I have been doing 1 to 1.5 hours of HIIT cardio 5x a week on my mountain bike for a few months now. Lost some weight and body fat. Problem is I had no resistance for upper body so I was getting nerd arms.
Joined a Gym last month and started to get going. I have played around with a few routines and am now at one I think will be ok. Let me know what you think.
Monday - Upper body day






15 minutes HIIT on the elliptical






I hit all the upper body machines at the gym. I don't know what they are called. Basically I load up enough weight that when I get to 10 reps , I am struggling on the last one. I do about 4 sets at each machine like that. My muscles are shaking at the end of all the workouts. Some days I can add more.






15-20 minutes HIIT on elliptical then go home
I do plenty of stretching and recovery
Tuesday - Lower Body + Core






15 minutes HIIT on the elliptical






All the lower body leg machines, same method as upper body workout above






AB Ripper X






20 minutes HIIT on elliptical then go home
Wednesday. 1.5 - 2 hours hard mountain biking + Pilates with Step Daughter (no one else will workout with her on that)
Thursday same as Monday






Friday Same as Wednesday
Sat and Sun pretty much just eating lower carbs (around 150 grams tops) and keeping the calories in decent levels.






(I do a lot of traveling to see my kids on the weekends so its hard to get anything done)





Since I do this so early in the AM (5AM), I have time to go to the gym again later after dinner. Should I refrain from that? If not, what should I be doing? I am afraid to much cardio will take from the resistance and not build up the lean muscle. Can I do the strength training again or is it too late and its now in recovery mode?
 

HIIT on an elliptical? I'm not a fan of elliptcals personally. Try HIIT with moderate weights or body weight exercises.



Ditch the machines as well and go to the free weights, specifically squats (all variations) deadlifts, cleans, bench etc...

Cant do free weights as they are crowded as hell all the time unfortunately. Are machines really that bad? I am not looking to get big. Most body builders look too thick IMHO and heavy. I would rather be lean but cut somewhat. Hard to explain I guess.
 

Oh the reason I picked Wednesday as a riding cardio day is because Mondays Upper body workout doest really hit me till late Tuesday and half of Wednesday.

What do you mean by "all" the upper and lower body machines? At the gym I go to that would probably mean around 28 sets for legs and possible over 36 for the upper body if somebody did all the machines. So knowing more precisely what your doing would be helpful. You might be over training or doing exercises that are redundant but more info is needed to give a good answer.  

Machines are not "bad" its just that free weight work more muscle groups in an exercise. Leg extensions basically hit your quads and that's it. Squats hit your quads, gluts, and hamstrings, your calfs as a secondary group and your lower back and abs as stabilizing muscles. Machines have their place but if your able to use free weights you'll do more faster.

Trust me, bodybuilders are not big and thick because of free weights. I've seen them use machines a lot too, but that's besides the point. They eat tons of food. And eating enough "clean" healthy food to keep your calorie intake up sucks. They watch how much they sleep, they don't do things that will hurt muscle recovery, they have great genetics, they spend money on supplements. Some, not all, may do steroids. Being body builder big isn't a lifestyle, its more like a job. So don't worry about getting too big or thick.

And since no one else has asked it yet, are you getting enough protein? You don't need a ton, but making sure you have 20-30 grams in the morning and 20-30 grams right after you workout are the most important time for your body. You don't have to buy anything special either. 2 eggs, piece of toast,and a glass of milk in the morning will get to around 20-25 grams. And as for after your workout, since you workout in the morning ...My bad. You workout in the morning so how much do you want to eat before you hit the gym? Too much food and I want to throw up. So you still need protein and new studies has shown that chocolate mike is the cheap, easy bomb when it comes to giving your muscles what they need so that might be a good way to go without being too full. It all depends on how your body feels about having food in your stomach and working out.

Much thanks for the info. I need to look better a the names and such. I am sort of a newb as you can tell.

