I’ve only just realised (well actually somebody used the contact form and asked me!) that I’ve never wrote in any real detail about what I actually do when I’m in the gym. First of all I’ll go into what I started with and then next week I’ll write about how I’ve moved it on. Even if nobody else is interested it might be a good reminder to me if I ever need to do it all again.
Starting Off In The Gym
This is a basic run down of the routine I stuck too back in January, I did the exercises in the order listed. Luckily for me I work for myself so my lunch hour is quite flexible but the most important elements should easily be able to be squeezed into an hour. The following 3-4 times a week:-
30 Minutes On A Cross-Trainer - I set the program to a 30 minute fat burn, I was very careful to keep my heart rate at 80% or lower. By not going too fast (70-75 reps a minute) I was covering just over 5 kilometres in the half hour. Because this was a fat burn and not a heart wrecker the only warm down I did was a minutes break before starting my sit -ups.
100 Sit-ups - I started of with 30 normal sit-ups (using whatever sit-up support frame was available), then 10 twisted to the left followed by 10 twisted to the right. A minutes rest and then it was 20 normal sit-ups, 5 twisted to the left 5 twisted to the right and finally another 20 normal sit-ups. The entire set would normally take me a few minutes, I was always careful to not lose form, I’d rather do 1 correct sit-up then 10 bad ones.
Leg Stretches - Most people shouldn’t really worry about this. Coming from my martial arts background where high kicks were a speciality my hamstrings are generally a lot further stretched than most peoples. The problem with this is that if I don’t stretch them out at least once a day they stiffen up causing an almost sciatic pain down my right leg. For this reason I spend 10 minutes going through various stretches to loosen them up. If I miss a few days of this I’m in real pain. I suppose I could do this outside of the gym but I just like to take the opportunity whilst I’m there. (Yes I can still do the splits). A few minutes of gentle stretching should really be enough for most people.
Resistance Work - I was always more interested in my cardio exercise but I would always try to finish with at least 5-10 minutes of fairly tough resistance work. I would alternate between shoulders, arms, legs on different days doing 3 sets of 12 with decreasing weights on whatever machines were available. I never bothered with free weights.
So that was about it, a workout weighted towards burning fat and working on my biggest problem area (my fat belly). The only thing I haven’t mentioned is rowing. Every 3rd-4th trip to the gym I would replace the cross-trainer with a 5KM row. You don’t have to go that far, as long as you row in your fat burning zone for 20-25 minutes.
I kept to that routine for 6 weeks, lost a lot of weight, a lot of body fat and even improved on my fitness. As things became easier and easier (it does honestly, you just need to persevere) I started added extra things in but I’ll write about where I’m up to at the moment next week.
