Workout regiments

[Mysterio]

Just looking to drop about 20 pounds and tone up.

start running everyday, and eat smaller portions.

thats the guaranteed way of reaching your goal of losing 20 pounds, and trimming up.

[Drace]

Just looking to drop about 20 pounds and tone up.

Cardio will definitely help with both of these goals - I would say find an exercise machine you enjoy in the gym and try for at least 3-4 cardio sessions a week. (aka something that will get your heart rate up for 20+ minutes at a time; internet pr0n does not count >_>)

For toning with free-weights and machines, try to focus on weights you can lift 8-12 times in a set without feeling like you are at your max. If you are not going for bulk and pushing any one muscle group too hard, you can hit 2-3 good muscle groups each workout, and work each muscle group 2-3 times a week. Example of a pretty standard 3 muscle group weekly workout:

Monday: Chests, Shoulders, Triceps ("push" exercises)
Tuesday: Back, Bi-Ceps, Legs ("pull" exercises)
(Rinse and repeat throughout the week leaving a couple of days for rest.)

Break each muscle group down into 3 different exercises, and 3 sets each different exercise. Chest for example: (1)Flat Bench Press 10 reps x 3 sets, (2)Inclined Dumbell Press 10 reps x 3 sets, (3)Cable Flys 10 reps x 3 sets

I would highly recommend 10 minutes of some type of light cardio machine as a warm-up, and on the days you want to focus on doing cardio and weights, do the cardio after a light weight workout. If you are serious about tracking your results, keep a notebook of your workouts - it will help keep you motivated and allow you to track your progress even when you can't see/feel it sometimes. Also, stretch often (before, during, after workouts) ... can't stress that enough ~

Again, this is just a basic example of toning/weight loss type of workout. I'm an (on-again off-again >_<) triathlon junky for the past ~6 years, so its an area I quite enjoy. Best thing to do is to find out what works for you ~ make it enjoyable.

[Chips]

Yeah, I'll have to agree with everyone else on the running thing. Not only is it extremely good for the heart, but it works an assortment of other muscles. It's probably one of the best weight loss techniques to boot.

Someone else mentioned earlier that fat doesn't turn into muscle. This may be true to a certain extent, but muscle doesn't come from nowhere. You need to gain some weight before gaining some muscle.

On to just muscle building; push ups, chin ups, crunches, squats and lunges are just few of the many workouts that you can do for free, and the results are very noticeable after just three-four weeks of doing them every day (every other if you're just starting out). Someone also said that doing push ups are bad for the shoulders... If you're already in shape, and your shoulders are fine, you won't be doing any damage. So they're safe, really. (Unless you have abnormally weak shoulders)

Um, on to weight training... If you want endurance, go with lighter weights with more reps. If you want strength, go with more weight and less reps. Protein supplements after a workout is a nice way to top things off.

Hope that helps.

[Abob]

Drace knows what hes talking about. one thing I would like to add though if you havnt done any weightlifting in awile/ever you might want to start slowly for example 1 set at half your usual weight to warm up your muscles/joints after this set go into your 3 regular sets. continue for first month or so. (I forgot this step and have been feeling it for over a year)
because when you dont use muscle you loose it and some of your support muscles may be weak even though your major muscle groups may not feel weak.

it will be slow at first but keep it up work thew the pain and after awile you will feal better after a workout

GL
Abob

[Ryany]

I’ll be the first to say that I’m glad you are looking into the most beneficial type of exercise that most people overlook.

I’m not sure how much background you have so I apologize if I over explain.

A few things I’ve learned over the years:
• You really only need to do each muscle group 1 day out of the week. In fact, a lot of people overtrain, which ends up hindering their progress more than helping it. I made this mistake a few years back and stalled out on progress until I dropped the volume of lifts and my progress soared.
• Machines are a good supplement, but be sure to try to form your routine around free weights.
• Be sure to include a balanced lifting routine and avoid doing only bench press and biceps like a lot do. That makes you look to serious lifters like you came from the allakhazam of lifting.
• Be as sure as possible to include at least one of the two lifts between squats and deadlifts. Both exercises are the most draining ones you will do, but they are by far the most effective single lifts due to the large number of muscles involved in the motion.
• If you pick up squats, be sure to go to parallel on your depth if you want the full benefit of the lift. It also helps your flexibility. Most football squats or even most lifters will never come close to parallel. You will do a lot less weight by going to parallel, but it helps you in the long run. Parallel as defined by the USAPL is having the tops of your thighs parallel to the ground. (not the bottoms) It will feel like you are going past parallel.
• Follow proper gym etiquette and don’t do things like bicep curls in the squat rack. A lot of people do that, but this drives serious lifters nuts.
• Don’t get tricked into lifting heavy making you “big and bulky”. I’ve lifted heavy (as in lifting as much weight as I could for my desired number of reps) and I’m not what most people would call “big and bulky”. Your size will always be controlled by your diet anyway. (you can’t get big unless you have an excess in calories to begin with)
• Always make sure you are using proper form. This helps prevent injury and makes you more efficient in improvement

