Hello all,

I am 20 years old, 6 feet tall and about 180-185 pounds. I recently started exercising with the goal of losing a little belly fat, toning my abs, arms, and chest, and gaining some muscle in my legs (I play volleyball so I'm trying to get a little bit of a larger vertical.)

My routine right now is pretty laxidasical, I basically have been going to the gym every morning where I do one of two things:

Run: I get on a treadmill and run about an 8-9 minute mile pace for three miles. Or I do about a 9 minute mile for 25 minutes and have the treadmill simulate hills (it is the preset "fat burner" workout routine on the treadmill).
Swim: I go to the pool and do laps, 5 laps a set (each lap is 50m I think, 25m down and 25m back). And I do 4 to 5 sets. I generally keep each lap to about 1 minute 15 seconds and the last set I try and keep each lap at 1 minute.

Then each night before I go to bed I do 3 sets of 15 sit ups with 30 seconds rest in between each set.

This seems to be working relatively well (I have lost around 8 pounds in three weeks) but I realize my routine right now won't do much for my leg muscle or toning my arms or chest. I don't have anybody to lift with right now so I haven't been lifting. I also don't have much control over what I eat (I'm a college student) so I try to eat as healthy as I can, bagels, fruit, etc.. but my options are limited when it comes to dieting.

What I am not sure about is if this is the best way to be toning and losing weight (I know the number of sets, reps, and wait in between each has a large effect on toning). So basically I am just looking for a few more opinions on what I should be doing. If this is a good system or if I should try and alter it in some ways. Possibly a routine suggestion I could follow. Any input is great. Thanks.

Hi Red

I am 28 and around the same height as yourself. I have a lot more weight to lose but did a bit of weight training in my early 20's and late teens.

Firstly I would look at my diet. By toning your actually increasing lean body mass so I would ensure that your getting adequate protein in your diet. And yeah might be a good idea to give high GI food a miss as much as you can. The cardio work you are doing is great so I would keep that up as that will continue to work at your fat stores. I would also continue with the situps. When you find you can do 50 straight from the floor to the knee without too much problem, grab seomthing with say 4 pound of weight to hold over your chest and do them.

In my opinion you need to add a weights routine to your workout. For this I would most certainly see the fitness instructor at your gym for a bit of advise. For your upper body you would most likely be doing bicep curls, tricep extensions, bench presses or double incline presses, pec machine etc etc.

For your lower body concentrate on leg presses, squats, calve curls and leg extensions. Tell the gym instructor your aiming at improving your jump and he will likely give you some good exercises to focus on those muscle groups. But you do need an all round workout.

Oh and after a warm up make sure you do your weight training first! You don't burn fat doing weights- you gain muscle (keep that protein up) and increase metabolism. This will burn any carbs in your muscles and liver first leaving a pure fat burning exercise when you do your cardio.

Good luck champ-- hope this will help

Clint

Thanks for the input :-)

Wheres the weight lifting?? You want "tone", weights are the way to do it and you'll get there faster..

Forget sit ups..they along with crunches are not an effective way to get your abs hard..of course low bodyfat levels are paramount, but you need high level of tension to get those abs hard,,is doing 50 sit ups high tension?..no

You can do bodyweight excercises to build tone,,step ups,bulgarian squats a wide variety of push ups, chin ups dips.

Here is a GREAT article by one of the top trainers in the world...you will have to research on how to properly perform these movements, but once you get this down, you won't believe how fast you will "tone"..especially at your young age..

http://www.alwyncosgrove.com/bodyisabarbell.html

And forget the bagels and empty crap like previously suggested..go go fat and protein and enough carbs to get you through your volleyball and training..



But try and lift some weights young man!!!

Good luck

Hi RedEagle27! I'm new to these forums...saw your message and thought I would throw in an alternative (use the weights as well)...have you heard of callanetics or the Bar Method...if you haven't look them up on google. I have been doing callentics for a month (2nd daily) and not only have I lost 5kg (without 'dieting') but also have noticed huge body changes....bottom lifting, have a waist now, lower abdomen lifting and firming. I have around 20kgs of weight to lose so the results are not as noticible as they would be if I was thinner...but they ARE noticible. Do NOT be fooled by how easy these exercises may look....I have sweated buckets doing them...even harder when you get your 'form' right. I do a mix of callanetics, bar method, and upper body stuff [eg. wall pushups, arm curls, bicep curls] just to mix it up. These really are Fantastic toning exercises that create long, lean muscles..and best of all you don't need a heap of gym equipment to use them. Good Luck!

I would give up situps altogether, add pull ups for your arms and abs, and squats for your legs (with or without weights) plus pushups. This otherwise looks like you're doing great. You don't need to do them very often - even once a week will go far.

Why give up sit ups? they aren't hurting lol. I do 3 sets of 40 crunchers 5 days a week and I am a big boy. Let me tell you the pain that runs through my Abs isn't from an aerobic cardio workout. And my Abs are 5 times stronger than what they use to be... But like I said if you feel a lack of resistance add some weight to your chest. Granted you don't need to do it every day but why stop toning your stomach muscles?

I would make sure I hit every muscle with a workout within a week span. A balanced workout is the key and again- I would get it from the horses mouth and speak with a fitness instructor ( a good one) about exercising generally and particular the muscle groups for your jump.

In my opinion you don't need a complete diet/ exercise overhaul. What your doing is great because you still are losing pounds. You just need to add to what you are doing and perhaps add a little more protein to your diet to support it.

3 sets of 40 crunches just takes a lot of time - some people end up straining the neck excessively as well. Doing three good pullups or a nice set of pushups or holding the plank position will work those abs more efficiently, in my experience.

Haha I know what you mean with the neck. I do controlled crunchers and yes it does take quite a while. But I am finding that it is also strengthening my neck. Mind you if I feel myself over straining in any way I stop but it hasn't bothered me thus far. My girlfriend noticed the other day that I have these lumps of muscle running down from my neck to my shoulders. Probably attribute it to the situps.

I find the crunchers focus on my abs quite efficiently lol. If I had a device that I could use for vertical pull ups I would definitely do them. I have tried them laterally and they do nothing for me. I could lie there all day and do them. I like them because you can add twists to do your lats (You can with crunchers but you don't get much out of it). It also works lower abs more.

BUT, having done pull ups I find crunchers still give you more resistance. Might have something to do with instead of just raising your legs, your raising your entire upper body which weighs much more. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Do what you feel comfortable with is the best way.

I realize you didn't ask for diet advice, but as this is a Low Carb site, I noticed that you listed bagels as healthy (!). I know what it's like to be poor and have very little money for food. But there are two excellent and healthy, relatively inexpensive sources of protein that you may not have considered: eggs and sardines. You get so much health benefits from those two foods alone, they're great sources of protein but also zinc, "good" cholesterol, calcium and omegas. Please do not forsake your protein in favor of bagels!!

Thanks for the thoughts everybody. I will definitely try some of these things out. Also, I am trying to get a couple of friends of mine to come lift weights with me so hopefully I can start doing that soon.