# Guide to fitness, bodybuilding and weightloss.



## react (24 Mar 2015)

Good day everyone, 

Just thought to create a very simple guide regarding fitness for those of us that are willing to challenge ourselves. I will get straight to the point.

Some info about myself: I'm 19 years old, started weightlifting when I was 16 with a family friend who was in his 20s at the time and was a top level personal trainer. Starting at 210 lbs with a body fat percentage of 35%, I am now at 198 lbs with 10% body fat. I've applied to RMC and am currently awaiting my wavier for my second CFAT.

Losing weight (cutting):
When it comes to losing weight, it all comes down to diet. If you run all day, lift weights but eat more than your body needs at the end of the day you will NOT lose any weight. 30 minutes of push ups and situs at night will not help your case either. Your body needs a specific amount of calories depending on many factors ( I will link a website you can use to determine yours) and in order to lose weight you need to eat less than so that your body uses the stored fats and muscles ( I know, it's sad but you will lose some muscle while in a caloric deficit). How do you maximize fat loss and limit muscle loss? It's simple, make sure to eat more protein and fats than carbohydrates, Maybe even go without carbs for a few weeks (A no carb diet is called a Keto diet). Going without carbs ensures that your body uses stored fat cells for energy instead of carbs. Do not go crazy on the treadmill, as you will only maximize your muscle loss. Limit cardio sessions to 1 or 2 times a week, and do HIIT. Again, the key point is eating less than you need. In order to lose weight successfully, you MUST count your calories and stay within a 300-500 caloric deficit. Use this calculator on this website to determine your caloric needs. In the bodybuilding world, this phase is referred to as the "Cutting phase". Please read section 3 as well, since I will explain workout programs and routines to help achieve your goals.

http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/


Gaining weight (bulking):

The exact opposite of losing weight. In order to gain weight, you need to be in a caloric surplus, meaning you need to consume more food than your body needs, preferably within a 200 calories range of your caloric needs. Now since everyone's daily caloric needs differ, I cannot tell you how much to eat, but PLEASE visit the website I've linked above as it will be a great help. In the bodybuilding world, this phase is refereed to as the bulking phase. Now a wise man once said that 80% of your muscles are made in the kitchen. It is absolutely accurate. Make sure to eat more carbs than protein in this phase, as it will give you a lot of energy. You should be aiming to gain half a pound or at its peak a pound per month. Now this is not going to be all muscle, there is going to be some fat. After this phase, you will need to shed fat or in other terms, start cutting. Try prioritize your macro nutrinets in this order: 1st carbs, 2nd proteins and 3rd fats. A simple example of my meals would be 2 cans of tuna, 400g of brown rice and 1 TBSP of olive oil, adding up to 814 calories. 

Workouts and plans:

When attending the gym, I see many people who are just there to waste time. Do not be that person. Enter the gym with one thought, to destroy your self and take only 30 seconds to one minute between sets and workouts to rest. You need to push your self to the limit everyday. I personally do not like to take rest days, and workout within a 4 day split. These workouts are not easy. They are very challenging when you first begin. It is very important to pick the right weight. Your muscles need to be burning as you workout, that is how I know that the weights are right or not. Make sure to increase weight as you decrease reps.

Day 1: Chest and biceps
Warm up with 10-20 slow pushups and rest for 1 minute.
Incline bench press (I prefer dumbbells to barbells): 4x10-9-8-8
Incline lying chest press machine: 4x10 (Do 4 full reps, and 6 fast midway reps)
Chest press: 4x10-8
Seated chest flies: 4x10-8
Decline bench press: 4x10 (Do this every 2 weeks only)
Machine curls: 4x10-8
Seated hammer curls:4x10
Standing barbell curls: 4x10
Reverse Forearm curls: 4x10
Wrist curls: 4x10
Behind the back wrist curls: 4x10
-----------------------------------------
Day 2: Legs and light back
Warm up with 5 minutes of light cardio.
Lying leg curls: 4x15-14-13-12
Deadlift: 4x12-10-8-6
Squats: 3x10-8-6
Legpress: 4x10
Seated leg curls: 5x10
Pullups: 4xFailure
-----------------------------------------
Day 3: Shoulders and triceps
Warm up with 2 sets of light behind the neck press.
Behind the neck press: 4x10 (This is a very dangerous exercise if used with free barbells. Please have a spotter and use caution) 
dumbbell lying rear lateral raise: 4x10
Dumbell front raise: 4x6
Barbell front raise: 3x10
Shoulder shrugs: 4x10
Rope pressdown: 4x10
Close grip barbell benchpress 5x10-9-8-7-6 (Again, please have someone spot you)
Overhead rope extension: 4x10
Skull crushers: 4x10
Dips: 3xfailure
-----------------------------------------
Day 4: Back and calves.
Calf raises: 4x20-15-12-10
Calf press: 4x10
Seated calf raise: 4x10
Seated cable row: 4x12-10-9-8
Seated behind the neck pulldowns: 4x10
T bar rows 3x10
Pullups 3xfailure
Pulldown machine: 4x10
Bent over one arm dumbbell row: 4x10
Lying dumbell pullover:4x10
Back shrugs: 4xfailure
-----------------------------------------
Day 5 (If you are bulking go back to day 1 after finishing day 4) cardio.
Do 20 minutes of high intensity interval training.



