How to avoid injury by keeping these ideas in mind

• As with any workout, warm up and cool down are always essential. You should never do strength training exercises with cold muscles. Always remember to cool down by stretching the specific muscles you used in your workout, to avoid walking like a robot for the next few days!

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• Rest days are probably the most important part of your strength training exercises workout. During your lifts (overload), tiny fibers in your muscles "tear". It's during your rest days, that your body has the chance to repair these tears. This is the process that strengthens muscle, as each tear is repaired with many more muscle fibers.

• So I would recommend at least 1 day's rest between each workout. Depending on the intensity and load of your workout, you may increase your rest days to 2 or maybe even 3 days. Only you can tell when you are ready for your next workout.Listen to your body, if your muscles are still very sore, chances are that you won't be able to complete the workout and you'll risk injury if you do.

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• Always keep good technique and posture. Using machines is great for developing this. Once you are used to machines then move on to free weights, there is much more variety of exercises with these.It's much harder to keep good technique with free weights, I recommend having a spotter, so you have that bit of extra confidence. Always keep your back straight and bend at your knees to lift or transport any (yes any!!) weight. I can't stress this enough to avoid serious back injuries.

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• You may notice you can't lift as much weight when you first use free weights, as you can with machines. This is only natural because you are using extra muscles to keep balanced with free weights. Drop down a weight, develop your balance and technique, then you'll reap the rewards when you increase the weight again.

• You should spend some time on every part of your body. A huge upper body with skinny legs isn't a good look! Even worse, strong chest and abs with weak back muscles will lead to bad posture and maybe even injury.

• You should develop a pattern of breathing with each workout. Breathe out with each lift, and breathe in during the recovery phase, ready for the next lift.