Anyone familiar with gym weight machines...

I'd love to get a personal trainer, but it's just not in my budget right now.  So I need some good input on what machines/moves to do for various lifting workouts.  I'm not a stranger to the gym, and I did see a personal trainer about 2-3 years ago.  I want to do different target areas on different days for toning.

So what's good on an upper body day?

Lower body?

Core?

I don't know what all the machines are called, but my gym has a ton of them.  Plus free weights of course.

Most of the machines I have seen usually have some directions and/or pictures to show you how to use them. Also, if you ask, most gyms should have someone who can walk you through the machines - not personal training, but just getting acquainted with the machines.

They do all have pictures, and I'm fairly comfortable with how to use the different machines.  However, what I need help with is determining a plan to use the machines in order to get a complete balanced upper body, lower body, etc workout.  I guess I'm afraid that I will use let's say 5 machines and they will all only work the biceps or triceps and I will miss out on all the other muscle groups I need to be working as well!

If you haven't, sign up at Sparkpeople.com (it's free) you can set up not only a mealplan, but a workout plan also, using what you want to target.  It will set up a workout plan for you using various machines at the gym.  The machines usually also tell you what muscles they target in the pictures.  I always plan on using each of the machines that are at our gym that I can handle (leg machines can be hard on my knees).  I figure if I use each, it's going to target all the muscles.  We go to a smaller gym, so I wouldn't have any idea how many machines are at someplace like LA Fitness or 24 hr fitness.

Kat

Thanks, I'll check out Sparkpeople.  I'm registered there, but I've never really explored much of it beyond the food tracker, which I ended up not liking.

It is hard to tell you what is "good" for an upper body day without knowing where you are at with your current fitness level, how much time you can/want to spend working out per week and what your goals are. 

I am a personal trainer and can try to give you a few generic tips.

Using the machines at the gym is a good start but you might also want to consider more functional exercises that involve more than just one body part - think squats, lunges, pushups etc.   They are old tried and true exercises for a reason.  Also, then you don't have to wait for a machine if someone else is using it.

There are some good exercise routines and fitness tests on http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/workouts

Try to match up your objectives with the objective of the workout.  You can print them out and bring with you.

If you are only going to do strength training two days a week (NOT on consecutive days though), I would suggest an all-over body workout so that you hit each muscle group twice in one week. 

Ideally you want to start with a 10 minute warm up
then worout your bigger muscles first before the smaller ones
quads/hamstrings (squats, lunges, dead lifts)
chest (chest presses, chest flyes, pushups)
back (rows, pull downs)
calves (calf extensions)
biceps (bicep curls, hammer curls)
triceps (tricep dips, overhead extensions)
abs

If you plan to do strength training more than that, you might consider structuring your workouts as push days and pull days.

Push days you work the muscles in the front of your body
quads
chest
biceps
abs

Pull days the ones in the back of your body
hamstrings
back
triceps
calves

This kind of plan allows you to have a shorter workout time, and still do more than one exercise per muscle group but you would want to workout 4 times a week if you want to hit each muscle group twice.  More trips to the gym but less time there!

I've even heard of people who go to the gym three times a week and week 1 they do a push then a pull then another push workout.  Week 2 it's reversed, a pull workout, then a push then another pull.  This gives you 3 workouts per muscle in a two week period.


Hope this helps get you started!

Shelly

Thanks for the good information.  I have to sit down and read it again and process it.

I would consider myself an absolute beginner, absolutely.  I had a pretty good system going in the past a few years ago when working with a personal trainer, but that was so long ago I don't remember much.  She gave me a paper, showed me the correct form and then I came in during the week and did the workouts myself.

I haven't lifted much more than sporadically in the past 3 years, and none in the past year (with the exception of Sunday when I thought I'd try it out again).  I've lost quite a bit of muscle strength and could only "lift to failure" with very light weights.  By the last few reps I was really having to exert.  20-30 pounds on most.  I did arms and chest machines.

I "run" (I use that lightly - I'm in week 3 of the C25K program) 30 minutes three days a week.  One of those days I have an hour long yoga class right before.  So the other two days I would use for strength training.  I don't want to add more strength training to the yoga night.  I can always fit another day of strength in there, and I have a set of bands at home I could incorporate.

Perhaps my best bet would be to get a single trainer session at my gym and see what they set up for me.  Followed by single sessions every couple of months?  Until I'm more familiar with how everything works and what works best together.