Advise from a guy that started with a shit ton of bad advise from "body builders" in the late 80's and wrecked his rotators and low back.
Watch every instructional video you can on proper form for squats, bench press, over head press, barbell rows and dead lifts. Learn good form and stick to those four movements for at least a year. Also do ab work a few times a week.
There are several beginners routines like strong lifts 5x5, find one, complete it then find a different one and complete it untill you run out of programs to do. Then do them again.
Build a solid base cannot be stressed enough. Almost Everyone who lifts wants huge arms but without gear your body wants to be uniform. Your not going to build 18" arms if you only have 18" thighs (unless steroids).
Like lampshadeburg said, there are all sorts of crazy movements that could "really make your traps pop" or "give you mountanous biceps and six pack abs at the same time". Leave that shit in the Mens Health magazine.
They are all useless and will only set you back untill you build a solid and strong foundation of large muscle groups and the associated connective tissue.
Also on a side note, women in the gym dgaf about how much you can lift. They only care if they think they look better than the woman on the stepmill next to them. So show off reps are forbidden, always.
I just found this. Pretty cool info on the history of barbell squats.
