Fitness

Lately, I've been doing an upper / lower body split. The lower body takes about 20 minutes, the upper body 20-25. The recommendation is to lift weights for an hour per session -- how do y'all lift weights for an hour at a time?

Here's the routine I've been doing most recently:

Lower Body

Deadlifts, up to 30lbx2 dumbbells - 3 sets
Squats - bodyweight and bar - 3 sets
Walking Lunges - 20 (all I can do with decent form)

Upper body
Pushups - 2 sets (max per set is 10, I'll move up to bench presses when I can do 3x10 pushups)
Pullups, chinups, dips (2 sets each, using the most I can do 5+ on the assist machine)
Shoulder press dumbbells - 2 sets
Seated row machine - 2 sets
Upright row dumbbells, 2 sets

I don't do isolation exercises (bicep, tricep), and I don't do standalone abs, since they are presumably covered by the squats and deadlifts. I'm lifting the heaviest weight I can do 5 or more of. I could presumably add a third set to the upper body at a lighter weight, either as a warmup or finish. Although I'm fighting boredom at the end of the workout as is.

Do I need to add more weightlifting to extend a workout to an hour? If so, how?

bah, I have never heard that recommendation.  I do a upper/lower split exercise too and it only takes me about 20-25 min per session.  After weights I will usually hop on the treadmill or elliptical for another 20 min or so.  That way I get about 45min of exercise all together.

I recently reintroduce isolation exercises back in to my routine but that is because I need to switch up my workout and work on specific areas I want to improve.  My fitness levels are finally to a point where I feel comfortable doing this.

My back day is short.  ussualy about 30 min. I do about  four or five different free weight and cable pull downs and rows. 

My other dyas are the biggies for me at nearly 2 hours.  First I target the chest with the bench, then flys, then some cable exercises to target different areas of the pec.  Next I do my shoulders with some shrugs and usually one or two more deltoid exercises.  Then I do a couple for bis and three or four for tris.  I try to do forearms nightly. 

I have not been working my legs too much lately because my knees have been acting up :(

oh i am now anxiously awaiting melkors take on this one. my two upper body days are short (20 minutes) - my leg day is long (45 or more).

how long of rests do you take between sets? are people factoring this in to make a 20 minute workout an hour long? i know i take few rests on leg days, and the workout itself is truly 45 minutes or more. i find i have to cut myself short so i don't blow a gasket so to speak... arms are the opposite. boring, painful and i am glad it's over when it's over. back is middle of the road... i could spend longer, but am not bored or going gang-busters.

i suppose you could shake up your routine by adding more-fun moves - like trade up squats for sumo squats, and DL's for goodmornings~ or try some super-sets to omit rest periods and see if that helps time pass.

For rests, I use heart rate as a guide informally.  I haven't been measuring time or beats, I just wait til my heart rate feels like it's gone down.

spooky, what does a one hour leg workout look like?

10 minute warm up treadmill

3x10 squats; 3x10 DL's; 3x10 goodmornings (or something like that, or just squats, and DL's in the next round. it depends. further, the amout of reps decrease as failure sets in)

3x10 woodchops (new!) 10 lb medicine ball.

3x10 squats; 3x10 DL's; 3x10 goodmornings (or until near failure)

4x10 static lunges - 20 lbs in each hand

hamstring curls and the other leg machine 4x8 super-set style

adduction machine increasing weight/decresing reps until i have maxed the machine out at 250 lbs :) - then i chill on the rowing machine and look longingly over at the squat cage for 20 minutes or until i make myself stop.

p.s. this is allllll due to my being anti-social and having no spotter right. i bet if i was using closer to 80 % of my 1RM it would be less :)

One hour is the maximum, not the minimum.  I have days where the strength program is 20 minutes - total. The idea isn't to beat your body into submission, the idea is to do enough work to have a training response :)

 As long as you're doing the "Big 6" - squats, deadlifts, bench, rows,  overhead press and chinups on a sensible schedule you can keep each session to 20-40 minutes at a time. If you've got specific physique goals and you're doing isolation and single limb work as well, or metabolic circuits you can spend about an hour in the gym total, but to take my current program as an example, the strength portion is done with in 15 minutes or less, the metabolic portion takes about 20 minutes, and then there's a finisher lasting 4-15 minutes depending on what I rolled that day. 40-50 minutes total, but out of that, the strength portion is just supersetting two of the big 6 each day.

 Two hours of chest workout is just silly - a good bench workout for chest doesn't take that long!

it depends a lot on your goals and your program.  right now, i'm doing a strength gaining program:  high high weight, low low reps (3), high number of sets (10-11).  i rest for about a half hour between sets (or that's what it feels like anyway).  so if i do 2 lifts, that takes an hour, and i literally have to time it (bec otherwise it would take longer) (like today i did back squat and military press).  but alevin, like if you did 5 sets instead of 3 of each exercise, you can see how that would take longer.

My main fitness goal is to do two more triathlons this summer/fall.

The weightlifting goal is to maintain muscle while running somewhat of a calorie deficit -- I'm experimenting with the right level of deficit compatible with the tri goal. 

A second strength goal is to be able to do an unassisted pullup by the new year. I've been gradually decreasing the assist for months.

After tri season I'll do more weightlifting with a fat loss primary goal, but that's not the primary goal right now.

So, given these goals, is there any reason why I *should* be lifting weights for longer per session?

Updated to ask: what is a metabolic circuit? Update: aha, another term for weight circuit training. I surely don't need to add that this season on top of running and swimming intervals, plus cycling hills.

Yup - I would just stick to the basics for maintenance at this point.  You could use the strength portion from The strong and ripped program for your basic lifting template; or the movement selection from Sean10mm's "stripped" 5x5 routine for one with a slightly higher work density.

 And I agree, you don't need to do additional conditioning work on top of all your other activities. You've already got a prioritized list of individual goals, and right now you should focus on doing the bare minimum of strength training for maintenance, so your body will use most of your adaptive capacity to increase your tri-related fitness. (Yes, this is me saying that lifting shouldn't be high on your list right now)

 You might also look at a bare-minimum program like Tony's Two-Day Workout - and drop the metabolic day in favour of more hill repeats. Lifting once a week is juuust a little less than you need to maintain though - I'd presonally either use Sean10mm's A/B split or just the strength portion from "strong and ripped"

Thanks so much! I was wondering how to refresh the current program, and these links have some great ideas.  I might hire a trainer to help with form on some of the new exercises.

I've got a question about the pullups -- will make a new thread for it :-)