Intro

People often times do not have solid plans as to what they are doing in the gym. If I asked most people or by observing them, they usually piece together a half ass plan on the way to the gym. It's typical to see someone jump on a piece of cardio equipment first for  about 20 minutes. Then head over to the weights section and jump from machine to machine. Maybe throwing in some dumbbells every so often. Making this chaotic, devoid of structure workout until they have sweated enough and justify their time going to the gym. This for numerous reasons is a terrible way to structure your workout. Leaving it up to what might be open and available in the moment and getting as many exercises in an hour until you sweat and feel like you've gotten a good workout in.

Going and working out in the gym requires strategy and structure. As does becoming healthier and more fit requires structure. People don't become financially stable because of chaos and not having a plan. They do it by spending below theirs means, prioritizing certain expenses and experiences over others. Then over time earning more and more money to spend on items they enjoy more of. The same idea goes for working out and workouts. Order needs to be made. Here's how to structure your workouts from a order perspective. The order you should do cardio vs strength, warmup, cool down, etc.

What not to do

As mentioned above, the strategy you can't have is leaving it up to what you feel like doing or what equipment is open at that moment. Preparation must happen prior to driving or arriving at the gym. 5 minutes is all that is needed for this to happen as well. 5 minutes of writing down on a notepad or on your notes app what you are planning to do that day.

Compound Lifts vs Isolated Lifts

Establishing and having a strength routine requires you to have a little knowledge of different exercise types. The main distinction to know is if the exercise is a compound exercise or a isolated exercise. To know the difference you simply need to look at how many joints are being utilized. Compound exercises utilized 2 joints or more. Isolated movements utilized only one joint. Looking at some examples, goblet squats are a compound exercise. It utilizes 2 or more joints during the movement. As you begin to squat down your knees will have to bend and your hips, ankles will have to bend as well. We can conclude this exercise uses more than 2 joints and be classified as a compound movement. If you look at a bicep curl this would be categorized as a isolated movement. The only joint moving is the elbow joint. The elbow is flexing and extending as the bar or dumbbells is being moved. At the same time no other joint bends or extends.

You can use this easy test for every exercise and determine what category it belongs in. However, this is another easy clue you can use as well, it isn't quite as universal as the other rule is. The helpful hint is if an exercise lists a body part in it, then usually it is a isolated exercise. Again as an example, bicep curls. The muscle group is bicep, that is the only muscle doing any moving, hence isolated movement. Another example is calf raises. Calf raises only use one joint and it is the ankle joint to do the moving. Again that is an isolated movement. On the compound side, if you look at deadlifts, there is no muscle group being listed, it is a compound exercise. Don't use this test for every exercise like I said, there are some rules to the exception.

Can I do my Cardio in the same workout?

Another topic for conversation is doing your cardio workout and strength routine in the same workout. This question or conversation does have a lot of nuance to it. I will be speaking a little more generally here and to the broader audience or to most people I encounter in the gym. For most people and most of the time, you don't want to schedule your cardio and strength training on the same day or in the same workout. The reason behind this has to do with duration of working out and getting enough done in that gym time.

Looking at the averages and what is best for most peoples bodies. 2-3 sessions per week is plenty of dedicated gym time. Each sessions roughly coming out to an hour per session as well. This doesn't allocate us enough time to get a proper workout in for either strength or cardio. You'd be kind of half assing both. Simply there wouldn't be enough time to attack either modality with the effort, focus and intensity that should be given. So when permitted, avoid doing both on the same day.

If you are a little more advanced then the average person in the gym and have a little more experience, you can mingle in both. But the beginner you are, I recommend splitting the two up.

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