supermeatheads

[fang]

hi all,

i'm currently 5'10" @ 165 lbs from losing over 40-50 lbs during hs. since losing the weight, i've been running at least a mile daily as moderate exercise- which i realize now i should be upping. i've just recently started hitting the gym and want to get down to 150 losing fat while putting on some muscle and tone out. this is the 1st time in my life that i've been regularly working out, so i have a ways to go.

i run to and from the gym(totaling about ~2.4 miles on gym-days) and work out pretty aimlessly. i have seen some muscle development, but nothing too drastic. i would say i've learned to eat pretty good from losing all the weight in hs and have no problem with adjusting my diet for my health. the problem is: i just have no idea how to best achieve my goals and was wondering if anybody could provide any insight or resources that could direct me to a more structured workout/diet plan? i'm clueless. thanks.

[fndmybetterhalf]

hmm, this definitely wont be complete cuz theres a lot that goes into this but the general consensus with alot of people i sthat you can't necessarily gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

with that said, i tend to disagree to a certain extent. since nobody on here is aiming to become some body building Mr Olympia, here is a strucuted workout and diet plan for you.

Diet:

you want to keep your caloric intake at a consistant level. Since you weigh roughl 165lbs, I'd suggest taking in about 2500-3000 (might sound like alot but its not at all) keep your meals spread throughout every 2-3 hours. this means eating small portions every 3 hours or so.

eat healthy lean foods. eat your veges! get roughly 160-180g of protein, similar for carbs, 2500-3000 calories, atleast a gallon of water a day, keep your sugar intake low and your fat intake low as well (i stick with roughly 50g).

workout:

Stick with your cardio. Cardio is good for you just in general whether or not youre trying to lose weight.

as far as lifting goes, if you want to work out 5 days a week, doing a 5 day split isnt a bad idea, assuming you hit those weights hard each day.

M; chest

T: Back

W: Legs

Th: Shoulders

F: arms

For each workout day, try hitting something like 15-18 sets:

for example:

Chest:

warmup by doign some lightweight chest presses: 1 set or 15

bench or db press: 3 sets of 6-10

decline: 3 sets of 6-10 reps

incline: 3 sets

flys (3 high, 2 low or osmething): 5 sets

dips: 3 sets

etc. you get the idea.

Its typically a good idea to keep each week different. If you did benchpress one week, do dumbell presses the next, etc.

If you dont wanna work out 5 days a week:

M: chest and triceps

T: Back and biceps

W: Legs and shoulders

Anyway, i won't get too much into details but if you work out hard and keep a nice healthy balanced diet, you will see results. Just keep your protein and carbs in check!

[kunk75]

way, way, way too many sets. no more than 100 total reps per bodypart are required.

15-18 sets would be deleterious and would burn out all his glycogen. gvt, 5 x 5, etc, none go beyond 100 reps.

[fndmybetterhalf]

Hmm ic.

Looks like im doing too many sets lol.

I usually try to fit in 15-18 sets all in 45 minutes in supersets.

[kunk75]

^prolly ok for you. not so much for the un-indoctrinated. i always think that a novice is better off with more food, rest and less lifting

[fndmybetterhalf]

thats true. the 3 day split might be better fit for him.

[fang]

thanks for the info. will probably be working with a 3-day split routine. still feel a bit clueless though. haha.

eating a meal every 2-3 hours is nearly impossible the way my dining commons hours work and i nearly always miss breakfast and sometimes lunch. however, i do keep almonds in my room to snack on in between meals. will my inability to space out meals at a decent rate hold back progress?

[fndmybetterhalf]

well, eating every 2-3 hours doenst mean you need to eat meals.

My diet will typically look smething like this:

breakfast - 730AM:

6 egg whites

2 egg yolk

cup of oatmeal

cup of milk

around 10AM:

banana

protein shake

12PM:

6oz chicken breast

mount of spinach, broccoli, dark green salad

3PM:

almonds

pb sandwhich

6PM preworkout:

banana or 6" chicken breast subway sandwhich or something

8PM postworkout:

protein shake imediately after

30 minutes or so later, i'll have another chicken or tuna meal

11PM bedtime:

cup of cottage cheese or something.

