In the gym

I have a very specific gym workout, which I have been following with some modifications for maybe 30 years. I had a lot of good coaching and fitness instruction when I was a young athlete, and I do pay attention to what professional Physical Therapists have told me.   My workout is a full body cardio+weight lifting circuit training in about an hour, twice a week.  Twice a week is important for several reasons, first, it gives my body time to recover from hard lifting and do some muscle building. Second, it fits easily into the rest of my life with a lot of flexibility. If I have busy days or just not feeling it, move the workout to the next day.  Third, I have learned that once a week just maintains strength but not aerobic fitness, twice a week grows strength and fitness, and three times a week grows strength faster but often leads to injury. 

I do cardio and weights in one workout for a couple of reasons. I start with a 15 minute warmup on the elliptical. This seems to give me the most bang for the time - uses all muscle groups and cranks up the heart rate. It helps core and balance and does not have impact strains on the knees and hips the way running does. Once I'm breathing hard and starting to sweat, then I start with the weight machines. I alternate different machines/exercises for arms/chest, legs, and abs.  I like to do 2 sets of 10 reps for each exercise, with just a 1 minute rest between the two sets and between machines. The goal here is to maintain (in bursts) the elevated heart rate that started on the elliptical so that the entire workout is cardio training.

I set the weights for each exercise as heavy as I can manage to complete the two sets of 10 reps. Over weeks, as it gets easier (and it will), I move the weight up by the smallest increments (usually 5 pounds).  My goal here is to avoid injury from strained muscles and not put more stress on the joints than I have to. I am not trying to do the heaviest weight that I can move, just one that leaves me really tired after the 2 sets.  My gym (I workout at the local YMCA - lots of kids and retired folks, not too many intense muscle heads) has quite a lot of machines, often several that work the same muscle groups from slightly different angles. So I can do a sets something like this: chest press,  leg lift,  abdominal crunch, arm curl, ab twist, tricep pulldown, leg curl, inclined chest press, ab leg lift.  Since I am moving around the gym a lot, if someone is using a machine that I want, I just jump to something else and get back to that one later. 

Sometimes the body just does not like a particular exercise. I hurt my shoulder a few years ago doing the military style overhead arm press. So I just dropped that one - no more heavy work overhead for the shoulders. I am also a bit afraid of the squat and leg press type lifts. My legs are really strong and I don't want to be putting 300+ pounds on my knee joints.  Age and adapt is my slogan.