Most effective use of 1-hr session for weight training

[pracket]

What's the best use of time for my 1-hr weight training sessions that I do once/twice a week?

My goals are to build strength, and be well-rounded (versus isolating too much). Note that besides weight training, the rest of my week includes one yoga session, one Jillian Michaels BodyShred, and a cardio session usually jogging on the treadmill.

My weights sessions consist of:
(a) 5-minute warm-up on bike or elliptical, then
(b) 4 exercises, 4 sets each (with the first set being a light warm-up at 80% weight).

My 4 exercises are typically:
(1) A "push" exercise (bench press, or shoulder press, maybe pec fly)
(2) An "pull" exercise in the opposite direction of the "push" (seated row if I did bench press, lat pulldown if I did shoulder press)
(3) Abs (sit-ups on incline bench, or leg raises on the stand)
(4) Bicep curls

The thing is, I cycle between my 4 exercises with little to no rest. So I do one set of the push, then one of the pull, then the abs, then the biceps, then back to the push. But I see most people do 1 muscle, and finish all their sets of the one muscle (with longer breaks between).

Given my short time frame (1 hr) to finish 4 exercises, is my plan a good one, or am I really losing out because maybe there's too much rest between sets if I'm cycling 3 other exercises before repeating the same muscle?

 

[Goldfish]

You haven't really described your goals, so it's impossible to say what's the BEST way to spend your hour. But I'll give you an answer that can be applied to improved cardiovascular health, muscular strength, and either muscle building or fat loss (depending on nutrition). This won't be perfect for each of these goals, but it will help with any of them.

What you're describing is a circuit format. It has its pros and cons. Most people don't do circuits because they don't like them, or because it never crossed their mind -- very few people avoid them for the purposes of training efficacy, and if you're asking this question, you've got a lot of training ahead of you before the cons will start outweighing the pros. So keep up the circuit format if you can.

In saying that, rather than abs and curls, I'd recommend doing some lower body work. Here's 2 alternating circuits for you:

Workout 1:
- Pull Ups
- Dips
- Leg Press
- Calf Raise (in the leg press machine)

Workout 2:
- Deadlifts*
- Renegade Row
- Glute Bridge (same barbell as DL)
- DB Shoulder Press (same DB's as RR)

Always try and set your circuits up with as few pieces of equipment as possible, as close together as possible. One of my gyms has a crossfit cage, which means you could replace the leg press with squats and do everything in the same piece of equipment for the first example circuit. The second circuit I recommended uses a loaded barbell and a pair of dumbbells on open floor space, so again you can do all those exercises in the one spot. This is good, because it means you aren't getting in people's way (unless you choose a really bad spot to set up) and can easily go from one exercises to the next with minimal rest.

At ~1min per exercise, and 4 sets of 4 exercises, with 1min rest between rounds of the circuit, it should only take you 20min to complete all rounds of a circuit. Most of the exercises I've listed are compound exercises, so they'll burn more energy than isolated exercises, and cover more muscle mass at the same time.

*Deadlifts are a great exercise, and they're pretty simple in theory, but people do them with ugly technique all the time, and bad technique on an exercise like the deadlift is a shortcut to all kinds of injuries. As with all exercises, prioritise technique over load. In a circuit, use a load that you can handle even when fatigued.

 

[CrazyOldMan]

You almost had the balance right with a push, pull and core exercise, but you missed legs which is the other side of the quadrangle. If you need to see why missing this is a bad idea google images with search never miss legs day, if nothing else it will give you a laugh.
Circuits are good a la Goldfish, and can be used in a variety of ways to give varied results.
We would ideally need to know what you want in as much detail as possible. Strength is one area of fitness but usually has an aim, powerlifting, strongman, posing on the beach etc. Be honest and we can help you.