What's your gym routine?
 

I've been out of the gym for a few weeks now and am going to start back again tonight. My question is: What is your gym routine?

Sometimes I feel like when I go, I'm just doing it wrong. You know, some days you're supposed to focus on cardio, other days more on strength training. For me, I seem to mash it all together.

My normal routine is 30 minutes on the Elliptical, about 20 minutes using various strength training machines, the maybe 30 minutes on the treadmill.

Should I be mixing it up? Maybe focus solely on cardio one day and strength training the next? I never really understood how I should be doing this.

Thoughts? :)

My routine is:

On my days with my personal trainer (3 days per week):
10min cardio warm up on either treadmill or elyptical
30-40mins of circuit/weight training
10mins of floor excercises (crunches, leg rainses, squats etc)
10mins of cardio interval on treadmil
10mins of cool down
stretches

2-3 days per week:
1 hour of cardio

My trainer told me that cardio is important everyday while weight and strength training should be done 3 times per week or every other day.

I am still new to the above routines so I am quite sore still but I am pushing through because I know it will get better and easier.

That's fantastic question, as I try to mix it up & not do the same thing everyday.

I always get my cardio in everyday. I do a hour of cardio (tredmill or elliptical) every other day, or a half hour of cardio with stength training/floor training on the odd days. I also have a great kickboxing class that I go to once or twice a week (which has cardio & weight training/floor exercises everytime).

It seems to be working for me so far. I think my weight training it lacking, though, and will probably seek the help of a personal trainer to help me set up a circuit for my strength training.

I do weight training 4 days a week, I sometimes add light cardio in the evenings on those days as well such as walking on the threadmill or elliptical while reading a book.
Then I do 1-2 days of high intensity cardio for 20-30 minutes. One day I do a zumba class which I consider high intensity cardio and that's for 1 hour and on that day I do an ab workout beforehand.

I lift heavy 3 days a week. I usually take my time and hang out for an hour or two. On alternate days I read on the recumbent bike, for an hour, with high resistance.

I hate cardio and it wasn't giving me the results I wanted. Weight lifting, for the win!

I was doing a lifting routine that consisted of back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs, and abs/shoulders. Then I got bored with that. So now I do 3 days of a really hard whole body circuit, and do cardio and abs on the days in between. I usually only do one day where my cardio exceeds 30 minutes. My weight lifting is done at such a fast pace and for so long that my heart rate is elevated- I count it as cardio. When I do cardio on abs days it is usually only 20 or 30 minutes of HIIT on various machines. Of course, I did a class with a friend on Friday, sort of like insanity combined with boot camp- I cannot lift my arms now. I think I'm gonna stick with my routine until I'm not so much of a wuss.

Right now I only do 30 minutes on the elliptical and 30 on the treadmill. Sometimes I will do 45 minutes of the treadmill and gradually increase the incline until I get to 12, then do 15 minutes of the elliptical. I don't do weights right now, not until I get down to a certain weight.

Wow - thank you all so much for the replies! I think I'm going to alternate my days and dedicate one day to cardio and the next day to strength training. I definitely was seeing results when I was doing more strength training than cardio. :)

Up until recently I was alternating days of cardio/weights - so I would do 3 days of running 4 - 8 miles [35 - 75 minutes], 2 days of lifting [45-60 minutes] & 1 day of kick-boxing [60 minutes].

I've recently increased it - I'm also now biking on the days I'm lifting & lifting on the day I'm kickboxing as well.

I'm lazy and my longest workouts are an hour, unless I go on a 12 mile mountain hike or the like (which I am totally in shape enough to do - praise the powers that be!).

~3-4 sets of 6-10 reps of DB bent over rows, bench press machine (which is BS but I still like it), barbell curls, lat pulldown - 2 days/week
~Treadmill, elliptical (HIIT sprint program is decent), stair stepper, rowing machine for however long I can stand
~Running outside on non-gym days on the bike path or through cemeteries - average 25-40 minutes a go
~Pushups
~Squats with dumbbells and kettlebells, kettlebell swings/windmills/passes

Weekday mornings, I try to do 20 minutes on my mini-stepper and then 20 minutes of my physical therapy exercises and stretches.

Weekend mornings, I walk 5 miles (weather permitting).

3 nights a week, I ride my recumbent bike for 20 minutes and then do 60 minutes of weight training.

The other nights, I do 20 minutes of HIIT on the bike and 20 minutes of rowing, or 40 minutes on the bike.

Sunday afternoons, I nap!