I just want to touch on this notion of workout time. The idea that anything over an hour is overtraining is a little bit silly. It kinda depends on what the time consists of. Certainly in this case over an hour may be overtraining but without knowing what someone is doing it may be they are UNDERTRAINING since a long workout for many means they are wasting a lot of time and there is not a lot of density going on. Or they are spending hours with very light weights doing what comes down to endurance work. But the time your workout takes is based on the goals of the workout.

If you constantly adhere to an arbitrry workout time based on nothing more than your EXPECTATIONS of what may happen rather than what ACTUALLY happens then that could well be comprimising your goals.

I would also recommend using free weights for lower body and only using machines to augment if at all.

But I am not necessarily disagreeing with anything said so far in the thread. Just trying to dispell this notion of arbitrary workout times based on nothing more than dogma. And it is just as likely that someone who is new could injure themselves from rushing though a workout in 'desperation mode' and thus comprimise concentration and technique. 1.5 hours is not really that long. It could perhaps be made more effecient by shortening but it's hard to say without seeing it.

People used to work out for six hours at a time if not more and some of this short workout thing is just a typical overreaction to overlong and thus uselessly un-intense workouts.

Welcome to the site :)

welcome.

here is my 2 cents. i think you still cna do some freewieghts with dumbells with your lowebody. you should be able to do lunges with dumbells, just use a small weight you can handle then work your way up. you can do some step ups on a bench with some dumbells, goodmornings, squat goodmornings, and dumbell overhead squats. you can do stuff like that and keep the weights light until you can move up just a taste. remember im not telling you to do all of that at once or stop doing what you are doing but thos eare just suggestions. those are definatly better than any machine for legs in my opinion.

also how long before your workout are you on the treadmill warming up? from what i understand you shouldnt be on there to long before hand but i could be wrong.

Hey!

Coming from a new girl, to a new girl... welcome :)

I used to do strictly machines, i was so scared that i was going to hurt myself or something using free weights but that's all i use now (with the exception of the calf machine). i find it's way better to use free weights than machines for both upper and lower

for my lower body i do lunges with dumbbells and squats, and i find that works out my legs better than a machine has

Good luck :)

you can even use free weights with calf raises to :)

really? how? lemme noe in my journal (Jessca's Journal) so i dont cause a thread-jacking :)

thanks :D

Just to get 10 posts sry T_T

Hello and welcome to the forum!!!