Beginners Exercise Routine - Lets Get This Party Started
So my take away from yesterday's What's Your Workout Thread is that many of the people just starting out are struggling with where to begin, so for the time being I will have regular posts for the beginners. You don't have to be a gym rat to exercise. There are literally hundreds of exercises you can do in your living room while watching TV that will help you to burn fat. So for the beginners I want to give you some exercises to do that you should be able to get through no matter your physical condition or aches and pains. These may be a challenge but power through them and work toward hitting the number of repetitions (reps) that are specified. Once you get to that level, which shouldn't take too long (1 to 2 weeks if you are persistent) we can work on more challenging exercises.
So where to start?
First you should be doing some sort of low impact low intensity cardio such as walking every day (yes, 7 days a week, even on your "rest" day), so that is walking, light jogging but I will tell you for fat burn walking is the best. You can challenge yourself while walking by walking a bit faster (3.0mph should be your goal) or if on a treadmill by increasing the incline (you should never be less than 1% otherwise the belt is just moving your feet). So 30-60 mins of walking EVERY DAY! Not questions.
Now what else? You need to build some muscle? More lean muscle = more calories burned. Here are a few exercises to get you started. I will post more each time but you should start by trying to get through this whole thing and when you can get through it once, work on getting through it twice (this will go much much quicker) and once you get it twice, work on a third, once you can get through this 3 times in a row you are ready to move on. The idea here would be to do each exercise, rest no more than 30 seconds (1 min if you really need it), move to the next exercise. If you are going for multiple times rest no more than 2 minutes between cycles.
If you don't know how to do any of these, please ask and I will send you a video or describe how to do them and if you have some challenge that prevents you from doing these, let me know and I will give you an alternate exercise or a way for you to complete them. LETS GO!
- 20 body weight squats
- 10 push ups
- 20 walking lunges
- 10 dumbbell rows (using a gallon milk jug)
- 15 second plank
- 30 Jumping Jacks
Ah, for pre-ops I have a different game plan. Since you still have a lot of body weight you really should try to build as much muscle as you can while you can still eat. You will lose a lot of muscle during your pre-op diet and your post-surgery eating phases. The more you build now the more calorie burning lean muscle you will end up with. Right now if you eat chicken breast, broccoli, brown rice, and black beans as often as you can and get in the gym and lift weights. Not only will you crush your supervised diet but your metabolism will be so amped up post op that you will be a fat burning machine plus you will be able to jump right back into working out afterward.
That being said the exercise listed here are a good place to start too.
I have been lifting weights 3x a week and I had been walking on the alternate days, but now I am struggling with hip pain when I walk. I think it's weak from sitting all day at work and with all the extra weight I am carrying around... not good. I want to do aqua aerobics classes but they are not at times that work for me.
So hip pain usually doesn't come from the walking, it is more likely from sitting. But the pain is usually caused by week muscles in the legs, typically the muscles in your inner thighs. I have bad hip pain on my right side all the time. There are a number of exercises you can do to help strengthen those muscles, just google hip pain exercises and you will fine tons of resources.
More importantly you need to stretch your hips, here are a couple of stretches that have helped me a lot.
http://www.fitbodyhq.com/fitness/12-great-stretches-for-tigh t-hip-flexors/
http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=8_hip_flexor_s tretches_and_exercises_for_healthy_hips
