Help request for setting goals.

[bennyp]

ok, brand new member, looking to take advantage of some borrowed experience...

Here's the deal. I'm a 31 year old man, looking to get back into shape. I've spent the last 6 months taking up cardio, and have lost about one and a third stone, or 18 pounds, and improved my fitness no end, as a result of a challenge set up with a couple of other guys. I'm 5'9", and have come down from 181 lb to 163. That's where I am so far.

I'm now looking for a challenge for the next six months, to keep the momentum going, but I don't want to go for pure weight loss, so was thinking of a three tiered approach. The first bit is improving my running times, which I'm happy with. It's the next two that I need help with.

1) I'd like to lose weight - not a massive amount this time, just enough to get me to around 11 st 3lb - 157lb.
2) I'd also like to change my body shape. Again, not drastically, but just enough to be a little wider around the chest, a little thinner around the waist.

I've set up a small home gym to help me with the resistance stuff - dumbells, bench, pull-up bar.

Here are my questions:
Are 1) and 2) realistically compatible? Is trying to lose weight, if modestly, a good idea if you're also trying to gain muscle?
If it is, what's a reasonable goal in terms of body measurements (We'll be going with a financial penalty if goals aren't met, so I have to have measurable statistics!) My initial thought was 2" on the chest, 2" off the waist, 1" on the biceps. Yes, I realise that this is crude, but I'm going to be following a full bidy workout, not just pumping away on the bench press, so I'm hoping it's a reasonable measure of general progress.

My main criterion is that anything that I do must be sustainable, not something I'm going to burn out with or lose interest in after a few months, but a lifestyle change. Note that I want it to be a good habit, but not a central focus of my life - 3 days/week, plus cardio.

I hope I've managed to give a good idea of aims and present situation. I've never done a sustained period of weight training before, so I should be considered a beginner, if not a complete and utter newb. General levels of fitness are ok (I can run 10k, although at a relatively leisurely pace, without having to rest - I can squeek in at around the hour mark) and I have a moderately actie lifestyle (run 2-3 times a week). No medical problems etc.

Any advice that anyone could give would be greatly appreciated. Also, to be cheeky, it'd be great if you could give me the reasons behind your advice - there's loads of helpful people on the forums, but sometimes people give advice without explaining why, which makes an informed choice a bit tricky.

Many thanks in advance,
Ben

 

[Nicki Anderson]

Looking for Experience

Hey Ben!

Great goals and ambitious as well! First off, glad to see you're going to include the strength piece to your program. If you're looking to gain mass, i.e. muscle strength, just doing cardio won't do the trick, hence I'm sure why you set up a home gym. Don't discount the value of taking strength training seriously, in fact, you need to kick it up and give it more attention than the cardio.

Muscle tissue is very active--it burns a lot of calories. Every pound of muscle burns about 35 calories per day. (though there is still some debate about the exact number.)

ou need to increase your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is the pace your body burns calories at rest. Your RMR is closely linked to the amount of muscle you have--remember, muscle burns more calories than fat. Adding muscle will raise your RMR and will greatly increase the chance that the weight loss (more accurately fat loss) will be maintained.

The reason I push the strength training pieces is due to the amount of calories burned when you're NOT exercising. You see, strength training increases your resting metabolic rate 24/7. Your resting metabolic rate (RMR)accounts for 60 to 75 percent of your daily calorie expenditure, so even a modest increase will help burn off more fat. Hence, why I'm pushing the strength training.

One study found that a three-month basic strength-training program resulted in the subjects gaining three pound of muscle and losing four pounds of fat, while increasing nutritional intake by 15 per cent. Unfortunately, aerobic exercise doesn't always increase muscle tissue. In fact, high levels of cardiovascular activity along with a low-calorie diet can actually increase the loss of some muscle tissue. Don't get me wrong, cardio is still important, it's just that aerobic exercise by itself may not be the best way to reach your stated goals.

I usually suggest a solid 40 minute strength training program followed by 20-minutes high intensity cardio. If you're strength training 3x per week, on your "off" days, you can kick up the length of your cardio, perhaps doing hi/low training which is including high intensity levels throughout your workout.

Hopefully that helps a bit.

Good luck. I look forward to following your efforts and ultimate success!

ok, brand new member, looking to take advantage of some borrowed experience...

