Since May 1; -15 lbs.
All blood work is 100% normal, bp is averaging about 115/75, sugars are fine. I'm fit as a fiddle.

Now, time to get to work, eh?

Excellent! Well done, mate.

Its all thanks to you. If you hadn't ragged on all of us out of shape gamers, I wouldn't have done this. I had to prove I could do it because, well... you know...


I LOVE YOU MAN!


Nah, I just needed to do it, but some prodding for a holier-than-thou Aussie didn't hurt.

Not holier-than-thou, just healthier-than-thou

Seriously, it's good. When I hear I've helped, in whatever small way, to improve someone's quality of life - that's what I'm in this profession for.

Where to now?

Well, keep losing weight of course. I've been doing some dumbell work the last two weeks (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) - curls and the like, and I can feel a difference there already. Going to do some crunches for the abdomen I think. Then maybe start in July with something like your program (but only something). I've made it this far, no point in stopping now, eh?

Quote from: Werekoala;389670Well, keep losing weight of course. I've been doing some dumbell work the last two weeks (Monday/Wednesday/Friday) - curls and the like, and I can feel a difference there already. Going to do some crunches for the abdomen I think. Then maybe start in July with something like your program (but only something). I've made it this far, no point in stopping now, eh?

First, congratulations Great work.

Second, follow Kyle's advice. Seriously. His bodyweight exercises will be wonderful for you, I'm sure, and they're more than demanding.

I caution that the Phase One bodyweight stuff has to come for people who are not obese or heavier, and who have no health stuff against it. As I said in the outline...

Still motoring along, so now its time to throw something else into the mix. I've been using dumbells (15lbs.) for some simple upper body stuff for about 3 weeks now. (1 set of curls, 30 reps each arm) and some chest-type thing that probably has a name but I don't know what it is (laying on back, arm straight out to the side, then moving it up and over towards the other arm, a bit past vertical, 30 per arm) and then both arms holding the same weight and raising it from waist up over head and slightly past vertical, 30 times. Not quite ready to open the gun show, but I'm up to crossbows I think.

What do you think about Tai Chi? I did it for awhile back when I was in Utah, but I wasn't in nearly as good a shape as I am now, so I think it'd be more "fun". Its either that or a gym I suppose, but really I should probably try to do both. Alternating days maybe?

Also, stretching - I can't remember if you touched on that, but what's a good basic pre-game warmup type routine?

Tai Chi is excellent for developing general flexibility and balance. It doesn't do much for strength or cardiovascular fitness. As most people do it in groups, it's great socially - and when people do something about exercise or diet in a social way, they're more likely to stick with it, because it's just nicer and more fun.

Dumbells can be used in a zillion ways. To work your whole body on the same basis as the barbell routine - legs, pull, push - you can do,

• Dumbell squat
  
• Dumbell bent over row
  
• Dumbell shoulder press
  

Those are links to descriptions of the exercises. The site there can offer you many more exercises, just put "dumbell" in the search function. Always ensure you begin with an exercise which involves a deep knee-bend, follow with one where you pick something heavy up off the floor, and lastly one where you put something heavy overhead. If you want to do others on top of those like the biceps curl that's fine, but make sure you get those basic three movements.

If those are fixed dumbells, then begin with one set of 8 repetitions (1x8), add 1 rep per session until you reach 1x12, then next session go to 2x8; on up to 2x12, then 3x8, and on up to 3x12. Ideally you get yourself adjustable dumbells, and with those go 3x8 through to 3x12, then increase the weight and go back to 3x8.

Generally people don't need stretching before a workout or football game or whatever, only after. They do need a general warmup of a few minutes of skipping, jogging or whatever. Some individuals might have particular areas which are tight which they need to stretch before a workout simply to be able to do the exercises at all. The exrx.net site has stretches, too, again you can do a search.

Do you generally recommend doing one set of muscles every other day (so like, arms M-W-F, legs Tu-Th-Sat? Or is there another method I'm not familiar with?

Do the whole body every time you work out.

If you do a deep knee-bend, you work your legs and butt. If you pick something heavy up off the ground, you work your back, biceps and forearms. If you put something heavy overhead, you work your chest, shoulders and triceps (back of upper arm). Do all those with good posture and bracing your belly as though someone's going to punch you, and you've worked your "core", too.

Whole body worked with three exercises. Simple and quick. Can be dumbells, barbells, weight machines, bricks, water jugs, your bodyweight, whatever you have available, it's not a big deal in the beginning.

Sometimes people need to add an exercise or two to make up for a particular muscle imbalance they have, eg someone who sits hunched over a computer all day will probably have relatively weak gluteals (butt) and upper back. So maybe they work extra hard in that deep knee-bend, and do an extra pulling exercise. But that's individual, we can only really be general in discussions online.

The workouts need to be once a week to maintain your condition, twice or more a week to change it. As with the sets, reps and weight, you can increase the workout frequency over time, see how your body reacts. If want to work out more often you have to eat and rest better, too. So I encourage a gradual increase.

Other places you'll see recommended a "split" routine, where as you say, one muscle group is worked one day, another the next. That's an advanced routine. The idea is that the person works out with such intensity that if they waited for their muscles to recover before working out again, they'd only work out once a week. So instead they work out one group, then while that's still recovering they work out another group.