My current routine:
Day 1:
Dumbbell Bench Press
Tricep Extensions
Shoulder Fly Machine
Tricep Pushdowns

Day2:
Pull Ups
Dumbbell Bicep Curls
Rows
Pulldowns

Day3:
Squats
Abs
Leg Curls
Leg Extensions

A very useful website that has a great community board full of very experienced lifters can be found at http://www.wannabebigforums.com/ Many of the regulars there are very helpful and won't act all conceited. (I'm not spamming, I have learned a lot about lifting from that site) You will find a lot better answers there than what you would find on a FFXI forum.

[moqi]

do hindu pushups, hindu squats, back bridges, and jogging/running. after mastering the back bridge and you can do atleast 150 hindu squats and 100 hindu pushups, you can try to move on to handstand pushups. [handstand pushups are extremely difficult if you aren't using a wall for balance, and you can very easily break your neck. however, once you can do them, it's an amazing exercise for your whole body. arms, shoulders, pecs, back, abs, and quads all in one exercise!] v-ups are also very good for core strength.

don't think most weight lifting will get you anywhere, unless all you want is big muscles that don't do anything. the key to real strength is in the reps, and the only weight you'll need is your own body weight.

if you can get up to 200 hindu pushups, 500 hindu squats, 3 minute full extension back bridges, 10 handstand pushups, and 3 minute elevated v-ups while maintaining a proper diet, you'll be ripped like bruce lee.

look for matt furey's combat conditioning book, it's on several torrent sites.

[Saphirea]

To lose weight, theres lots of things you can do.

First things first is you need to up your water intake, and by upping, I mean seriously. A dehydrated body won't be able to handle a vigorous workout regime.

6 small meals a day > 3. And by small meals I'm saying a can of tuna fish, water, drained.

Cut out mayo, sodas and especially beer.

Cardio + cardio + cardio + more cardio. Anything less then 30 minutes per session is a waste of time. However; you should avoid things early on that are typically hard on body parts. For some running on the ground or treadmills is especially hard on peoples knees. Elliptical machines always seemed to work way better for me.

If all you're looking to do is lose weight and tone up a body you really can forgo heavy lifting, by supplementing it weighted situps, pullups and the good ole pushup.

Something people who are serious about weightloss should look at is bodyforlife. I did thier program for 6 months, lost close to 35 pounds, while no its not the 100 I lost at boot camp, it did work.

[SilverBreeze]

I have an hour and a half aerobics class on Mondays and Thursdays, and I do light weight lifting on Tuesdays and Fridays.

I eat about 6 times a day, in small portions, (unless I'm out with my friends stuffing my face), it helps your metabolism burn faster.

[Metah]

Just play Nintendo Wii 7 times a week.

[Quixotic]

Day 1: Cardio (An hour to an hour and a half of biking. I have a road bike that I use when the weather is nice, but its cold as shit so I just use an indoor machine now. I can't stand running because of shin splints.)

Day 2: Biceps, Upper and lower back, Abs

Day 3: Legs

Day 4: Triceps, Chest, Shoulders

I usually do 4 sets of 10-12 reps for every exercise, and I alternate exercises randomly, but I make sure to get 2-3 exercises per muscle/muscle group. Workouts generally take 1-1.5 hours. I eat about 4-5 times a day too.

[Mysterio]

getting out of your basement is a start.

[z3r0c00l]

ffxi made me put on like 40 pounds, and when i quit, almost a year ago, i started going from 5 > 10 > 15 > 20 pushup's nightly, same from 5 > 10 > 15 > 20 situps, ab crunch, and dumbell lifts. It's fast and easy and you will see the results if you keep at it every night, and yeah running helps alot aswell.

