Critique my workout please!

rainglow

I've seen lots of great advice being given out on this forum, so I've decided to finally chance my arm and ask for some of it to be sent my way

Me
25 y/o female. 60kg (in the evening!). BF 23.3%. 5' 4". Pear shaped and legs bulk up quickly. I'm not kidding - at my last progress measurement with the trainer:

bf down 1.1%, weight down 1kg, arms down 1", waist down 2", hips down 1/2" - thighs UP!!!

Goals
Short term - have weddings to attend in June, and between getting in official photos and seeing old college people, I need to look good. More specifically, my arms and upper torso are on display in my dress.

Long term - body fat reduction. Typical female areas: very top of upper arms, below bellybutton, upper thighs (disasterous area!)


Diet
I know exactly what I should be eating, but I have a serious, serious weakness for sweet food. If I'm being good, a day would look like this:

Porridge or All-Bran for brekkie, fruit mid-morning, tuna sambo on brown and veg soup for lunch, fruit and low-fat cheese mid-afternoon, very healthy dinner (lean meats, lots of veg, no creamy sauces), LF yog for dessert

(Disclaimer: this is when I'm actually behaving myself. Add chocolate etc about 40% of the time)


Exercise
Here's the workout I did this evening with reps I managed to do in each set (designed by a personal trainer, not just a random gym worker):

Bicep chins on assisted machine thingy: 10kg assistance. 15, 15, 12
Concentration curls: 1x8kg, 3 sets of 15 each arm
Triceps using rope on lat pulldown: 1kg weight. 15, 15, 12, 10
2 handed tricep overhead: 1x8kg. 15, 15, 15, 15
Shoulder press (Smith): 2x10kg. 15, 15, 10
Wide lat pulldown: 4kg. 15, 15, 12
Fly on incline: 2x10kg. 15, 15, 15
Wide squat (Smith): 2x10kg. 20, 20, 20
Leg exercises using ankle weights e.g. leg raises, circles, oyster, oyster lift, lower leg lifts.

Treadmill ( minutes @ kph):
5 @ 5.5 to warm up
3 @8, 3 @ 8.5, 3@ 9, 1 @ 10, 2@5
2 @8, 2 @ 8.5, 2@ 9, 1 @ 10, 2@5
1 @8, 1 @ 8.5, 1@ 9, 1 @ 10
5 @ 5.5 to cool down

4x20 crunches (legs bent up on ball)
2x20 side crunches on ball

This routine takes 2 hrs 15 mins, and that's with minimal queueing for equipment.


Questions!
I've been told not to do this routine 2 days in a row. Should I do cardio on the days in between? Bear in mind that I'm trying to look as good as possibly can be achieved in the next 3-4 weeks. My brother (independent of recent debates on this forum ) recommended doing 30mins HIIT on the treadmill on the in-between days.

How does the routine above look? I think it's pretty good, and I know that it's my own fault with my lack of dietary willpower that I'm not seeing the results I want. :mad:

Over to you guys- feel free to tear it asunder!

yomchi

OK.. My opinion.

You could reach your goals quicker and without the hassle of 2 hours 15 mins training. Which is a LONG time!!
Am I right in saying you want to shed a few pounds for a wedding? Does it matter if you don't look like Fatima Whitbread at the end?

What I find best works for people that want to loose the pounds is some low intensity cardio before breakfast in the morning. This approach will make your body dip into fat stores for energy hence burning off the pounds fairly quick. Try doing the cross trainer for 30 mins in the morning at a decent pace nothing crazy!
STICK to your diet it seems ok if you are being honest about it. Try cut out the chocy at least for a few weeks, this will hamper your progress obviously if you keep indulging.
Lastly, try juicing fresh fruit and veg in the morning time and having a nice juice with your breakfast. Your diet is vital to your goals.
I have found this approach to work wonders for burning fat, others here will add their own ideas so pick what suits you best.
Lastly sometimes, random gym workers know more than personal trainers. Thats a mammoth training system, you find yourself burning out fairly fast on that and find yourself loosing the drive to go training fairly soon. I would ask questions of anyone who gives concentration curls to someone looking to shed a few pounds.. but anyway thats just me.
minimum input - maximum output!

Good luck

rainglow

Thanks for the reply - so quick!

You're right in saying I'd like to shed a few pounds before the weddings. As I said, my arms are the main thing on display in the dress, which is why I've been given so much upper body work in my program. My arms are pretty lean, the PT's aim is to get them a little bit more cut looking, if you know what I mean.

It's definitely a long workout. I was planning on sticking to it every second day until the last of the June weddings and then asking the PT to split it out/ update it, as there's no way I could continue to spend that much of my life in the gym.

Re morning workouts, my gym doesn't open until 9am so the best I could do would be a brisk walk/ jog outdoors in the morning. Although along with HIIT, such starved cardio seems to spark more debate than anything on this forum!!

g'em

hey rainglow. your 'clean' diet is really good so that's not an issue and you don't need me to tell you its the chocolate that's doing you no favours But your diet is paramount to attaining your particular goal here- keep the chocolate as a once a week treat that you can look forward to and if possible, eat a really rich, 70%+ cocoa dark chocolate (Green and Blacks is one of the best, virtually angelic!!!).

