Can someone recommend a good program?

ianmc38

Basically i'm looking to increase strength and tone up. I've started training again since the start of the new year.

At the moment, I'm doing alot of cardio, squash and soccer once a week as well as an intensive aerobic workout.

I've been doing the weights class in the gym I'm in, but cant always attend the days the classes are on, so I'd prefer to train using the machines in the gym. At the moment I have 2 days in the week set aside for weight training, Tuesdays and Fridays.

I'm not particularly strong. The last time i was in the gym, I found 15kg on each side of the bench press to be a struggle and could barely complete 8 reps on my second and 3rd sets, similar results with the incline press. I weigh 70kg btw. I'm totally clueless when it comes to the amount of weight I should be lifting for each muscle group....

I've been taking a whey protein shake immediately after every workout and have a pretty good diet with very few fats and lots of protein and carbs. Should I be taking the whey protein after cardio workouts?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

tribulus

If you've only two days a week, and relatively new to training a whole body workout would probably be good.

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=04-073-training

A good read.

Basically just avoid machines for the most part and use free weight compound exercises such as squats/deadlifts/bench press etc.

Day 1:
Squats
Romanian Deadlift
DB Press
DB Row
Curls
Dips

Day 2:
Deadlift
Lunge
Overhead press
Pull-ups
Bench Press
Calves

Or something like that.

www.exrx.net if you don't know what some exercises are.

Don't be afraid to ask people if you're unsure of the technique for something - it's better than doing something wrong possibly hurting yourself.

You should post up your diet - having very few fats is not necessarily a good thing. Diet is just as important as training and is where most people fall down.

You also need a good amount of time to recover between sessions and to get enough sleep i.e take it easy on the multi-tabling 'till all hours of the morning

Best of luck

ianmc38

tribulus wrote:

You also need a good amount of time to recover between sessions and to get enough sleep i.e take it easy on the multi-tabling 'till all hours of the morning

Best of luck

Lol. That part could be tough!

My diet is something like:

Breakfast - usually 2 or 3 pieces of fruit and a coffee.

Lunch - Some form of office canteen dinner. usually something like roast chicken with 2 veg and potatoes of some sort, pasta dishes (pasta bakes, lasagne) or else soup and a sandwich.

Dinner - Meat 7 days a week usually. Alot of chicken. Also eat alot of lamb, pork and beef, usually with veg and potatoes/brown rice/pasta


Thx.

tribulus

I won't go into too much detail as the stickies on nutrition really do cover everything but:

You need to eat more often, 5+ times a day.
Try and have them fairly evenly spaced out.

You generally want Protein, carbs and fat in every meal as well as some fruit/veg.

Good sources of carbs are brown rice/pasta/porridge.
You can taper off the carbs later on in the day if needs be.

You need unsaturated fat - using cold or lightly cooked olive oil is good, as are mixed nuts, avocados and nut oils if you like them.

If you read through the stickies, then come up with a diet that you feel you could stick to and enjoy, post that up and we'll go over it for any improvements to be made.

ianmc38

Thanks for the info