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Best all round workouts for a non-fitness type

TalleyRand83

Nearly hitting 40 years of age and looking to do some light workouts to keep everything working and start to use more muscles so that if I get to older age I'm in good shape. I'm not a gym bunny and to be honest I don't really want to be one but do want to exercise enough to get an all round workout.

Weekly plan in my head is:

3 x good walks

2/3 x HIIT spinning (25 mins a class)

and maybe buy some dumbbells and do 2 workouts a week with them

Is that a good enough use of muscles in the body between walking, spinning and weights or should I look to alter that rough plan? Any helpful tips very much appreciated

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Esse85

Diet will play a bigger impact on shape.

What does your plan look like there?

What weights workouts do you plan on doing, it's all so vague that it's impossible to answer your question.

"A good walk", define it?

put_the_kettle_on

Try and fit in pilates in your daily routine. There's loads of great, free instruction vids on youtube and literally 20 minutes a day makes a difference. Or if budget isn't too tight then a couple of hour long classes a week.

You develop strength, great posture and your joints feel like they've been greased. Honestly, I cannot recommend it enough.

TalleyRand83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119170260#Comment_119170260

Okay didn't meant to be vague, yes I'm trying to cut down all the bad foods, bread and chips being equal number one on my list, my wife would have a very good diet so am trying to slowly change. Drastic diet alteration won't work for me and I know I'd crack if I tried so making little changes ongoing.

For workouts, have a very good 25 min spinning youtube class that I'm doing, plan to do find a good dumbbell class on youtube also, again not being drastic and jumping into hour long classes that I'll dread so something like 15min workout to start using muscles is what I'm planning and praying I get "addicted" the way I see people do.

Walking wise I'd be good in terms of power walking for an hour 3 times a week

In a nutshell I want to work all muscles and not sure if walking, spinning, dumbbells is covering the lot. I hope it is. Not looking to get ripped or six pack just wanting to be fit and strong enough for 20 years down the line

Girl Geraldine

Walking is useless.

You need to lift weights and lift them often to maintain muscle mass.

TalleyRand83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119172995#Comment_119172995

Is it really? I thought a bit of a decent walk would be some way beneficial even if just burning a few calories? Fitbit has me thinking that!

Weights wise, is only using dumbbells okay? I'd hope so as that's all I have!

TheRona

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119173027#Comment_119173027

Walking isn't useless. It has many benefits, and because it's low level, it's quite easy to maintain consistently.

Dumbbells will be enough to give you a decent resistance workout, provided you go heavy enough. They don't need to be insanely heavy, but enough that you can provide an adequate stress on your body. You'd also want to make sure you're balancing your workouts with a variety of exercises in both pushing and pulling motions. You can add in bodyweight exercises, and maybe purchase a rip-off TRX/Suspension Trainer from Lidl or Aldi as well.

Between the HIIT sessions, walking, and weight sessions you'd have your bases fairly well covered from a fitness perspective. As mentioned above, you'd need to focus on your nutrition as well if you want to lose some fat.

I've worked in the fitness industry for about 20 years, and I don't even train in a gym anymore. All of my workouts would be similar to what you're doing/planning on doing and I don't know if I'll ever go back to working out in a gym like I used to years ago.

Girl Geraldine

You're not going to get big by playing around with dumbells only and walking. If you want to get big you need to work in big compound movements like deadlifts and barbell squats as these are the ones that stress your whole system and core and trigger the production of more growth hormone and testosterone, and this then in a roundabout way enhances the effectiveness of workouts on other muscle groups. So basically, doing deadlifts that work your legs can also indirectly help you to build a thick chest.

TalleyRand83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119174278#Comment_119174278

Great thanks, glad to hear the 3 different workouts will more or less cover all bases, which is all I want really. Got 2kg and 5kg dumbells to start and obviously I'm a wimp because 5 mins of the 5kg had me sweating.

I'll look into a TRX or similar workout and equipment, diet is the weak spot that I'm trying to change bit by bit

TheRona

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119174310#Comment_119174310

What's your obsession with getting big?

Black Sheep

A few thoughts:-

Diet

Diet can be addressed separately to your training and I'm inclined to agree a gradual approach addressing the low hanging fruit is probably the way to go at the outset. Better food choices, more whole foods, less liquid calories, less alcohol consumed etc. If weight loss was a goal then diet is king, it is more important than any training you undertake. As your goal seems to be more related to building muscle mass and holding on to it, this is less true in your case, which I will come to. If you are taking in adequate calories then assuming weight loss is not a goal for you, then you can focus more on your training. Myfitnesspal may be a useful app resource to consider if you're unclear where you are with your calories btw.

