Gramezza

Hi folks. Just after a quick bit of advice on my workout plan. I'm currently following a plan designed by Ian King which is a fully body workout on alternate days during a week. I don't know much about him but I understand that he's the man and knows what he's talking about. Unfortunately due to working shifts I can't always commit to certain days and would find it difficult to do alternate days. As a result I've slightly amended the plan to fit around my work. Instead of working out 3 or 4 times out of every 7 days, I'm currently doing 4 times in every 10 days. My schedule looks like this (starting with the first day of my shift pattern): Day 1 off Day 2 off Day 3 on Day 4 off Day 5 on Day 6 off Day 7 off Day 8 on Day 9 off Day 10 on. Then start again at day 1. My concern (and reason for starting this thread) is, is there a big deal that there are two occasions during each lot of 10 days that I have a 2 day break rather than 1? Am I likely to not see as many benefits due to this slightly longer break between workouts? Ultimately there's not a great deal I can do about it anyway as this is the best I can do around my shifts but just wondered if it'll make much difference having 2 slightly longer breaks thrown in there. Thanks for reading.

Hi all. Just looking for a bit of advice on my protein intake. I recently (2-3 weeks ago) started a new weights regime. I'm happy with how things are going thus far but I am aware I need to eat the right amount of protein for any real gains to be made. I've been trying to avoid protein drinks for a couple of reasons, mainly due to the cost, secondly as I thought I could eat enough protein during the day to not have to rely on the shakes. I think I may be wrong on that one. A check online shows that I should intake 160 - 200g of protein per day (correct me if I'm wrong; 32 year old male, 6'0" tall, around 90kg, for muscle gains). I generally eat lots of protein anyway in the form of chicken and fish but a food diary I've been keeping since I started shows that some days I was only eating around 100g protein daily. I've tried to increase this with various things and I'm finding I'm now eating at least 150g per day but I think I will find this hard to sustain. As a result I'm beginning to think that protein drinks may be the only option to help me maintain my apparent goal of 160 - 200g per day. I like to think I generally eat relatively healthy-ish anyway but buying loads of chicken, fish, meat etc from the supermarket is not cost-efficient when eating this amount daily, plus it inevitably adds on calories etc. I was just after some thoughts from people on here? Anyone who makes muscle gains without relying on the shakes? I also read that I need to increase my calorie intake, from the guideline daily amount of 2500, to between 3000 - 3500 in order to make gains? Is this something I need to do straight away or only at certain points of my regime? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks for your responses (particularly your detailed response, Anim07734). I didn't mean to sound pushy or impatient by posting again. I think I was a little anxious as I had a few days off work and wanted to get a head start before I went back, hence why I probably seemed a little impatient. With regards what shape I want to be in, I want to be able to lift heavy things and look nicer doing it. I've seen the links which I'll have a better look at later, thanks for reposting them for me. I had a quick look at the Hero Journey one which sounds pretty cool, but I couldn't see anywhere where it mentions the different stages (if I remember right, each exercise / day had 3 stages which increased in reps). I was unsure how to interpret these different stages. With regards to my understanding that the body dips into muscle before fat - I'm sure I've read this a few times before, so much so that I believed it to be true. I'm guessing from the responses to my question that this is false? I cannot quote exact sources, but I'm sure I saw it a few times on the Internet before. I appreciate you saying that anything is better than nothing. I've just been set in a way where I say to myself "it's pointless putting the effort in, because I have no clear goal, and therefore any exercise I do will probably be a waste of time." Your words have motivated me to just get on with it. I like the underpants article, which probably explains where I got the "body burns muscle before fat" info from, from extensive research before actually moving myself to get out of this rut. I've had a look at the beginner circuit plan, and whilst I'm willing to give it a go, I worry that there's not as much weight work involved as I'd hoped. Would you suggest doing this on the odd days and doing some strength training in between (if I feel up to it)? With regards diet, I was going to post this in the appropriate forum but as we're on the topic I'll mention it here. I don't believe I eat that badly and wanted your opinions on whether this is the case. These are all dependant on which shift I'm working: For breakfast I'll usually eat granola or Weetabix with a bit of sugar sprinkled on top for taste. I'll usually take a packed lunch to work, consisting of a sandwich (usually egg mayonnaise, cheese & pickle, or chicken), an apple, a banana, an orange, a good sized handful of grapes (around 20 green and red - 10 of each), a 0% fat Greek yoghurt and a Snickers (as as treat). I usually take 2 drinks - a can of Pepsi Max and a bottle of orange Lucozade, for me to drink during the shift. This lunch is generally what I take every shift, I tend not to deviate from this. When I'm at home, I'll generally eat the following meals, whether for lunch or dinner (again, my meal times are all over the place due to working shifts): *jacket potato with beans and cheese *whitefish fillet with rice *lasagne (packet, frozen, from supermarket) normally with a little garlic bread *Cheese omelette *Fish and chips (battered fish out of a packet from shop, chips generally home made) *cottage pie (again from shop), with veg (tinned) such as peas, carrots and new potatoes *roast dinner once or twice a week with mash potato, veg etc *burgers no more than once a week as a treat, sometimes using Slimming World syn-free burgers (although not always), and generally with home made chips I don't think I eat that badly really. I drink no more than the 1 Lucozade a day and that's generally when I'm at work (6 days out of every 10). When at home I drink Pepsi or orange juice (or occasional cup of tea with 2 sugars). I appreciate from looking at this there are certain things I could cut down on (eg sugar in tea, Lucozade, etc) but these are in moderation and I think my meals would be pretty boring if I cut down even more. Of course there are other things I eat too occasionally apart from these but these are generally what make up the bulk of what I eat. Any advice on my diet or anything else I've mentioned? Thanks all for your time and advice.

