workout help..

nialo

recently started in the gym.. main goal is weight loss and increasing my endurance.

used to play alot of sport (bball 5 nights a week). but stopped about 6 months back. so completely out of shape now.. have problems with shins and knees so high impact exercises are out till i get my weight down and under control again.. currently sitting around 17.4 stone. 6'5. aim is to drop down to between 14 and 15 stone.. have a large frame anyways so have never been lower than 14.5 even at my fittest.

anyways to the routine, at the moment ive been doing only cardio. trying to get my fitness level up and was going to add weights in later. working out for about 45 minutes in the gym at the moment and then about 30 minutes swimmin after that. gym work is a bit of running about 5 - 10 minutes at a decent pace to warm up. then row for 2000 km, then cycle for 10 minutes, then some step type machine for the rest of the time. swimming is mixture between front crawl and breast stroke. trying to work up to 10 lenghts front crawl without a break.

so what can i do to otimise what im doing and actually get in shape a bit more productively. only in the gym 2 weeks now.

I know my diet also affects weight loss but i want to get into a decent gym routine before i start taking apart my diet fully, at the moment its not too bad. its more cutting out the extras. ( pints and chocolate really)

i would have been off the opinion that doing weights at the moment isnt really neccessary, as i naturally put on muscle easily, always have. so wanted to concentrate on burning fat instead of putting on muscle.

should say im only in the gym three times a week. play a bit of basketball the other two nights and rest for two as well.

cheeers for any help given..

EileenG

The main point of a gym, to me, is the weights. You can run or climb stairs anywhere, but you go to a gym to lift weights.

I'm delighted you can put on muscle easily. Go and put some on now. It will improve your fitness, and reduce your chance of more injury. Muscle imbalance is one of the biggest causes of injury in other sports.

You can put together a relatively short but effective routine based on squat, bench press, deadlift, bentover row, stiffleg deadlift, pull-up, military press, dips, woodchopper. And lucky for you, lifting is low impact so you won't batter your knees.

WHIP IT!

EileenG wrote: »

The main point of a gym, to me, is the weights. You can run or climb stairs anywhere, but you go to a gym to lift weights.

I'm delighted you can put on muscle easily. Go and put some on now. It will improve your fitness, and reduce your chance of more injury. Muscle imbalance is one of the biggest causes of injury in other sports.

You can put together a relatively short but effective routine based on squat, bench press, deadlift, bentover row, stiffleg deadlift, pull-up, military press, dips, woodchopper. And lucky for you, lifting is low impact so you won't batter your knees.

Hi Eileen, could you explain this in a bit more detail if you don't mind? Thanks alot

EileenG

Typical example: having weak hamstrings makes it very easy to injure the hams themselves or even the achillies tendon. Hamstrings are a muscle group that tend to get very little work compared to quads in normal exercise. In the gym, you can target them directly with things like stiffleg deadlifts.