Amount of time on specific excercises...

[magika]

This isnt about the total amount of excercise time your supposed to do (I think I do enough, atleast I hope, 1.5 hours/day for 5 days a week), but how much time you have to spend doing a particular excercise to get the benefits from it.

I have a short attention span when it comes to some machines, and currently here is my routine:
20 Minutes Ellipitical (Resistance 10)
10 Minutes Bike (Resistance 12)
15 Minutes Arm Machine (Resistance 5.5)
20 Minutes Treadmill (4.5 MPH)
10 Minutes Other Bike (Resistance 11)
15 Minutes Arm Machine (Resistance 5.5)

The two bikes are different...one is more of a cycling type bike which seems to work the upperleg and the other one is a regular excercise bike which works the lower. The "arm machine"..well I call it that because I dont know what it exactly is, is a macihne where you set the resitance and basically do circiular motions pushing forward with your arms.

I guess what Im really asking here is this: is doing all these excercises and splitting them up (like doing the arms for 15 minutes each at two different times) still gaining me the maximum benefit? Or would it be better to scrunch it together and stay on individual machiens for longer periods of time?

[loonatika]

It's actually good to split up your cardio like that, stops your body getting settled into a certain mode. You may want to read up on HIIT:

http://www.youronlinefitness.com/Fitness_Articles/articles/January_2003_articles/hiit_and_other_interval_training.htm

I'm the same and get bored easily on the same machine, this may be a way to step it up a notch even more. Say spend 1 min on the elliptical flat out, slow it down for a min and do that for 10 mins, then swap and do the same on the bike.

The only other thing is to only do that arm machine every second day. If it's working out your biceps and triceps, you will need to get them a rest day in between to repair the muscles.

[snorkelman]

Good motive, but you can get better results by changing a few things. Forget the whole 1.5 hours.

Do 30-45 minutes of constant cardio (no breaks) and keep your heartrate around 130-140 beats per minute for beginners.

That is what you need to burn fat best.

if you want to do muscle exercises, choose some that work several muscle groups. Such as pull ups (or lat pull downs) and bench press for upper body and for lower body try lunges or squats.

No need to be in the gym for 5 days a week for 1.5 hours.

trust me.