Only new to Gym

mirwillbeback

Hi all,

Joined my local gym ( ie 2 mins from my house ) so no excuses not to be exercising regularly.
I am about 16 st, 5"11 and looking to improve fitness, tone up and lose the belly. I'm going to the gym 4 - 5 times a week now, in general for no longer than 1 hour. I have no programme, but this is what I have been doing each time.

15 mins cycle on " fat burn " burn mode, where machine asks weight / age

15 mins on cross trainer again on " fat burn " mode

50 sit ups, slowly, holding for 3 - 4 secs

10 min walk at 6.0 km an hour on treadmill

10 min cycle as above

10 min cross trainer as above

Is this enough? Too much? I'm not sure what the best way to lose the weight is, I have heard lifting weights is effective, but of no great appeal to me.

Any one any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Paul

AARRRGH

Lose the sit ups and start lifting some weights.

This is what I currently do - it works for me:

Shoulder press (dumbells)
Bench press (barbell)
Chest fly (cables)
Hammer curls (dumbells)
Tricep dips
Seated row
Back extension
Plank
Standing wrist curls

I do roughly 3 sets with 6 reps (i.e. failure on rep 6) for everything except back extension, plank and tripep dips. I do these three until I fail.

You can find videos of all of the above on youtube.

Also, make sure your diet is clean. The easist way to do this is to try to stick to unprocessed food.

Fatloss08

lift weights and cardio and 80% diet as some say

AARRRGH

You can probably reduce the amount of cardio you're doing as well, or do it on off days, e.g.

Monday - weights
Tuesday - cardio
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - cardio

Etc.

aye

AARRRGH wrote: »

Lose the sit ups and start lifting some weights.

Agreed.

AARRRGH wrote: »

This is what I currently do - it works for me:

Shoulder press (dumbells)
Bench press (barbell)
Chest fly (cables)
Hammer curls (dumbells)
Tricep dips
Back extension
Plank
Standing wrist curls

I do roughly 3 sets with 6 reps (i.e. failure on rep 6) for everything except back extension, plank and tripep dips. I do these three until I fail.

This is a bit unbalanced, and as a beginner OP you wanna keep a balanced work out, i.e. if you work chest, work your back.
Standing wrist curls also arent going to be working a large enough muscle to assist in fat burning.

i think a balanced weights program like the following would suit better.

chest - chest press (barbell)
mid back - seated row
quads - leg press
hamstrings - hamstring curl
shoulders - standing shoulder press (dumbbells)
lats - lat pulldown
abs - plank.

If you want to add arms
biceps - hammer curl
triceps - rope pulldown


go for 3 sets time 8 reps, where you will fail on rep 9.

squats etc are harder exercises and you can more up to them in time.

as for the cardio, doing cardio on non weigths days is ok.

if you want to do both on the same day, try intervalling them.

i.e. start with 10 mins cardio, do 3 weight exercises all reps and sets, do 10 mins cardio, 3 weight exercises all reps and sets, 10 mins cardio.

this avoid doing too much cardio before weight lifting which can lead to diminished strength on the weight exercises.

And as has been said, diet is the main thing, it must be cleaned up.
be sure to eat some protein after your workouts, and have a read of the sticky on nutrition.