Tuesday, January 15, 2008

New Routine to get Buff

Weigh-In: 216.8 lbs

Yesterday was a good day. I'm trying to learn as much as possible about gaining muscle while still losing fat. It's time to adjust my routine a bit to meet these new goals. I still will run, but I'm going to have to cut it back on "lifting days" to make sure I get enough caloric intake to build muscle. It's also a fact that running is a highly catabolic (read: muscle break-down causing) activity, so that is a bit counter productive to building muscle.

There is a line I have to walk between cardio and strength training. I'm still trying to sort it all out and get in a groove, albeit a new type of groove.

My new schedule is looking something like this:

Monday:
-strength training; chest and tri's
-light cardio workout, no more than 1-1.5 miles of running/jogging
-50 situps (this number will get higher as time goes on)

Tuesday:
-strength training; I actually forget what we do today but I'll post it as soon as I hear back from my friend.
-50 situps (this number will get higher as time goes on)
-light to no cardio

Wednesday:
-situps
-4 sets of squats
-light cardio as I need to recover from the two days of lifting

Thursday:
- run a 5k
-situps

Friday:
- run a 5k
-situps

Saturday or Sunday (whichever day I can fit it in):
-strength Training: shoulders and back

Aside from that on the weekends I rest and do my normal weekend things which usually include some type of physical activity anyway.

Check back later and I'll post the Tuesday workout. I just need to hear back from my friend so he can tell me what we're doing since I forget!

6 comments:

billy said...

A few comments:

Why not break up your lifting and running days more evenly, like lifting MWF, and running TTH?

Also, I don't see why you would need to do so many situps. I would come up with an ab routine and work it into a strength training day. Many people overtrain with situps and it won't help you. I'd rather see a more comprehensive ab routine done once a week with adequate recovery time.

Jay said...

gaining muscle is the hard part. It's going to be especially hard if you're running so much. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Brian said...

i realize the lifting days are all kinda together, and that is just because that is when my friend whom i'm lifting with is available. If it doesnt work out or I'm too tired I'll do what I can to try to change it around.

the ab thing I just kinda threw in there because that's what I did today.

Do you have a specific ab routine you could recommend? Working abs is new to me.

billy said...

There are lots of ab exercises you can try, including but not limited to:
Crunches
Reverse crunches
Cross-body crunches
Incline crunches
Incline reverse crunches
Jackknife
Hanging leg raise
Hanging knee raise
Plank
Side Plank
Swiss ball exchange (a great one)
Kneeling cable crunch

inked said...

Have you ever read the book "New Rules of Lifting" by Alwyn Cosgrove and Lou Schuler? If not, you should pick it up some time Brian. It isn't anything earth shattering excercise wise, but they have a year long program to help build muscle and lose fat. It is broken into fat loss, hypertrophy, and strength phases and it is all put together very well. It is based on 6 body part movements: horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, twist, and lunge. It is a great read.

Brian said...

Thanks Justin, I'm going to look into that book.