Lean Muscle Workout Plan

Goal: Lose body fat

How: Full body strength training workouts 3 days a week and a combination of high/low intensity cardio 3 days a week.

I'm choosing to do three full body workouts a week. These full body workouts will consist of exercises such as squats and deadlifts combined with multi-joint upper body exercises such as bench presses, pull-ups, dips and bent over rows which will pretty much stress every muscle in your entire body as opposed to just a couple of small muscle groups like in a split upper/lower body routine.

Full body workouts burn the most calories, stimulate the greatest hormonal response, and promote the best increase in your metabolic rate.

Cardio

There are two schools of thought regarding the amount of time per training session you should be spending on cardio. One way is to do 10-20 minutes of HIGH INTENSITY cardio, and the other is to plod away at a lower intensity for 45 to 60 minutes.

Which way is best? I have finally come to a conclusion after reading several reliable sources that a combination of intensity levels is probably the way to go.

On cardio days when I have the time I'll do 45-60 minutes of steady paced cardio such as 65-80% of my maximum heart rate, and on time crunched days I'll do HIGH INTENSITY cardio (90-95% of my maximum heart rate) such as one minute of sprints followed by a minute rest, then repeat 10 times for a total of 30 minutes (this includes a warm up and cool down).

For the cardio routines I'll be using a Freemotion Incline Trainer; a spinner bike; dog walking/running and a 16lb sledgehammer and tire.

If you're looking for an inexpensive way to do cardio (besides running/walking) try the sledgehammer workout. Every time I do this workout, my heart rate is really close to my max...a GREAT cardio/strength training workout. A 16lb sledge cost $47; I found a tire in the woods (FREE) and I use the gymboss to time my intervals.

Diet

Eat less, exercise more, simple.

Yeah, right!

Getting my diet under control is probably my biggest problem, so I'm going to keep it simple.

Click here for my simple dieting plan. (link will open a PDF)

With this simple dieting plan you don't have count calories, but, do you know exactly how much you eat every day? You have to know how much you are eating every day before you can begin to change your eating habits.

Using the Fitday website was an eye opener for me. All you have to do is enter what you eat into fitday and it will show you how many calories, protein, fat and carbs you are eating every day. Just do this for two weeks to see where you are at then follow the simple diet plan.

If you want to lose body fat you need to get your diet under control.

Using this Metabolic Rate Calculator (zip download), you can find out how many calories you need to cut out every day so you can lose weight.

This calculator will approximate how many calories your body needs daily to MAINTAIN the same weight. In addition, calculations are provided that approximate how many calories per day you would need to consume to either lose weight or gain weight depending on your goals.

Supplements

I discussed supplements here. I'll be taking protein, creatine, glutamine, multi-vitamins and krill oil. I'm also going to try Sensa. Sensa claims to kill your appetite by tricking your brain into thinking the stomach is full. You can check out the reviews on Amazon which range from "Great Product" to "Biggest Scam Ever". All I know is that Sensa really does kill my appetite.

One other supplement I'm going to try is Secretagogue. A Secretagogue is a substance that causes another substance to be secreted, which in this case is HGH. Secretagogue is not HGH, but it is a natural HGH stimulator. Another benefit is it's supposed to make you sleep more restful, which is what I need since I've stopped taking my anti-depressant prescription which was prescribed for my sleeping problems.

One thing I did not know about anti-depressants is that one of the side effects is retaining belly fat!

Adios anti-depressant prescription!

Let's Get Started!

Below are links to my workouts. My plan is to upload all my workouts on a weekly basis but sometimes life commitments will get in the way. Eventually all workouts will be posted here.

LET'S DO IT!

Lean Muscle Workout Plan 1