Hi all, I posted this in another thread but I'm not sure if that's getting any views so apologies for posting this again if you've already seen me ask it, but my question remains unanswered hence asking again. I want to get into shape (as do most of us), but I don't know where to start, for the following reasons. I'm what you'd probably call "skinny fat." I don't have the impression of being overweight to look at me (although the scale says otherwise) but I could do with losing a bit of podge off my torso. My primary goal is to increase strength in the long run. Do I need to lose weight first before working towards my goal of gaining strength? Or can the two work alongside each other? I just worry as I need to lose weight but I know (or at least I think I know) that when doing cardio, your body dips into muscle for energy before dipping into fat. I just don't know where to start (although I've seen links to a couple of circuits which may help me). I want to be serious about this, but I firmly believe that any exercises I do at the moment would be a waste of time and energy, as I don't know what I'm working towards in the short term. Any advice please?

Sorry to jump on the back of this, but it's kind of relevant. I want to get into shape (as do most of us), but I don't know where to start, for the following reasons. I'm what you'd probably call "skinny fat." I don't have the impression of being overweight to look at me (although the scale says otherwise) but I could do with losing a bit of podge off my torso. My primary goal is to increase strength in the long run. Do I need to lose weight first before working towards my goal of gaining strength? Or can the two work alongside each other? I just worry as I need to lose weight but I know (or at least I think I know) that when doing cardio, your body dips into muscle for energy before dipping into fat. I just don't know where to start (although the links above to the circuits may help me). I want to be serious about this, but I firmly believe that any exercises I do at the moment would be a waste of time and energy, as I don't know what I'm working towards in the short term. Any advice please?

Thanks for your comments. As I've never devised a workout plan before, I just wanted one which would test me and work a lot of muscles. Having now looked into the 5/3/1, the issue is that it revolves around my maximum for various exercises (or upto 90% of my maximum), and I have no real idea what my maximums are. Am I just making excuses...? Also I have mentioned previously the lack of lower body exercises is due to the fact I used to play football to a decent standard, and I'm happy with the state of my leg muscles at the moment. I've included some lower body exercises however so as to not neglect them. I am confused on something though and hope someone can answer me: my goal is to shed a few pounds off my torso and build strength / muscle. I hear however that the body will take energy from muscle before it dips into fat reserves. So am I not stuck in a never ending cycle? i.e. Doing strength exercises is fine, but the next time I do cardio it will detract from any muscle I've built before delving into fat? Time is very precious for me, trying to do this before / after working days, so I don't want to waste any time doing anything which either isn't necessary, or takes me two steps back. Secondly another noob question, can I do core / ab exercises on days of cardio? I didn't want to overdo it on strength training days. For my cardio I've been doing some interval training as best as I can on my treadmill. I've set up two custom programs on the treadmill and I do one after the other. The first is a basic jog - run - jog, jog at about 8-9kph, run at about 14-15kph; the second program is similar in setup but not as quick, instead a lot of the jogging parts are on an incline of upto 10%. Each segment on both programs is 200m (ie jog for the first 200m, then run to 400m, then jog to 600m etc), both programs take around 29mins total to do, for a total distance of around 4km each time. Please comment on my treadmill training also, any feedback appreciated. Any input is welcomed. Greg

Alternatively would this work? Burpees with a set of weights in between sets? For example: 10 burpees 1 set of bicep curls 9 burpees 1 set of tri extensions 8 burpees 1 set of bent over rows 7 burpees..... Etc etc etc Would this work or would it be too much of an overload on my muscles?

