[michellejy]

I have a Smith machine. I know lots of people hate them, but since I am generally by myself when lifting weights, it keeps me from worrying about hurting myself. I got out of the habit of lifting weights at all, and I want to start again. When I've been looking through these threads, I start thinking everything I did before was wrong. I was doing 3 reps of 12 every other day and increasing the weight slightly with each set of reps. I did bench presses, the "pec deck", lat pull downs, bicep curls, tricep curls, and seated rows. I wasn't doing any leg exercises because I was concentrating on getting a bit of upper body strength.

If I am understanding correctly, I should only be working my muscles once a week rather than every other day. Can anyone advise me on what exercises I can do using a Smith machine and how often each week I should repeat them? Should I be increasing the weight with each set of reps like I was doing previously, or should I use the same amount of weight for each set and work to failure? Do you do cardio, stretching, or anything similar to warm up your muscles prior to lifting?

[funniegrrl]

You weren't doing ANYTHING wrong. You can certainly work a muscle group more than once per week as long as you have at least 48-hours rest, and your method of increasing the weight in each set is valid. So is using the same weight, as is using heavier weights to start and decreasing with each set. There are only about a billion different configurations. If you want info on all the different splits, etc. check out www.stumptuous.com/weights.html and www.exrx.net -- they have lots of research-backed methods and templates. The important thing actually is to change up your routine periodically; you don't want to do the same configuration all the time.

[dmb1031]

Usually when you have not lifted for awhile you want to start off doing more than one body part per week, ideally it can be full body M,W,F or splits of upper and lower body with 48 hrs rest between each part. I used the Smith for alot of lower body exercises, like lunges, squats, Good mornings etc... Do you have a trainer at the gym who can show you what it can be utilized for? You really don't want to ignore your lower body but you can do lower weights and hi reps to balance it.

Diane

[michellejy]

funniegrrl- Thank you for the links. It helps me to have a better understanding of which muscle groups I'm using with different workouts. Some are, of course, obvious, but some feel like they use so many muscles that it's difficult to figure out which is the main muscle being targeted.

Diane- A couple of the big reasons I tend to neglect my lower body are because almost all of the cardio workouts I do focus mainly on my lower body and because I have knee problems that get a lot worse when I do weight training with my legs. Unfortunately, I don't have a gym membership- just a Smith machine my husband bought that is taking up a lot of room in my basement and is only going to continue to collect dust if I don't use it

[dmb1031]

Michelle,

I know what you mean about knee injurys, I blew mine out as I was getting certified to teach Step aerobics years ago and it still bothers me. I google smith machine workouts and see what comes up. And good for you on the cardio, I am just getting back into it again