Critique my workout routine!

_lyndseybrooke_

I go to the gym four nights a week - Wednesday through Saturday. On Mondays, I do 30 minutes of cardio at home and, on Sunday, I try to do something active, such as taking the dog for a long walk. Tuesday is my rest day. I spend one hour at the gym each time I go.

My GOAL is to lose my last 13 lbs and tone my body. This is my routine:

10-minute warm-up on elliptical
30 minutes strength training
20-minute walk on treadmill at 3.7mph (with spurts of 4.3) and a slight incline
10-minute ab workout and final stretching

My STRENGTH TRAINING consists of 3 sets of 15-20 reps of each:
* Squats with kettle ball - 15 lbs, then 30 lbs, then 40 lbs
* Seated dips - 55 lbs
* Hip adductions and abductions - 55 lbs
* Leg curls and extensions - 40-55 lbs
* Seated lat pull-downs - 40 lbs
* Pec fly - 30 lbs
* Bicep curls - 20 lbs
* Calf raises - 75 lbs

My AB ROUTINE consists of:
* 2 sets of 25 regular crunches
* 2 sets of 25 elbow-to-knee crunches

My amount of weight is low, I know. My time at the gym has showed me how weak my body is. I'm working on getting that up, but I've only been at it for about 2 weeks. Also, I'm only burning about 250 calories during this hour. That seems like nothing, but I feel like I'm getting a good workout. Should I be burning more, or is this about right? I know the calories burned during exercise is really just an estimate, but I guess I'm getting hung up on it.

So, what do you think? What am I doing wrong or right? Any suggestions?

vorgas

There's a lot going here. Remember, the best routine is one you enjoy and stick with! I will tell you some things that others have found out to be what works well for them. Then I'll explain why. But at the end, you should pick what will keep you coming back to the gym

1: Keep warmups to 5 min or less
2: Do compound free weights instead of isolation weights
3: Lift weights on some days. Do High Intensity Interval Training on other days.
4: Progression is key

1 KEEP WARMUPS TO 5 MIN OR LESS
This has to do with what your body uses as fuel. Weight lifting is anaerobic, so it needs glycogen. If your warmup is too long it begins to use glycogen. That means you don't have enough energy to lift correctly. At best it means you won't get as intense a workout. At worst it can lead to form failure, which is how you get hurt.

2 DO COMPOUND FREE WEIGHTS INSTEAD OF ISOLATION WEIGHTS
There is a notion that doing a bunch of exercises on one muscle will burn away the fat at that spot. That simply isn't the case. More muscle burns more fat during the day. Exercising more muscles burns more calories in the gym. Abs are some of the smallest muscles in your body. You can do crunches until you puke and it won't give you a better looking tummy because it's just not gonna burn that fat there.

Sometimes isolation machines give the sense that you are working harder. By cutting out the supporting muscles and focusing only on the large muscle, it seems you can lift more weight. That may be true, but remember burning calories comes when cells have to activate. Limit the supporting muscles and you just aren't getting as effective a workout.

Look into a good compound lifting routine such as Stronglifts 5x5 or New Rules Of Lifting For Women. Both of these have support groups here at MFP to really help you.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/102-new-rules-of-lifting-for-women-nrol4w
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/4601-stronglifts-5x5-for-women

3 LIFT WEIGHTS ON SOME DAYS. DO HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING ON OTHER DAYS
Whenever you lift weights you should never do cardio (HR above 65% of max). Really you should keep it down to 50% or less. This has to do with energy paths. If you use up all your glycogen lifting weights, then push your aerobic workout (fat + oxygen) into the cardio zone, it becomes more and more anaerobic (glycogen). But you don't have glycogen anymore because it's all been used up lifting weights. So your body will start to break down muscle to provide energy. All that work you just did lifting will begin to diminish.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) has an enormous amount of benefits. Really drops your resting heart rate, improves your VO2 Max, etc. It really makes you a high capacity workout machine. Do these on days you don't lift. Great for the metabolism, etc.

4 PROGRESSION IS KEY
Once your body is able to perform an exercise it has no need to adapt further to continue performing that exercise. Change happens when you push yourself. Lifting weights in particular is about building muscle. Muscle is much leaner than fat. Your diet determines how much mass it can sustain. The more muscle you have, the leaner you will look at a given calorie input because it can't support as much fat. Well, if you keep lifting the same weight over and over, you're not going to build any more muscle. Gotta progress.

This phenomena is utilized by those routines designed to "tone" your body. They give you just enough weight to turn muscles from untrained to trained (which has some benefits). From that point on you're really doing a form of aerobic exercise. This is generally a circuit routine type thing. The main point of these is to burn fat calories. It's actually terribly inefficient. I'm not saying it doesn't have benefits, just that it's not an efficient method. This is the sort of thing you're doing with your weights and reps. If you can do 60 reps of a weight you aren't gaining muscle at all. It's a form of aerobics.

Same with aerobics/cardio. Your body becomes really efficient at performing an exercise. If you aren't pushing the speed, pushing your HR, then you simply won't be burning as many calories as time goes on.

If you're worried that adding too much weight will bulk you up, don't be. Bulk comes from eating at a calorie surplus, a specific diet, and heavy heavy weights (I mean more than you weigh). Check out this page for some women who lift heavy regularly, and how bulky they don't look.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/987513-lifting-is-the-most-horrible-thing-to-a-woman-since-twiggy

ChrisLindsay9

I think vorgas gave a lot of great information. It's worth copy/pasting and saving to look at down the road.

Personally, I think your workout is solid, especially for starting out. I did some very similar compound work when I first started exercising. I do think you should consider having some kind of chest press exercise (a machine to start and move to dumbbells maybe?). I think these are great for working multiple muscles (mostly chest, but some triceps and shoulder). You can alternate it with your pec fly work or just replace it all-together for the time being.

As you progress, you'll likely drop the adductor and abductor machines. There will be other exercises that will hit those areas just as well (if not better).

As you're building that foundation, then look at the references/resources in vorgas's comment with more consideration, and consider adopting a program with a bit more heavy compound lifting that you can do a couple days a week, and cardio the other days.

However, you proceed, your program is really good. And you should hopefully reach your fitness goals real soon. Don't forget to take pictures/measurements every so often. Once you incorporate resistance training into your fitness program, the weight scale ceases to be a reliable indicator of progress. It has some utility, but the measurements/pictures will be more helpful. Good luck!