My Workout Routine

Well I'm back for my vacation. I am definitely excited to get back into the gym. I thought I'd share with you my current workout regimen including both weights and cardiovascular exercises. My goals are very diverse as I want to run as fast as possible including both sprints, distance, and everything in between, as well as lift as much as possible--that way I'll be ready for anything. I workout twice a day during the week, and once a day on weekends. I try to make sure I am completely recovered from workout #1 before attempting workout #2. In subsequent blogs, I'll delve into specific exercises. But, for now, below is the high level view:


MONDAY

Workout1: Legs
Workout2: 4 Miles Easy Pace

TUESDAY

Workout1: Chest
Workout2: Jump Rope: 2,000 jumps

WEDNESDAY

Workout1: Back
Workout2: 5K Tempo Run @ 10K Pace

THURSDAY

Workout1: Shoulders
Workout2: 4 Miles Easy Pace

FRIDAY

Workout1: Arms
Workout2: 8 * 400 meters

SATURDAY

Workout1: 4 Miles Easy Pace

SUNDAY

Workout1: 10-12 Miles Easy Pace

Vacation Workouts

I am about to leave for 11 days at the beach (where I will unfortunately not be blogging), and that seems like a great opportunity to answer the question "should I work out while on vacation?" There are two schools of thought on that subject:

The first argues that if you work out consistently throughout the year, it is a good idea to give your body a week off every three to four months. I've seen many very fit people believe in this approach. Also, if you see your week off as a reward for four months of hard work, then it may serve as a motivating factor during your workouts. So, if you workout consistently throughout the year, and you want to give yourself a break while on vacation--then go ahead and enjoy it.

I, however, am a firm believer in routines and habits. If you practice good habits (like exercising, eating right, and treating others with respect), then positive experiences will follow. If, on the other hand, you practice bad habits, then negative experiences will follow (like gaining body fat). Therefore, I like to continue working out during my vacation, but instead of doing the same old routine, I will switch things up a bit. First off, I am lucky enough to be on the beach, so that will make for lots of good runs in the sand. Softer running surfaces (like sand, or even grass as oppose to concrete) force your body to push off with more power. Also, it is motivating to run around some different scenery rather than the same old routes. Secondly, I will not be near a gym, so that will give me a chance to focus more body weight exercises (push-ups, pull-ups, body weight squats, lunges, ab exercises, etc.). I will probably run every day (although I will vary the distance) and do a full body workout with just my body weight every other day. When I get back to my normal routine after vacation I will feel refreshed from doing something different, but not any weaker because I avoiding a potential week of atrophy.

My First Workout Program that Really Worked

I was a freshman in college. I had done some weight training in high school, but I wasn't very informed on what I was doing. I did, however, see some small gains from my very flawed program. I think I did something like a full body workout every other day. However, not long after, I hit my first plateau. Naturally, I thought that if some working out was good, then more would be better. Soon I was doing a three hour workout every other day. I performed just about every exercise I knew. Not surprisingly, I didn't make any progress and probably got a little weaker from being so overtrained. Fortunately, I played a club sport, and one of the athletes on the team was a graduate student that had played division I football. Lucky for me, he was willing to help me with my workout program. He made two major changes:

• Drastically reduce the amount of volume. Good-bye three hour workouts—I was in the gym an hour at most

• Perform compound exercises with forced reps. That means that after I went to failure and could not physically lift the weight one more time, I'd have a spotter help me with a few more repetitions.

Compared to what I was used to, the results were amazing. First of all, despite the fact that I had previously been doing long workouts, I was never terribly sore the next day. After my first workout on the new program, that changed in a hurry—putting my mind at ease because I was worried that I was not doing enough volume to get good hypertrophy. More importantly, I made fantastic gains and was very pleased with the results.

So what can you do to learn from my mistakes?

• Don't spend all day in the gym. If you are there more than an hour, you are probably being counter productive, as your testosterone levels may start to dip.

• Get the most out of your sets. If you've been lifting for a few months and your just starting to hit your first plateau, try forced reps to see if you can create a little more hypertrophy.

Exercise Efficiently

Many people do not workout because they are unwilling to make the perceived time commitment associated with starting a workout program. To get folks over that hurdle, below are two relatively simple strategies to build the most muscle, lose the most fat, and become fitter in the least amount of time:

• Perform only basic compound exercises when strength training
• Perform high intensity interval training rather than enduring long cardio sessions at a relatively slow pace.

Compound Exercises

Compound exercises are exercises that involve multiple muscle groups. Some examples include squats, bench press, and pullups. When performing these exercises you are “getting the most bang for your buck” because you are working several muscle groups at the same time. For instance, bench press works chest, shoulders, and triceps. Unless you're a bodybuilder and have hours to spend in the gym, why spend your time doing specific isolation exercises when you could hit many body parts at the same time? Instead, do three sets of squats, pull-ups, and bench press for eight to twelve repetitions to failure and you've got yourself a full body workout in 30-40 minutes. Do that twice a week (feel free to switch in and out exercises working similar muscle groups such as incline bench press or dumbbell bench press instead of bench press) and you will be well on your way to adding muscle. The more muscle mass you are able to add, the faster your metabolism will become because muscle burns up to ninety percent more calories than fat. By adding three to five pounds of muscle you could actually burn 100 - 250 additional calories per day.

High Intensity Interval Training

Have you ever spent 45 minutes or more doing cardio because you heard that you don't start burning fat until after that point? Well, there is a much more efficient way to go about cardio training. Instead, perform ten one-minute intervals of perceived high intensity work (this work can vary from sprinting, to the exercise bike, to walking fast depending on your current fitness level) with a 30 second break in between. This type of exercise will not only burn more calories in a shorter amount of time, but will also increase your metabolism through out the day as well as raise your level of overall fitness. This workout will take you 15 minutes (maybe 20 minutes if you include a quick warm-up and cool down). Try this twice a week on days when you are not strength training.

These workouts are highly efficient. You'll probably spend more time surfing the Internet today than it would take to complete one of these workouts. So what are you waiting for? Get to it!

Workout and Nutrition for Young Athletes

I've been looking at a lot of questions from young athletes lately on various message boards. That got me thinking about all the mistakes I made as a young lifter. Therefore, I thought I give some simple advice for those just starting to lift weights:

• Use compound exercises (exercises using multiple body parts, such as bench press, pullups, squats)--these should be the core of your workout. In fact, you could make darn good progress using only those three exercises.
  
• If you do try muscle specific exercises (such as bicep curl or tricep extension) make sure you do the big compound exercises first because they work the largest muscle groups and that is where you will add the most muscle mass.
• Don't workout for more than one hour at a time. This was a huge mistake I made because I wanted to add muscle so badly. When you do workout for over an hour, your testosterone levels start to dip and you are being counter-productive.
  
• Eat your protein. Try to get 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. As an ectomorph, I didn't make big gains until I applied this concept.
• Do your homework and think about the future. Working out will get you plenty of girls for now, but when you're a poor twenty-something year old, nobody will be interested in how much you bench press.
  

There you have it. Its actually pretty simple. The good news is, as a beginner to weightlifting you are going to make gains way faster than I do these days.