Weight Training

I know this has probably been posted before but I couldn't find a good answer. Can someone show me and example of their weekly weight training schedule? I am ending my total body shaping class this week and would like to continue with the weight/resistance band training at the gym on my own.

I found this online:

For beginners, you want to choose about 8-10 exercises, which comes out to about one exercise per muscle group. The list below offers some examples:

Chest: bench press, chest press machine, pushups, pec deck machine

Back: one-armed row, seated row machine, back extensions, lat pulldowns

Shoulders: overhead press, lateral raise,
front raise

Biceps: bicep curls, hammer curls, concentration curls

Triceps: tricep extensions, dips, kickbacks

Quadriceps: Squats, lunges, leg extension and leg press machines

Hamstrings: deadlifts, lunges, leg curl machine

Abs: crunches, reverse crunches, oblique twists, pelvic tilts


My question is how do you divide up the muscle groups per week? And if you don't do the whole body on one day, how many exercises do you do per muscle group?

Re: Weight Training

Those exercises that are listed are fine, but I would just stick with free weights and not machines.

You can do back/biceps, chest/triceps, shoulders/legs.
There's no set way to do a split, but this is what most people do.

You can do 2 -3 exercises per muscle group. Or, if you're pressed for time, you can do the compound movements (squats, bench press, overhead press, rows) which work a lot of muscles at once (which means they burn a lot of calories ). So the squat would be your leg exercise, bench press would be for the chest and triceps (it also works the lats too), rows would be for your back, and overhead press would be shoulders. You can do only one or two of those exercises per session if you want, and you can do heavy weights/low reps for a while and then do lighter weights/higher reps and sets.

It's really up to you! The only thing that's a good practice is to work big muscle groups first, and then the smaller muscle groups. So if you're doing a chest/triceps day, do bench press first, and then your tricep exercises. The bench press uses the triceps, so if your triceps are tired, you won't be able to lift as much.

Re: Weight Training

I second compound exercises. That is mainly all I do. I add one or two single joint exercises here and there, but mainly my routine consists of 4 exercies a day, all compound. I split my days between the body planes(horrizontal adn vertical) for upper, and quat vs. hamstring focus for lower. I switch upper one day, lower the next. Heavy exercises have 5 sets of 5 reps, light are 3 sets of 10, or 2 sets of 15.

(examples of horrizontal would be Bench presses, and seated rows, DB rows, cable flys)
(examples of vertical would be pull-ups, push presses, Shoulder presses, side lateral raises, lat pulldowns)

Quad heavy exercises are olimpic style full squats, step-ups, sumo dead lifts

Hamstring heavy exercises are stiff legged dead lifts, conventional dead lifts, good mornings, lying leg curls

My routine looks like this...
Day 1- upper- 2 heavy horrizontal exercises, 2 light vertical
Day 2- lower- 2 quad heavy, 2 hamstring light
Day 3 upper- 2 heavy vertical, 2 light horrizontal
Day 4 lower- 2 heavy hamstring, 2 light quad

A little confusing, but my weight training only takes a half hour a day.

Re: Weight Training

Thanks so much for the replies!!! I was secretly hoping you two would answer

That's exactly what I was thinking - 30 minutes a day nothing more. I just don't want to spend an hour a day on weight training because I know I'll never stick to it.

Thanks so much for your tips!!!

Re: Weight Training

You're welcome!

Re: Weight Training

Okay one more question - I am taking 2 bootcamp like classes twice a week. We do weights and things like squats and lunges in both the classes.

Do you think it's necessary to still do weight training? Or do you think if I just supplement this with one total body weight training session a week it's enough?

Re: Weight Training

As long as you're not too sore, I would add in a weight training session at the gym. In a bootcamp class, you're going to be doing mostly high rep/light weight or no weight exercises, which combined with some heavy weight training at the gym is the best of both worlds.

Re: Weight Training

You might wanna check out the workout log too