Here's the deal. I'm a 31 year old man, looking to get back into shape. I've spent the last 6 months taking up cardio, and have lost about one and a third stone, or 18 pounds, and improved my fitness no end, as a result of a challenge set up with a couple of other guys. I'm 5'9", and have come down from 181 lb to 163. That's where I am so far.

I'm now looking for a challenge for the next six months, to keep the momentum going, but I don't want to go for pure weight loss, so was thinking of a three tiered approach. The first bit is improving my running times, which I'm happy with. It's the next two that I need help with.

1) I'd like to lose weight - not a massive amount this time, just enough to get me to around 11 st 3lb - 157lb.
2) I'd also like to change my body shape. Again, not drastically, but just enough to be a little wider around the chest, a little thinner around the waist.

I've set up a small home gym to help me with the resistance stuff - dumbells, bench, pull-up bar.

Here are my questions:
Are 1) and 2) realistically compatible? Is trying to lose weight, if modestly, a good idea if you're also trying to gain muscle?
If it is, what's a reasonable goal in terms of body measurements (We'll be going with a financial penalty if goals aren't met, so I have to have measurable statistics!) My initial thought was 2" on the chest, 2" off the waist, 1" on the biceps. Yes, I realise that this is crude, but I'm going to be following a full bidy workout, not just pumping away on the bench press, so I'm hoping it's a reasonable measure of general progress.

My main criterion is that anything that I do must be sustainable, not something I'm going to burn out with or lose interest in after a few months, but a lifestyle change. Note that I want it to be a good habit, but not a central focus of my life - 3 days/week, plus cardio.

I hope I've managed to give a good idea of aims and present situation. I've never done a sustained period of weight training before, so I should be considered a beginner, if not a complete and utter newb. General levels of fitness are ok (I can run 10k, although at a relatively leisurely pace, without having to rest - I can squeek in at around the hour mark) and I have a moderately actie lifestyle (run 2-3 times a week). No medical problems etc.

Any advice that anyone could give would be greatly appreciated. Also, to be cheeky, it'd be great if you could give me the reasons behind your advice - there's loads of helpful people on the forums, but sometimes people give advice without explaining why, which makes an informed choice a bit tricky.

Many thanks in advance,
Ben

 

[Goldfish]

When it comes to changing body composition, I'm always weary about setting goals weight/size. It's difficult to make realistic assumptions about the way the body will change. And not knowing how much muscle you have and how much you might gain, it's difficult to guess whether or not it would be reasonable for you to lose any more weight. You might find that you actually gain weight and lose sizes. I think it would be more reliable to set performance goals than body composition goals.

For your program, I'd start out with 3-4 strengthening exercises per session, perhaps using an A/B split (where one day you do the exercises from list A, and the other you do the exercises from list B). A/B splits alternate between exercises for the same muscle groups, as oppose to bodypart splits, which focus on one part of the body each day. Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength, a program designed for beginners/newbs, uses the following split:

- A: Squat 3x5, Bench Press 3x5, Deadlift 1x5
- B: Squat 3x5, Press 3x5, Power Clean 5x3

A common modification to the program is instead of 5x3 power clean, do 3x5 bent over rows. I'd be perhaps more inclined to add 2 sets of rows after deadlifts and replace power cleans with 3 sets of chin ups/pull ups if deviating from the original program.

There are many options for you, and this is by no means the only beginner program, nor is it the only effective option for you. I offer you this one for the following reasons:

- For the last year or so I've been repeatedly, brutally, consistently annoyed by many people bragging about the legitimate results they've made with the program, which make many of the years I've spent in the gym seem like adequately wasted time and effort.
- The program teaches you to do the exercises properly with light weights. You may be starting at 5 reps on most exercises, but it is not 5 reps to failure, it is 5 quality reps with good technique at a light weight.
- The program has ongoing linear progression, by which I mean if you follow the program you will be adding weight to every exercise, every session. Eventually the loads will become heavier and it will seem more like maximal/near-maximal loading, but by that time you'll have a strong base in technique and you'll have made the basic adaptations required to safely handle such loads. Linear progression allows easy, consistent tracking of progress.
- The exercises involved all use great amounts of muscle mass. Compound movements strengthen the body as a unit which is very functional, allows you to hit each muscle in a shorter period of time, and burns more energy, which is great for body recomp.