That's it ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions please reply or PM me.

Best wishes and salute,


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## cryco (24 Mar 2015)

Your muscles do not need to be burning when you work out, this is misinformation. Bulking up is about volume. Total weight lifted, but you suggest too many of the same body part in each workout. For most people, it is unnecessary. Even advanced training, unless you're blasting the muscle from different angles for bodybuilding purposes, doesn't need this much redundancy. 
If you push as hard as you can with your squats for example, you shouldn't have any juice left to do leg press.  Please be careful when posting 'good advice', because this looks like the program I had when i first started training, and made a program with every exercise I could imagine. If only I knew...
I do however agree with your losing weight paragraph. 

Good luck with your entry.


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## react (24 Mar 2015)

Hello cryco,

There was a point where I was eating over 3500 calories with limited muscle growth, but as I started to lift weights with the sole purpose of feeling the burning effect, my muscle growth continued, therefore it is only my personal opinion, and no one has to follow it. As for volume, you can see that I focus on 8-10 reps per set.

As for the workout program, it was only an example and not an advice. If you feel like it is over training please use another workout. Also please feel free to add your own workout program to this post, as my sole purpose of creating it was to help other people and the more the information the better.


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## mariomike (24 Mar 2015)

react said:
			
		

> Also please feel free to add your own workout program to this post, as my sole purpose of creating it was to help other people and the more the information the better.



Some here.

Workout:
https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=m4YRVfHBOOey8wefzYLACA&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:army.ca+%22workout%22

Work out:
https://www.google.ca/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=m4YRVfHBOOey8wefzYLACA&gws_rd=ssl#q=site:army.ca+%22work+out%22

See also.

Physical Fitness (Jogging, Diet, Cardiovascular, and Strength )
http://army.ca/forums/threads/23364.400

Body building and the Canadian forces  
http://army.ca/forums/threads/111337.25

How to lose weight in a healthy way (merged)
http://milnet.ca/forums/threads/28218/post-1358148.html#msg1358148


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## Humphrey Bogart (24 Mar 2015)

react said:
			
		

> Hello cryco,
> 
> There was a point where I was eating over 3500 calories with limited muscle growth, but as I started to lift weights with the sole purpose of feeling the burning effect, my muscle growth continued, therefore it is only my personal opinion, and no one has to follow it. As for volume, you can see that I focus on 8-10 reps per set.
> 
> As for the workout program, it was only an example and not an advice. If you feel like it is over training please use another workout. Also please feel free to add your own workout program to this post, as my sole purpose of creating it was to help other people and the more the information the better.



Workout A:

3x5 Squats
3x5 Bench Press
1x5 Deadlift
2xMax Dips

Workout B:  

3x5 Squats
3x5 Military Press
5x3 Powercleans or sub for 3x5 Pendalay Rows if you have trouble with cleans
2xMax Chins/Pullups

Do following before doing your work sets for each workout

Warm Up:
5x45lbs
5x45lbs
5x50% Working Sets
3x70% Working Sets
2x80% Working Sets

Working Sets:

3x5 of Whatever Weight You are lifting
1x5 For Deadlifts

Every time you workout add weight to the bar

Squats/Bench Press/Mil Press/Cleans/Rows +5lbs each session
Deadlifts +10lbs each session

Do workout 3xPer week alternating A/B every single session

Example:

Week 1:
Monday - Workout A
Tuesday - Conditioning
Wednesday - Workout B
Thursday - Conditioning
Friday - Workout A

Week 2:
Monday - Workout B
Tuesday - Conditioning
Wednesday - Workout A
Thursday - Conditioning
Friday - Workout B

For conditioning do workouts that won't affect your performance in the weight room much.  Long distance running is by far the worst thing you can do so avoid it like the plague, stick to Interval Training and Circuits and focus on Short bursts of high intensity.

