Alright, here's the story. I'm 24, and have virtually never lifted in life. I've been a soccer player most of life and have managed to stay in decent shape. Lately, I haven't been as active as I'd like, and I'm starting to get out of shape. In order to get in shape, I've decided to run a 1/2 marathon with some of friends. I've been running everyday to prepare for that.
The reason that I'm here is that I have also decided that it's time for me to get serious about working on building some upper body muscle. I'm very thin, and can't bench more now than I could sophomore year in high school. Frankly, it's embarrassing. I need some good advice regarding several aspects of lifting weights. goal is to gain toned upper body muscle. I am currently at 180 lbs, and I figure that I'll lose about 5-10 lbs from prepping for the marathon. I am currently satisfied with lower body strength, and would prefer not to focus on it. work/school schedules are such that I don't really have a defined "weekend", so I am open to any sort of schedule. Also, I prefer to lift later at night. I have been drinking whey protein shakes directly after workouts (about 30g of protein each), but beyond that I haven't changed diet.
primary questions are:
Is it advisable not to do leg workouts at all, but rather just focus on chest/back/bi's/tris? What kind of schedule/split would that look like?
Should I be working out daily or every other day? Can I continue to run at least 5k every day while maintaining such a schedule without sacrificing upper body muscle gain?
In order to maximize upper body muscle gain, what steps should I be taking in diet and workouts?
-For workouts, what reps/sets are advisable?
-Since I don't have someone to spot me, I have been using the machines for exercises that would normally require them. Is this okay? If I have to use a machine, would it be better to use one of the rope style ones, or the standard type?
-For diet, how much protein/food would be advisable to eat and when?
ignorance has produced about a thousand questions in me. Right now, I'm just working out with minimal knowledge, since it's better than doing nothing. I'm sorry if some of this is posted in other places. I haven't found answers to these questions. If you can post links to answers to these questions specifically, or generally, I would greatly appreciate it.
I don't know what all I should even ask regarding circumstances. I would greatly appreciate any feedback or information that you have. Thank you very much for your time.
Beginner looking for some advice
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pschneider
- STARTING OUT
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2010 6:59 pm
Re: Beginner looking for some advice
If u want to build muscle keep cardio to min for a while the bigest mistake u can make is overtrain
Re: Beginner looking for some advice
Hrm, I probably won't be able to train as hard for the marathon as I'd like but I can deal with that. If I run for 30 mins every other day, will I still be able to make significant gains? If I start to eat much more will that help?
Re: Beginner looking for some advice
Definitely Do Legs. Don't build upper body muscle, then expect the Legs to just cope with the added weight easily, if you don't bother training them for some kind of strengthening approach.
For training, I'd suggest limiting strength training to 2x a week given your goals. It should be enough to stimulate some change.
System could go something like this.
Day 1. Cardio
Day 2. Weights + Cardio.
Day 3. Cardio
Day 4. Day off.
Day 5. Weights + Cardio.
Day 6. Cardio.
Day 7. Day off
Give your normal Cardio sessions 1hr and the post weights ones 30 minutes.
I'd keep the Protein shake after sessions. You have options.
1. A basic Whey or Soy one with Carbs.
2. The same thing without Carbs, then add your own like Crushed Oats. Use water as Milk increases calories, viscocity, Casein content and Enzyme production. You'd need Lactase enzymes to digest the Galactose part of the Lactose Di-saccharide, which whislt being mildly useful as the Lactose could help synthesise the protein via the Insulin spike i would help to influence, it's a small pay off with milk in lieu of the downsides.
Taste wise, any mild issues coudl be corrected with things like a bit of Honey, Vanillia Essence, ground ginger, ground nutmeg or cinnamon.
I would suggest going for a full shake after Cardio days, and on the Weights + Cardio days, half a shake after weights, to help promote recovery and then the other half after Cardio. the Carbs in the half shake would help you get through the 30 minutes Cardio after weights.
Cardio would be better as something that will least tax the muscles worked, so exercise Bike would be ideal, as your upper body weight should be channelled away from the Legs, and you're not doing any sort of reisstance type stuff like you do with Steppers or Rowing machines.
Sets and reps. You don't need to exceed 8-10 reps per set and about 3-4 sets per session, per muscle group should be enough. However for the weights it's easy does it to start for 4-6 weeks, to get used to the biomechanics of weight lifting.
Dumbbell stuff, the smallest one for small muscle groups, (Arms and shoulders), the next one up for bigger ones.
Machines. 1 plate for small groups, 2 for bigger ones. increasing the weight little by little where possible every 1-2 weeks.
Diet wise I'd aim for something like a 40/40/20 split. That's 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% Fat. Fat is a secondary energy source, but Carbs help synthesise protein and maintain Bloodsugar levels, but they are also your primary energy source, so you'll be needing them for quite a fair few things, but going higher would mean cutting back on Protein, potentially affecting the muscle building process, which will be stifled to some extent simply by the Cardio you'd be doing per week.
