looking for a good start

[Packless]

hello all. i am pretty new to this. been working out for about 6 months now, but almost 4 of them were upper body-only since i was recovering from a leg injury (unrelated to working out). now the leg is healed and i am ready to get full body going again.
one of my main obstacles is that i have not built the kind of strength that i thought i would at this point. pull-ups and dips? i can barely do any. the weights i am using on other exercises are still pretty **** low too. kind of embarrassing, but here we go. this is what i have been doing lately:

shoulder press (nautilus): 3 sets, top weight around 40
chest press (nautilus): 3 sets, top weight 60
lat pulldown (nautilus): 3 sets, top weight 45
standing bicep curls: 3 sets, top weight 20 on each arm
forearm curls with barbell: i just grab the 50 lb bar and go to failure for 3 sets

i'm looking to get this program right. gotta add the legs in there of course, but also looking for whatever else i might be missing. my rationale for doing chest press instead of bench press and shoulder press instead of over-the-head dumbbells is that i don't feel confident enough in my strength yet to go free weights on those. i definitely prefer free to machine, but i think i need a more solid base of strength before i can transition over. is that good or bad logic?

haha man i bet these are the lowest weight amounts you guys have seen on here for awhile. but there you go. i am dedicated and stubborn about getting in shape, but i sure could use some advice on what i'm doing.

thanks!

[Sidiztik]

There are several sources on this site. I would browse the site and see which one you like. You need to incorperate more excersizes for each body part I would say 3 ex. each.

chest- flat bench, incline dumbells, flies

so on so forth. Also look at the excersize tab and take a look at the different excersizes you can do and make your own split and routine. Then post it and get some feed back. It is more fulfilling when you make your own and tweak it it than taking a generic routine and running with it.

[bigbear6708]

if you are, or have acess to nautilus equipment, i would google the nautilus bulletins 1 and 2 (i think there were 2)...that arthur jones wrote back in the day (he invented nautilus and wrote pretty good guides on how to use them)..he also had a big hand in HIT "high intensity training" and advocated 1 good set to failure for each bodypart...full body w/ each workout done on non consecutive days...they should take 20-45 mins. depending on your fitness level...it will build up your strenght pretty good as well as stimulate some growth

[flex_wannabe]

My thought is to bag the Nautilus and replace with free-weight BP, DP, etc. Free-weight training is much more effective for building strength and mass. You have to work harder and the results are better. Start out light, with a weights you can do for 12-15 reps then gradually move it up. Stick to the basics ... bench, squat, deadlift, shoulder-press ... bag all the isolation exercises until you have mastered the basics.

Also, if you aren't adding strength like you feel you should you might very well have a dieting problem ... insufficient proten, insufficient cals, maybe both. You may be having long periods in your day where you aren't eating. That's another big problem. In a nutshell here are some good dieting principles ...

1) Eat 5-6 times a day. 6 is preferrable
2) Multiply your body-weight in pounds by 1.3. Start by eating that many grams of protein per day. (e.g. 200 lb. man could use 260g of protein as a starting point ... 6 meals means he's getting 43.33g of protein at each meal)
3) Estimate your maintenance calories (what is required to just maintain bodyweight). Eat about 250-300 cals above that.
4) Heavier carbs/lower fat towards the morning. Lower carbs/higher fat towards the evening.

[Packless]

great insights. thanks guys!