I love all kinds of exercise - resistance, cardio, HIIT, sports (mainly racquet sports and baseball), swimming and so on. It just makes me feel positive, happy and energized when I do something physical. However, I stick mostly to just doing weights and using cardio machines or going running. I love badminton but I can't fit it in my schedule at the moment.
I first went to a gym when I was 17, although I'd been wanting to start since about 14. To begin with I didn't really know what I was doing and the gym owners weren't any help. When I found my current gym just over a year ago I was more hooked than ever - the owners are amazing, the equipment is awesome and the people who train there are so friendly. I kind of got into powerlifting, and within only about 2 months, without proper diet and no supplements at all besides a protein shake a day, my stats reached 60kg for bench, 90kg for squats and 100kg for deadlift. For being a 5'3 UK size 10 female I was quite proud :) However, I soon realised I was actually gaining a little too much muscle for my liking. All of my family have the genes for muscle and I put it on more easily than I'd like, so I gave up powerlifting for lighter weights and also added cardio to help stop muscle growth.
Now I'm about a size 8 (chest 34 waist 25 hips 35) and my current exercise routine goes more like this:
weights 3 days per week
Routine constantly changes but basically upper body one session per week, lower body another and whole or upper/lower again for the third session. I don't do much on shoulders or chest anymore because I'm quite broad and definitely don't want to gain any more muscle there. I also try not to do heavy legs sessions anymore because I gain size the fastest on my quads which I dislike.
cardio 3-5 days per week
I usually just use the machines while I'm at the gym. My favorite is probably the cross-trainer but I try to mix it up. Sometimes I will do long steady sessions and sometimes HIIT. I prefer HIIT by far.. Much more intense and fun :) Other times I jog outdoors but I'm a bit rubbish. But I'm much more set on improving that area lately!
And lastly, before anyone rants about how females can't gain too much muscle without steroids because of natural testosterone levels blah blah blah.... Well yes I agree with you but I'm talking about too much muscle for my personal preference! Both me and my mother have hard biceps with good peaks even without any training! I'm very slender but my biceps when untrained are still 12-13" when flexed, and they develop fairly well with resistance exercise so it's just in my personal opinion that I'm too muscly and butch-looking with too much training.