So by meals, it erally means little snacks. Even a handful of almonds or a banana or something will help. a protein shake is a quck and easy alternative but real food > proteiun shake.

Nutrition is like 80% of working out. if you dont give yourself enough to eat, it will def hinder progress.

as far as spacing out meals, just try to eat as often as possible but you just dont wanat to get to that point where you are starvingggg. the point is, your metabolism will speed up and you'll actually be hungry every 2-3 hours, so just feed yourself something atleast.

[playdisonlyatnight]

i find this is a good set range for each bodypart

Quads-15-17

Hams-10-12

Chest-15

Back-15-17

Shoulders-12-15

Bis-10

Tris-10-12

Calves-10

with a general rule of 8-12 reps, sometimes going lower and sometimes higher to change stuff up

[fndmybetterhalf]

sounds about right minus the legs you got there...

15-17 quads and 10-12 hams, 10 calves...thats alot to do.

my legs usually consists of roughly 10-12 quads, 6 hams, 6 calves.

[CUTUP]

sounds about right minus the legs you got there...

15-17 quads and 10-12 hams, 10 calves...thats alot to do.

my legs usually consists of roughly 10-12 quads, 6 hams, 6 calves.

Agreed

Those that can bust out that many reps arent squatting or pushing enough IMO, which seems to be commonplace for legs

I have known of many guys ( including myself at one point) who would back off from pushing extra heavy far too early in their sets when training

Especially with squats and leg presses, you can always do more then you think you can with some extra effort

[fndmybetterhalf]

Agreed

Those that can bust out that many reps arent squatting or pushing enough IMO, which seems to be commonplace for legs

I have known of many guys ( including myself at one point) who would back off from pushing extra heavy far too early in their sets when training

Especially with squats and leg presses, you can always do more then you think you can with some extra effort

I usually hit my leg presses hard but go easy on squat. maybe habit because most people i know hit their squats hard but its hard to squat heavy without a spotter. much easier to push with leg presses knowing that hundreds of lbs arent resting on my shoulders.

leg workout that has worked pretty well for me...pretty standard i think

squats 3 x 10

leg presses 3 x 6-10

leg extentions 3 x 10

lunges 3x10

leg curls 3x10

calf raises or extentions

i dont particularly do much calf workouts since alot of it is being worked out from everything else.

[CUTUP]

Your routine for legs is almost identical to mine, although I do more sets of squats instead of leg presses. I just set up the safety cage if I dont have a spotter, it has saved my ass more then once when my legs gave out

I do far more work on my calves though as they are my problem area. I used to weigh in at next to nothing, so I have always had small legs, but my calves have always been rather tiny

Over the years they have gotten big, but the ball at the top of my calve still eludes me.

It pisses me right off that a buddy I train with has almost perfect calves but he almost never does calve excersises, the guys genetics for legs are insane

[kunk75]

i don;t believe in rep counts at all; i believe they are nothing but a load indicator in so far as if you can complete a set of 15 or 10 or 5 without failing, you need to increase the weight. i only look at total reps (100 or so per bp) but not how you get there. i am in the minority here but just never understood wht 5 but not 6 or 12 but not 11 or 13.

[CUTUP]

I agree with that to a point

I think a balance should be kept between counting and just burning out without counting reps, as many guys I know set their reps to a certain number and stop there even though they may be able to push a few more

Its a tough thing to do, as I find intensity can vary hugely in day to day training. Some days I just dont have it in me as intensely, other days I walk my gym from machine to machine like a man possessed

I guess to sum it up, I only like to set goals to see if I can break them

[sonicvoodoo]

i don;t believe in rep counts at all; i believe they are nothing but a load indicator in so far as if you can complete a set of 15 or 10 or 5 without failing, you need to increase the weight. i only look at total reps (100 or so per bp) but not how you get there. i am in the minority here but just never understood wht 5 but not 6 or 12 but not 11 or 13.

I agree completely. The most common mistake I see in the gym is people using weights that are far too manageable. They do reps and go thru the motions without putting any real strain on the muscle. Everyone knows that in order to grow/get stronger, you need to break down muscle fiber and to accomplish this you really need to lift to failure.

