Weight lifting
 

Since I can't do anything for PT except upper body weight training, I figured I'd get to it, unfortunately I do not know a whole lot about it. I was wondering if you folks could help me come up with a good 30 minute work out plan.

If you can only allocate 30 minutes out of your day for a weight lifting program you probably will not achieve much as you are going to need to incorporate stretching and warm ups for almost half of that alloted time.

No, I mean 30 minutes of actual lifting. Ive read you don't really need to do much more than 30 minutes per day of lifting(not including stretching.)

I would be surprised if you could get in a full workout that quickly.

The fastest I have ever seen advocated was 60 minutes, and you had to hit machines and weights back to back, no waiting or resting.

TR

Sir, I disagree with you concerning time for a productive weight training session. Most professional trainers advocate weight training sessions of no longer than 45-60 minutes for general purposes. After this point, cortisol starts to kick in, which can lead to muscle catabolism. A well structured 30 minute workout, especially one aimed at only upper/or lower body, can be very producitve. I'm not a BTDT, so I won't profess to know what specific areas you need to train. However, If you're limited to thirty minutes a day I'd recommend "supersetting" your training, ie, doing one set such as dumbbell bench press followed directly by a set of rows or pull-ups. it allows you to briefly rest the muscle group you just worked while still performing work, and there is evidence that because you work the antagonist muscles in the exercises, you are actually able to lift more weight with each set. You might want to try this question at www.t-nation.com, Its a fairly good resource for weight training. Another good resource for simply learning new exercises is www.exrx.net, it provides diagrams of the body, lists exercises for specific muscle groups, and provides videos of these exercises.

Why not try a kettlebell? It would allow you to maintain your aerobic fitness, in addition to building strength. Thirty minutes is more than enough time, if that's all you have available. Just make sure you're stable on that foot before trying any ballistic drills, like the swing, etc.

If you do it right, you'll have a much more intense workout than you could complete in the weight room with your time constraint.

Good luck!

Edited to add: You might also consider swimming with a pull buoy between your legs. That will help you maintain your flexibility, as well as aerobic fitness, without endangering that foot.

weights
 

I don't know if you are a weight lifter up to this point so I'll approach this from that point of view. If you are not already lifting and have access to machines why not use machines and go thru the circuit. This method will tone and strengthen but you will not be sore. Weights are great but you have not been lifting to this point supersetting is not the way to start. You can run a cirsuit with weights. Start with the chest go to shoulders then back then arms etc. don't rest more than 1 minute between lifts. Do this circuit 2-3 sets. It works boht strength and cardivascular. Good luck

Amato,

If you are simply looking for new workout ideas, crossfit.com posts a daily workout. Most of the workouts are max effort circuits of 3-4 exercises, and the time is normally 20 minutes.

Still need a warm up and cool down.

Don't most of the Crossfit workouts incorporate the entire body? Amato said he's limited to mostly upper body only right now.

Well I was thinking of concentrating on certain things each day, like Chest and upper back one money, next tri's and bi's or something along those lines, not a complete upper body work out.

True, but SF and the likes are not general purpose. If your limited on time start by deciding exactlly what you want to achieve (strength, endurance, or both). This will dictate the weight, number of reps/sets as well as rest intervals. With 30min, I'd go with 30sec max if I could handle it depending on the actual workout. Goodluck.

TFM

Granted, but someone can still have a fairly productive training session in 30 mins if they have the proper focus.

You might be better served doing a three workouts a week focusing on specific deficiencies rather than specific body parts, as TFM suggested. Instead of doing a body part split such as working bis and tris or chest and back, use a conjugate system such as working on strength endurance using high reps and short rest periods one day, and working maximal strength using low reps and longer rest periods another day. The body part split was developed by bodybuilders for hypertrophy, where as the conjugate system originated in the soviet bloc for training athletes. just my $.02