Question for gym junkies

minerva_windsong

Does the gym do any 'women only' sessions that you can go to? It might be worth it if that would help you to not feel embarrassed.

I go to the gym for an hour three nights a week, which involves a five minute warm up on the bike or cross trainer, stretching, ten minutes on whichever machine I didn't use for the warm-up, some of the weight machines, ten minutes on the cross trainer, more weights, ten minute cool down jog/walk on the treadmill and stretches. I also go swimming once a week and do twenty lengths a time (ten of breaststroke and ten of front crawl, alternating between them). That said though I am a bit of a gym addict.

Definitely speak to the trainers/instructors - it's their job to help you get the benefit out of the gym! When I started I worked with a trainer who helped me set up a programme for what I wanted to achieve, and whom I saw every four to six weeks to see how it was going and add in new elements, such as spending longer on one machine or adding some more reps on the weights. Apparently after a while your body becomes used to the exercise and consequently doesn't respond in the same way, so it's important to have some variety.

Most importantly, stick with it and best of luck!

Fire_Fox

I am a qualified personal trainer: you will get far better results by doing some strength/ toning/ weights type exercises with your cardio - you need to lift heavy weights, slowly to get the best results. You won't bulk up, us ladies don't have the hormone balance for that (and I assume you won't be injecting steroids!!).

Most weights machines are NOT the best way to tone or lose weight, you should learn to do compound moves, exercises that work lots of muscle mass at the same time. So exercise such as wide stance squats (or leg press), stationary lunges, side-lying plank, knee press ups, seated row, almost anything on the Swiss ball.

Women don't tend to work hard enough to get good results - they aren't lazy, they just don't realise their physical capabilities. If you can find a really tough group exercise class - such as circuit training, Flexi-bar, Swiss ball, BodyPump - you will probably find you work a lot harder than you would on your own.