Gym Routine

[regular_john]

No problem

[donnie]

Currently going gym 3 - 4 times a week as well as a once a week session of Boxing but have no idea what im doing to be honest. Looking to lose a few kilo's and only get to spend 45 minutes in the gym as go before work.

Currently I do (3 times a week):

-10 minute on bike, followed by a minute of intense cycling, 30 seconds rest, another minute intenses, rest, intense.

-15 minutes on the cross trainer.

- around 100 sit ups

My diet consists of:

Breakfast - Cornflakes with sugar

3 cups of tea a day with 2 teaspoons of sugar

Lunch - Brown Bread with ham and reggae reggae sauce

Dinner - Either chinese takeaway, steak n chips, spaghetti, or fish n chips.

Any suggestions of what else I can do in the gym to lose weight and tone up (not looking to bulk up) and suggestions for a better diet

[BOF]

If you're just looking to lose kilos and your dinner list is accurate then I'm not being funny but you don't even need to be in the gym to achieve that goal. Start rotating between eating (baking) fresh fish, chicken, eggs, beans, cut out or reduce bread. The only thing I'd go near on that dinner list would be the steak. As has been said a lot in this thread. The weight loss happens in the kitchen. The muscle happens in the gym. The toning needs both.

[regular_john]

Currently going gym 3 - 4 times a week as well as a once a week session of Boxing but have no idea what im doing to be honest. Looking to lose a few kilo's and only get to spend 45 minutes in the gym as go before work.

Currently I do (3 times a week):

-10 minute on bike, followed by a minute of intense cycling, 30 seconds rest, another minute intenses, rest, intense.

-15 minutes on the cross trainer.

- around 100 sit ups

My diet consists of:

Breakfast - Cornflakes with sugar

3 cups of tea a day with 2 teaspoons of sugar

Lunch - Brown Bread with ham and reggae reggae sauce

Dinner - Either chinese takeaway, steak n chips, spaghetti, or fish n chips.

Any suggestions of what else I can do in the gym to lose weight and tone up (not looking to bulk up) and suggestions for a better diet

Mate, I really don't mean to be rude or offensive here so please don't take it as such, but you're getting pretty much everything completely wrong.

Your gym workout seems to consist of nothing but cardio, which is a complete waste of time unless you're planning on running a marathon (which I'm guessing you aren't). Cardio does not discriminate between muscle and fat when it burns energy, so whilst you might be losing fat you'll also be killing your muscles.

Throw out your current gym routine and take up Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. It's all based around heavy weight lifting so you'll preserve muscle mass whilst burning fat, which means you'll start to look freaking awesome in just a few months. Cardio is entirely unnecessary, the calorie burn gained from cardio can easily be achieved by good diet.

Speaking of diet, again not meaning to be rude, yours is pretty horrible. Literally the only things you've listed that I would keep are the ham and the steak, everything else needs to go.

For breakfast think about porridge or weetabix with a bit of honey rather than cornflakes, it'll be more filling, much healthier and lower in sugar (providing you don't overdo the honey). Maybe add in a banana and a glass of milk too? If porridge isn't your thing, think about things like eggs, tomatoes etc. or even none traditional breakfast food (chicken etc.).

Cut down on the sugar in your tea, your teeth will thank you for it.

Oh, and don't do any more sit ups, they do nothing for your stomach (abs are gained by losing fat through diet, not by doing sit ups) and they'll wreck your lower back.

[JMilnereatsnails]

You lot seem to know what your talking about, feel free to shoot me down! Just embarked on a fitness regime, I have a bet with a mate of mine to complete a half marathon next summer and noticed this thread might be a good way of keeping the motivation and advice. Bit out of shape at the moment, 14 stone 7 lb, 5'9" so not particularly athletic....

Lost about half a stone so far through diet, two weeks ago gave up bread and basically have only eaten sliced beef, ham, grilled fish, boiled fried and scrambled eggs, chicken breast and salad. Food wise it is boring compared to the constant deluge of take outs that I'd become used to but feel a lot healthier for it already. The other problem I think I might have is I don't particularly regiment meal times, rather snack when hungry albeit always on the foods mentioned above. I'm thinking adding porridge or weetabix to breakfast time would help as someone mentioned earlier?

