1. Weight Training is Good for Everybody
Your love affair with the treadmill doesn't have to end just because you pick up a dumbbell. Whether you're trying to lose weight or improve your performance, increasing your strength will make you look good, strengthen your tendons and ligaments and decrease your risk of osteoporosis. Weight training for beginners is simply about stimulating the muscle and overloading it with appropriate resistance it so it gets stronger and denser.
2. Form is Your Friend
If you spend any time in a gym you'll see the guy who rushes through his movements using momentum instead of control. A weight lift is always a controlled movement that uses a full range of motion without any inertia, swinging or bouncing. You're sure to risk hurting yourself if you try to lift without maintaining a proper stance whether you're a beginner or not. Practice without any weight first until your form is correct. Even seasoned bodybuilders are constantly checking for a lazy reproduction of proper form because they know the muscle won't get fully worked and they risk injuring themselves.
3. Free Weights Get You Buff Faster
I know those machines seem a lot easier to start out with when you're new to weight training but a machine can't replicate the full range motion that a dumbbell or barbell can. Besides training the primary muscle in the lift, the stabilizer muscles work to keep the form. There's no reason to avoid the machines all together but they should compliment your free weight routine rather than replace it if your goal is building muscle.
4. Routinize Your Exercise
Warm up first for 10 to 15 minutes with some cardio. Stretch each muscle group before and after your lift. Start with lighter weight first for 8 to 15 repetitions. Increase the weight if it's too easy for you. Work up to 3 sets of gradually increasing weight for one specific lift. Decrease the weight if you need more than 90 seconds of rest in between sets. The idea is to keep the muscle fatigued and hit it again before it's fully rested. Keep the combinations simple. Shoulders, triceps and biceps twice a week. Legs and gluteal muscles twice a week and chest and back muscles once a week. There should be at least a full days rest between each body part.
5. Don't be Sore About Soreness
Sorry to break the bad news but you're going to have a dull or very pronounced ache that may keep you from comfortably walking up and down stairs or even lifting your arm to comb your hair. You are awakening the fibers in the muscles with tiny microscopic tears. The muscle heals bigger and stronger during rest. Eventually, your soreness won't be so extreme but in the meantime, do the same motion without any weight for about 10 repetitions to bring some circulation to the area to reduce the pain. Topical creams can be helpful too but I would caution not to depend on over the counter pain relievers every time you are sore.
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