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My fitness goals are to be lean and have good core strength/balanced physique but not ripped or anything. I currently weigh 188lbs. and I am 5 ft 9. I think I have a bit too much excess fat on my body. So I guess my goal is to lose about 10-15 pounds of fat and improve or at least maintain my muscle mass and strength (I am fairly strong as is though I may be neglecting certain muscle groups). A lot of my concentration is on diet but that is a separate discussion. Here I am wondering about my gym schedule.

Recently I've found that I'm feeling very muscle tired especially in my legs, and I think I may be doing too much. I'm wondering if anyone has any criticism or ideas about my proposed new gym schedule. I'm not that interested in upper body stuff so I figured I could cram that into my running day, but that might be too ambitious I dunno know. On my non-running days, I also do a light cardio warm-up to begin my workout.

Here is my CURRENT routine:

Day 1: Running 30 minutes

Day 2: abdominals/back

Day 3: lower body

Day 4: upper body

-- return to day Day 1 with no rest days

Here is my PROPOSED routine:

Day 1: Running 30 minutes + light upper body

Day 2: full rest day

Day 3: abdominals/back

Day 4: full rest day

Day 5: lower body

Day 6: full rest day

Day 7: full rest day

repeat

Timtam
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  • Could you give a bit more detail? What is your body fat %? If you don't know it, you could roughly estimate by looking at photos online. Also, when you say you are strong, could you quantify that? How is your 5RM/3RM/1RM (whatever you have numbers for) on your squat/deadlift/press (whatever you have numbers for)? What is your 30 minute running routine? –  Sep 07 '13 at 19:43
  • And what does "lower body" consist of? Three thousand calf raises, or a set of three front squats, or whatever the machines at the gym are? – Dave Liepmann Sep 07 '13 at 20:21
  • I don't know what my body fat percent is, should I look into that? – Timtam Sep 07 '13 at 23:55
  • @Timtam It's a really good thing to measure. Much more meaningful than weight. It's not necessary for this question, but it would help. You could estimate what your body fat is from pictures, though: http://www.healthygrad.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/body-fat-percentage-men-women.png –  Sep 08 '13 at 02:40
  • my lower body routine is 5 sets of up-downs/ lunges and jumping jacks. each set being like 25 reps or so. I usually go pretty hard to try to get a good workout. – Timtam Sep 08 '13 at 18:23

1 Answers1

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If you want to lose fat while maintaining muscle, its going to be very hard, unless you are an absolute beginner. From your question I deduce that you are indeed a beginner. If so:

  • dont do a split routine. As a beginner youll have better results doing whole body workouts.

  • switch to resistance training, preferably weight lifting. In order to maintain muscle mass, you have to give your muscles proper stimuli. Doing jumping jacks or bodyweight lunges may not be enough. You could have a look on some popular beginner programs, like 5x5 or Starting Strength.

  • mind your diet. Proper nutrition is 80% of success in weight loss.

  • track what really matters. Dont pay too much attention to your weight alone, as it may be misleading. Try to find a convinient way to measure your BF%.

  • check this site for more info. There are many questions that are a bit more specific than yours and cover most of what interests you. Take a look around and check if after reading existing questions and answers you still have doubts. Here's an example of a question that might pick your interest.

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