DustinAaron

I'm not asking the OP to change the goal b/c her goal conflicts w/my personal philosophy. I'm asking her to change the goal b/c her current goal is causing her to focus on things that lead to discouragement. If you have the ability to count calories w/o getting depressed...great. If instead you focus on exercise, and a natural side effect of becoming that person is that your diet improves, and you lose weight...where is the harm in that? I will never understand this mentality. Hello fitness newby. Welcome to the world of weight loss. I realize you don't have the ability to do 5 real push-ups, but have you considered paleo? Are you counting your macros? Have you tried carb backloading? Because if you're not intermittantly fasting and undulating your glycogen counts, then you will never lose weight. What??? You're discouraged at 2 months in and you're not seeing any fat loss? That's odd. How could you possibly be discouraged? You should try entering every calorie consumed into myfitnesspal? Is all of this necessary at day one?

In your post you focus a lot on diet. You talk about paleo, cheat days, cheat food, stuff you had to give up, tracking food with myfitnesspal, wne does the fat start to come off, your pants not fitting, and also that you are starting to get discouraged. My primary advice to anyone who is just starting out, and who is trying to lose weight is always 3 simple words. "Just get stronger." Focus on nothing else for a solid year. I always give this advice because of the way that human beings are mentally wired. It is not in our nature to deny ourselves. We take no please in restricting the intake of that which gives us pleasure. We are wired to want more. Hence, it is extremely easy to lose motivation in the early going when we try to impose all these restrictions on ourself. What is less motivating, what is more soul shattering than counting calories that you will not allow yourself to consume? Do you get excited every time you make an entry into myfitnesspal about your diet? Does it excite you to daily remind yourself of the calories you want but can't have? What if you made two minor changes and 1) just decided to eat reasonably, whatever that means to you at this point, without tracking anything nutritionally, and 2) decided to start tracking personal records in the gym as closely as you had formerly tracked calories. I know this all sounds like blasphemy and it is not a popular sentiment in any fitness forum. But, what if today you are at 5'6" 195 lbs and you can do 5 real pushups in a row. And you decide to focus only on destroying some well thought out exercise program until you are able to do 100 pushups in a row. And you focused on nothing diet related for the next year. And in a year from now you were able to do 100 real pushups in a row. What would be the difference in your body composition between the you that is only able to do your current level of pushups vs. the future you that can crank out 100 real pushups? Of course "pushups" is just a place holder for the purpose of this forum post and you could substitute just about any exercise (why not burpees) and still get the same point across. My point is not that "diet" or nutrition is not important, and my point is not that exercise is more important than diet, because in the hierarchy of fat loss I believe diet and nutrition are king (the question is how do we mind hack ourselves into eating well so that it is not dependent on will power). My point is that in terms of human psychology, and in terms of avoiding depression/discouragement, in terms of weight loss for people who actually live in the real world, wouldn't it be better to focus on something that allows you to win, and win easily, and especially at only 2 months in, to win very easily and very frequently because in the beginning physical performance gains are rediculously easy to make. And then, if you become someone who works out all the time, who is always focused on improving their level of physical performance, and who actually does constantly improve their level of physical performance in the gym, then at some point you will find that you are no longer relying on "will power" to stick to a healthy diet you will have simply become a person who eats healthy because you are a healthy and strong person. Judging from your post, you goal is to lose fat or lose weight. I believe this is not the optimal goal to have. This is a goal that sets you up to be discouraged and it sets you up for failure. And it seems that you are discouraged because you are not achieviing this goal fast enough. What if you changed your goal? What if for the next year you blindly focused on getting stronger, or getting faster, or getting stronger and faster? What if a year from now, or even 5 years from now, you are somebody who can perform 210 burpees in under 15 minutes, or someone who can perform complete a spartan trifecta, or someone do 20 pullups, or someone who can run the 100 meters at the division 1 collegiate level? I think if you changed your goal you would not have as much problems with getting discouraged because it is easier to feel good about yourself for doing 30 burpees before breakfast versus not eating a cupcake on Thursday morning. And I also believe your results would come more quickly becuase you would have a goal that is big enough to inspire you that would cause you to unleash your mental power toward it's fruition. There are many thousands of people who have lost weight only focusing on diet and putting no real energy into exercise, so I am not suggesting that the method I have recommended above is the only way to lose weight or even the best way to lose weight. But I believe that your problems with getting discouraged will be asuaged if you change your goal from losing fat and fitting into a certian pair of jeans to just getting stronger every day for the rest of your life.

I read a book by Fred Hatfield called Power: A Scientifc Approach. It was written back in the late 80s and he was one of the first men to squat over 1,000 lbs. One of the things he addresses is training through injury and he specifically cited an experiment where he had athletes with ankle sprains perform high rep light weight squats frequently as a form of rehab. Your injury may be too severe for this line of thinking, but it might be something to consider during your recovery phase.

