Before you start any type of exercise get some advice on how to do it right especially if you have a medical condition; bad back/neck, high/low blood pressure etc. The last thing you want is to attend a gym, lift a weight that's 2 heavy and look like a complete idiot because you don't know the correct weight and technique to use and hurt yourself. I see plenty of would-be body builders/fitness people looking stupid by doing exercises wrong. If you attend a gym respect the equipment and other people around you, get this wrong and you won't gain the respect of people there.
I tend to train with weights quite a bit, I isolate muscle groups and incorporate 'complexes' and 'compound' exercises into my routines which works different groups of muscles. There are different exercises for body building, weight lifting, strength exercises and musle toning, depends on what you want to exercise. I adapted exercises for swimming (competition some years back) and the various martial arts I was involved in and more recently Krav Maga.
Exercises are split into arms, chest, back, legs and then I include running (aerobic exercise) and (anaerobic exercise) swimming on the day's-off from weights. I tend to spend between 45 to 90 minutes in the gym depending on what I am doing. On a each day I also do ab exercises as part of my warm-down and the days off ab-work.
For good all-round strength training learn to do pull-ups (dead hang) and progress to weighted pulls, one arm pull-ups etc. It strengthens the body quite a bit but ain't that easy for the heavier person if u don't incorporate these into your routines but for someone who has finds it difficult there are techniques to assist you. A lot of gyms have pull-up bars but you don't tend to see people exercising this way because it is hard for most people and they don't want to look stupid attempting and failing a pull-up. I have a pull-up bar attached to the back of the house and it has a bag (punch/kick-bag) attachment which is good for punching/leg kicks and aerobic work-outs.
With any type of exercise get the technique right, don't try to use a lot of weight and ensure you have plenty of rest and eat correctly, if you don't then it's not going to work for you. It's no good lifting weights or attempting to get that six pack if you have a lot of fat on-board, lifting 2 much weight and hurting urself or concentrating on one muscle group and end-up looking like king kongs twin.
There's a wealth of information of the net, here's a few examples:
http://www.exrx.net/Exercise.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwAEiMUg ... re=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZawrdYA0WXUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAq_ocpR ... re=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj2w851ZHRMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dABiiGlP4khttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6I0z_d4xqYIf you want to learn how to do exercises right, the above links will help you all and educate at the same time.
Difficult non-weight training specific exercises to master; V sits-up, V-sit, planche press-ups, aztec press-ups, finger press-ups but you have to be very careful at even attempting these as you could hurt yourself so be warned. The last thing you want is to break your fingers or nose do a press up when you can't even do the basic exercise.
Anyway that's a glimpse into my life outside SWGO and gaming, being an exercise nerd etc.
Regards,
Kren