You don't need to lift extremely heavy to reach failure....pre exhaustion, super sets and drop sets work fine.

[NatseOklim]

There's also a massive difference between what reps can be achieved naturally or with some chemical help though...

[knucks]

If anyone wants to follow my nutrition, I'm on Gyminee...

http://www.gyminee.com/locker_room/knucks

[kunk75]

that's cool. just added mine too.

[Guest on-display]

is worth it to do an ecg stack?

[kunk75]

worth what? is pretty effective IMO.

[villain]

yeah its effective as hell

only thing is that if i take it in the afternoon/evening i don't end up eating anything after cos it completely kills me appetite

i dont take green tea tho

i've been doing caffeine/ephedra but im cycling back on yohimbine now

[Guest on-display]

I'm researching about it now but what would be the right way to start one?

dosing/timing wise. Also would 20 be too young to go on a ECG stack?

already know that a good diet/cardio is all i need. Just curious

[CUTUP]

I'm researching about it now but what would be the right way to start one?

dosing/timing wise. Also would 20 be too young to go on a ECG stack?

already know that a good diet/cardio is all i need. Just curious

I would hold off and tweak your diet first, unless your prepping for a contest ( in which case you would probably be on clen and t-3 if you were older/on sauce) then I dont think there is a need for it.

However if your bent on going on a cutter, I would follow a few simple rules, as 20 years old is not too young of an age IMO. You can supplement the same dosage scheduale for either green tea or aspirin, but with green tea take 400mg

#1 No coffee or Red bull ect. An ECA stack will make you jittery as all hell, especially if you have never done it before, and you wont need any more uppers in your system. Its bad for the heart anyways

#2 Use only 1 regular strength aspirin, 1 tab of ephedrine, and 1 tab of caffeine, so 25 mg of ephedrine, 200 mg of caffeine and 325 mg of Aspirin. Take this in the morning unless you want to be up and jittery all night

#3 Drink loads of water

#4 Take for a 2 week on 2 week off period.

Your receptors will down regulate themselves and make this combo almost worthless by the second week, so you are better off stopping altogether and then starting again after a 2 week break.

I would do 2, 2 week dosage periods over 2 months, followed by a strict diet for maximum results. I am by no means telling you to do it or not do it, but better to be safe if you decide to. Many claim to double the dosages after the first 2 weeks, but thats a pretty hefty amount of uppers in your system, I find the basic dosage to work wonders when allowing 2 weeks off for downregulation

[CUTUP]

All of the above is my own personal opinion. Some people state that there is no receptor down time, but I found that my burn and weight loss almost completely halted after around 2 weeks. ( and it has been proven in studies)

I kept my diet clean and continued again after 2 weeks off and burned fat like crazy again when I bounced back on, so I am big time on spreading out the dosages and not having your heart pound out of your chest while your in the gym

[villain]

yeah this is true for the most part

you have to cycle on and off

so I go between yohimbine and ephedra

after a while your body becomes used to it

[Hendodo]

Ok , so ive been doing 5 sets of 50 push-ups, and 3 sets of 50 crunches

on M W F. i run on T and TH and have b ball practice on Sat. im trying to get into better shape and become stronger. my goal has been to reach 100 push-ups consecutively .. ive been stuck at 80 for the past month... anyone have ideas that i can use to reach this goal?? is it cuz i dont get enuff rest ( 6 hrs a nite)?? is it cuz im running ??

thanks

[Mr Calvin Oscar]

why dont you just go to a gym? pushups will only take you so far

[Hendodo]

why dont you just go to a gym? pushups will only take you so far

first off, im only 16 , and i dont wanna mess with stuff that could injure/stunt my growth. second, i dont wanna get a membership right now ( somewhat expensive) . and third, i want to be able to do 100 push ups because im trying to accomplish a goal.

so for now, imma stick to some free weights, running, sports, and push-ups etc.

[youkinorn2]

So are you implying that by going to a gym, you could injure/stunt your growth?

here we go..

making that argument is one thing...but making it while talking about how you are working out and using free weights anyways is just confusing.