Work Out Advice

[ilhe4e12345]

So im sort of new to the forums and im not sure if this is the right place to put this but let me explain what im looking for and maybe someone can help me.
Currently i have been taking 7 Star Praying Mantis for the alst 2 years. Over the period of time i have lost a total of 40 pounds, and toned up nicely. Thats most due to the fact that i was lazy and didnt do much active work since high school...so the intense kung fu was really helping me lose weight. I have been going to the gym 2-5 times a week since january. Im trying to tone up more and lose some belly/chest fat. My arms and legs anre looking great but it seems my stomach and chest are not doing much. So i was wondering if someone could maybe give me an idea of a good series of work outs i could do at the gym? Im a memeber of Planet Fitness and i take kung fu once a week for now, planning on starting twice a week lessons in a month or 2. Can anyone help me out? I dont want to be a body builder or anything, i am mostly looking for toning/lean muscles rather then pretty stumpy muscles....im not trying to look like Arnold...lol

 

[sfs982000]

So im sort of new to the forums and im not sure if this is the right place to put this but let me explain what im looking for and maybe someone can help me.
Currently i have been taking 7 Star Praying Mantis for the alst 2 years. Over the period of time i have lost a total of 40 pounds, and toned up nicely. Thats most due to the fact that i was lazy and didnt do much active work since high school...so the intense kung fu was really helping me lose weight. I have been going to the gym 2-5 times a week since january. Im trying to tone up more and lose some belly/chest fat. My arms and legs anre looking great but it seems my stomach and chest are not doing much. So i was wondering if someone could maybe give me an idea of a good series of work outs i could do at the gym? Im a memeber of Planet Fitness and i take kung fu once a week for now, planning on starting twice a week lessons in a month or 2. Can anyone help me out? I dont want to be a body builder or anything, i am mostly looking for toning/lean muscles rather then pretty stumpy muscles....im not trying to look like Arnold...lol

First off, welcome aboard! I would say that the most important part of trimming and toning would be diet. Each person's body reacts differently to dieting, not knowing what a typical days food intake for you is makes it kind of difficult to suggest anything. I know for me tampering off my carbs as the day goes on has helped me keep my weight down as well as trying to introduce more protein into my diet. Lowering the amount of weight you lift and increasing the reps is a good way to start toning the muscles regardless of what area you're trying to work on. I hope that helps some.

 

[ilhe4e12345]

First off, welcome aboard! I would say that the most important part of trimming and toning would be diet. Each person's body reacts differently to dieting, not knowing what a typical days food intake for you is makes it kind of difficult to suggest anything. I know for me tampering off my carbs as the day goes on has helped me keep my weight down as well as trying to introduce more protein into my diet. Lowering the amount of weight you lift and increasing the reps is a good way to start toning the muscles regardless of what area you're trying to work on. I hope that helps some.

yes diet was the first thing i changed before i even started to work out. It cut the first 15 pounds right off. I eat 4-6 small meals a day and keep it very balanced. That was def helpful and as for the lower weight more reps, i was doing that but it didnt seem to do that much. i did move up in weight a couple weeks ago and i can really feel the difference. Your advice was very helpful

im just looking for more of a total workout program that might be recommended.

 

[jks9199]

I've recommended The New Rules of Lifting several times. It's a very functionally oriented total workout program, built on solid principles. You also might want to put some time in with a personal trainer. Among other things, they can help you learn how to do the exercises properly and avoid exercises that will burn your time and energy, but won't help you meet your goals.

 

[searcher]

Your dietary is the most important part of your puzzle.

As far as lifting goes I recommend the following:

Stronglifts 5x5
Madcow 5x5
Starting Strength


These will more than get you going.

 

[mook jong man]

Do a circuit of Pull ups , chin ups , hanging leg raises and jump burpees.
Take a short rest and repeat this cycle a few more times .
Then go off to the side and spew your guts out into some bushes and then reflect and bask in your manliness.

 

[yak sao]

Insteead of isolating body parts with weight/strength training, perform exercises that involve major muscle groups such as

• pullups,
• squats ( if you can't do it with a barbell use dumbells)
• squats with dumbells into an overhead press
• goblet squats
• woodchoppers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CgvYQvLlc0&feature=related
• Hindu pishups

 

[MidnightBlue]

I'm not sure if it would help you, but if you have a smart phone, I'd recommend downloading a fitness tracker. I hope this helps since I noticed some comments about diet in your replies. By using it, I've been able to eat just about whatever I want as long as it's in moderation. I feel much more confident because I can see exactly how many calories my MA workouts burn and how healthy I'm being. If you don't have a smart phone, then the following probably won't help you, but I'll type it all out just in case it does!

I have the Droid Incredible, and I use FitnessPal. It's completely free. You can track what you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, note water intake, and track exercise. You set your weight (it tracks this on a really neat little graph) and give it some basic info., then it sets goals for you automatically. It has a tally across the top that shows Goal, Food (calories consumed), Exercise (calories burned), Net (Consumed-burned), and Remaining. You add foods through a super-easy search--it lets you customize portions and pick by ingredients... it literally takes almost no time at all. This all connects to your goals because it breaks out nutrients for you and tells you EXACTLY how many g/mg of fat (by type), carbs, fiber, etc. you've had for the day, how many you should have had, and if you are over/under what you need. Oh, finally, it tells you "if every day were like today, you'll weigh ____ in 5 weeks."

Good luck!

