Does your local gym have a basic class on weight lifting? Often that's a good place to start.
Caveat: I train for strength and bone building, slow and heavy, not explosive Olympic-style/Crossfit. I advocate the slow and heavy style of lifting as the safest and most appropriate for all ages of women.
If you are interested in specific routines or order of exercises feel free to reply or PM; I'll share if this is the style you're looking for.
So with that, the most important principles I have found are
- with our low testosterone, even very heavy weights won't make us bulky (unless you want to eat basically zero carbs and supplement snd train like crazy). So don't be afraid of getting bulky!
- you can learn and get your muscles used to lifting on gym machines, but using barbells or Dumbbells will be better for stability and balance and fully training helper muscles (not over-isolating certain muscless). But if you have a "20 minute circuit" area where they suggest you do a dozen machines in a row, that can be a great transition into learning how to lift
Eg you can learn to feel the burn and lift slow and heavy with a leg press, but later on doing weighted squats and lunges will work many more muscles and be more functional
- for functional movement, find a program/instructor that encourages you to lift SLOW and HEAVY.
Slow = 3-5 seconds to lift the weight and 3-5 seconds to lower it down. This train your muscles in both eccentric and concentric motion.
Heavy = a weight you can lift that way for at least 8 repetitions, but not more than 12. If you can't do it with good form go lighter. If you can do 12 and feel like more you need to up the weight.
- Two sets is ideal. So for each exercise, do your 8-12 reps, wait thirty seconds to a minute and then do another 8-12 reps. Repeating one set your of exercises is good, doing two sets will give you optimum results, three or more won't help and is actually more risky for injury.
- If you lift three times a week or less and you like cardio, don't worry about "leg day" or "back day" or any of that. Just find a routine of 8-10 exercises that hit all the major muscle groups. In three months, you can find a second routine of different exercises to do (that also hit the major muscles) if you're bored or seeing a plateau. Then just switch back and forth every once in a while, or if you like designing new routines find new stuff.
- always warm up with 5 minutes of rowing or treadmill or similar, don't lift from cold muscles. And stretch out after. It's also nice to do swimming or yoga or flexibility once a week to help stretch out.
I hope that helps!
