Strength training and the Total Gym

jlgarcia85631

I have been reading a lot of post on how important it is to strength train at least 3 days a week. To build muscle in turn which will burn more fat. I totally get that. However what I would like to know is lots of people say that exercising with free weights is how they get it done. I have a Total Gym.. I'm sure that you all have see the info commercials at one point or another.. but if not it is a machine/bench that you can do many many exercises on and it uses different incline and your own body weight for resistance. Would this be suitable strength training? If so should cardio still be done before strength training say like 20 mins or so on a treadmill then hit the total gym?? And how long should I do this gym for another 20 mins?? My regular cardio work out is 35 mins on the treadmill 5 min warm up brisk walking at a 10 incline then a paced jog at 13min per mile for 2 miles then walk again for the remaining 5…also I will go for a walk around the town where I live with a goal of 5miles but some times may only go 3.5… Any suggestions for what my routine should be??

rachelhohenbrink

Anything that has resistance wether it's free weights, resistance bands, body weight or your total gym works and counts towards strength training. On the 3 days that I do my resistance training I usually do my abs also and Cardio the other 3 days. I guess it depends on what results you are looking for as to what your schedule should look like. If you are wanting to tone also add in plyometric exercises in your cardio. I used bodyrock.tv to help fill in for plyo, cardio, resistance etc. Check it out. Right now I am doing Tapout XT.