[untouchable]

play ddr.
i seriously lost weight on that game pretty quickly lol

[Sandhawk]

Day 1 - Pushing - Chest/Shoulders/Tri's
Day 2 - Pulling - Back/Biceps/Traps
Day 3 - Legs
Day 4 - Rest or Repeat

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/

[Maguspk]

Oh yeah, Cassiraa reminded me, another good idea is wear foot/angle/torso weights while jogging.

lol back in like 7th grade when I watched DBZ hardcore I found body weights online. I bought 2 ankle weights to start, both weing in at 10 pounds each. I wore them for like 2 weeks and when I took them off it was so amazing I felt like I was so much lighter and agile idk. But ya I wanted to buy a full body weight set, i.e. Weighted Vest, ankle thingers etc. but I never got around to it. (The allusion to DBZ if you don't get it is the characters, in order to increase speed, wear weighted clothing and perform their routines in it so as to allow them increased speed when they take it off)

[Blarg]

I tried out back bridges but then after my head really hurt. I like the hindu pushups since they seem to do a lot more than a regular pushup. Not so sure how the hindu squats are, they dont seem too hard but ill find out tomorrow morning if it worked.

[Dalek]

Oh yeah, Cassiraa reminded me, another good idea is wear foot/angle/torso weights while jogging.

lol back in like 7th grade when I watched DBZ hardcore I found body weights online. I bought 2 ankle weights to start, both weing in at 10 pounds each. I wore them for like 2 weeks and when I took them off it was so amazing I felt like I was so much lighter and agile idk. But ya I wanted to buy a full body weight set, i.e. Weighted Vest, ankle thingers etc. but I never got around to it. (The allusion to DBZ if you don't get it is the characters, in order to increase speed, wear weighted clothing and perform their routines in it so as to allow them increased speed when they take it off)

Going to have to recommend against this, wearing weights while jogging etc is very bad on your joints and you can cause some serious damage to developing tendons and such.

For the OP, there are plenty of good ideas in this thread but for a beginner the best thing to do is keep things simple.

Work out 3 times a week, giving your body plenty of time to rest and hopefully allowing you to not be sick of going to the gym all the time. Aim for 3 sets of 8-12 reps, by your 3rd set your muscles should be fatigued enough that the last few reps of the last set make you put some real effort into completing them. Choose a weight that is appropriate for this(dont go gung-ho and try lifting the biggest weights and be unable to keep going after the first set) and make sure to hit all your major muscle groups. Start with the larger ones like chest/legs/back and work your way to the smaller muscles.

A decent 3-day program might look like this:

Monday: Legs/Abs

Wednesday: Chest/shoulders/triceps

Friday: Biceps/back/forearms


I personally usually do 5-10 min of cardio warm-up before all my routines(if youre looking to drop some of the flab you'll probably wanna go for longer) and always always always stretch before you start lifting. An injury is only going to prevent you from reaching your goals so you can certainly afford to take a few minutes to keep you from losing weeks of lifting time. You may not be able to run for that long when you first start but try to increase the distance by a small amount each time and you'll improve quickly. Same goes for your lifting, try and go for heavier weights as you get used to lifting your usual weight and continually improve.

Other than that just watch your diet and try not to eat too much garbage like fast food or soda and I guarantee you'll be happy with the results in a few weeks. Some of my friends make fun of me for it lol, but a protein shake after your routine is great for helping your muscles repair and be ready for the next workout.

The hardest part of all of this is finding the drive to stick to your program, so whatever you can use to motivate you to keep at it.... do it. I bring my walkman with me and sometimes drag my friends in with me(or they drag me in with them, lol).

[Zigma]

Take a 12ounce budlight can and lift it from the table top to your lips. Do this until 12 cans are empty at least 4 times a week.

and she's having a kid ladies and gents!

[archibaldcrane]

I was an associate producer on Extreme Makeover on ABC for a year (the people edition, not the home edition) and the best advice given here is:

6 small meals a day.

Cardio + cardio + cardio + more cardio.

We'd feed the people on the show more than they'd ever want to eat, but spread out 6-7 times a day. Between that and the cardio their metabolisms would be flying so fast that even when they'd be off their feet (no cardio) for a month after plastic surgery, they'd still be losing weight. You can lose 20 pounds in a month, safely, doing this, and no matter your sex/race/body type, this works for everyone. We were doing 350 lb. firefighters with 170 lb. moms with two kids and baby weight and scrawny 160 lb. 6' skinny-fat dudes. Diet+exercise > genetic disposition.

If you want to be really hardcore start a diet that is basically lean proteins (fish and chicken breast) with a good nutritious vegetable (Spinach or Asparagus, preferably steamed works great) 6 times a day. They always stressed NO SODIUM WHATSOEVER because it makes you retain water. Eat a carbohydrate (like mashed potatoes or yams) before your workout for energy so you don't pass out on the treadmill or while lifting. Your body will become a machine. Any weight-lifting you do on top of this will show very quickly.

I just started a weight-lifting routine myself. Good luck!

[Norelco]

Cool guys, I see some really good ideas in here. I'm really liking the idea of 6 small meals a day, cardio, and light but repetitive weights.