Hello Guys,
So I have kept up my daily diet and exercise plan, and so far it has been going very well. However, I just purchased some weights today (1 set of 8lbs, and one set of 12lbs) along with a pedometer and some training gloves. I want to start strength training to increase and seal my weight loss as well as gain some muscle definition. Please help me in this, as I wanted to get a routine (three days a week, other days I jog/run/walk). My height is 6 feet one inch and right now I am at 210 pounds/209 Pounds. I started with 15 reps of the 8lb in both arms today and thats it. I felt like I cheated myself. I REALLY need some pro advice. Please HELP!! (STEVE) (ANYOONEEE)

Have you read the stickied threads in the exercise forum - that should give yo a good jumping off point...

To be honest.... a critical factor in designing a weight lifting routine is progressive overload. All this really means is, for a program to be successful in increasing strength, muscle mass, etc.... it must provide a stressor to the body beyond what it's used to in order to elicit a positive adaptation.

When people go out and buy one or two sets of light dumbbells, they lock themselves into training without progressive overload.

No progressive overload = no positive adaptation.

That said, your purchase wasn't fruitless. You can build up a base of conditioning through calisthenics. Once you become acclimated to calisthenics, you can throw in your DBs for a little progression.

Beyond that though, you're going to have to find new ways to challenge your muscles.

Joining a gym is out of the question?

If so, I'd consider buying some home equipment if space is available.

What exactly are your goals?

And what are your stats?

As a quick note, I wouldn't focus on training the arms at all. You want to focus on exercises that give you the most bang for your buck. These are the exercises that call on the most muscles/joints to execute.

These are commonly referred to as compound exercise. Think:

Legs: Squats, deadlifts, lunges, stepups

Chest: Presses, flys, pushups

Back: Rows, deadlifts, pullups

Shoulders: Overhead Pressing

Core: Crunches, planks, hyperextensions, etc

These are just examples. You can go to something like Workout Routines & Exercises - New iPod Videos! to find examples of compound exercises. You can even sort by what sort of equipment you have available to you.

Eventually my site will be up with, what I'd consider good, instructional videos for as many exercises we can think up.

Steve thank you so much for that very helpful piece of advice. As for my goals: right now I am at 212, I need to go down to 170 by June 14 this year. So I am doing cardio every other day and weight training (just started) three days a week. I will increase weights later. My height is 6 1 and I really need your advice and consolation on one thing. In addition to my diet I have been exercising. I have one fear though: I dont want to start building muscle on the current body I have. What I mean is that first I want to lost all the excess fat/ pounds from my face and thighs, and stomach, and then build abs on that body. So I was wondering if I start weight training now, will these muscles build on top my current fatty body? That would be disastrous!! Will see more fat loss if I add this strength training regime in addition to my cardio schedule? Please help!!! I need a straight answer. ANYONE!!!! please. I dont want to build muscle on my current body... FIRST LOSE FAT!!!

What's with this obsession of not wanting muscle?

No, It wont.....

Such a train of thought is without doubt a perplexing oddity. I don't think it will ever make any sense to me.

I'm pretty sure the layering goes Skin, fat, muscle and bone. I don't think you can put muscle on top of fat. But i'm no doctor.

Thanks for that steve and trevor. So I am glad to hear that it wont build muscle on top my current body. I am just not satisfied with the way I look right now, my BMI and fat percentage is still way too high. Besides I read that exercising increases your RMR, so I hope to lose fat first. Thank Again!

unless you factor in visceral fat, yea.... fat is on top of muscle.

plus, if you're dieting, you aren't going to be packing on slabs of muscle anyhow. if it were that simple, there'd be a lot more straight jacked people walking around.

hint.

there's not.

building muscle requires a lot of variables to be in place. two primary ones being sufficient energy (calories, which are not present while dieting) and sufficient loading of the muscle (which you aren't going to do with light DBs).

all that said, i'm still interested in hearing why you are so against putting on any muscle right now?

building muscle would reduce your fat percentage.... I still don't get it.

lol I sounded so dumb in that last comment. Forgive my ignorance, but I am just really anxious to lose this fat. I now realize that my initial statement might have been misconstrued a bit. Sorry! Muscle building does reduce fat, lol. But thank you so much for the reassurance. I will continue my low calories intake and cardio along with DBs. Oh and that youtube guy looks almost exactly like you, and is called Steve as well! Creepy!. Thanks once again.

Well, although muscle gain supposedly can't be done with weight loss, that would be assuming you already have a lot of muscle to work with. If not, you can still easily get stronger, just not as fast as someone else who is eating more calories than you. Try your best to do cardio every day, or atl east 5 days a week, taking a break on your leg workout day, and the day after as rest. The reason he stated you can't gain muscle without adding calories is because most bodybuilders have so much muscle, and their body is so used to the workout, that they may have trouble maintaining muscle while burning fat. Otherwise, when I started working out, I lost a lot of fat, and I became noticably stronger than before. Don't only stick to cardio because you think it may seem futile to workout, working out will help no matter what.