Advice

NormanPoo

Ok guys,
Im trying to lose a beer belly while building muscle.
At the moment i hit the gym 6 days a week

Monday: Chest
Tuesday: H.I.T training
Wednesday:Bicep & Triceo
Thurs: H.I.T
Fri: Back and Shoulders
Sat: H.I.T

Meals: Porridge at 8
Shake at 10 30
Wholemeal sandwhiches at 1
Almonds and trail mix at 4
Choicken rice and black beans at 8 (after gym and protein shake)

Any advice comments would be greatly appreciated!

BossArky

Give more details of what eactly you do for those HIIT and weights days.

Are you training your legs with weights?

Devia

Your diet looks a bit sparse at first glance. Make sure you're meeting your daily calorie requirements or you'll lose muscle rather than gain it.

Mellor

A whole day dedicated to biceps and triceps is a bit silly.
Do you train legs at all, i cut the curls and swap for squats and deadlifts.

On tues, thurs & sat, you just have HIIT. What exactly do you do and for how long.
As if it's a regular workout of about an hour then you aren't doing HIIT

NormanPoo

the hit is 7 sets of 2mins jog, 1 min sprint.

what changes would you guys recomend??

xgtdec

I normally stay away from rice/pasta/spuds after lunch, like i have porridge\weetabox for breakfast and a wrap\rice salad for lunch and thats that, my dinner would be turkey\salmon\herring with beans and 2 green veg sorta thing, might work for you if you looking to cut some fat!! just my 2 cents

gavkm27

NormanPoo wrote: »

the hit is 7 sets of 2mins jog, 1 min sprint.

what changes would you guys recomend??

Heres what i do for HIIT

6/500m Row 60 Sec Rest Min.it's all about AVG 500m,pick a time for the 6 of them and hold it,i dont know how fit you are so you will have to figure it out,but after the 6th 1,walking should be very hard and you will feel like puking.

Great thing about this is you can chart you progress and log the time,aiming to bring down you average time weekly.

Other approachs with this is to up the rest not more than 2.30min but make 1 or 2 all out 100%.

HIIT rowing is the most efficient cardio going,it can be a bit of a head fcuk,i battle with it alot,simply because it's so painful,but the results speak for themselves,i did 4 HIIT sets a week over last 2 months and got my BF from 16% to 9% with no weight loss

Colm_OReilly

I'd ditch the bread/pasta, add more veg, def more protein and healthy fats.

Whole body weights training will give you more bang for your buck, so stick with deads, squats, presses, pull ups, etc. Adding in cleans/snatches if you like a fun challenge.

NormanPoo

thanks for all the advice lads.

Just a few questions.

On the days you do hit do you do any other excercises or weights?

What would be better to eat at lunch than sandwiches.i work all day and dont have alot of time to prepare food for lunch.

Im trying to lose a beer belly. Whats the best approach for this??is it worth doing ab excercises?

gavkm27

NormanPoo wrote: »

thanks for all the advice lads.

Just a few questions.

On the days you do hit do you do any other excercises or weights?

What would be better to eat at lunch than sandwiches.i work all day and dont have alot of time to prepare food for lunch.

Im trying to lose a beer belly. Whats the best approach for this??is it worth doing ab excercises?

It's a myth that you can target an area to loose fat,you need to work all over to loose overall bodyfat,depending on genetics,fat is stored in different place on different people,obviously you store alot of yours on your belly,i hold alot of mine on my arse!

If loosing your belly is the only target,ie loosing body fat,just do HIIT,make it your main focus,do some light rep weights to mix it up also.

For lunch sandwiches are ok,when are you working out,after work? if so,brown bread is great for lunch,slow burn complex carbs,then hit up the gym later

NormanPoo

well im looking to build muscle too,not just lose the belly.

yup, working out after lunch and eat brown bread at lunch.

So if i do a weight program mon, wed, fri and h.i.t thurs,fri and sat that should be ok?

Thanks for all the advice.

Mellor

NormanPoo wrote: »

the hit is 7 sets of 2mins jog, 1 min sprint.

what changes would you guys recomend??

It's not the timing intervals that are the important, 2min/1min is perfect,
Its the intensity. Most people new to HIIT do the easy part too hard and the hard part too easy.

The two mins rest period should be as easy as you can, recover as much as possible. After getting the legs going and the HR up, you prob find a very slow jog is more comfortable than a walk.

The sprint should be balls to the wall. Pretty much as fast as you can go, the full minute should be tough wuth you counting down the seconds to finish.

NormanPoo wrote: »

well im looking to build muscle too,not just lose the belly.

One at a time

Armedocr

Mellor wrote: »

One at a time

It's easy enough to do both. Just requires a lot more dedication and it's seriously slow as well.

Transform

NormanPoo wrote: »

thanks for all the advice lads.

Just a few questions.

On the days you do hit do you do any other excercises or weights?

What would be better to eat at lunch than sandwiches.i work all day and dont have alot of time to prepare food for lunch.

Im trying to lose a beer belly. Whats the best approach for this??is it worth doing ab excercises?

emmmm leg exercies????

Armedocr

Transform wrote: »

emmmm leg exercies????

Don't worry, turns out this is one of my friends lol.

I've got him on a solid low volume routine from IronAddicts.

If your reading this Norm I'll kick your ass if you quit on me. :P

Transform

Armedocr wrote: »

Don't worry, turns out this is one of my friends lol.

I've got him on a solid low volume routine from IronAddicts.

