Gidday Jason, and welcome.
When you are completely untrained, it's best to start
out of a gym, doing what they call "general physical preparedness." There are five legs to the health and fitness table.
- Diet
- Resistance training
- Fitness training
- Flexibility
- Sleep
If any of the five is dodgy, the whole table wobbles.
Diet
- No smoking or illegal drugs
- Not more than six standard drinks in a week, and not more than four on one day
- Eat lots of fresh fruit and vegies
- Eat lots of nuts and beans
- Eat some meat or fish, or if vegetarian or not flush with cash, some dairy
- If you want to put on weight, eat lots of starchy stuff - spuds, rice, pasta, bread. If you want to lose lots of fat, avoid eating starchy stuff.
You can get more specific than that, but for someone looking to put on weight, "lots" is enough to say. If you are
ever hungry then you are not eating enough!
Resistance training
Test yourself, see how many of the following exercises you can do:
- Pushups - preferably from the feet, but you can do them from the knees, too; when you can do 10 knee pushups you should be able to do 3-4 full pushups
- Situps - lie on your back with your legs at a right angle, and your feet anchored by a person or under a couch or something. Curl your upper body towards your knees with your hands stretched out - that's a curl, not keeping your upper body flat. When your wrists pass your knees, go back down slowly.
- Supine pullups, aka inverted rows - get a couple of chairs, put them about a metre apart and lie a broomstick across them, where the back of the chair meets the seat. Lie underneath the broomstick with it above your upper chest. Reach up, grab the broomstick with both hands and pull yourself up until your chest touches the stick or as close as you can manage, then lower yourself back down.
- Squats - stand with your feet angled at 45 degrees shoulder-width apart. Cross your arms, putting your left hand on your right shoulder and vice versa. Lift your elbows, holding your arms parallel to the ground. Now squat straight down without lifting your heels until the backs of your legs touch your calves. Now stand up slowly. That's a squat. If you find your heels rise or you cannot go below parallel with your upper legs, spread your feet a bit wider until you can go all the way down without raising your heels.
Write how many of each of those exercises you can do. Take that number, and halve it - round up, so if it's just "1", halving it becomes "1", too. That's your work number for each exercise. Doing that many repetitions (movements, called "reps") in one go we call a "set".
Now do each exercise for three sets. For example, let's say you could do
Knee pushups, 4
Situps, 6
Supine pullups, 2
Squats, 8
You'll do
Knee pushups, 3 sets of 2
Situps, 3 sets of 3
Supine pullups, 3 sets of 1
Squats, 3 sets of 4
Do this routine
three times a week with a day's break in between, for example on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Each week, add 1 rep (movement) to each set, for example if in Week #1 you're doing 3x 2 knee pushups, in Week #2 you can do 3x 3, in Week #3 3x 4, and so on.
If one session you can't add a rep, that's okay, just try again in the next session. If in a
whole week of sessions you can't add a rep, take two reps away and go for it. For example, if you did 3x 8 squats, but when you came to do 3x 9 on the first set you just couldn't do the 9th rep, and you couldn't do it in any of the three sessions that week, then next week go for 3x 7 and build up again. It's like parallel parking, if you can't get in, you pull out and came in again at another angle.
As I said, when you can do 10 knee push-ups, see how many full pushups you can do. The other three exercises will help in this, since part of a full pushup is being able to hold your core (your belly and lower back, upper legs) in position.
Your ultimate aim is to be able to do 20 each of full pushups, situps, supine pullups and squats. If you keep at this routine, even starting with 1 of each and allowing for bad weeks it should take at most 6 months. But probably only 3 months.
Before
and after each workout, drink a big glass of milk with an egg in it. This gives you fuel for your pushing and pulling, and material to build muscles.
Fitness
Go to
google maps and check out your neighbourhood. Find some round trips from your home and back which are 1km, 2km, 3km, 4km, 5km and 6km. Note them down.
Go out for a run. When you have to stop and can't run any further, note where you've stopped, and when you get home figure out how many kilometres that was. In your first fitness work you'll be
walking that many kilometres.
