By far my biggest piece of advice would be to not worry at all about optimizing anything until you've first gotten into the habit of regular work outs, and actually enjoy it. Only then should you start optimizing in other ways. The biggest obstacle is always sticking with it.
For me personally this means I lift while watching the Daily Show and Colbert online. Regular 4-days a week at 45 min each day, and it's enjoyable. I can change the time of day I work out, or even what days of the week I do it, but I have to get in some reps to keep up on the comedy-news. Find something you want to do regularly to tie it to.
Also, stretch plenty, before during and after. Don't neglect your neck.
By far my biggest piece of advice would be to not worry at all about optimizing anything until you've first gotten into the habit of regular work outs, and actually enjoy it. Only then should you start optimizing in other ways. The biggest obstacle is always sticking with it.
Completely agree. I've recently started weight training rather than just going to the gym for cardio, and I actually enjoy it. Unfortunately I'm moving to somewhere with less convenient gym access in a couple of weeks. It sounds like you have a home setup - any recommendations for low-cost equipment?
I'm looking for resources on effective weight training for the purpose of physique building. It's an area with a particularly poor signal to noise ratio so I would value pointers from other rationalists. The kinds of questions I would like to answer are:
Edit: I'm vegetarian, and I now realise this is rather important to answers to point three. So far the only supplement I've been taking is soy protein.