It could be that you are not arching your back hard enough. These few tips might help you. First, to set up, arch your lower back as hard as you can. After you have been squatting heavy for a few years you will find that it is not necessary to arch as hard as humanly possible and you will progress from "arching" to something called "bracing," but until you are comfortably squatting with over 400 pounds, you should just arch as hard as possible. Arch the lower back and as far as the upper back is concerned, you should pull your shoulder blades back as if you are trying to pinch a pencil between them. 2nd, make sure that you breathe into your stomach and not into your chest. Both of these things should be done before you get under the bar. Other than that, if you are having trouble getting into the proper position and feeling comfortable under the bar, then I suspect your posterior chain needs to be stronger, as low bar squatting is more of a posterior chain movement and not really a quadricep movement. Generally, low bar squatting is done with a wider stance. This allows you to squat more weight by emphasizing your lower back, glutes, hamstrings, and hips, as opposed to the quad focused high bar squatting. If you are having trouble getting into the correct position, it could be that you need to spend a few weeks focusing on your lower back and hamstrings with exercises like resistance band good mornings, resistance band pull throughs, romainain deadlifts, and a glute ham raise apparatus if you have access to one. Good luck.

My first thought is just to leave it out of your program, but if you are looking for substitutes... glute bridge, single leg glute bridge, glute bridge with barbell or dumbell resistance. Can you sprint? Short distance sprint would be a good explosive substitute. Short duration mountain climbers at a fast pace would be a decent substitue if your back can handle it. Look into buying a resistance band at elitefts.com and there are several leg exercises that can be employed with same. See also Good luck

I think it's a good routine for a beginner. 200 pushups everyday except Sunday sounds fine to me. I know a lot of wrestlers who do this and more. To prevent boredom you might vary the type of pushups (close grip, stagger grip, one hand on an object, ballistic pushups, etc). At this point (beginner) I don't see any reason to waste time or energy on the forearms training. Nothing wrong with keeping it in, but if you were looking for something to cut, i would start here. I just don't see any need for a beginner to isolate forearms, but on the other hand strong people have really strong grips. I think there are much more valuable / effective lower body exercises than a chair sit against the wall. I just can't imagine a scenario where I would ever advise anyone to include this exercise in their program. We did it at bootcamp as a form of punishment but I think it has nearly zero value for strength training. I don't know any high level powerlifter/bodybuilder/olympic lifter/strength coach/athlete who includes these in their program. Here is a list of exercises that would be more beneficial/effective/efficient: short distance sprints high rep jumping jacks (yes this exercise is so useless that I am recommending you do jumping jacks instead) bodyweight squats single leg squats jumps (any kind of jump) just about any leg/lower back exercise that doesn't involve sitting against a wallObvisously plank? Why "obviously?" I may get some blow back here but I see no need for the plank. I kind of feel the same way about planks as I do about wall sits. I can sleep in the plank position and have never understood the draw to the exercise. If you are doing 200 pushups every day that is pretty much working the same muscles as planking (assuming you are keeping a straight core). If you are able to do incline situps, I see no value in including planks in your routine. No harm in keeping them, but I just don't see the need for it. Overall, I think it is a decent routine if you are just going to try it out for one month and then reevaluate. I don't know what you based it on or how you came up with it. As a strength trainer it is hard for me to see the logic in this routine. But if a complete newby walked up to me asking for strength training advice I might say, "I'll design a strength training program for you, but first I need to see you do 100 pushups in under 3 minutes." So you got that portion down. During this month of exercise I would check out some websites like elitefts.com, tnation.com, and http://zacheven-esh.com/blogs/ Back in my day we had to read actual books to figure out how to strength train, now it's all on the internet...that's good and bad, but the point is spend a ton of time educating yourself on how to train. Later dude.

Full disclosure here...I didn't read all of the workout programs you had listed. I would like to comment on your goal setting method. You have chosen goals that are esoteric obscure. I think your fitness level and ability to write programs will be improved if you improve your goal setting ability. Set goals that are 1) easily measured and tracked and 2) time limited. Instead of saying my goals are to increase strengtha and endurance, set a concrete measureable goal using a specific time frame. Then write your program around meeting that goal in the alotted timeframe. Otherwise, how will you know when you have achieved your goal? How will you know when your strength and endurance are "off the floor?" How will you know what kind of progress you are making? How will you know if your program is or is not working? Are you ahead of schedule or behind schedule? Set goals with numbers in them and time limits on them. Ex: I want to be able to do 20 pullups on January 30, 2014. Or: I want to run 2 miles in 14 minutes on February 3, 2015. Then design a program to meet those numbers.