If your reading this Norm I'll kick your ass if you quit on me. :P

glad to hear that and hope a metcon thrown in for good measure

sharky86

gavkm27 wrote: »

Heres what i do for HIIT

6/500m Row 60 Sec Rest Min.it's all about AVG 500m,pick a time for the 6 of them and hold it,i dont know how fit you are so you will have to figure it out,but after the 6th 1,walking should be very hard and you will feel like puking.

Great thing about this is you can chart you progress and log the time,aiming to bring down you average time weekly.

Other approachs with this is to up the rest not more than 2.30min but make 1 or 2 all out 100%.

HIIT rowing is the most efficient cardio going,it can be a bit of a head fcuk,i battle with it alot,simply because it's so painful,but the results speak for themselves,i did 4 HIIT sets a week over last 2 months and got my BF from 16% to 9% with no weight loss

man thats got to hurt!

thirdmantackle

gavkm27 wrote: »

Heres what i do for HIIT

6/500m Row 60 Sec Rest Min.it's all about AVG 500m,pick a time for the 6 of them and hold it,i dont know how fit you are so you will have to figure it out,but after the 6th 1,walking should be very hard and you will feel like puking.

Great thing about this is you can chart you progress and log the time,aiming to bring down you average time weekly.

Other approachs with this is to up the rest not more than 2.30min but make 1 or 2 all out 100%.

HIIT rowing is the most efficient cardio going,it can be a bit of a head fcuk,i battle with it alot,simply because it's so painful,but the results speak for themselves,i did 4 HIIT sets a week over last 2 months and got my BF from 16% to 9% with no weight loss

better than jogging/sprinting HIIT?

gavkm27

thirdmantackle wrote: »

better than jogging/sprinting HIIT?

Yes i think the rower is more efficient HIIT

Mellor

Armedocr wrote: »

It's easy enough to do both. Just requires a lot more dedication and it's seriously slow as well.

Not really.
Weight (fat) loss requires a calorie deficit.
Muscle building requires a calorie surplus.

The common exception is the beginner stages were your body adjusts to the weights and builds muscle, even on deficit (which actually increases the deficit). This can't be maintained.


What is your suggested way around it?
I've heard, that eating big on weight days, and deficit on rest days can do it, but i'm not convinced as the body would carry some of the fuel over to the nest day and so on.

Devia

Mellor wrote: »

Not really.
Weight (fat) loss requires a calorie deficit.
Muscle building requires a calorie surplus.

Muscle building requires protein, not necessarily a calorie surplus.

A clean protein rich diet (which is below maintenance in terms of calories) coupled with the exercise hes doing at the moment should give him a reduction in body fat and will build muscle at the same time. Prolonged aerobic exercise will generally burn calories from fat before protein so it shouldn't stop him from achieving lean muscle mass at the same time.

gavkm27

Mellor wrote: »

What is your suggested way around it?
I've heard, that eating big on weight days, and deficit on rest days can do it, but i'm not convinced as the body would carry some of the fuel over to the nest day and so on.

I just did this over an 8 week period,started out 75kg and 16% BF
Reduced carb intake,dramatic increased protein,after a week was down to 73.8kg and stayed that way for about 4 weeks,the gradually increased the carbs,all the while my HIIT completey sucked,my times were terrible and my quads killed me on the rower(i could feel i needed feul)
But i kept lifting more also,was training 6 sessions a week and doing big compounds as main focus.I averaged 250g protein a day,carbs were about 150g and then gradually increased to 250/300g,fats were higher than i would have liked as i work on an oil rig and somethings have'nt alot of options.
I supplemented Whey and Creatine.finished up 76kg and 9.92%BF

I dont know if i would do it again,but i dont want to ''Bulk and cut'' it does not appeal to me,my cardio suffered and i know it,i have always had it as my bench mark,but i sacrificed it for loss of BF and muscle increase.

A friend of mine does the Ketogenic diet,no carbs-NONE for 14 days,then loads for 2 days,his BF is 5%,he does no cardio,just weights

optimistic_

gavkm27 wrote: »

I just did this over an 8 week period,started out 75kg and 16% BF
Reduced carb intake,dramatic increased protein,after a week was down to 73.8kg and stayed that way for about 4 weeks,the gradually increased the carbs,all the while my HIIT completey sucked,my times were terrible and my quads killed me on the rower(i could feel i needed feul)
But i kept lifting more also,was training 6 sessions a week and doing big compounds as main focus.I averaged 250g protein a day,carbs were about 150g and then gradually increased to 250/300g,fats were higher than i would have liked as i work on an oil rig and somethings have'nt alot of options.
I supplemented Whey and Creatine.finished up 76kg and 9.92%BF

I dont know if i would do it again,but i dont want to ''Bulk and cut'' it does not appeal to me,my cardio suffered and i know it,i have always had it as my bench mark,but i sacrificed it for loss of BF and muscle increase.

A friend of mine does the Ketogenic diet,no carbs-NONE for 14 days,then loads for 2 days,his BF is 5%,he does no cardio,just weights

Hold on, you dropped 7% BF in 8 weeks? Jaysus.
Wish i could manage that!

gavkm27

optimistic_ wrote: »

Hold on, you dropped 7% BF in 8 weeks? Jaysus.
Wish i could manage that!

Ya was pretty happy,although i'd like to put it down to hard work and diet,i'm a big believer in genetic makeup,i swam competivetly all my life,i have that physique.Watch me struggle over the next 12 months to put on a few kg's of muscle

optimistic_

Fair play anyway mate,
I think i've dropped roughly 2% in the last while. I'm happy with the steady progress though, i haven't massively reduced carb intake, i just keep it under control. Training minimum 5 days per week now, compound lifting one day, HIIT next...with morning jogs and throwing in metcons when i can, hopefully that will increase progress.