2 and a quarter hours is a very long time for a workout, and if you're not feeding your body at some stage during it (with a glucose or sports drink) by teh time yu get around to doing your cardio your body will be catabolic and start breaking down muscle as oppposed to fat for energy. I used to do cardio straight after weights, but now keep them totally separate and I'm seeing much better results. Brisk walking or slow jogging in the great outdoors can be just as effective as fancy treadmills and cross-trainers!! I'm presuming your just starting out with weights and so its probably best to keep that part of the workout to alternate days, and try to do cardio on the days between, or at a different time of day to weights. Aim for 4-6 cardio sessions a week (3 of those can be fast-walking sessions).

In order to get that 'toned' look for your arms you need to shed the fat that's overlying the muscles, and the only way to do that? yes kids, you've guessed it, diet!! So as hard as it may seem when it involves chocolate, just try and give it up for the few weeks till the wedding. Honestly, after a few days it'll get a lot easier to not eat, and it'll become a treat you look forward to.

Drink lots of water and green tea, keep coffee and tea to a minimum, cut out fizzy drinks, no adding salt or sugar to anything.. the usual stuff. Oh and I'd say around 80% of women have the very same complaint about their thighs- I know I do But 5-6 cardo sessions a week, a clean, clean diet and, believe it or not, heavy squats have been working wonders for me. Don't be afraid to really work your legs hard in the gym- it was doing lower weight, higher rep work on my legs that made them bigger, not high weight, low rep. Oh and your weights program does need shaking up a little, but that can be sorted in a while once the wedding is over (Smith machines are not something to get into teh habit of using very regulalry, where's the lower back work? but its a fairly good all-rounder nonetheless).

It may help to keep a food diary to track your daily eating habits and help you figure out where your weak spots are. It wouldn't hurt too to figure out what your calorie requirements are on a daily basis and work from that- it can be easy to eat very clean but still eat too much- fundamentally, to lose weight you need to burn more cals than you use. But for best results make sure your calories are from good, nutritious sources. Use fitday.com or nutritiondata.com to help you track foods and there lots of info in teh stickies about healthy eating for weight loss

And btw, 23.3% bf is actually pretty decent for a woman- it can be more than a little dishartening to hear all the blokes round here talking about having bf in the single digits.. meh, men eh?

Transform

I agree with almost all of advice given so far - more aerobic work, brisk walk in mornings is good (45mins ideal).

Keep diet clean - drop the cheese at mid afternoon and have a handful of almonds (i.e. 6-8)

Workout is too long - i get my clients through in about 70mins

2 days weight and all other days cardio would work much better.

Use supplements i.e. multi vit, fish oils, vit c all from solgar or quest please!!

Finally 23% IS too high GEM just needs work on getting below 20%. Get it below 20% (measured with calipers preferably) and you will have better arms AND legs

g'em

Transform wrote:

Finally 23% IS too high GEM just needs work on getting below 20%. Get it below 20% (measured with calipers preferably) and you will have better arms AND legs

well, yeah it is. But I'm being a little sensitive about it- 23% isn't ideal, but it's easy to think that it's grossly lard-tastic when you see various guys posting bf of under 10% around these parts !!

nothing wrong with being a little encouraging..;)

rainglow

Wow- thanks for the detailed reply g'em (and the encouragement )

g'em wrote:

I'm presuming your just starting out with weights and so its probably best to keep that part of the workout to alternate days, and try to do cardio on the days between, or at a different time of day to weights. Aim for 4-6 cardio sessions a week (3 of those can be fast-walking sessions).

You're on the money...am definitely starting out in terms of building muscle (as opposed this being the first time I've entered the weights area). I'm going to aim for 3 weights sessions and 4 cardio sessions per week. If I'm keeping cardio seperate, how long should constitute a "session"? I actually prefer to run rather than brisk walk as I bore easily and I feel like I've done a lot more when I'm hot and sweaty

So as hard as it may seem when it involves chocolate, just try and give it up for the few weeks till the wedding. Honestly, after a few days it'll get a lot easier to not eat, and it'll become a treat you look forward to.

I'll do my best, but unfortunately I've never found it gets easier! I gave it up for 50-odd days for Lent, and towards the end I was obsessing so much I could almost taste it (yes, I have issues, I know)

where's the lower back work?

Forgot to mention 3x10 back extensions, sorry! Not the most taxing lower back routine.

It may help to keep a food diary to track your daily eating habits and help you figure out where your weak spots are. It wouldn't hurt too to figure out what your calorie requirements are on a daily basis and work from that- it can be easy to eat very clean but still eat too much

weak spots = anytime chocolate is within 15 feet of me
I'm terrified to work out my daily requirement...I'm short and not terribly heavy with a sedentary job so I can only eat something paltry like 1400cals to maintain my weight. It's extremely depressing!

And I know 23% isn't great, but I'm only about 6 weeks into taking exercise seriously so I am aiming to get it down.