 

[Kong Soo Do]

Your dietary is the most important part of your puzzle.

As far as lifting goes I recommend the following:

Stronglifts 5x5

These will more than get you going.

I'm going to +1 on the Strong Lifts 5x5 program. The website is http://stronglifts.com/ and he has a free e-book you can down load. I've done this type of program off and on for the last 5 1/2 years for muscle mass. Very good program if your nutrition is correct.

 

[Kong Soo Do]

I'm a memeber of Planet Fitness

I should have added above a comment about this 'gym'. A strong lift 5x5 program is a serious workout. If you PF is one of those with the 'lunk alarm' you may want to look elsewhere. I've read on the net, and seen in the local news them kicking people out that 'grunted' during a workout. Now I'm all for people not acting like idiots and screaming and throwing weights around...but doing a squat or a dead lift requires effort and you'll need forceful breathing as the weight gets heavier. That's just the way it is for heavy compound movements.

Just a thought

 

[ba8fa]

Have you looked into adding kettlebells to your exercise routine? (I think I remember seeing something in these forums a while back about kettlebells, but haven't seen anything in a while.) Anyways, I actually hit the gym pretty regularly and had a pretty set routine. Then, I had a shoulder injury, and while I was recovering, a fitness instructor introduced me to kettlebells. I'm now a huge fan. The basic swing exercise has been great for muscle/strength development and hits a bunch of muscle groups all at once (from legs, hips, back, abs, glutes, grip strength, etc.); and at the same time, it's also great cardio. And the get-up has helped me to fully recover from my shoulder injury. Actually it did more than that. I had actually plateaued on my bench press weight for several years now. After doing the get-up for a just a short while, all of a sudden, my bench press weight increased. Anyways, I'm sure there are lots of people on this forum who know more than me about kettlebells. There are also lots of web articles on kettlebell training. I thought this one had a pretty good all-around summary of what it is and what it does:
Augment Your Kung Fu / Martial or General Fitness Training with Kettlebells

Anyone else here experienced with kettlebells and think it would be a good addition to ilhe4e12345's routine?

 

[OKenpo942]

For all around fitness that really applies to the martial artist, you might try crossfit.com. It posts a new workout everyday at 7 pm for the next day. Very demanding workouts. The downfall is that there is some special equipment needed for some of the excercises. You can modify the workout yourself to a similar excercise if you don't have the equipment (that's what I do). I would be surprised if you can finish even 1 full workout for quite some time unless you're just an animal already. Stick with it and track your results and you will find a definite improvement in a short time.

I would say something about diet as well, especially for belly fat, but it sounds like you are eating well and several others have given some diet advice.

 

[ba8fa]

Oh, I realized I forgot to say a couple things in my last post above. In terms of weight loss, that's something I continually work on for myself as well. My experience on this has been that, putting diet aside (which is also important), my cardio exercises help me to burn calories right away. But what I learned and experienced (starting a couple years ago), is that weight training (all the major muscle groups -- not just where the fat is)helps to increase metabolism over the longer term (days after the workout), which means continued calorie burning even after the workout. Again, as with my post above, I think you should consider kettlebells -- it's an efficient way of combining both weight training and cardio. And (according to the article I referenced above), it dovetails well with kung fu training.

 

[Kong Soo Do]

Check out these links;

http://excoboard.com/martialwarrior/148253/1804298

http://excoboard.com/martialwarrior/148253/1804203

 

[ShastaHawk]

I would suggest some sort of cardio and kettlebell training to go along with your workouts. If you are older, I suggest bike riding instead of jogging or running because it's not as much stress on the knees

 

[ETinCYQX]

Anyone benefits by saving knees. I used to be a pretty serious cyclist so I do bike interval sprints usually rather than long runs.

As far as lifting goes, some basic rules to live by IMO.

1) Squat more. Think you squat enough? Add another set.
2) Micro loading is your friend. You'll make big gains for a while but once you get to, say, bodyweight, don't be afraid to build your lifts 5 lbs at a time.
3) Freeweights. Stay out of the Smith machine. I personally believe a 135lb freeweight squat has more benefit than a 250lb Smith machine squat.
4) Deadlifts are your friend as well, lower reps for deadlifts than anything else though. Stronglifts suggests 1x5 for DL's instead of 5x5.
5) Compound, compound, compound. This cannot be stressed enough, COMPOUND LIFTS!

For the record, I started my lifting with Stronglifts too. Hit 1.5x bodyweight in less than 4 months on squats and deads. It's an excellent program.

 

[jda]

I'm going to say screw the gym. Try doing lots of push-ups, crunches, squats and lunges, and calf raises. Increase your aerobics by jumping rope or bike riding with lots of hills. Get a heavy bag and try doing tons of punches and kicks. Change your diet. Eat a diet high in protein and fiber and low in fat. Worked for me.
Jim

 

[Martin21]

Workout is depend on the strength of the individual and purpose of the exercise both things are
very important, but these suggestion for the workout are much better.

 

[ETinCYQX]

I'm going to say screw the gym. Try doing lots of push-ups, crunches, squats and lunges, and calf raises. Increase your aerobics by jumping rope or bike riding with lots of hills. Get a heavy bag and try doing tons of punches and kicks. Change your diet. Eat a diet high in protein and fiber and low in fat. Worked for me.Jim

It worked for me too but all of that combined with weightlifting 3x per week worked a whole lot better . I honestly believe that weightlifting will help anyone when done properly.