Weeks 1-6, walking
You'll be going for walks three times a week, on alternate days from your resistance training. For example if your resistance training is Mon/Wed/Fri, walk on Tue/Thu/Sat.
In the first week, walk that distance you could run in the test, minimum 1km. Walk briskly, just fast enough to make you feel your heart beating, your face flush, and sweat a little bit. It's probably about 6km/hr, so you should be able to do the walk in 10 minutes.
In the second week, add another 1km, for a minimum of 2km. In the third, add 2km to make at least 3km, and so on. By the sixth week you should be walking 6km in under an hour. Take your puffer with you
Weeks 7-12, jogging
This is the same as weeks 1-6 except that you jog instead of walk. Week #7, jog 1km, week #8, jog 2km, and so on. The jog should be like the walk originally was, it raises a sweat but does not kill you.
If in any session you have to stop, you simply can't walk or run further, then just try again next session. If you have a whole week of sessions where you can't make it, then drop 2km from your distance (down to a minimum of 1, obviously) and do that the next week.
If you find any of the walks or runs easy one session, just do them a bit faster next time.
If you can, do other walks and bicycle rides, too. For example if you live 1km from shops and normally drive, take a backpack and walk instead. If you are 3km from work and normally drive, walk or cycle instead.
Your ultimate aim is to be able to run 6km in under 45 minutes.
Before
and after each walk/run, drink a big glass of milk with an egg in it. This gives you fuel for your legs, and material to build muscles, heart and lungs.
Flexibility
After each workout, strength or fitness, work on some stretches. Hold each stretch for a count of 30 breaths.
Back/hamstring - touch your toes. Every five breaths or so, as you breathe out you may be able to get further down.
Inner legs, sides - put your feet shoulder-width apart, your arms up in the air, and tilt to one side for 15 breaths, then to the other for 15 breaths. Next time, put your feet slightly further apart.
Calves - put your hands against a wall, and one foot back with the toes on the ground, now push your heel down, feel the stretch in your calf. Then the other leg.
Chest - stand in a doorway with your hands at shoulder height against the frame, lean forwards. Feel the stretch across your chest.
Arms - stretch your arms out to your sides, pushing your elbows straight as they'll go. Inner elbows to the sky, palms to the ground, turn your hand downwards, you'll feel a stretch in your forearm and bicep.
Upper back - touch your right shoulder with your left hand, put your right hand on your left elbow, and pull the elbow toward the body. Then the other one.
Neck - just tilt it to the right for 10 breaths, left for 10, forward for 10, and up and back for 10.
That should take about 10-15 minutes in all.
Sleep
Always try to get to bed to sleep before midnight, and up before 8am. The sleep we get after midnight is not as good as the sleep we get before it, it's just the way our body works with the sun and hormones and stuff. Never have coffee after 6pm, or alcohol after 8pm, it'll keep you awake.
Journal
I snuck a sixth one in while you weren't looking
Unless you are morbidly obese or malnourished underweight, toss out the scales. It's possible to be (say) 90kg and buff, and 90kg and fat. The scales don't tell you much. Instead, take photos of yourself, and once a month take measurements of neck, chest, waist, hips, upper arms, forearms, thighs and calves.
In the journal, write down everything you eat, and the exercise you do, how you feel that day, and your measurements. In this way, you get an idea of your progress, of how different foods affect your mood and energy, and so on. Otherwise it often feels like nothing's happening - it is, it's just not happening so quickly you can notice in a day or two.
Conclusion
By following this programme, within 6 months you should be able to do 20 or more pushups, situps, prone pullups and squats, and run 6km in under 45 minutes. You'll also have decent flexibility.
You'll then be ready to go to a gym and do some heavy lifting. You may be tempted to rush the programme, but don't. Build a solid base of strength and fitness for yourself. Use the 3-6 months this will probably take you to look for an excellent local gym, or saving money so you can buy equipment for your own home gym.
Best of luck, any questions just jump in.
But that's up to you, not everyone is happy to splash their measurements and pictures everywhere.
