Lost in the Technogym

April 21, 2012 4:53 PM

Help me design a strength-training workout with this Technogym equipment.

My gym recently replaced a bunch of Paramount weight machines with Technogym equipment. I feel pretty lost because I've been away from the gym for a while and the Technogym stuff feels very different from the Paramount machines. Can you offer some suggestions about how to organize my workouts? My goals are to put on some muscle and trim some of my fat (I think I qualify as "skinnyfat").

Here's what they have:

Technogym equipment
Vertical traction
Chest press
Pulley
Pectoral
Dual adjustable pulley
Lower back
Shoulder press
Low row
Abdominal crunch
Arm curl
Arm extension
Leg curl
Leg extension
Leg press

Paramount equipment
Hip abductor
Hip adductor
Lat pulldown

(I am planning to move into free weights sometime soon, but I would like to ease back into weight training on this Technogym stuff.)

posted by jayder to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Best answer: As a fellow "Skinny Fat" guy, please do remember that you got that way predominantly due to your diet. When it comes to leading a healthy life and getting fit, I divide it up thusly:
80% diet, 10% exercise and 10% stress management.

I would recommend that you try out each of the machines. It looks like they have an abundance of upper body and only three lower body. For upper, I'd start out with Chest Press, Shoulder Press and Lat Pulldown. For lower, I'd go with all three Leg machines above. Hit all six on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays? Go for a nice long, brisk walk. Weekends? REST.

Eat SUPER CLEAN. Avoid sugar. Watch your sodium. Drink lots of water.

After a month of this, revisit.
posted by THAT William Mize at 5:00 PM on April 21, 2012

Response by poster: THAT William Mize -- I've revamped my diet lately to cut out all of the bad stuff; in fact, that's inspired me to get back to the gym to complement the clean eating. Thanks for the recommendations!
posted by jayder at 5:07 PM on April 21, 2012

Best answer: I'd just do a classic push, pull, legs split.

It'll look something like this:
Monday: Push (Think, chest, shoulders, triceps)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: Pull (Think back and biceps)
Thursday: off
Friday: Legs (Hit your quads, hamstrings, calves, abs)
Saturday: off
Sunday: off

You could also skip all the machines. Then you won't ever have to worry about anything other than having a barbell. I like Wendler's 5\3\1 program. You'd basically be doing something like this for a 4x a week:

Monday: Squat
Tuesday: Bench Press
Thursday: Deadlift
Friday: Press

...and add in assistance stuff like pullups, pushups, rows, whatever the hell you want as long as you do all the big lifts as described in book.
posted by zephyr_words at 6:14 PM on April 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Seconding the barbell workout. Squats are like 5 of those machines at once!
posted by gemini at 3:16 AM on April 22, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks for all these answers. I appreciate the advice.
posted by jayder at 8:43 PM on April 24, 2012