General Fitness & Nutrition: Newbie : Weight Training

You guys (and gals) are always very helpful in figuring things out so any help would be appreciated.

 I'm not new to running in any sense but have never really maintained a muscle building program.  I'm pretty scrawny, 6'2'', 155 lbs.  My apt complex is very limited to machines and don't have that much but the basics.  Anyone have a good every day/every other day weight training schedule to help me out (that can still be performed on the equipment i got, free weights included).  I would love to build my upper body a lot more so my arms and chest don't feel as weak during a run.  Thanks for the help!

You can do split squats, wall squats (great with an exercise ball if you have one), and lunges.  None of those require weights and are great quad workouts.  You can also get some of that theraband stuff and do some resistance work with it.  I would search the net for specific techniques for the exercises I have mentioned.  I too used to neglect the weight training and just ran.  I eventually hurt my knee (couldn't run for about two months) because of muscle weakness and overuse.  Weight training solved that problem.  I don't do much upper body stuff, just some dumbell curls, I have a curlbar too that I use once in a while.  I do some bench press too. 

When you want to build muscle it's really important to increase/monitor your calorie/protien/carb intake otherwise you'll end up taking muscle from somewhere else!

Plenty of info here.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbinfo.php?page=BasicsofNutrition

 

 

If you are interested in body weight type exercises http://www.trainforstrength.com/exercises.shtml

 this site has a lot of really good ones.

If you could find yourself a simple dumbell bench (without the olympic bar and stand) you can do a complete upper body workout that will build upper body muscle. Since you have the free weights already you will be in good shape. Start off by working your core upper body, by doing say 3 sets of 15-30 pushups. Make sure do to do variations in the pushups, meaning normal, wide, and pyramids. Do three sets of each of them. Do that one day, then work your arms with curls. After a couple weeks try this: Lift 4 days a week. Break it down to one day Chest and Back, one day Bi's, one day Tri's, and one day shoulders. For chest and back start with three sets of regular pushups, then 3 sets of fly on the bench with dumbells, then 3 sets dumbell press on the bench, followed by three more sets of reg pushups. For Bi's do three sets of each: normal curls, hammer curls, isolated curls. Move the weights up each set starting with say 20lb dumbell 12 times, 25lb 10 times, 30lb 8 times. That shocks the muscles. Shoulders: 3 sets wide pushups, 3 sets military press, 3 sets dumbell front raises, 3 sets dumbell wide raises, 3 sets of wide pushups. Back: 4-6 sets of dumbell reverse fly (sit on edge of bench, lean over). Your back gets a great workout from all those pushups your doing on other days. Tri's: 3 sets pyramid pushups, 3 sets skull crunchers (lay on back, one arm at a time take a dumbell from arm lock position and bend so the weight goes towards the back of your head), 3 sets of dumbell extensions, 3 sets of pyramid pushups. That will work for you. Make sure to take protein shakes or eat ALOT of protein throughout the day (almonds, yogurt, etc.  Oh, yeah as they say FORM is everything.