superqt4u2nv said:
If your afraid to learn the weights on your own you could buy a few training sessions and ask the train to teach you about free weights.
So this is where everyone's hiding!! Depending on your gym and what trainer you get, I wouldn't really recommend this. Sad to say most of the guys at my gym will spend the whole time staring at your ass instead of working on your form. And the single female trainer, has everyone doing useless smith work or using the beach ball.
It took me around 2-3 weeks of getting horribly sore to get used to everything. Now I don't even feel it, I could go everyday and still not get the least bit sore.
I would pick a few good compound exercises to practice, and once you get good at those, move on to more complicated stuff.
Barbell Squats (all the way down, no half-squats or using the smithmachine) are the best movement you can do for your legs. If you get deep enough, it activates your quads, hams, glutes, hips, and even calves. Depending on how much weight you use, it will use your upperbody to stabilize the weight (my gf does 3 sets with just her body weight, then uses the bar + weights for a few reps)
Barbell Deadlifts. I forget where I read it, but this single lift uses more muscles than anything else. With your feet at shoulder width, toes slightly pointing out, grip the bar with an overhand grip, arms outside legs. Keep your back straight, lower down into a partial squat and squeeze the bar off the floor, keeping it as close to your body as possible. Pull up to your hips, while extending your body completely straight, then lower it the same way you picked it up.
Overhead press. Works shoulders, chest, triceps, and other stablizing muscles. Grip the bar with hands shoulder width, overhand, step under and swing your elbows up as far as you can. This will set the bar on your shoulders, with your hands underneath and elbows in front of the bar, and keep it from falling. Squeeze with your hands, and press the bar straight up, directly in front of your face. At the top, the bar should be above your ears, slightly behind your head.
Thats basically all my GF does. If she has extra energy after this, she'll work on the treadmill/bike for some cardio. Inclined pushups occasionally, and sometimes some barbell rows or chinups. These exercises will burn A LOT more calories, than thousands of crunches, curls, tricep extension, leg press, calf raises, etc.
3 movements doesn't seem like much, but those 3 will use almost every muscle in your body, and are a more efficient way of exercising, instead of trying to learn 30 different isolation movements.