Arwen stepping on an orc's balls, with the orc played by Quentin Tarantino of course

Good luck and if you ever wanna talk routines or equipment or whatever drop me a line!

I learned it all without a trainer and did it with a squat rack in my basement, eventually upgrading to a power rack. There are essentially only three main compound lifts that you need to learn and they pretty simple. Jeff Nippard has technique videos on youtube for every lift you need - Squat, bench and deadlift. He also shows variations that may work better for you and feel safer. For me I do a Romanian deadlift and front squats to protect my back.

Ah yeah maybe I should've clarified a bit I'm not talking about bodybuilding I'm talking about strength training which is way more functional. It's not easy to get bulbous, it certainly won't happen by accident. Was able to do a 120km bike ride last summer through the mountains, big hikes, etc no trouble. But when it's time to lift something heavy jaws drop hah. Judo partners are like "Shit" Everybody could use a few extra pounds of muscle

No worries I'm always happy to help someone get started. I have always been skinny 165lb runner and cyclist. But I wanted to try lifting a barbell and a few years later I'm sitting at 220lbs with a powerlifting gym in my basement feeling better than I did in my 20s.

That's rough. I'm not sure what you can/can't do safely, but in my amateur opinion building up your posterior chain is the best thing you can do to stabilize your back, especially if you sit a lot

What are you looking at, disc replacement?

Not who you asked but I think the absolute best bang for your buck would be a simple barbell program. 531 for Beginners you could run this program for a year and It will completely change your physique. To make a dead simple I would install the boostcamp app and use it to track your sets/reps/progress, it has instructions for the exercises which are easy to learn