As you admit you are "Chunky" around the waist, I'd recommend doing situps and crunches, I know it'll sound crazy but aim for 100 a day, do 10 at intervals throughout the day. This can get a little difficult at work of course
. This is a way to gently "ease" your way into fitness. Especially around the waist area. This isn't a full routine, however it does gradually build up strength and isn't too demanding on the body. Combine this effort with others.
Crunches do not give you abs. First if you want a lot of ab muscle, crunches alone won't do it. A lot of ab training comes from their support role in things like deadlifts or squats. If the OP is chunky it wouldn't matter anyway. You won't have a six pack if there's fat there, and you cannot actually target fat locations. Basically if you want abs, you lose weight. The other thing that makes your advice terrible is the suggestion that crunches be done several times a day. These aren't the kinds of things you should do more than 2-3 times a week. You can basically do them to failure, but doing sets several times a day is dumb.
Once you get comfortable with that, start migrating to free weights. I would venture to say they're better for you in the long run. If you need a spot, just ask people -- gym rats are usually quite friendly about lifting. During this migration you can think about shifting your schedule -- you can either start going every day and hitting a different muscle class each day, while running every other day, or retain the current every other day but alternate focus on upper and lower body. This restructuring is going to depend mostly upon your availability and heal time -- some people take longer or shorter to heal after an intense workout.
For me personally I still like to do every other day with all muscles at once, plus running, but that's mostly a product of my work schedule and heal time. I also do abs every other day before bed.
Get into a schedule and stick with it.
I worry about people who do all muscles at once. You have to consider multiple things here. One would be the tendency to over train or plateau. The other is that if you spend a lot of time at a desk, you need to be very careful regarding ergonomics if you work out a lot. If you're going from working out to a desk, it's fully possible for things like tendons to not receive adequate time to heal. Other than that the work out everything every couple days is a bad idea if dealing with weights. Assuming once again that you're working down hard, your muscles are in somewhat of a broken down state the following day, recovered on the second day, and see any potential growth on the third day. Stressing out the same things too close together can inhibit this. It's also important not to make your workouts last for hours given the potential for elevated cortisol levels. I've read that some people take a waking pulse to try to determine elevations in cortisol levels, but I wouldn't know what to suggest there.
I hate to say it, but see my previous post. It depends on what YOU want to achieve and how you heal. As a general rule of thumb you don't want to hit something that's already injured -- doing the same core muscles two days in a row isn't good practice.
With p90x you don't really have a choice. I would say you typically don't need to do more than an hour at a time, but that of course depends on what you really want to achieve (and how you're doing it).
You shouldn't do weights every day. You should have resting days and cardio days. It's not a bad idea to take a week off weights every 6-8 weeks where you only do cardio. P90x doesn't seem to provide for much in the way of variation for a given muscle group.
And work out in the gym 2-3 times a week for 45-60 minutes each time.
Monday Chest and Triceps
Tuesday Biceps and Back
Wednesday no weights
Thursday Chest and triceps
Friday Biceps and back.
You should never give this advice again. It's a good way to injure yourself given the lack of rest periods,
especially for someone who hasn't trained in the past. Overall I get that you're trying to fully exhaust the smaller muscles, but you're likely to over train them. Chest and lats (what you really meant when you said back) are quite strong. Your arms are likely to fail prior to your chest or back. It's actually easier to work out chest and back one day. Arms and shoulders are synergetic, but it's easier to pair them. You don't really need to go very hard on exercises that isolate triceps or biceps unless you're having trouble working the tricep heads evenly. Trying to force that in with chest and back is likely to result in bad form, as you won't have enough energy left to do them. While it's typical to do something like 3 sets of 8-12 reps, I usually go to muscle failure where I wouldn't be able to do further reps with correct form, with the weight being balanced to that. If I can do more than 12 on one, I'll go up in weight on the next set. That's a general rule, but it's important to vary the exercise types and workout pattern each week to work against plateaus. It's also important to be careful about increasing weight too quickly given that tendon strengthening is typically slower than increases in muscle strength.
That's a terrible workout plan. Where is leg, shoulder and ab training? Your workout plan looks like what most 15-year-old kids are using - just hitting the biceps and triceps all the time.
If you can only workout 2-3 times a week, then it's better to work the whole body every time. No use to break it down to different body parts because you would have too many body parts per day to work them out properly (working out the whole body every time means there is only a day or two break in between).
Abs get some training when working the legs assuming compound exercises like squats and deadlifts, as they play a major support role. I always kept the weight on the low side, didn't use a belt, and watched my form constantly. You're right though. His workout plan is beyond terrible.
I've never understood why people pay money in order to lose weight. Consume more than you eat, it's that simple. You don't need special workouts or diets, and you definitely don't need a personal trainer.
I used to see a trainer regularly, but it was a very good one. He had a background in physical therapy prior to training, and he could answer pretty much anything. Overall I still do fine on my own, but I have seen a couple minor injuries. Most typical trainers you find at the gym suck.
One thing no one seems to have mentioned is eating around weightlifting. If you're going really hard, this matters. Typically you need a small meal or pre workout snack around 60-90 minutes before you work out. This way your muscles are firing at maximum efficiency. Beyond that (keep in mind this assumes you're working out quite hard) you'd have something small after your workout. This does not necessarily mean you eat more overall. Portions matter. Post workout you'll want something like a 4:1-5:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein. Sugar is really the first thing you need there, especially if you're getting shaky. You can keep something like a banana in your car while you work out assuming it doesn't get too hot. Again I'm not saying to eat way more in a day. You just end up dividing it up differently, and it does depend on how hard you work out.
