By far my biggest piece of advice would be to not worry at all about optimizing anything until you've first gotten into the habit of regular work outs, and actually enjoy it. Only then should you start optimizing in other ways. The biggest obstacle is always sticking with it.
Completely agree. I've recently started weight training rather than just going to the gym for cardio, and I actually enjoy it. Unfortunately I'm moving to somewhere with less convenient gym access in a couple of weeks. It sounds like you have a home setup - any recommendations for low-cost equipment?
I've actually only been at this a few months, so all I have is some dumbbells. Kinda surprising the range of exercise that I've been able to get out of them. I'm considering getting more equipment, but I don't have a lot of room to store it. If I do I'll probably start with craigslist.
I'm looking for resources on effective weight training for the purpose of physique building. It's an area with a particularly poor signal to noise ratio so I would value pointers from other rationalists. The kinds of questions I would like to answer are:
Edit: I'm vegetarian, and I now realise this is rather important to answers to point three. So far the only supplement I've been taking is soy protein.