Thanks for your comments and links, which I've had a look at. My understanding was that the tricep dips target the triceps (obviously), bent over rows target the back, and pullups target a lot of your upper body muscles, including the arms, back, shoulders and chest. The reason I included so many different exercises is for variety, rather than do 3 sets or whatever of the same exercise, I had one set of different exercises targeting the same muscle groups, this meant that I may have had 3 sets of, for example, a bicep exercise, but each set was a different exercise working the same muscle. Is it a better idea to cut all this rubbish out and just stick to less exercises but more sets of each?

Thanks for your comments. Raincloak - yes I do a circuit of all exercises in one workout. The plan was to do at least 2 circuits, until I realised how much time it took (and how tiring) to do one. For clarification, I don't blast through all of them without stopping, there's 32 exercises on there and I tend to take a couple of minutes rest after every 8 exercises. I've not really considered that it's too much as I can do the circuit (although I do tire towards the end, especially on the static arm curls and the twenty-ones). For me, the point of designing one like that was to have an all body workout in the same day. Then the next day, I could concentrate on cardio work. The reason for having it all in the same day is due to lack of time due to other commitments etc. Crawdadr - I was concentrating much more on my upper body as that's where I feel my weaknesses are, from years of football to a decent standard I have never really had a problem with my legs. Thanks for the info on Randy Couture's circuit, I'm a big UFC fan so if it's good enough for him then I'll give it a try! I'll take a look at the info and the link on it, thanks.

Hey everyone, My first post here after I stumbled on this website while looking for advice on a few things. I'm recently getting into lifting more weights, I've never massively been into weighs but I am OK cardio-wise. Playing football (soccer) regularly for years kept me in shape, but since I gave it up 6 years ago (due to my job and shift patterns) my shape has become a little more like a pear shape. I'm 30 in a few weeks or so, I'm 5'11 - 6'0" and I probably weigh anything between 80kg - 90kg (don't have scales at home). I devised a workout plan based on a few exercises I like, and a few I don't like but which kick my butt. Most of these are from P90x as a guide but a few aren't. The idea is do the whole lot as a circuit in one go and I was hoping someone with more knowledge than me in these things could cast an eye over it and offer advice / opinion: Strength: Front raise Bicep curls (with EZ bar) Tricep dips Chest press Lunges Lateral raise Pullups or pushups Tricep kickbacks Bench press Back squats Throw the bombs Concentration curl Jawbreakers Bent over row Congdon curls Y-Presses Side tri-rise Wall sit for 1minute Static arm curls Scarecrows Upright row Pullovers Skater's lunge Deep swimmers press Lawnmowers Lying Tri extension Alternating shoulder press Crouching Cohen curls Pike presses Flip grip tricep kickbacks 2-Angle shoulder fly Twenty-Ones Cardio: Burpees Jumping Jacks Shadow boxing (1min) Jump up knee tucks Foot crosses (not sure of its proper name, you hop on one leg while making the figure of a cross, front back and side to side) Squat jumps Skier jumps Double air Heismanns Circle runs (run around a static object on the floor for 1min each way) Monster truck tyres I'm currently working on one for my core and where to incorporate it into the schedule. I'm also hoping to get Spartan Makers into my schedule once I've got the appropriate weights, and Jack/Push/Climbs. I've also got a treadmill at home which I may use as well as, or instead of, the cardio plan. I do these on almost alternating days, at least 6 days out of every 10 (again due to shift patterns etc) which looks like this: Day 1 - rest Day 2 - rest Day 3 - strength Day 4 - cardio Day 5 - strength Day 6 - rest Day 7 - rest Day 8 - strength Day 9 - cardio Day 10 - strength I tend not to eat rubbish really but now need to lose a bit of weight and add a bit of muscle, I tend to eat a lot of chicken and fish in my diet, as well as fruit (only bananas / apples / grapes). Space is a little limited in my house for certain things but I have enought equipment at home I believe, such as plenty of weights, weight bars of all kinds, treadmill, mats, etc, I also have a bench and exercise bike but due to limited space these currently live in my attic. A gym membership is out of the question for me for a number of reasons, mainly my working hours, childcare commitments and the membership fee. Thank you for your time, it is appreciated Greg