What's your gym routine?

I agree with you completely, when I first started I felt the same, and it wasn't very effective.

I start with cardio, 20 minutes.
I alternate upper body on even days, lower on uneven.
I started with the circuit machines, just going around in a circle. Now I've moved over to the free weights.
I finish with 10 minutes of walking on the treadmill.

It works for me, but you kind of have to find your own groove.

I usually do 20 mins on the stationary bike and then move to 20 mins on the treadmill. After that I do some sort of strength training for 15 mins. One day I do upper and the next lower and just go back and forth. Mainly making sure I don't do the same strength training machine two days in a row. Hope this helps.

Do yourself a huge favor and the get book "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" by Lou Schuler. It clearly lays out a work-out plan that only takes about 45 minutes to do, 3x a week. In addition you will do a little cardio (15-20 minutes of interval training). It is a full body work-out working multiple large muscle groups simultaneously.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book - it's changed my life (and is currently changing my body). It's divided into 7 stages of progressively more difficult/challenging work-outs and takes about 6 months to go through all 7 stages. I'm in my 2nd month and have already gotten amazing results.

I bought my copy on Amazon for about $10.

I take a body pump class at the gym 2 - 3 times a week. That's like an hour of killer circuit training. Then 2-4 days a week I usually swim laps for an hour. It usually ends up:
M: Body Pump
T: Swim
W: Body Pump
Th: Swim
Fri: Swim
Saturday: Walking plus weights or swimming.
If you can afford it, have a trainer show you a good workout you can vary. When I do weights it's usually an hour of chest and arms, or legs and back, followed by 30 minutes on the elliptical.

How has Body Pump been working for you? My gym offers it but I've never been!

Subbing. I joined a gym today so my boys could take swim lessons there. I hope they'll stay in childcare sometimes so I can use the gym, too!

How many days a week can you train, and for how long each time?

This will ultimately have more of an impact on what routine to follow than anything else.

I would argue at first it is more important to get the different workouts down, so maybe don't worry about splits and different mixes, but more about getting the exercises correct Once you have that you can then start to look at designing a plan that will suit you.

lol I used to be that girl who goes on the treadmill day after day and try those weight machines then get bored.... then after a couple days i never see results... and then i quit! LOL because going to the free weight room is intimidating! with all those guys.... eh. Or that one really really fit girl... who has washboard abs and talks to everyone... haha anyhow

But then I got a body for life book, then i read the Jilian Michaels book. And the trick is to pretty much memorize the free weight exercises in your head or... you can be like me and look like a newbie and bring a book or some exercise print outs with u.....

But anyhow once you get in a routine you will pretty much be a weight lifting genius! LOL. Sometimes my girlfriends would laugh while i try and show them an exercise move... newbs... then all the guys and gals would be looking us....

But what I do is keep it simple. This is my routine.

Monday: Is an optional 5 min warmup/ followed by high intensity cardio of 20 min. Which can be anything from the treadmill, eliptical/ or stairmaster.

So during the 20 min cardio session I do interval training which is bringing the intensity from about a 4-5 for 1 min then to a 7-8 for 2 min. so by the time it's coming to an end the high's should be around an 8-9... then i would slow down and get ur heart rate down. Yep works like a charm if you hate cardio as much as i do cause after 20 minutes i get unmotivated! and feel like a hamster...


Then you can either choose to work one body group at a time. Ex: the upper body one day, then the next lower body.
Sometimes i like to get both out of the way if i;m unable to weight lift in the next couple days.
because your body needs at least 24 hours to recover the muscle tissue that has been torn.


so to keep it simple here's the rest

Tuesday: Cardio

Wednesday: Lower Body

Thursday: Cardio

Friday :Upper Body

Sat: Cardio

Sun: REST DAY!


But anyhow there's like a million different ways people have their workouts scheduled it just depends on u.

But when weight lifting I love Circuit Training! Which would be alternating from upper to lower body. So that i don't have to sit around waiting as long ...

Anyhow a REP is the # of REP's in your SET. lol And depending on the person people have different amount of REP's in their SET.

so to keep this simple.... cause i'm probably confusing u.... this is what i did a couple days ago... btw i do interval training too when weight lifting

BICEP CURLS:
SET 1: 10 REP's of 8 POUNDS

SET 2: 8 REP's of 10 POUNDS

SET 3: 6 REP's of 15 POUNDS

SET 4: 8 REP's of 10 POUNDS

SET 5: 10 REP's of 8 POUNDS

Then back to lower body:

DUMBELL SQUATS:

As u can see above set 3, is the highest amount of weight you can do then you gradually go down again.

Then i'd do chest:
Then Calves...

so i go back an forth. it's more fun for me cause i'm always moving ! I would also just google exercise moves or youtube is cool

hmmm... hope that helps..