So for calories, I'd go for around 3,000 a day at least. In your case I think that would be a shrewd move, given the physiological multi-tasking you're trying to do, with muscle building and half marathon conditioning as well.
So breakdown wise you're talking 1,200 calories protein, 1,200 calories Carbs, 600 calories Fats.
To avoid having too much protein per meal, I'd aim for eating around every 2.5 hours.
So say you eat around 7AM first meal, it would go like this.
Meal 1. 7:00 AM
Meal 2. 9:30 AM
Meal 3. 12:00 PM
Meal 4. 2:30 PM
Meal 5. 5:00 PM
Meal 6. 7:30 PM
Meal 7. 10:00 PM
So you'd be getting roughly 170 calories protein, 170 calories Carbs and 85 calories Fat per meal.
That's roughly 42 grams protein, 42 grams Carbs, 9 grams Fat per meal.
Hopefully that covers everything
.
For training, I'd suggest limiting strength training to 2x a week given your goals. It should be enough to stimulate some change.
System could go something like this.
Day 1. Cardio
Day 2. Weights + Cardio.
Day 3. Cardio
Day 4. Day off.
Day 5. Weights + Cardio.
Day 6. Cardio.
Day 7. Day off
Give your normal Cardio sessions 1hr and the post weights ones 30 minutes.
I'd keep the Protein shake after sessions. You have options.
1. A basic Whey or Soy one with Carbs.
2. The same thing without Carbs, then add your own like Crushed Oats. Use water as Milk increases calories, viscocity, Casein content and Enzyme production. You'd need Lactase enzymes to digest the Galactose part of the Lactose Di-saccharide, which whislt being mildly useful as the Lactose could help synthesise the protein via the Insulin spike i would help to influence, it's a small pay off with milk in lieu of the downsides.
Taste wise, any mild issues coudl be corrected with things like a bit of Honey, Vanillia Essence, ground ginger, ground nutmeg or cinnamon.
I would suggest going for a full shake after Cardio days, and on the Weights + Cardio days, half a shake after weights, to help promote recovery and then the other half after Cardio. the Carbs in the half shake would help you get through the 30 minutes Cardio after weights.
Cardio would be better as something that will least tax the muscles worked, so exercise Bike would be ideal, as your upper body weight should be channelled away from the Legs, and you're not doing any sort of reisstance type stuff like you do with Steppers or Rowing machines.
Sets and reps. You don't need to exceed 8-10 reps per set and about 3-4 sets per session, per muscle group should be enough. However for the weights it's easy does it to start for 4-6 weeks, to get used to the biomechanics of weight lifting.
Dumbbell stuff, the smallest one for small muscle groups, (Arms and shoulders), the next one up for bigger ones.
Machines. 1 plate for small groups, 2 for bigger ones. increasing the weight little by little where possible every 1-2 weeks.
Diet wise I'd aim for something like a 40/40/20 split. That's 40% Protein, 40% Carbs and 20% Fat. Fat is a secondary energy source, but Carbs help synthesise protein and maintain Bloodsugar levels, but they are also your primary energy source, so you'll be needing them for quite a fair few things, but going higher would mean cutting back on Protein, potentially affecting the muscle building process, which will be stifled to some extent simply by the Cardio you'd be doing per week.
So for calories, I'd go for around 3,000 a day at least. In your case I think that would be a shrewd move, given the physiological multi-tasking you're trying to do, with muscle building and half marathon conditioning as well.
So breakdown wise you're talking 1,200 calories protein, 1,200 calories Carbs, 600 calories Fats.
To avoid having too much protein per meal, I'd aim for eating around every 2.5 hours.
So say you eat around 7AM first meal, it would go like this.
Meal 1. 7:00 AM
Meal 2. 9:30 AM
Meal 3. 12:00 PM
Meal 4. 2:30 PM
Meal 5. 5:00 PM
Meal 6. 7:30 PM
Meal 7. 10:00 PM
So you'd be getting roughly 170 calories protein, 170 calories Carbs and 85 calories Fat per meal.
That's roughly 42 grams protein, 42 grams Carbs, 9 grams Fat per meal.
Hopefully that covers everything
.Re: Beginner looking for some advice
Thank you so very much. That will help me immensely! Much appreciated
Re: Beginner looking for some advice
I have a quick follow up question:
If I am only doing weights twice a week, should I be doing a full session of all of the major muscle groups or should I break it up into something like one day of upper body and one day of lower body per week?
If I am only doing weights twice a week, should I be doing a full session of all of the major muscle groups or should I break it up into something like one day of upper body and one day of lower body per week?
Re: Beginner looking for some advice
True, but he could do that and do double the volume, which wouldn't really be a problem, so he'd just do something like 8 sets on Chest instead of 4 sets 2x a week, as an example.
However I think on this occasion doing the same workout 2x a week would be more preferable.
However I think on this occasion doing the same workout 2x a week would be more preferable.