Bonz gives good advice.  Get to doing free weights and learn proper form.  Your not going to get big and bulky unless you want to.  Machines don't let you build stabilizing muscles so when you try to do something outside of the gym you are more liable to hurt yourself.   Squats, deadlifts, bench, overhead press, pull ups, back rows, and dips cover pretty much all motions of the body. You should do them.

Do a strength program like Rippetoe's Starting Strength.  Basically, a lot of squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, bench presses, and power cleans.

Also, you have 40 minutes of HIIT on Monday.  If you are spending that much time on it, it is probably more "long and slow cardio" as opposed to real HIIT.  For your HIIT stuff, try some of the Crossfit WODs or 500m "sprints" on a rowing machine.  

I would ditch the 2 hour bike ride and the pilates and try to convince your stepdaughter that her time would be better spent doing squats, deadlifts, and HIIT.

As for your diet, 150g of carbs sounds high.  If you really want to lose the fat, I think the experience of most people and the scientific research shows that you want to keep your carbs below 50g per day, and most of those should be from vegetables.

Make sure you are getting enough protein (1g per pound of bodyweight), enough healthy fats, and enough sleep.

Below 50 and its impossible to do good cardio for me. I eat that much out of habit from riding so much. I guess I can try and experiment and see where I can get it and still function well.

Lots of eggs, chicken, and beef with protein shakes and some chicken will get you there on the protein.  I've been using Optimum gold standard Whey protein shake mixed with water.  It's not that bad as long as the water is ice cold.

Cool, looking into the protien powder shakes. I eat probably half a chicken a day all throughout the day as it is. on some days. Other days its various lean meats with olive oil salt and pepper for flavor. Eggs I love but my body naturally produces tons of cholesterol so eggs are out. (hell I am probably getting too much from the chicken but the longs hard bike rides helped kill most of that. Now I will be quite a bit less mobile, it worries me a bit.)
 

That's because you need to give it time. It takes a while for people to get used to lower carbs.



I think everything has pretty much been hit already...you won't get big unless you try to. Machines aren't going to give you a very good workout...if you're serious about fitness you need to get on the free weights.

Thanks for the info. I will try to get in there when the free weights aren't so crowded. For now I guess the machines and such are better then nothing I have been doing, but I certainly need to consider free weights.





One last question. I am still feeling Mondays and Tuesdays workout a little bit. I made sure and get 10 hrs of sleep last night as well. Will doing a slow hour long ride on my bike screw up recovery from the resistance training? Is there any cardio I can do for today? How about core work? I seem to recover from that pretty quick. Figured maybe Ab Ripper X later today. Those muscles aren't sore at all.



As for the carbs, I was at a point where I could get in a good cardio workout with about 80 grams. Maybe an hour ride tops, but it was a good hard vigorous ride. Since I am riding less I bet I can get it down a little lower and just carb load for race days later on.

If you don't state what YOUR priorities are, folks are likely to project THEIR priorities onto your training.

What are your fitness priorities, in order?  How much time each day do you have available to devote to achieving those priorities?

hour and a half in the AM, maybe an hour after dinner.

Goals are to go from 17% body fat to less that 10. Gain some lean muscle, see my abs, look a little cut. Keep my cardio up for my heart health. Nothing major.

I weigh 210lbs BMI says I am a manatee but I have 17% body fat

5'9"



I can lose another 10lbs of fat for sure. I just want to try and gain 10lbs of muscle and burn off the fat at the same time. Maybe target weight 190-200 depending on body fat at the end.
 

Going from 17% BF to 10% at 210 would require you to drop 17 pounds of fat while maintaining lean mass



Which will be tough to do.  One requires a slight caloric surplus, the other requires a caloric deficit.  Which is your priority - adding the mass of cutting?  Whichever it is, pursue that one first and fight a holding action against the other.

I think I am going to keep the fat loss a priority for health reasons. I will continue to do resistance training in hopes it keeps my body from eating too much muscle while I work on the fat.