In the gym, I've started light but a 3 min warm up brisk walk, followed by 10 mins jog and 10 mins on the cross trainer. Following this with various reps on the weights which are all arms, back, chest and stomach excerises totalling 120 reps at various weights between 10-20kg. I'm planning on completing this routine 4-5 times per week, with a swim thrown in for good measure twice a week.

I guess I'm looking for advice as to wether this is a good route to take to reach my 12 month goal, or will I find that the half marathon difficult due to there not being enough cardio? I do of course plan to increase the cardio once I've shifted some weight. Another fear is that I might be over doing it? Any advice greatfully recieved.

[ArteSuave]

If your only goal is a 1/2 marathon by next summer just run for 90 minutes as far as you can, three times a week. If you can't run for 90 minutes, just run for as long as you can until you reach 90 minutes. Reaching a running based goal is really simple, it doesn't matter where you start from, even if you can only jog for 20 minutes to start with. Consistency will bring results as long as you increase the length/speed of your runs regularly.

Eat at a caloric deficit and the fat will come off. I wouldn't bother with the various reps totalling 120, it sounds like a waste of time IMO.

[BOF]

So after a demo of the new* and a review of the old this evening, it turns out my lack of progress on the bench might have been down to poor form. Too narrow a grip resulting in too much workload on biceps and not enough where it should be. Hopefully that in itself will be enough to see me move up in weight. All set for tomorrow now :-D

He also emphasised deadlift form and the need for a straight back, saying he hates deadlifts cuz he broke his back before.

* Though I had to show him what a Pendlay row was

[Stevo985]

That would be a pretty good reason to hate deadlifts!

[Stevo985]

I'm gonna answer a few posts at once here, rather than quote them individually.

If you want to lose fat, as BOF said, the work you do in the kitchen is as important, probably more important, than the work you do in the gym or on the road or on the bike or wherever you exercise.

You can train like a man possessed but if you're eating like a slob, you'll only make minimal progress.

If you want to lose fat then a good place to start is to calculate your TDEE. That's Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It's basically your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) which is the amount of calories you need to stay the same weight, with the amount of exercise you do factored in. There's a calculator here

Once you've got that TDEE figure, you subtract 500 calories from the number and eat that many calories per day. So for example, my TDEE is about 3,300. So, as I've been cutting, I've aimed for 2,800 calories per day.

You'd want to go into more detail about macros (the amount of protein, fat and carbs you eat to make up those calories) but it would take ages for me to write it all here. I've linked this article before, but this is a great place to start if you're interested in losing fat and does give details about macros. Read it.

It's a complete ball ache, working out your diet. You could spend hours and hours figuring it out. But it's totally worth it. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I worked out with a crap diet for 6 months solid. Diet was "healthy" but I didn't pay attention to calories, macros etc. I lost 1.5% bodyfat.

In the 3 months since then I've nailed my diet down and I've lost 3.5% bodyfat. And that's with a fair few weekends of going out and getting pissed and eating shit. So progress could have been even better if I'd been more disciplined.

A good weight routine is essential too. It will retain any muscle you already have (which could be broken down with dieting and cardio) and if you're a beginner it'll gain you muscle as well. Plus it boost metabolism (the more muscle you have, the more energy you need) and is more interesting than slogging away on a treadmill. Choose a proven routine, don't go to the gym and wing it. You'll be wasting your time.

There's loads of beginner ones here. Also, don't overestimate yourself. if you're a beginner, do a beginner workout. It's not a beginner workout because it's super easy. It's a beginner workout because it's tailored to people who haven't properly worked out before. You'll get bigger gains if you follow one of those.

Starting Strength, as others have recommended, would be perfect.

Cardio isn't essential if you're eating right. But it will speed things up. I'd suggest HIIT. Google it. 20 minutes of HIIT 3 times a week is as much cardio as you need. It sucks, and is knackering, but it works.

Get a set of bodyfat calipers. Your weight is not a measure of your fat. Calipers will tell you your fat percentage. Track that every week (at the same time). It'll provide motivation and remind you that you're making progress on those days when you feel really fat (we all have them)

As for the half Marathon training. I did a lot of running last year and got up to half marathon distance. My advice would be to go out tonight and run as far a syou can at a steady pace. Let's say you manage 3 miles.

