Okay, so it’s your designated time to go to the gym and work out. How are you going to spend your time?

What is the short term and long term goal you are trying to accomplish?

Lose weight? Get stronger? Get faster? Get in better condition for a sport? Overall Health? Flexibility?

If you arrive at the gym and find that you don’t know what your short and long term goals are, then stop and go home. Don’t come back until you know.

The movements you choose in the weight room should serve to accomplish YOUR goals.

If you do know what you’re trying to accomplish, then you need to ask yourself at every exercise station the following three questions:

1. Is this exercise directly bringing me closer to my goals?
2. Is this exercise indirectly bringing me closer to my goals by improving an inefficiency or serving as a progression to a movement that would bring me closer to my goals?
3. Is there an exercise other than this one that would be a better use of my time?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions or if you have not even thought about them, you really need to. I see FAR too many people (of all ages) in the weight room that look like they’re there just so they can tell their friends that they worked out.

• Why are you choosing the leg extension if you’re 80 pounds overweight?
• Why are you doing 7 sets of Smith Machine inclines presses?
• Why are you spending 3/4 of your time doing ab exercises on the stability ball?
• Why are you balancing on a Bosu ball?

I guarantee if I went up to some of these people and asked them why exactly they chose that particular exercise, they couldn’t tell me the answer. And if they did, I bet they couldn’t justify their answer with anything that makes any sense with regard to training.

Your time is valuable–why wouldn’t this include the time you spend in the weight room. Everything you do should be bringing you closer to your goals–otherwise it’s a waste of time.

Wouldn’t you agree?

You really have to look at whether what you’re doing is in line with your goals and if it’s actually working.

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble but in most cases:

7 sets of Smith Machine incline presses is NOT the best way to increase upper body strength and get huge.

Walking on the treadmill for long periods of time or using a leg machine is NOT the best way to lose weight.

Spending excess time in the ab station is NOT going to melt away your belly fat.

Balancing on the Bosu ball is only going to teach you how to balance on a Bosu ball. Are you planning on joining the circus?

Do yourself a favor and start BEING AWARE of everything you’re doing. Find out if there’s a better way–your time is valuable and there could (and probably is) a more efficient and SAFE use of your time.

Find it and DO IT.

(HINT: It may be something that’s actually hard to do and that you’re not particularly good at.)

Technorati Tags: exercise selection, goal-setting, Program Design, training-philosophy

I’ve heard that lifting weights helps you burn more calories if you lift weights before cardio and would like some insight on this.

Answer:

This is a good question, and there is not really a definite answer either way–it depends on your preference.

But, I will give you an answer anyway.

It doesn’t make sense that doing one before the other will burn more Calories, assuming you’re doing the same amount of work.

However, this doesn’t mean that your order doesn’t matter..

It’s true that you’ll see the greatest improvement in the activities you perform first in the session and the least in the activities you perform last.

Now judging by your question, it sounds like your primary goal is fat loss. Your other goals are likely to increase your strength and improve your cardiovascular fitness.

So..

Pick which one is more important to you (getting a stronger body or a stronger heart) and perform that one first.

Yes, that’s the answer–not really rocket science, huh?

It just makes sense that the first activity you perform will be when you’re fresh and will be able to give 100%–thus you’ll see the most improvements.

If you wanted to take this principle a little bit further…

You can break it down to individual strength exercises–putting the area you want to improve most first or toward the beginning of the program.

Also, if you’re doing a split routine, put the body parts you want to improve most at the beginning of your training week. So if you wanted to improve leg strength, do legs on Monday rather than Friday.

If you REALLY can’t decide which is more important to you, aerobic capacity or strength, don’t be afraid to experiment.

Try doing your cardio first one day–then switch it around on the next day. See which one you LIKE better.

Simple huh?

You never know–you may like both and decide to switch it up regularly to keep your program from getting boring. Aren’t options great?

Ultimately, the most important thing if you’re relatively new to exercise is trying to pick an order you can enjoy and will keep you coming back to the gym–but if you’re looking for an objective reason for picking one order over another, just do the one you want to improve the most first.

I hope this helps!

And be sure to check out the audio below.

Technorati Tags: calories, cardio, exercise order, Performance, Program Design, strength training