Before you hit the gym, map out your weight routine in advance. Coming up with a fitness plan for a weight routine can help you stay focused and on-track during your workout. In many cases, gyms provide you with workout cards so you can track the exercises you perform, the number of sets and repetitions you complete, and the amount of weight you lift for every exercise. Consult your physician before beginning any exercise regimen.
Types
Choose from a variety of types of fitness plans using weight machines. When strength training, you can focus on muscular strength or muscular endurance, or formulate fitness plans that give you a cardiovascular workout in addition to a strength training routine. Typically, fitness plans using weight machines fall into one of the following categories:
Circuit routines allow you to move quickly from one exercise to another with little rest. While you lift weights, you also increase your heart rate, and because you don't stop to rest long between sets, your heart rate remains elevated throughout the routine. This type of plan increases muscular strength, endurance and cardiovascular fitness.
Muscular strength routines typically include fewer repetitions and more sets. While performing this type of routine, you work your muscle groups to exhaustion, lifting as much weight as you can based on the number of repetitions you're performing.
Muscular endurance routines typically include lighter weight and a greater number of repetitions. You still work your muscle groups to exhaustion, but you may perform 20 repetitions using 10-pound dumbbells instead of performing 10 repetitions with 20-pound dumbbells.
Time Frame
Plan on spending roughly 20 to 60 minutes for your strength training fitness plan. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that adults strength-train at least two days a week, performing eight to 10 exercises during each routine. When using weight machines, if you perform even one or two sets of each exercise, allowing 30 to 60 seconds of rest between sets, your fitness routine will take at least 20 minutes.
Benefits
A regular weight machine fitness plan increases your muscular strength and endurance as well as providing other benefits. According to the American Council on Exercise, strength training increases the strength of your bones, muscles and connective tissue; helps prevent injuries; maintains or increases muscle mass; helps you maintain your weight as you age, and enhances your daily life by making it easier to perform activities like carrying groceries and walking up stairs.
Features
Features of weight machines vary by manufacturer and whether they're designed for commercial or home use. Most fitness centers offer a number of pin-select weight machines in addition to free-weight machines. The pin-select machines provide padded seats and back rests, detailed instructions and an easy method of varying the resistance level. These machines guide you through the motion, helping support proper form. Free-weight machines often require you to load weight onto the machine with plates, but they allow you to work each side of your body independently, changing the range of motion of the exercise as you see fit.
Considerations
To get the most out of your weight equipment fitness plan, consistency is key. Perform a whole-body workout two times a week, on non-consecutive days, or perform strength-training routines more often, splitting the routine up by body part. For instance, you could perform upper body exercises like the lat pull-down, chest press, biceps curl, triceps extension and shoulder press on Mondays and Thursdays. Then, you might perform lower body exercises like squat, leg press, leg extension, leg curl, leg abduction and leg adduction on Tuesdays and Fridays. This allows you sufficient time to rest between workouts while cutting down on the total amount of time it takes to perform the two workouts.
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