Noob

[wallysworld]

ive been going threw alot of changes in life lately, recently graduated from high school and no longer play sports.

when i was in school i weighed roughly 175, and was squating 415 and benching about 230. but i wasnt eating hardly at all and was way to skinny. now its been about a year since ive had any good training schedual and i weigh about 220 which is nice to have a little bit of size but ive got a mini gut going on that has to go

i was wondering what a good program to get started back into a good routine would be, i wanna get a more cut, not really gain much more size except maybe some chesst and arm size.

any tips would be a big help. thanx alot

[Insex]

First, make sure you get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. The human body cannot burn fat and build muscle effectively if it is tired and exhausted. Numerous studies show that people who get enough rest and allow their body's to repair and grow, become fat burning/muscle building machines. People who get inadequate sleep pile on slabs of fat.

Eat clean. A good way of eating clean is to make/cook all your food yourself. Try to avoid junk food, fast food, TV dinners, ect. Eat clean, wholesome, plain, and nutritious food.

Eat many small meals throughout the day. About 5 or 6 small meals should be good. Eating small, yet frequent meals helps raise your metabolism levels, and will help turn you into a fat burning machine.

Do exercises which stimulate the most about of muscle fibers. The more amount of muscle fibers you target, the more muscle you'll stimulate, and the more fat you'll burn. Good exercises are squats, deadlifts, bench press, weighted pull-ups, and Olympic lifts like power cleans, power clean jerks, and snatches. Many n00bs who want to get rid of the belly fat make the common mistake of just doing crunches all day, and nothing else. This is the wrong approach to burning fat. First, the human body will take fat from where ever it pleases, not necessarily from the bodypart you're working out. Second, you're more likey to burn more fat (even fat from that belly region) from doing compound exercises like squats or deadlifts, than you are from simply doing crunches.

To get more cut, focus on using moderate amounts of weight with lots of repetitions. Keep the rest in between sets 30 to 90 seconds. Superset exercises whenever possible (superset = do one exercise, then immediately do another exercise which works out a different bodypart, then repeat the process). Concentrate on keeping your heart rate up. You're not going for strength, but for endurance instead.

To really help get rid of that gut, do your cardio. You don't necessarily have to go all-out hardcore everyday. Do sessions of 30 to 60 minutes, at moderate intensity about 4 times a week. Then maybe include an additional 1 or 2 cardio sessions which are shorter in length of time, but high in intensity.

Hope this helps.

[Doughboy]

Check out the nutrition and the food and recipes section for some food ideas and try the running section for some good cardio advice.

[Italianangel]

Start at the basics, experienced or not, whenever coming from time off always start from the beginning. 2 -3 days in a week of all body, compound exercises then progress slowly but this will leave your joints time to adjust and allow for some conditioning.
Linda

[Insex]

What Italianangel angel suggested is good too. Since you took a long break from exercise, you'll need to slowly reintroduce the movements for compound exercises. Once your "muscle memory" is finely tuned, then you can start piling on the weights like you did before. Be patient with the weights, you'll regain your strength in time. A common mistake n00bs make is after they take a break from weight training, they still think they are as strong as they were before. This is when serious injuries occur.