Sign up for a couple of sessions with a personal trainer at your gym so you can get some one-on-one instruction. The sessions are sometimes free, but even if they're not they're usually very affordable. A trainer can help you target the areas of your body you want to focus on, show you the correct weight-lifting positioning when you start off, and suggest good starting weights and repetitions/sets. The young guys at my gym like the free weights. Dumbells for curls and other one-side-at-a-time lifting and extensions. They use barbells for curls and chest presses. Lat pulls for shoulders. The trainer can also show you the weight machines, too, which are nice because they control the path the weights take while you work on proper technique with the lifting and proper breathing (exhaling while you lift the weight and inhaling as you return it to correct position). Good luck! Working out makes you feel like a million bucks.
birdgirl73 Reviewed by birdgirl73 on . Exercising Hey guys, well now that the semester has started it's time to start working out like I had planned during the summer. I really want to work on my upper body strength. Could anyone recommend what machines I should use in the gym and how much I should lift and for how long? I'm about 5 ft 4 (yea short for my age), and I weigh about 130 pounds. Please let me know. Thanks Rating: 5