Gym advice needed

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docsharon
docsharon Posts: 55 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi. I started going back to the gym on a fairly regular basis in September of this year. Although I'm happy that my cardio endurance has increased, I have only been able to increase the weights slightly on some of the machines that I use and on some machines like leg extensions and leg curls I have not been able to increase the weights at all without tremendous fatigue and burning in my muscles. Any advice for me? I would have thought that I would have made more gains than I have.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,178 Member
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    Are you allowing at least one day (two sleeps) between weight workouts for the same muscle groups? Getting enough protein and generally good nutrition?

    When you go to the gym, do you do cardio first, then weight machines, or vice-versa? If cardio before weights, what specific activity is that cardio?
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    What type of program are you running? Lots of ideas in this thread

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you

    Best advice is pick a program and stick to it. If it's a weight day, then do weights first and save cardio for after. Don't over do it and make sure you have rest days.
  • docsharon
    docsharon Posts: 55 Member
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    Thank you all for the good advice. I have been doing cardio first as I feel I need to do a warm up before I use the weight machines. I have been walking on the treadmill on an incline or using an elliptical machine on an aerobic program for about 35 minutes before going on the machines. I eat well, and do wait one day between weight workouts but sleep has been a problem for years. I wake up about every 2-3 hours, but I can get back to sleep. I hoped that exercise would help that but it only gets me to bed earlier.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,178 Member
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    docsharon wrote: »
    Thank you all for the good advice. I have been doing cardio first as I feel I need to do a warm up before I use the weight machines. I have been walking on the treadmill on an incline or using an elliptical machine on an aerobic program for about 35 minutes before going on the machines. I eat well, and do wait one day between weight workouts but sleep has been a problem for years. I wake up about every 2-3 hours, but I can get back to sleep. I hoped that exercise would help that but it only gets me to bed earlier.

    For a while, it might be worth trying an easy cardio warm up (literally 5ish minutes should do it), then the weight machines, then your "real" cardio, if that schedule's not materially less fun for you. If you want to see more strength gains from the weight-machine work, then it might help to give it priority by giving it fresh muscles rather than pre-tired ones.
  • CowboySar
    CowboySar Posts: 404 Member
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    Just a thought when on the machines or if using free weights start light and make sure you are doing some warm up sets first to get the blood flowing to the muscles before you start your working sets.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    Leg extensions and leg curls are isolation exercises, meaning that they use one muscle group. Compound exercises are generally quicker to increase in strength (at least when you first start out) because they use multiple muscle groups. My guess is that the exercises that you've seen more increases in are compound exercises. Be patient with the isolations and it will happen. It might also be useful to have wider rep ranges for them rather than using the same rep ranges as for your compounds. For example, if you're using 8-10 reps for your compounds you might use 8-15 for isolations.

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