Cardio / conditioning

The 25 minute spinning class and the 'walks' sound great for general health.

The spinning can be your high intensity work, definitely keep that in there.

Although I agree it can be a matter of debate what "a good walk" is, I would suggest that if you have a way of measuring steps or calories expended then you have some measuring stick for what you're actually getting done with your few other walks. It's simply not true that walking is useless in an absolute sense. For building muscle mass, yes, but in overall terms, no. If you walk briskly for 30+ minutes then you're going to burn 300-500 calories depending on pace, your weight and other factors. If you were to take a walk of that nature several times a week, and do it on top of spinning and your DB work then it's additional calories burned, probably something you want, and it's also low intensity and not going to interfere with your spinning or your DB work.

Serious bodybuilders have been using walks as a way of burning calories an active recovery for decades, so yeah, forget the negativity. As long as you're doing other work alongside them then they have their place.

Resistance training

It's true that without some resistance training you're not going to build any muscle mass, and the spinning and walking is not playing a role there, in any meaningful way.

DBs are absolutely an option for training at home but I would suggest you actually broaden it out and think in terms of setting yourself up with-

An adjustable bench
Adjustable DBs with a good range from relatively light to quite heavy ... Potentially you could also look at getting 2-3 kettlebells instead if you preferred, I would get a 12kg, 16kg and a 20kg, depending on your strength. If you're larger/stronger then go 16kg, 20kg, 24kg or heavier.
3 or so resistance bands
A door-frame pull-up bar or TRX / suspension trainer system

I'd look at the likes of Decathalon.ie as a one-stop shop for all of the above.

It's also worth bearing in mind that there are a lot of bodyweight movements that are totally free, you can perform lunges, push-ups etc as staples in your workouts.

If you were doing your spinning twice or three times a week, throwing in a few walks throughout the week and had the time, I'd look at doing 2-3 full body resistance training sessions on top of that.

Building muscle mass at home with minimal equipment is possible but the challenge sometimes is that with a limited DB selection (For example) it can be hard for some men to actually challenge themselves. Even someone who is not training will rapidly need heavier and heavier DBs if they are performing a movement like a flat DB bench, for example, just because of the nature of the muscle groups used. There are ways around this, but I suppose overall what I'm saying is that it may take some time to dial in. Ironically a good way to go might be to look to perform movements like push-up sets to failure rather than a flat DB bench, for example, and save the DBs for things like lateral raises for the shoulders, bent raises for the rear delts, curls for biceps, overhead extensions for triceps and so on.

For the lower body, a similar issue - DBs can be used for squats and deadlifts but unless they are quite heavy they won't be enough to actually work for resistance training rather than conditioning / cardio. At the outset you might get away with bodyweight squats and DB goblet squats, suitcase DB deadlifts etc but rapidly you'll want to be doing things like DB split squats, DB lunges, DB 1-legged romanian deadlifts and DB swings for example.

I mention a pull-up bar or a suspension trainer because they're very useful for training vertical and horizontal pulling movements for the mid and upper back. Hard to do otherwise, again you likely won't have heavy enough DBs to just get by doing a bent over DB row.

Good luck.

TheRona

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119174343#Comment_119174343

I'd say you'll need to move to heavier weights than that fairly soon. Just some basic adjustable cast iron dumbbells like this set here will keep you going for a bit, and you can always buy extra plates if needed down the line.

Link here

Black Sheep

If you do get hold of the DBs and want specific ideas for where to go for workout programming, I would come back and let people chime in with what they'd suggest.

Fred Astaire

I had written a longish response but Black Sheep covers most things!

Fred Astaire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119174343#Comment_119174343

5 minutes of what, out of curiosity?

Are you using the dumbbells as part of an aerobic workout?

TalleyRand83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119174544#Comment_119174544

5 mins of a upper body DB workout on youtube, it was after a HIIT spin so was a bit shakey to start

BTW Thanks to all the great replies here, you're very good taking the time

Black Sheep

If you're performing a lot of work with the DBs in a short space of time, like a 5 minute window, and you're using light weight, then you're actually doing something more akin to your spinning... You're into the realm of muscular endurance and cardio rather than anything that's going to have any kind of hypertrophy stimulus, which is what you're after if you want to add lean muscle mass.

With DBs, barbells or machines in a gym then typically you do want to be going progressively heavier and the inherent intensity should mean you're taking (for example) 2 to 3 minute rest periods between sets. Without bodyweight exercises like push-ups, you can probably take a similar approach at the outset.