A conditioning workout would look something like this:

Get a hold of a prowler

Do a 100m Prowler Push Sprint with 2x45lb weights on the rack







Do a 100m Farmer Carry (see picture below), you can use kettlebells and dumbbells as well if weights aren't available.






Do 1-2 min of Rope work 






No rest in between exercises.  After each set (Completing each exercise once) take a 2min break and repeat circuit.  Do this for 20-30 min and bob's your uncle!

You cna incorporate other exercises such as tire flips, sled drags, rope climbing, sledgehammer swings into a tire, etc.... as you see fit and to give yourself some variety.

Another great way to get conditioned is through boxing.

I usually do bag work and skipping at least once a week and do a circuit.

It will go something like this

10-12 rounds, 3 min per round

Round 1 - Skipping 
Round 2 - Shadow Box in front of mirror
Round 3 - Skipping 
Round 4 - More Shadow Boxing
Round 5 - Skipping 
Round 6 - Heavy Bag - Focus on Jabs/Crosses and Footwork (Hit bag lightly and go for speed instead of power)
Round 7 - Skipping
Round 8 - Heavy Bag - Jabs/Crosses and incorporate hooks/combinations (still work speed and footwork)
Round 9 - Skipping
Round 10 - heavy Bag - Hard Bxing, all out on bag 
Round 11 - Skipping
Round 12 - Hard Boxing, All out on bag

Finally, I would suggest incorporating some sort of agility/speed training into your program.  Some days I will simply go to the gym and do agility drills or focus on 40m dashes, directional changes, etc...


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## cryco (24 Mar 2015)

react said:
			
		

> When attending the gym, I see many people who are just there to waste time. Do not be that person. Enter the gym with one thought, to destroy your self and take only 30 seconds to one minute between sets and workouts to rest. You need to push your self to the limit everyday. I personally do not like to take rest days, and workout within a 4 day split. These workouts are not easy. They are very challenging when you first begin. It is very important to pick the right weight. Your muscles need to be burning as you workout, that is how I know that the weights are right or not. Make sure to increase weight as you decrease reps.



I responded mostly because of what is highlighted in red. This sounds like you're telling someone what to do. 30 seconds of rest is ok for very specific exercise reps, like high repetitions, lighter weight. Bulking, or what we know as 8-12 reps, the lactic acid build up will only barely have cleared after 30 seconds, so the recommended time to pause is 60-90 seconds. If your goal is power, which is different from strength, you can pause from 1-3 minutes, and strength training can require rest periods of up to 5 minutes.  These are recommendations, not MUSTS.
The neophyte who comes here looking for a guideline will read though your post and say, hey this sounds great, let me try. This is why I urge caution when recommending or urging  methods. It may work for you, but on average, the numbers I gave are what trainers and literature quote as the safe bet (I can find the reference when I get home if you like).
And last but not least, you do not need to push yourself to the limit every day, there are peaks and lows in every training cycle. There are more books than i can count that try to guide you through reps to failure, reps to max, depending on which training day, what time of day etc...  
Don't get me wrong, I like that you encourage training, give advice, maybe motivate someone into trying the routine you wrote, but do so with caution.


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## react (24 Mar 2015)

I appriciate the fact that you are correcting me, but I was only using that line for motivation. However you are absoloutley right, as people could easily injure themselves trying to push to the limits. Once again,  thank you for correcting me.


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## The_Falcon (24 Mar 2015)

This is getting locked for 2 reasons.

1) There is already a plethora of threads (as MM pointed out) about workout programs that are useful for the CAF, in fact there is even a sub-forum dedicated to it.

2) We kinda sorta have this thing about people giving out advice and opinion on topics without providing any sort of details as to how they are qualified to give that advice in the first place. In short it's not tolerated here. 

HM 
Staff


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