Physical fitness and Diet; not to lose weight but to gain muscle and strength

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Permalink Reply by Matt Krzycki on November 2, 2009 at 12:38am

I feel you pain man two years ago i was 21 6'4" 180lbs soaking, I am now 230 @ about 9% body fat. First thing I can tell you is you HAVE TO GO TO THE GYM thats 50% of the battle. Once you get in there everything else is easy. The other 40% is your diet basically the best advice i can give you is learn, sit down and read books and articles on the internet and talk to guys in the gym. You need to learn how many calories you are taking in every day, what your body burns, what are good calories, and bad. This is prob. the most complex part but as you start to learn things and practice them you will see changes and this will drive you to learn more. I take in about 8 to 10,000 calories a day but they are all good calories i.e. chicken, fish, lean red meat, and very simple carbs, but I also work a construction job and burn most of these during the day. I would suggest eating 6 meals a day this includes your protein shakes.

As far as lifting goes this is the easy and fun part, forget numbers of reps and sets throw it out the window and dont worry about pushing a ton of weight around. The main things to remember is to go slow and controlled in your motions to isolate the muscles you are trying to work that day, and do as many reps as you can. Forced reps are a great way to build strength and muscle endurance. A workout partner makes this much easier but if you dont have that instead of benching use DB that way if you can get the weight up yo can just drop them off to the side. YOU NEED TO PUSH YOUR BODY EVERY DAY.

For cardio i would suggest once you get in the groove of going to the gym daily and get a little strength and endurance built up i would look up doing a high rep weighted workout at a cardio pace. Basically you will do something like a 300 workout, which you can find online also crossfit is a good program but may be hard to do in some gyms. These routines are great for getting your heart rate up but yet get strength conditioning at the same time. Like all programs though YOU CONTROL THE OUTCOME.

Hope this gave you a little help man and good luck.
Matt Krzycki

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Gaudio on November 2, 2009 at 7:51pm

Awesome!
Thanks Matt.

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Permalink Reply by RJ SEIPLE on November 13, 2009 at 11:20am

Hey Jeff, I feel your pain. I was in the same boat 20 odd years ago. I am currently 44, have been working out most of my life. The best thing you can do for now, is just GET IN THE GYM, religiously. I would recommend you stick to the basics, get your control and form down to an art. And remember it is not about lifting heavy, heavy weights,(you can accomplish alot with lighter weights and lots of reps) it is about controled movement, and good form, the weight will come with time. As far as eating, I have never been one to watch what I eat, I eat whatever I want, but use some common sense. I don't do to much fried food or grease, I try to stay away from alot of sugar also. I do beleive in Muscle Milk, it is a good product.
As far as cardio, I do it 2 times a week. I don't want to overdo it. I am not into the losing weight, I lost alot while in Iraq, and it took me 6 months to gain it back, which was very frustrating for me. But I've got it back now, 200lbs, 5'11', 10% body fat.
Pyrmid sets, forced reps, negetive reps. Are all very good. 100's are also great, pick a light weight you are cofortable with, do as many reps as you can, (trying to reach 100) take a rest of 1 second for each remaining reps.. ie: if you do 30 take a 70 sec break, then continue, keep doing reps till you reach 100 reps. You can do this for any body part.
I hope this helps you at least a little bit. Good Luck.

RJ Seiple

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