Compound movements with barbells can be used for hypertrophy, but they're far from essential. Specifically when it comes to something like a deadlift even if you wanted to stick with barbell movements there are better compound glute doinant movements ... Hip thrust, hip bridge, RDL... For hamstrings, stiff legged deadlift, For back, just row. The deadlift is a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, in terms of hypertrophy IMO. And hard to recover from versus alternatives. The barbell squat harder to say, I think high bar or SSBs are great for quad development, but again, still not really irreplaceable.

Esse85

You dont even need the DBs, there's plenty of bodyweight exercises you can do to achieve what you're looking to do.

Gym rings costing about €35 would be the only investment I'd make in your position, YouTube shows you how to get a great workout with them.

Cill94

My advice would be to forget thinking about what you 'should' do, and pick something that you'd enjoy doing. Playing football, swimming, cycling, or even just walking. It's all an improvement from where you are currently.

Even if the activity isn't the 'perfect' choice, it can be a gateway to encouraging you to do high bang for buck stuff like resistance training later.

But if you start with stuff you hate, it's unlikely you'll stick with it.

Apiarist

In addition to all the great advice above, I would recommend doing a stretching routine. Have a few stretches before and after doing your gym program, and probably dedicate one day of the week to doing something like yoga with the focus on stretching. You can read about the benefits of increased flexibility on the web, but one of the important things is that it decreases the chance of sport injuries. Less injury = more time spent exercising.

Cill94

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119178183#Comment_119178183

Actually that last part is a myth. All the current research on injury does not show stretching as an effective means of reducing injury risk. Gymnasts are super flexible, but ask one how pain free they are and they'd laugh.

Stretching is a fine recommendation if he/she enjoys and wants to do that as their exercise though, just doesn't need the injury narrative attached.

Apiarist

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119178234#Comment_119178234

Nice, didn't know that. Though apparently regular stretching is still useful:

Shrier, I. (2005) When and Whom to Stretch? Gauging the Benefits and Drawbacks for Individual Patients. The Physician and Sportsmedicine. 33(3):22-6.“Since the early 1980’s, stretching has been promoted as a method to prevent injury and improve athletic performance. Although research suggests that this may be true for regular stretching performed every day, an isolated act of stretching immediately before exercise likely has no effect on injury prevention and actually impairs performance in strength and power sports.”

“Improvements in force, power and running speed are noted following regular stretching, in marked contrast to acute stretches performed immediately prior to exercise, which tend to yield opposite effects, (though acute stretching is helpful in certain situations, particularly where the benefits of increased ROM outweigh the limits to force and power production).”

“Stretching immediately before exercise is deemed ineffective in preventing injuries and also reduces force and power by about 2% to 5%. Regular stretching over weeks yields opposite effects, increasing force and power by about 2% to 5% while improving running speed by about 0.06 second during a 50-yard dash.“

KurtBarlow

Walking isnt useless. Anyone that says that hasnt a clue what they are talking about.

oinkely

I'm no expert, and lots of the posters above certainly seem to know their stuff.

My tuppence worth is to keep it simple and consistent.

I'm pretty fit already and run a lot, cycle a bit and am generally active. Ok diet, but a desperate sweet tooth. Not overweight and reasonably strong - just as a bit of background to where my advice is coming from.

During the lockdown with the kids off school we jumped on the Joe Wicks PE bandwagon and we did them everyday and I can honestly say i was in the best allround form of my life with that regime. Literally a Joe wicks youtube class every day for 20 minutes coupled with very regular runs and I could see the difference in my body shape and tone, despite already being very fit from running a lot. Haven't kept up the HIIT but still running and cycling and still see the benefits of the few months of Joe.

If you want something really simple and no equipment needed maybe try out a week or two of Joe Wicks on youtube and see how it goes? Coupled with th walking it might make a good balance?

I also added a chin up bar in the doorway into our sitting room, and try and do a few when i walk by. Probably do 15 every other day, and that seems to be a good help for tone too. Easy install, not in the way and there whenever you want to give it a go.

Cill94

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119178305#Comment_119178305

Certainly useful if your goals involve being more flexible yep! It's just the injury narrative that's unsubstantiated.

Even most of the studies that find it has a negative impact on performance aren't all that legit, in that the stretching protocols tend to be pretty extreme, and can also be offset by just waiting a few minutes post stretch and then doing a dynamic warm-up.

Overall, stretching is great, there's just too much weight given to it for injury risk, when people would be much better served by managing their training load and overall stress. 👌 For you OP that just means whatever activity you pick, build up slowly and at a manageable intensity.