going up
I'll try to answer your question, though I'm a little confused as to what it is, so I'll answer all the questions I see!
1) What weight to use: according to a previous post from her, Cathe intentionally didn't indicate what weight she was using, because everyone is different, and what is "heavy" to one person could be "moderate" or "light" to another. The weight you use would be relative to your INDIVIDUAL strength. There is a formula for beginning strength trainers that I've seen (in Weight Training: Steps to Success, I think). It uses a percentage of your body weight as a guide to where to start (something like 20% of your body weight for squats, for example). A general rule is to use a weight that you can do about 10-15 reps with good form (number of reps depends on the program used, but usually beginners would use more reps). The idea of "good form" is important, here: If you use bad form, you can lift more by using muscles that shouldn't be involved in the movement(which I suspect is one reason why Cathe has gotten away from saying how much weight she uses: people want to emulate her, and may end up lifting heavier weights than they can do with good form).
2) When to go up in weight. You can follow a "2-for-2" rule (which is what the author of Muscle Mechanics calls it: move up in weight when you can do two reps more than your rep goal, for two workouts in a row. Since working out to videos forces you to limit the amount of reps you do, you'll have to guesstimate when you could move up. It is often suggested not to move up more than 5# on upper body barbell exercises (2.5# with dumbbells, but hard to do if you don't have graduated weights or magnetic 1.25# weight plates), and not to go up more than 10# on lower body barbell exercises. 3) Is weight training as confusing as it seems? No, but there's no time to clarify things on a tape. If you want more in-depth info, I'd suggest Weight Training Steps to Success as a good starting place. It gives you a lot of theory, without being too technical, and leads you through how to develop a program of your own (even if that's not what you plan to do--and you keep training to videos--it's good to know how to do it). Well, those are all the questions I can see!
