A newbie with routine questions!

[HartAttack]

Hello all, my names Aaron Hart out of Hammond, IN and I'm oviously new here. Let me tell you a little about myself before I go into asking for help with a weekly routine.....

 

-4 years ago I was 370 pounds

-I started playing semi pro rugby at said weight.

-After 2 years of playing I dropped to 260 pounds

-Towards the end of my 2nd season I started developing cronic back pain

-Playing the prop position became unbearable on my back so I was forced to "retire"

-2 years later here I am back up to 340 pounds.

-I'm still just 27 years old and would love to get back into shape and perhaps play again

 

Over this past year I've got my hands on a lot of fitness equipment, and asking for your help to help me put together a routine using it all.

 

Things I've got....

 

- Old school bench, barbell, dumbells, and weights (Bench doesn't incline, and I've got more than enough weight)

- Jump Rope (I'm awful with it, I think max I can do in a row right now is 10, if I'm lucky)

- Tractor tire and sledgehammer (is there anything I can do to muffle the sound when I hit it a bit?)

- Swiss ball (non weighted, ie no sand inside)

- Exercise bike with the swinging arms

- Heavy Bag

- Resistance cord w/door atachment

 

Then for Christmas I just got...

 

-Grappling rope (also have an old snow sled that I can load with weights and use the rope to pull)

-Yoga mat

-DDP Yoga

 

I really wanna implement the DDP yoga since it should help out my back and possibly get me back on the rugby pitch.

 

 

So that's what I'm working with, who wants to help a fatty with a weekly routine using all (or some) of that?

Also one other question, is there anything I can do to rev up my metabolism? I swear my "diet" has not been THAT BAD over the last 2 years yet here I am 80lbs heavier.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

[El Exorcisto]

What do your current lifts look like? You've got enough gear to get started, but something to squat from is definitely a near-future necessity. A pair of tall sawhorses, wood boxes, or something else you can scab together is fine, but squats are a necessity. How much plate weight do you have, and is it an Olympic barbell(2") or standard(1")? If it standard plate weight and bar, hunt down an Olympic set on Craigslist sooner rather than later. You'll be bending a standard bar deadlifting inside two months, maybe sooner.

 

Until you can squat, I would do Starting Strength subbing in Jefferson deadlifts (check T-Nations new article on them) to replace squat temporarily.

 

As for diet... if you are up 80 pounds then your diet sucks. Get a notebook and track the calories of everything you eat. I mean everything. Vegetables still count, so does that one piece of chocolate or that Halls when you have a cold. Step on the scale weekly. If it goes up then eat less. Your metabolism is fine.

[HartAttack]

Thanks for the reply....I haven't done any kind of regular lifting since the summer when I was bench 5x5 of 205, could probably max more but that's all I had. Squats are something that I haven't got heavy with for the reason you listed, no rack, but I have done them with "smaller weight" that I'm able to, for lack of the proper terms, go from overhead press down to my shoulders.

 

Bench is really the only thing I've really gotten "heavy" with, or really ever consistently done. I've toyed with other moves but never really had known what I was doing. This coming year I'd really like to find a set weekly schedule that will get me lean while maintaining muscle.

 

I do have the olympic weights with 250 pounds of weight....and also 4  20 pound standard sized plates that i put on 2 old dumbells.

 

Is "Starting Strength" a program I can find here? Does it implement the yoga, tractor tire, and grappling rope??? Those are the 3 main things I wanna use the most...Cause the shiz just sounds fun.

 

As far as the diet and my metabolism goes, eh I won't argue there....What should a man my size (340), who's basically looking to re-lose that 80 pounds I gained the last 2 years and tack on another 35 on top of it to get me down to a solid 225.

 

 

P.S. You might ask what a "jock"rugby player" is doing on here....I'm far from a jock. Been a "Misfit" for most of life, a friend of mine got me into rugby, and the comradery of the sport kinda broke me out of my shell....I still stick to my gamer roots though, been addicted to  Dota 2 for the last year or so.

[Flex Luthor]

Starting Strength is basically considered the lifting bible. I prefer Power to the People but that's just me. I don't believe the routines in power to the people require squats either so that's a plus for you. There's also stronglifts 5x5 which is free unlike starting strength but doesn't go over the basics as well.

 

You have a couple of options at this point. If you want to do mainly what you listed above(yoga,grappling rope,sledgehammer) then you should definitely do that! Only lift if you want to. If you do want to I wouldn't do it more than once or twice a week if you're also going to be incorporating all of that other stuff.

 

You could also flip what I just said and mainly lift, supplementing with some sledge and rope work a couple times a week on off days.

 

It's 100% up to you, the best thing about fitness in my opinion, but IF it were up to me I'd stick with the yoga first. Main reason being your body sounds pretty f'ed up and strenuous, violent activity would likely only aggravate the problem further. Once your body is corrected then you can add in the other stuff, paying strict attention to form so as not to relapse and hurt yourself all over again. Hopefully this helped at least a little bit.

 

PS: I LOVED that video of Arthur going through DDP yoga, one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen.

[HartAttack]

How does yoga 3 days a week ( the DDP program calls for that anyway), then combine the sledge hammer and grappling ropes into a days routine, do that twice a week, and then do some sort of lifting another day.

 

Mon- Yoga

Tues- Rope/sledge

Wed- Yoga

Thurs- Weights

Fri- Yoga

Sat- Rope/Sledge

Sun-Rest

 

Or should I do Weights twice, rope/sledge once? What should I do for my weights session(s)?

[El Exorcisto]

You should lift weights 3 days a week, flip your tire as a warmup a dozen times after lifting, and do yoga as some active recovery. As for the rope, I have no idea, man. I know it sounds fun, but there are only so many hours in the day. Pass on the hammer, too. You'll get plenty of conditioning work flipping it.

 

Starting Strength goes:

 

Workout A

Squat

Press

Deadlift

 

Workout B

Squat

Bench

Power Cleans

 

Start with the bare bar and work up to a set of 5 that feels sort of heavy. From there every workout is done for 3x5 (not including warmups) with an additional 5 pounds on every lift but the deadlift. The deadlift is done for 1 heavy set of 5, and 10 pounds is added every workout. I suggest you spring for the book, it is a phenomenal reference. Like I said sub in the Jefferson lfit for squats initially, but squats are not optional. They build your deadlift, give you quads like tree trunks, and only the awesome do them well while the pussy gymrats and Captain Upper-body (the superhero no one wants to be) always cry about "leg day." Every day is leg day.