If I were to do exercises using weights (light of course), what exercises would be recommended and not recommended to strengthen my arms and body?
Any training program starts from general exercises towards sports-specific exercises. So, if you're just starting off, train your whole body 3 times a week using the standard set of core exercises which include: 1) Squats for the Quads & Glutes 2) Stiff-legged Dead Rows for the Hamstrings 3) Calf Raises 4) Bench Press or Resisted Pushups for the Pecs 5) Pullups or Lat Pulldowns for the Lats (palms facing you to engage Biceps) 6) Shoulder Presses 7) Rows for the Lats & Upper Back 8 )Leg Raises & Crunches for the Abs (sit ups are inefficient and sometimes bad) After three months or so, start splitting them up into different days for different body parts. Hopefully by then you've hit the library, bookstore or internet and educated yourself a bit on what to do. If its the internet, gather info from reliable sites and be very skeptical of forum info as their is a lot of misinformation from other beginners. :deal
short version: If you want to go for strength AND a variety of other aspects of fitness: www.crossfit.com is the answer. Your arms & chest will get stronger from performing various pullups (especially towel pullups), dips, pushups, bench presses, and other exercises on this program. I just started there program again this week and we had to do push jerks, squats, deadlifts, cleans, and bench presses (in the past couple days). The key is to keep a log and up the weight or reps each time an exercise comes up again. long version: If you want to go for strength only: light exercises won't do anything for you. I agree with boxbible to an extent. It's not about body parts, but rather body movements. I would do squats, deadlift (regular), bent-over-rows, pullups (not lat pulldown, not nearly as effective), various pushups, and military press. Strongman exercises like tire flips and farmers walk will do wonders for your strength, they're just not as common and people don't often ask you how much you can "tire flip"... and some people will think you're stealing the dumbbells if you try a farmers walk in a gym. Perform back extensions and ab-work (rocky situps, leg raises, and crunches) together at the END of a workout. It's true that the core gets worked in a lot of the above exercises, but you CAN strengthen them further using the three exercises above. It's just a coincidence that they happen to be the same exercises that muhammad ali used to do at the end of his boxing workouts. I don't agree that they are bad or useless, but everyone has their own humble opinion.