Then do 2 more runs in the next week, but don't make them as far. Let's say 2 miles.

Then this time next week go out and do 3.5 miles.

Week after do 4 miles.

etc. Always make the other 2 runs that week shorter or you'll burn yourself out.

Once you get upto 13 miles, then try and do the distance faster rather than increasing the distance.

[Dante_Lockhart]

I've worked out that on a 500 calorie deficit I need 2600 calories per day. Looking deeper my diet would need to be;

Protein: 221g (884 calories)

Fat: 50g (450 calories)

Carbohydrates: 300g (1200 calories)

What I intend to do is have a workout day plan and a non-workout day plan, so my diet will look like this

Workout days:

Calorie Intake: 2800 per day

Protein: 250g (1000 calories)

Fat: 37g (360 calories)

Carbohydrates: 360g (1440 calories)

Non-Workout days:

Calorie Intake: 2370 per day

Protein: 250g (1000 calories)

Fat: 50g (450 calories)

Carbohydrates: 230g (920 calories)

Simples.

[Stevo985]

Great plan, and extremely similar to mine.

[Dante_Lockhart]

Want to work out your calories and macros?

BOOM!

[BOF]

Jeeeebus Christ lads, I probably eat 1,500 calories on a normal day and add beer to that at the weekends. And I don't 'diet'. My meals are good. I know I'm eating at a deficit but I certainly never ever starve myself. Plus it allows me to have one off lapses (read - crisps) with no consequences

[Stevo985]

If you're serious about building some muscle then you'll need to eat a lot more than that BOF.

Even cutting, I'd wager you'd actually see better results if you ate a bit more.

[BOF]

I don't want to be Arnie and I am seeing benefits and as I said I genuinely am not starving myself. If I eat more it would be for the sake of it and not because I was hungry. I don't eat much if any processed shite and that results in lowering everything from calories to artificial everything to sugar/salt etc.

Oh and while I'm here. With this new suite of barbell exercises, am I going to need a lumbar support belt. I don't want to look an eejit by having one unnecessarily, but I also don't want to start doing these (very serious) exercises without one if I'm only asking for trouble.

[Shillzz]

Christ chaps, this is all getting rather serious.

The more I read this thread, the more I think working out 4 times a week and eating "healthily" isn't enough.

[regular_john]

Christ chaps, this is all getting rather serious.

The more I read this thread, the more I think working out 4 times a week and eating "healthily" isn't enough.

It's more than enough. The stuff above is about maximising results, i.e. being as efficient as possible, you'd still get plenty good results without going in to crazy detail though.

[Stevo985]

The gains you're seeing now are "newbie gains". They're awesome. But they run out.

Once you pass that stage, you need more food to add any muscle. Not to look like Arnie, just to make progress at all.

"Eating for the sake of it" is a necessity of building any muscle.

As for the belt. You don't NEED one (I don't use one), but as I understand it, they are a great help when you start lifting very heavy weghts. So you're probably all right for now, but might be worth purchasing once you start moving up, especially as, like me, you're a bit concerned about your lower back.

[Stevo985]

Christ chaps, this is all getting rather serious.

The more I read this thread, the more I think working out 4 times a week and eating "healthily" isn't enough.

That's more than enough.

The problem is eating "healthily" isn't always best for lsing fat/gaining muscle. Sometimes people eat food they think is healthy but their calorie count is still high, for example. Or they eat salads and veg and end up with no protein.

It's all about being efficient. Yeah you can go down the gym, workout doing whatever you want and eat decently enough and you'll see some benefit. But that would be way off getting close to what you could achieve.

[BOF]

The more I read this thread, the more I think working out 4 times a week and eating "healthily" isn't enough.

That's plenty - or stop reading :shock:

By the way, from talking to many people about diet, 'eating healthily' is something many people genuinely think they are doing but they actually aren't. They have good intentions, but no idea what they're at. A lot of people, for example, think pasta is some kind of super food. Now maybe if you're a marathon runner or pro footballer it is. Otherwise it's the 'clear conscience' way to a bigger belly