questioning my workout routine

I'm a gym newbie and don't really know what I'm doing there. I'm living in Korea, and unfortunately most of my instruction at the gym comes in Korean and hand gestures/pointing. The gym owner has managed to convey enough English to design a personalized "fat cut" workout routine. But, after a month with some pretty insignificant results, I'm questioning how effective this is.

I'm super-busy and can only spend 1 hour per day, 6 days a week at the gym.

Here's what I've been doing, according to his plan:
Mon, Wed, Fri
Warm up walking- 10 mins
3 sets of 15 crunches & leg lifts
3 sets of 15 side bends with weights
3 sets of 15 reps on the leg press machine, leg curl machine and leg extension machine
Walking/Running- 15-20 mins

Tues, Thurs, Sat
Warm up walking- 10 mins
Tons of free weights and weight machines, 3 sets of 15, all arms and upper body
Walking/Running- 15-20 mins

I'm spending most of my time doing weights and less than half of my time doing cardio (mostly walking-- I was jogging, but I'm too heavy and it's caused some knee pain.)

Is this really an effective method? Should I stick with it and wait and see? And if not, how could I make my time more effective?
Thanks!

You should check out bodybuilding.com - they have lots of very useful articles and you could learn a lot about working out and the different routines...

As you work out 6 times a week, I'd get a 4-day plan and would do cardio and stretches onlt on two of the days... Each of the 4 days would be devoted to a few body parts.

You can msg me if you wish to and I'll send you my workout plan. I'm at work right now, but could forward it to your email when I get home... It's a very good 4-day plan. The rotation allows your muscles to rest and regenerate.

Hope this advice helps.  

^^  I agree, Bodybuilding.com is probably the best source of workouts online and they have all sorts of great information about burning fat, nutrition and fitting workouts into crazy schedules.

6 days a week should be enough to see some results, so stick with it and focus on eating well.  You should see a change in no time! 

Good luck!

sounds good to me, but since its not working...

 if youre looking to lose weight , u might want to up the cardio. cardio burns the calories. strength training builds muscles, which definately rasies your metabolism, burning more calories even when you arent doing anything. if anything, cut back on some of the crunches, because until u get to a certain body fat percentage, u wont see any abs anyway. put some more cardio instead!! extra tip!! since you're pressed for time at the gym, why not incorporate some exercise into other times of the day? walk to places instead of taking a car or bus, stand more often ((and while u stand do some calf raises if you want)), and try to fidget around more. its the little things that count.

also, try being a vegetarian or vegan. as soon as i stopped eating animals (not to lose weight, but out of my love for animals), i lost like 30 pounds. which wasnt good in my case because i was at a good weight...but. if youre trying to lose weight, it might be the way to go. just dont smother everything in olive oil. ;D good luck!!

Thanks for all of the advice!

bodybuilding.com appears to have a TON of info, thanks for recommending it! it looks like I could spend month reading all of the articles. 

I think I'm going to have to re-think my plan a little. According to the activity calculator, though, I burn around 3,500-3,700 calories per day. (I'm a teacher, so I spend most of my day standing, walking around the room, squatting next to desks and dancing around to entertain the kids. I don't have a car, so I have to walk everywhere I go.) 

Also, it's a little weird, but I was a vegetarian for almost 4 years, which is when I gained the most weight. When I re-added chicken and fish to my diet, I lost 40 lbs with little effort. 

I think I have a weird body. Even in my early teens when I was running 3-4 miles per day, I still maintained a weight of 175. 

All I can figure, at this point, is that Korean food has a lot of salt, and maybe I'm just retaining a lot of water? ...who knows...

Anyway, I should stop rambling and start moving. Thanks again for the advice!

I'm still a relative newbie to weight training, but that program doesn't look very effective to me because all of the exercises are isolation exercises (i.e. only use a small number of muscles in one area of the body).  To get best results, you want to be doing compound exercises that involve many different muscles and parts of the body - things like squats, lunges, deadlifts, step-ups and push-ups. 

 Bodybuilding.comn runs some very good articles, and some total crap from knuckle-dragging morons who are incapable of giving effective training advice to the un-drugged trainee.

 Exercise caution when you approach their articles.

 What the 'best' workout routine is depends entirely on who you are and what your goals consist of - if you want to take up rock climbing or gymnastics you're not going to get a whole lot of use out of bodybuilding-style training designed to increase your muscle mass ;)

 I've found that the point of machine training is mostly to convince people that they can't get a good workout without paying gym fees every month - if people realised that most of your exercise needs can be covered with one barbell and a set of adjustable dumbbells they'd be less inclined to keep paying; not an ideal outcome when you own a gym.

 Your body is capable of 6 major movement patterns - you can push and pull in a horizontal or vertical direction, you can squat, and deadlift. A training program that covers these basics will involve every major and most minor muscle groups in your body and can be accomplished with 6 exercises - if you add in lunges and some single-limb work to adress balance training and potential strength imbalances between your right and left side you're mostly covered.

 Well, if your ambition is to win the Mrs Korea Bodybuilding championship that's probably not enough, but for basic fitness you only need something like  Sean10mm's "stripped" 5x5 routine or Kethnaab's interpretation of Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength program to start with.