Just starting out

[Matio57]

Hi,
My names Matt. I'm 16, around 5'10" and weigh 65.2 kg or 143.8 lb.
I am skinny with rather weak arms and all round low fitness.
I played hockey once a week over winter but now that the season is over my fitness is lacking and I'm looking for any advice on a new routine to help me build muscle as well as working on my cardiovascular endurance. I do a bit of cycling but rarely more than once a month due to lack of time and effort.

I have access to a high standard gym at my school including; treadmills, bike machines, rowing machines, chest press, leg press, seated press, shoulder press, also available is a weights room with; bench, squatting and dumbbells.

Currently I am able to bench about 30 kg for multiple sets, one rep max of 45 kg. Dumbbells usually 7 kg or 8 kg.
I could go to the gym up to around 3 times a week.

I'm looking for any advice on a routine of what I need to do e.g. what weights I should work, how many sets of how many reps, how much cardio to mix in with it...
Any and all advice is appreciated

Thank you.

 

[Goldfish]

For strength training: http://training.fitness.com/weight-training/basic-novice-program-strength-muscle-54545.html

Start with the empty barbell for squats and bench presses; the empty barbell, a light bar or dumbbells for overhead press; 20-40kg for deadlifts; the empty bar for rows (if using a barbell), light dumbbells or a light setting on the machine; and assisted chin ups or light lat pull downs. Basically, at the end of the first workout you should be thinking: "Was that heavy enough? That can't have been heavy enough." Progress in small amounts, but frequently, and results will stack up over time. Your current 1RM bench press is something you should be able to do for 2x10 fairly soon, if you follow the program and your technique is reasonable (never underestimate your potential to improve technique -- I've been doing this for coming up to 9 years and am still working on technique). Your squat and deadlift should improve even more rapidly than that, assuming technique is sufficient. The other three lifts will all progress fairly slowly in my experience, but don't take that as an excuse not to try.

For cardio/edurance: It really depends on the goal. You haven't been clear on the reason for doing cardio, so I won't program anything for you, but I will say that >15min continuous activity is good for aerobic fitness, 0:45-2:00 before you have to slow down or stop is good for anaerobic fitness, and <0:20 is good for alactic/ATP fitness. The latter two can be developed quite effectively just with strength training; the former is better developed through steady state cardio; circuit training does a bit of both. I would try to limit anaerobic cardio, especially if it's the day before a strength training session. Half an hour of steady state cardio either after your strength training sessions or on your off-days is about the most I'd recommend for the time being.