My Program

As I mentioned above, no single training program works for everyone. However, I'm willing to put mine out there just to give an example. I do what's called a three-way split. This means that I divide my exercizes into 3 groups that work different body parts, which I do on different days. I usually work out 6 days a week, which means that I work out my entire body twice each week.

This would be excessive for most trainees (and might be for me) since most people require more recovery time during the week. I've found 3 days between exercizing the same body part to be nearly ideal for me but another person might determine that they improve best when they work out only 3 days or less each week. It's necessary to experiment to determine what works best for you.

Here's a typical week's schedule

Aerobics usually means Stairmaster for 30 minutes and Light Aerobics means some easy aerobic activity like recumbent bike on a low setting for 20-25 minutes. I also do abdominal work every other day or so. The reason shoulders are in parentheses in the table is because I've found that it is very easy for me to overtrain my shoulders. Therefore, I usually do not do any exercizes that specifically work the shoulders. The front deltoids (front part of the shoulder) get plenty of work when I do bench press and the rear deltoids are worked when I exercize my back. This is another example of one of my individual quirks.

When first beginning, you might only work each body part ONCE a week, working out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for example. Furthermore, a beginning routine should focus mostly on multiple-joint exercizes such as squats or leg presses, bench press, and deadlifts.

I work opposing muscles on the same day. An example is biceps and triceps. A more common approach is to do all pulling exercizes on one day and all pushing exercizes the next.

Many people don't include legs in the pushing-pulling scheme of things. Legs usually occupy their own day. Leg work is very demanding, which is why people often try to avoid it. Sustaining a leg routine requires focus and discipline but also sensitivity to what you can and can't tolerate over the long run.

I usually do no more than 2 or 3 exercises per body part and no more than 4 or 5 sets per exercise. I progressively increase the weight I use in the sets, starting with a light weight that I can do 10-15 reps with and ending with a weight that I can only do 3-6 reps with. All of these are training variables that shouldn't stay static over long periods of time. Sets should be done with enough weight and focus to make them intense and your workout shouldn't be an excruciating marathon. Probably no more than an hour per day on weights and approximately a half an hour a day on aerobic activity is required. Your mileage will vary.

One more brief comment. Both aerobic activity and weight training are integral to fat loss. Muscles are rather inefficient in converting fuel into mechanical energy. Only 20% of the calories burned when contracting a muscle are converted to useful force. The other 80% are dissipated as heat. The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn in your day-to-day activities and in the gym. If you need to loose fat, just doing aerobics is not enough. Of course, if you're sedentary enough, any activity will help. Another nice aspect of building muscle is that it makes your other day-to-day tasks easier. Just more motivation.

By this point, you probably have split ends from all of the hot air on this page. I hope you've gleaned something relevent and I hope to add more substance in the future.

Last modified: Tue Jul 25 17:27:30 CDT 2000