Will this gym routine do anything?

[Sparkles100000]

Hi,

I started going to the gym 4 weeks ago and I go 3-4 times a week.

My routine is as follows,

3 x 10 leg press
3 x 8 leg extension
3 x 8 leg curl
3 x 8 hip abductor
20 mins on cross trainer
10 mins on rower

I will up cross trainer and rower times as I get better/fitter.

I have recently lost 3st and want to focus on building muscle particularly in my legs and glutes.

Will this routine do that over time or am I not doing enough? I lift as heavy as I can on the machines and will keep going higher as I am able to do so.

Any advice welcome. I feel quite embarrassed at the gym and the machines I use are the only ones I know what to do on and feel comfortable enough using.

Are you doing anything for your arms/shoulders/back, or is it all legs?

It will but I’d do a routine that’s for your upper body too, not just this.
I’d add in some squats too, with weights.

I’d add in upper body/more core work. 10 mins on rower won’t really give you enough there.

Personally I like to split focus on areas instead of trying to do full body every time, so one day I might do cardio and upper body push, the next time cardio and lower body, back to cardio and upper body pull, add in some core stuff, etc. That will give your muscle groups a proper rest too which is important. If you try to do it all every time in a short time period, you end up not doing anything that well IMO.

If you get some dumbbells you can do very good strength training at home, you don’t need the machines. Obviously if you need the motivation of going to the gym to work out that’s fine, but if you are feeling uncomfortable and limited to a small number of machines, then there’s plenty of home workout stuff incorporating weights that you’ll see results on.

Are there any PTs or intro to free weights classes? There are things you can do rather than just increasing weights such as slowing the movement down, holds, drop sets and single leg.

Echoing upper body. It’s also important to change routines every 2-3 months for progression.

With the rower it doesn’t just have to be straight 20 mins every time. You can set it up for intervals like 100m power, 100m slow/recover and repeat.

Does your gym offer a free intro session, or could you afford a few sessions with one of its personal trainers so they could design a workout plan for you?

As others have said that’s great for your legs but doesn’t do much for your arms or your core.

Do you up the weights?

it’s very samey and you are missing out on other good exercises, squats (loads of different kinds) lunges, bridges etc.

why no upper body? And core is really important for stability too.

Its a decent lower body routine, but I wouldn't necessarily work the same muscle group 3-4x a week. You'll get plenty results doing it twice, especially if you go to maybe 12 reps or til failure, upping the weight once you can consistently do 12 at the weight you're doing.
Since you're losing weight you could add an upper body day in place of one of those leg days. If you don't want to build your upper body so to speak, that's fine but it'll still help stop you losing muscle tone in your upper body while you lose weight

Well I guess it will do something as long as you keep increasing the weights when it gets easy (progressive overload) but it is odd to do all lower body and no upper body and being restricted to a few machines is a lot less fun and less flexible than being able to do basic moves with free weights IMHO

I would highly recommend a few sessions with a PT to show you good form and out together a full body routine for you

There are better exercises for building glutes too. You want squats and hip thrusts for that. Just some body weight glute bridges would be good to start and you can add a dumbbell or sandbag when that gets too easy

What are you aiming at with this routine? It's not clear to me. What results are you looking for? Losing weight is a matter of calorie deficit. Looking "toned" s a matter of building muscle and losing fat (google "body recomposition" or "body recomp")

Your moves seem quite limited & not all-body. All body or compound lifts, are really good for building all over strength and muscle.

So, for example, why leg extensions and adduction work, and not squats? If you don't want to use free weights/bar bells, you can use dumbbells or kettlebells, or the leg press machine. Squats will hit all major lower body muscle groups and your core, as you brace to take the weight.

Then, as PPs have said, there's no upper body work there. No work on the posterior chain - all the muscles along your whole back body: hamstrings, back, shoulders. Deadlifts will hit that - if you don't want to use a bar bell, you can do dumbbell RDLs or Good mornings.

Then try overhead press, or bench press exercises. A squat thruster with dumbbells will hit the whole body & give you shoulder, arm, and upper body strength.

There's a reason that classic strength training uses the SBD - squat, bench press, deadlift - those 3 exercises, plus some accessories if you want, will give you all body strength training.

And as PPs have said, progressive overload! Most people don't train as hard as they could in terms of heavy weights. Eventually, you should get so that the last rep in any set is really hard, and you maybe only gave one or two reps in reserve after that. So instead of doing 3 sets of 10 leg extensions, what would happen if you started at your usual weight for 8 reps, then rested for 2 minutes, put the weight up a block for 6 reps, rest again, then put another block up on the machine for 4 reps? If you're not huffing for breath at the end of those 4 reps, you can do more! Either more weight for 3 reps, or another set at the same weight for 4 reps.