But this is an advanced thing. It's not for the general population of people who just want to "lose weight, get fit, tone up." I cover health and fitness for geeks, not health and fitness for jocks

Question not aimed at me and i am not the expert however from personal and related experience i will touch upon splits since i disagree about them being for advanced people (i am not advanced and they have given me huge results). Splits are a must for any person getting into traditional weight lifting, advanced or not. Heck, popular and effective starting programs like Starting Strength are based on it. Yes it can get quite complicated once you delve into supersets and whatever but those are really not needed.

In any case, i will touch upon splits (even if only for informative purposes) since i have been researching and experimenting on them quite a bit for this past year.

As Kyle said, the reasoning behind splits is that it is usually advised to give enough rest for muscle groups to recover from trauma inflicted in previous training session (always talking weights here) before hitting them again. Said rest time usually depends on what kind of training you are doing but 4-5 days is the standard time though 1 week ends up being used in some splits.

There are usually 2 types of splits

First type is when you setup 2 different workouts (workout A and B) and alternate between them so that you end up repeating the same workout only every 4-5 days. Several famous training regimes like Starting Strength (SS) work with this kind of setup.

The other major school of spliting is strictly between muscle groups.

First you divide between muscle groups, the usual division is:
Chest, Shoulders, Back, Legs and Arms (biceps/triceps). (can further divide legs but only really matters when you are advanced)

Then see how much time you have during the week or if you want to lift less to do more cardio.

For example if you want to focus mostly on lifting and have the time to do it, you can do a 5 day split with the weekends off. (example: Mon - chest, Tue - legs, Wed - back, Thu - shoulders and Fri - arms, etc). This is what i am currently doing.

You can might want to do a 3 day split. Why?
Well maybe because you dont want to hit the gym all 5 days of a week or maybe you want to fit some more heavy cardio into your schedule. (It is usually not advised to do heavy cardio on lifting days because your lifting gains will be affected.)

An example of said 3 day split would be:
Monday - Back & legs
Tuesday - Heavy Cardio or rest
Wednesday - Shoulders & Bicep
Thursday - Heavy Cardio or rest
Friday - Chest & Tricep
(Switch around the muscle group split however you prefer.)
I actually had a lot of success for weight loss with this one, i stopped doing it because i started to find cardio boring and wanted to shift more towards lifting. But i am definitely switching back to this once i can lift decent weight and summer comes.

Actually the workout A and B regime i mentioned first is a 2day split that allows 2 things:
1) Several advanced regimes use it because it helps advanced trainees to workout more often by giving a 4 day rest to a given muscle group instead of a whole week.
2) Several beginner programs use it because its easier for a beginner trainee to remember 2 workouts and also he doesn't have to live in a gym.

Just for informative purposes for whoever might feel curious.

Quote from: Abrojo;392061Question not aimed at me and i am not the expert however from personal and related experience i will touch upon splits since i disagree about them being for advanced people (i am not advanced and they have given me huge results).

I would be interested to hear exactly what results, from what starting point, and for how long you've been doing things.  

Because when you're a complete beginner, anything works - for a while. It's simply that our bodies change because they are asked to do more than they did before. If yesterday I was doing nothing, then anything is more than nothing, so if I do it, my body will adapt.

This is why just about any routine works for a complete beginner. It's more than they did before.

The question is whether it keeps working after the first 6-12 weeks, and whether the change is as quick and safe as it could be. And for split routines, in general they don't give beginners results after those first few months.

What if you can't do the splits? I've never been that flexible.





Seriously, I need to work on the bendy bits too. Muscles are nice, though.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;392064The question is whether it keeps working after the first 6-12 weeks, and whether the change is as quick and safe as it could be. And for split routines, in general they don't give beginners results after those first few months.

Well i am not going to take pics and stuff because thats really not my style.
However Jong can vouch for me (and pundit would too but its been a while since he has seen me in person to atest with his own eyes to the changes).

I will go into some details, first of all the changes have been safe with supervision by a physician including blood samples every 3 months to check insuling levels, etc. Also strict diet with nutrionist (nothing too weird but some good tips and playing safe).

Its been about 8 months already, the first 2 months purely cardio (jogging 3 days a week for 4 km alternating walking and jogging which took about 1hr per session). After that. 4 months of lifting with a 3 day lifting split with cardio for the inbetween days, finally the past 2 months due to getting really bored with cardio i switched to a 5 day lift split.

In said 8 months I started at 118 kg (181cm tall) of mostly fat and am nowadays at 95kg with a fair amount of muscle. I am currently bulking clean (2000 calorie diet with 40/40/20 carb prot fat) and will continue to do so for a couple more months after which i will switch to cutting with a calorie deficit diet to shed off the final pounds before going into a mantainance regime. And yes it sounds like a tv comercial transformation and it kinda was, most people around me can barely believe it.

My path of course is not the only way, in fitness there are tons of ways to reach your goals and i respect all of them since the main priority should be enjoying getting into shape, however my only point is that I disagree on dismissing traditional weight lifting with splits as something beginners cant do. It's definitely a very valid option of which i am merely one example.