If you have access to a rowing machine at your local gym, that would be a great exercise for you to try and decide if it agrees with your legs. You might also consider swimming if you have access to a pool. For upper body, you might try doing pushups off of a wall. Just stand stright up against a wall and push your body away from it and lower yourself back as if you were doing pushups. Or, if your balance problems prevent you from standing, I would lie on my back and perform air pushups or pretend you are bench pressing. I would perform (literally) thousands of these a week until you are ready to advance to some form of incline pushups. For example, instead of standing against a verticle wall, you can lean onto a countertop and perform thousands of incline pushups per week. At some point (maybe a few months maybe a few weeks) you will be ready to advance to "girl pushups." These are pushups with your knees on the ground. Start with hundreds per week, then advance to thousands of girl pushups per week. I would even encourage you to progress to multiple pushup sessions per day. At some point (maybe a month, maybe a year, maybe two years) you will be able to advance to regular pushups. I know that work out sounds simple and you probably will not see anyone else offer such advice, but at this point (289 lbs with a balance disorder) you don't need anything special. No science, no technology, no muscle confusion, no latest diet/exercise fad...all you need is consistent hard work applied over time. And your workouts should focus on progressive overload, i.e., getting stonger, or getting faster, or getting stronger and faster. Most people just focus on moving for 30 minutes, three to four times per week. Don't fall into this trap. Train with a purpose. Set a goal, write it down, then train to achieve that goal. Make small goals, like be able to to 5 real pushups before the next month. Or maybe just one real pushup. The train with that in mind. As far as leg workouts, I would look into leg curls. Standing leg curls and lying leg curls. Don't bother using any weight at first, just use body weight. If you have knee problems it pays to take precautions so I would become a beast at bodyweight leg training before I tried adding any resistance on the leg curls. You might also try bodyweight bridges. See this video: You might find it less painful to focus on leg exercises that primarily target the hamstrings and glutes instead of those that primarily target the quadriceps. I find these apply less shear force to my knees. I'm a powerlifter and the majority of my leg training focuses on hamstrings and glutes. Final piece of advice...TAKE THE LONG VIEW.

How about swimming? If you have access to a pool spend the next few months increasing your lap time. Here is a list of all the exercises I can think of where you don't put pressure on your foot. Pushups w/the sore foot held off the ground. Leg lifts Flutter kicks Pull ups Rowing machine (maybe) Lat pull down Bench press Seated shoulder press Seated power cleans Seated anything Leg curls Leg extensions Crunches, situps, Dragon flags, scissor kicks, bridges, single leg bridges seated dip machine inverted back row Just about any exercise using the TRX set up or blast straps Dips / machine dips battling ropes in the seated position hyper extensions / reverse hyper extensions seated good morningsMost of those are traditionally considered strength training exercises, but they can be supersetted in different to make up an insane cardio workout. If you just want straight cardio, I would focus on swimming and the rowing machine.

Now my question is...Is the guy who asked the question even reading any of this stuff? I don't know if we are allowed to post links here, but a few months back I was tryiing to increase my pull ups and found this article. Then I started incorporating a ton of static holds into my pull ups. I sometimes hold at the top of the movement and also pause for a few seconds at the bottom in the hang position. Zach Evan Esch also has a great article about pull ups using the greasing the groove method see below: http://zacheven-esh.com/grease-the-groove/ but if you can't do 1 pull up then the grease the groove method is not for you. Still once you get to about 2 or 3 pull ups the grease the groove method will work wonders.

I know it sounds strange to practice push ups in order to get your pull ups stronger, but look at the guy's post (I'm assuming he is a guy since he titled the post "Thin guy struggling with first pull up). He says "he" is thin and weighs 53kg. That's 116 pounds. The guy doesn't have a pull up problem, he is just (for lack of better term) weak. If you are a male and you weigh 53 kg / 116 pounds, and you can't do one pull up. You don't have a problem with pull ups, you have a general lack of physical strength. My girlfriend weighs 116 pounds, and she's an adult woman vegatarian. I'm not trying to make light of the situation, but who do you know that weighs 116 pounds? How strong is that person? You guys are telling this dude to put his shoulders in his back pocket and I don't think working on his form would be nearly as effective as improving his overall upper body strength. The guy weighs 116 pounds and can't do one pull up...and you don't feel comfortable assuming this guy is an "absolute beginner"? You don't think putting some general upper body strength on this guy is going to improve his pull ups? That's odd. Sure the push up uses different prime movers, but your lats do get involved and your shoulders get involved and your traps get involved. And your entire upper body just gets stronger overall. Train the bench press for a year, and nothing else. I gaurantee your lats, traps, biceps, forearms will also get stronger. Train the push up for a year, and nothing else. I gaurantee your pull ups will also increase. Here we have a 116 pound thin guy who can't do one pull up. And the advice he is getting is to work on his form, practice negatives, retract the lats, put your shoulders in your back pocket. That's insane, the guy is just weak. At this point the advice he needs is "just get stronger." All of the techincal advice he's getting is for people who can already do pull ups and want to be able to do more pull ups. Am I making any sense here?

This may sound irrelevant, but how many push ups can you do? Get to where you can do 100 push-ups in 3 minutes and your pull up strength will naturally increase as a result. For a lot of people the push up is just an easier exercise to practice. If you are at a point where you are unable to do one pull up, maybe it would be easier to focus on increasing your push-ups to an insane level, at which point your entire upper body (triceps shoulders lats chest traps) will have gained the muscle required to do a few pull ups, then you can start working on your pull ups again.

The easiest way to make them harder w/o adding weight would be to shorten the rest intervals. You could also pre-exhaust your quads by performing 100 bodyweight squats before adding a barbell.