My Exercise Regimen

I have never lifted weights. Unless you count my 15 lb purse :)

I had no idea what to lift, how to lift and those crazy machines at the gym all just looked like some sort of medieval torture devices to me (they still kinda do actually...)

So I knew I needed guidance and a plan. I don't function well without a plan. I'm a terrible day dreamer and if I don't have structure I will literally just stare into space for hours and get nothing accomplished.

Then I found this wonderful website www.bodybuilding.com. It has become my online fitness bible! This site is a wonderful resource whether you're a new, nervous novice or a muscles bulging, veins popping out, enormously muscular professional body builder. It has a wealth of information for fitness flirts like me.

At first I was doing a three day full body workout. Two days were focused on upper body and the middle day was all lower body and abs. It looked something like this:

Monday/Friday
bench press     dumbell flies    push ups    seated row    military press    lateral raises    dips or tricep pushdowns     alternating dumbell curls or preacher curls

Wednesday
leg extensions   squats   leg curls   straight leg deadlifts   walking lunges   standing calf raises   roman chair leg raises    crunches

This was a great work out and a good place to start. The wonderful thing about bodybuilding.com is if you have never seen or heard of these exercises before (military press? sounds like a gadget I would use in the kitchen...) they have a huge database of instructional videos on how to do almost every exercise you can think of. I watched the videos for each of these lifts to make sure my form was correct.

After about a month I realized that I wanted to push myself a little farther and really focus on specific muscle groups more intensely. I also found that I wanted to be in the gym more than 3 days a week! So my current work out is a five day one that focuses on two or three muscle groups each day. This is what it looks like now:

Day 1 Back/biceps
Day 2 Shoulders/triceps
Day 3 Legs
Day 4 Chest
Day 5 Glutes, Calves, Abs

I do about 20-30 min of cardio prior to each work out (I try to switch up what kind of cardio I do. Love the eliptical but I also hit the treadmil, stair stepper, and stationary bikes every few days) On day 5 I try to do 45-60 min cardio before the work out. With each of these exercises I do 10-12 reps and 4 sets each.
If I find I can do 10-12 reps without much effort than I use a heavier weight for the next set and aim for 8-10 reps.

If you don't currently have an exercise regimen I would highly recommend trying this one. Or find one of your own online! Sometimes you have to flirt with a work out, try it out and decide if it will be a good fit for you, your schedule, and your fitness goals before you can fully commit :)

For the complete list of exercises I'm doing each day please follow this link: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/prather-makes-perfect-workout-program.html