[sportsfreak]

Well to keep it short, Prom is comming up very close and fast. Also, my very important exams are going to be taking place throughout the month of may. Now i know prom is at the end of may, but because these exams are for my uni acceptances, i need to really concentrate on them.

I have previously lost 25 pounds and was aroung 103. now since the begnning of the year i have moved up to 112. But with this i gained pusgness where i dont want it. Im set with the eating.

I can go to the gym 3 times a week but i am so confused and need help developing a plan that will take off these extra pounds of fat. Truth be told i know what my body can look like and i want tat figure back.

Please- i need help devloping a plan that i can follow when at the gym. I'll do HIIT for 20 3 times a week but the weights i am confused. Should i go circut training this time b.c of the time frame i have.

Thanks

[Depalma]

How much time do you have each time at the gym?

Is the HIIT part of the three days in the gym or are is it performed outside the gym on 3 of the other 4 days?

You had successful weight loss before, so something obviously worked for you. What was that previous program like?

What type of lifting do you like most? What are some of your favorite movements? What are you most challenging movements? What movements would you refuse to do no matter what?


Basically, I'm probably going to lean with 3 full body workouts. Alternating sets or supersets with full rest as Shuler and Cosgrove call them. Each superset will combine an upper and a lower body exercise and I would use "active" rest during the rest periods and perform a core movement or a light isolation movement during the rest periods. The intensity (% of 1RM) to be used and thus the number of reps would depend on the answer to question 2.

The rest times and number of total sets and/or movements would depend on the answer to question 1.

The layout of the program may change depending on the answers to question #4.

The whole thing might be totally changed or scrapped based on the answer to question 3, as I would be most inclined to stick with something similar to what I know works for you based on your past successes.

[sportsfreak]

How much time do you have each time at the gym?

I have got about an hour at the gym for the most part. maybe a bit more.


Is the HIIT part of the three days in the gym or are is it performed outside the gym on 3 of the other 4 days?

The HIIT will be preformed the three days i will be at the gym.

You had successful weight loss before, so something obviously worked for you. What was that previous program like?

Well i did follow the 30 day shred book and i did some of my own stuff. I did HIIT 4 times a week after the weight traning i did. I managed to do that at home but now i have a gym membeship. That was 4 days a week but this time i only have three.

What type of lifting do you like most? What are some of your favorite movements? What are you most challenging movements? What movements would you refuse to do no matter what?

Theres nothing in particular that i do no like to do.But I have read that free weights are the best when it comes to weight traning so i am open to anything really.

The thing was when i lost weight before i began loosing hair- i dont want to incur that problem once again.

Thanks

[Depalma]

OK, you have about 40 minutes to devote to the weight training on 3 non-consecutive days.

You've had success with 30 day shred which, correct me if I'm wrong, is cirucit training.

You are going to be doing your HIIT in the same gym session.

You are basically open to all exericse options but prefer to stay off machines (good decision).

Based on that, I like a 3 day full-body, circuit workout. Because you will be doing high intensity cardio in the same session, I wouldn't burn you out doing too high intensity on the lifting, so I would use an 10-12 rep range.

I would do a 5 exercise circuit consisting of:
1. A Lower Body Exercise
2. An Upper Body Push
3. A Single Leg Lower Body Exercise
4. An upper Body Pull
5. An exercise for your abdominals, lower back, or hips

Try to do all exercises standing to challenge as many stabilizing muscles as possible. I would try to include one cable exercise in each circuit as well for the same reason.

Do 3 circuits. Take whatever rest you need between circuits and if you need to take brief rests between exercises do so and don't beat yourself up over it. If the workout runs too long, you can drop the core exercises if you are doing a lot of cable and single leg work along with the fullbody movements like deadlifts and squats, you will still build a strong and stable core without them.

Some exercise options:

Lower Body
Pull-throughs
Cable Squat Pulls
Goblet Squat
Back Squat
Front Squat
Deadlift
Romanian Deadlift

Single Leg
All different lunge variations
Step Ups
1 leg swiss ball leg curls
Depending on stability, some single leg deadlift and/or squat variations as well.


Upper Body Push
Standing Cable Chest Press
Alternating DB Press
Bench Press
Alternating DB Incline Press
Dips (assisted if needed)

Upper Body Pull
All chinup and pushup variations (assisted if needed)
various grip lat pulldowns (double and single handed)
Standing Cable Rows
T-Bar Rows
DB Rows


Core
Planks
Supine Bridges
Rollouts
Standing Ab Crunches
Prone Plate Switces
Pallof Press
Woodchoppers (all variations)

Just some thoughts and suggestions. The possible menu of exercises is of course larger.

You can build as many workouts you like and change them as often as you like. My prefrence, however, would be to build three different workouts, use them for 4 weeks, and then build three more workouts and use them for the remainder of the time period you stated.

Progress in weights whenever you can complete all reps of the exercise at the top of the rep range used.

[sportsfreak]

Wow, thanks for you indpeth response. Really helpful and i think i may go with the basis of what you have said.

My only concern is that i find it diffcult to do good circut traning in a gym because it involves alot of waiting for equiptment sometimes and the circut aspect just isnt there.

But Thank you very much andi will be using ur suggestions starting tommorrow.

[sportsfreak]

I was wondering how the body for life program is.

I have a treadmill at home so the cardio can be done then.

Will this program fit my needs

[Depalma]

Body for Life is a great program.

From my experience and the experience of the people that I know that have done it, it is more of a body recomposition program than a weight loss program. That is as written. In other words, you may see slow or no movement on the scale but you will likely see a steady reduction in body fat %. To me, that is more desirable, but if you really are looking to shed 9-10 lbs, then you may need to tweak the nutrition part of the program. But you can definitely make it work. And the best part is that you have about 6 weeks in your timeframe and Sportsmom currently has a 12 week challenge on this board that has about that much time left in the challenge. You can hop right in and have some great support there.

Also, I understand the difficulty of doing circuit training in a gym. One of the keys to making it work is designing your workouts to use as little different equipment as possible.

For example, claim a cable crossover or functional trainer as your own and do.

1. Pullthroughs
2. Standing cable chest presses
3. Cable resisted reverse lunges
4. Standing Cable rows
5. Palloff Press

You've completed your entire circuit on one machine and just had to change attachments once to do the pullthroughs and then, of course, moving the pin to change weights between the different exercises.

Or claim a flat bench an a few different size dumbells as your own and do.

1. Goblet Squat
2. Alternating Flat DB Press
3. Step ups onto the Bench
4. One Arm DB Row
5. DB Woodchoppers