:
Sunday: Warm up 5 min on treadmill followed by 30-45 minutes of upperbody weight lifting.
Monday:Cardio(walking on a treadmill)
Tuesday:Warm up 5 min on a treadmill followed by 30-45 minutes of lowerbody weight lifting.
Wednesday:Rest or Cardio
Thursday: Full Body Personal Training
Friday:Rest
Saturday:Rest

Then start all over the next week.

I suggest getting a PT for a few sessions if you can to learn proper form. From there, you can look at bodybuilding.com or new rules of lifting for women.

I usually lift two - three days a week, although this gets switched around a fair bit to accommodate triathlon training or any other fitness challenges I have going on (I'm a Fitocracy member and enjoy mixing it up).

I'll usually do one day of upper body, one lower, and one combined. At the core of those are the big three: barbell squats, deadlifts and bench presses. I'm also a big fan of the shoulder press.

I supplement those with additional cable rows, lat pull-downs, split squats, barbell step-ups, planks, odd core exercises and other elements designed to reinforce potentially weak muscle groups. However, you can quite easily dispense with everything apart from the four composite lifts mentioned in the paragraph above and still get a fantastic workout.

I usually spend between 30 minutes and an hour in the weight room, depending on rest times, current training load levels and how hard I find it to tear myself away from all that lovely iron.

New Rules of Lifting for Women is great for beginners. That being said, I have a lot of weight room experience, so I've developed my own plan. I'm a big fan of compound movements and free weights.

Lifting workout A
Back squat
Assisted pullups
Bench press
High pulls
Assisted dips
Ab combo: toe touches 25x, leg lifts 25x, russian twist 25x, plank 1 minute

Lifting workout B
Hang cleans
Max pushups from toes
Single arm row
Walking lunges
Shoulder raises
Ab combo: V-ups 25x, kickers 50x, oblique reaches 25x each side

Lifting workout C
Deadlifts
Assisted pullups
Dumbell swings
Push press
Sumo squat
Ab combo: side plank 30 sec each side, sit ups, cobra 1 minute

I rotate these out every 6 weeks or so for different variations to keep things fresh. All the strength moves vary from 2x12 reps to 4x4 depending on where I am in my 6 week cycle. I also do a 1 rep max day at the end of each 6 weeks.