[quote]leon79 wrote:
All good ideas-and all common sense-for someone willing to make wholesale changes, which he is not. I made a few suggestions concerning his diet, but it will take some time to bring him around. I think I can get him to slowly add some walking and pool work, but I know him well, and I know that he’s much more inclined to follow a weightlifting routine than anything else. Right now, I just need to get him doing something, and will make improvement as I go.[/quote]
You have the right mentality as far as getting him started, especially in the workout department.
Something to help further your full body workouts:
When you start doing supersets, for example, make the workout as random as possible. What I mean is instead of putting exercises together that play off one another for muscle growth, i.e. shoulder presses with upright rows, have him do shoulder presses and squats in the superset.
What this will accomplish is a greater release of the body’s stress hormone, cortisol. It’s a nasty bugger to bodybuilders as cortisol dissolves muscle and fat indiscriminately, but it will be his best friend for weight loss.
Keep him on full body workouts; draw up three different programs and have him rotate through them, focus on combination lifts and their variations (i.e. Flat/Incline Benches, Barbell/Cable Rows, Deadlifts/Romanian Deadlifts, Shoulder Presses/Clean and Jerks). His weekly lifting schedule could look something like this:
Monday: Weights
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Weights
Thursday: Off
Friday: Weights
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
What this will do is two things: 1) He will get three days of lifting a week, three programs to which his body will not readily adapt to as easily to one or even two programs a week. Once in a while, jumble the order of the workouts during the week, too. 2) He will have several days for him to rest and recover for the next workouts as well as not burning himself out in the process. As you can see, he has the weekends to himself, or however he arranges his schedule there will be two days to be ready for the next round.
The program you outlined is good, focusing on all combination lifts with few to no isolation exercises for now. The only adjustment I would make is to put the deadlifting first because it will be the most taxing on his body, especially with higher reps, as well as producing the best overall bodily changes.
As far as reps go, rotate the reps off each time as well. Let’s say program 1 involves the flat barbell bench press, reps 15-12 for the sets. Program 2 could have Incline dumbbell/smith machine press with reps of 12-10, Program 3 could revisit the flat barbell bench again, only reps would be 8-6. By doing rotating rep ranges as well as rotating exercises, his body will not only stay in a predominantly fat burning mode, but it will also have to constantly bear increasingly difficult loads. Only by building strength can he hope to build bigger muscles. By building those bigger muscles, he can increase his strength, and the cycle can become perpetual. Progressive overload adds to fat burning.
Seeing as how dieting is out of the question due to his mental blocks right now, you can can change the full body workouts into ironclad cardio routines as well. Keep the pace high, and start easier. Give him maybe 7 exercises like this:
- Clean and Jerk/Shoulder Press (should the former be hard to perform given his inexperience and size)
- Deadlift/Squats (Squats when he is ready)
- Bench Press
- Assisted Pullups/Lateral Pulldowns
- Assisted Dips/Close Grip Bench
- Seated Back Row/Barbell Row
- Static Lunges with his own bodyweight
Start him with one set of 15 reps, ideally no rest. Use drop sets with the weight until he completes the reps (reps are the goal here) using a moderate weight to start. It should start getting difficult around reps 14/15. Get him through the workout one exercise at a time as quickly as you can. Once he completes the circuit, see how he feels. Try to add more sets in there, about 4 Giant Sets total is the goal. Steady and easy is the key for this in the beginning until he gets his endurance going. So, even though he’s using weights, this is a badass cardio routine that could put the most seasoned lifter through his/her paces.
As far as diet is concerned, the only hints I can offer are find meals that are considered clean/healthy but at the same time are appetizing. A little creativity with food could lead to some good results, or if worst comes to worst, have him up his protein to try and throw his metabolism into calorie burning mode and increase his fiber. A LOT. Fiber is so important I can’t stress it enough. For all we know, there could be an extra 20 lbs. of excess waste in his system (sorry for the colorful picture). If he flushed out excess weight, you could play the mental game that he is losing weight due to his work and hope that his gusto only increases. Moreover, the protein and fiber will curb his appetite, if even only a little.
Any questions, comments, concerns, don’t hesitate to throw me a private message, update my on his progress, anything. I might be a personal trainer, and while it’s true we do this to make money, I do it more for the purpose of helping people get healthy and feel better about themselves first and foremost.
Best of luck, keep me posted.
-Franchise