Criticize my exercise routine?

[DireSloth]

Hello, everyone

So, I'm a 24-year-old guy, around 5-foot-ish and around 270-pounds-ish. I' haven't exercised a day since high school phys-ed. In a month and a half, I'll be joining a FEMA-related disaster-relief program as a volunteer, and I realized I should do what I can to get into some sort of shape in case they put me in some sort of construction or landscaping team (I'll probably end up continuing exercising afterwards, too). I asked to share a gym membership with someone I know, who also was kind enough to draw up a workout routine for me, since I know virtually nothing about fitness and exercise. The problem is, though this person has been exercising for years, he also tends to exaggerate his knowledge of certain matters. So, I was hoping I could run the routine he gave me by you fellows, in hopes of getting some feedback.

My big worry is he didn't show me any stretches, and insists they aren't necessary if your technique is right. This...strikes me as dubious, as he didn't really explain technique to me much, and I've always been particularly unflexible. A lot of these exercises make me feel like my joints are giving out way before my muscles, especially squats, which I had to abandon because they hurt my knees too much.

I start out with a 30-minute run on the treadmill, with a slope of 1.5 (Is that relevant? I don't know if treadmills have standard measures of speed and angle or not. Does that mean it's sloped at 1.5 degrees?) at 3 (miles per hour?), increasing to 4 for a minute every 4 minutes, with the last four minutes dropping to 2. I guess this isn't really strenuous for most people, but like I said, I'm really out of shape, and it feels right for me. Then I do kettle bell swings (3 sets of 10 at 20 pounds), which are a lot easier for me than squats, though I still feel like they're straining my knees more than my muscles.

After that I do palm-in shoulder presses with dumbbells (4 sets of 6 at 17.5 pounds), then head to the Nautulus machines for compound row (3 sets of 10 at 60 pounds) Hip abduction and adduction (3 sets of 10 at 30 pounds, which feels too light to me) lateral pulldowns (3 sets of 10 at 65 pounds) and finish with "planks" for fifteen seconds thrice. On odd-numbered days I substitute those for neutral-grip dumbell benchpresses (3 sets of 8 at 15 pounds), overhead press (3 sets of 10 at 50 pounds), vertical chest (3 sets of 10 at 50 pounds) hip abduction and adduction, and planks.

Any advice would be really appreciated - like I said, I've got zero experience in exercising and am really worried I'm wasting a lot of energy, if not actively hurting myself. Thanks

[Athene]

Hey

I hope this isn't totally unhelpful, since I don't use machines so I'm not totally sure if what you're doing is effective or not, but I can tell you that functional bodyweight exercises (air squats, push ups, sit ups, pull ups, etc.) use multiple muscle groups and are compound-joint exercises, so you get a great workout that increases your ability to do work (/"exercise"/landscaping/lifting and moving/whatever), which will be good for your volunteer gig - which is incredible, by the way, and inspiring.

If you could do cardio 3x per week and weights 3x per week in different sessions, that would be the most effective, then take a 1 day per week rest day to recover. If you want to drop some weight and get in shape quickly, cardio and bodyweight exercises are your friend, along with good nutrition.

For Workouts:
Check out the workouts at bodyrocktv.com, they're fast and effective and mostly bodyweight. Crossfit.com is also really good, you can scroll through and pick bodyweight exercises, or any others that you think you could do at the gym. I like mixing and matching these free resources in a way that works for me.

For 3 cardio days, for example, you could do a 5k jog at a slow pace one day, a 2000 m row on a rower for time at a moderate pace, and then on the third day 5 rounds for time of a 400m run and a 500 m row, in an all-out sprint. These things are variable and will keep your body confused and adapting constantly. Adaptations are good, because it comes in the form of physical results. You could pick 3 days of bodyweight exercises from the websites above, or make something up yourself (100 push ups for time, 300 squats for time, tabata intervals, etc.)

For Nutrition:
Consider doing a Paleo challenge for 30 days with your food to see how you like it. Here's a booklet I found online in case you need help with the Paleo thing: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Z4e36rYO1cEJ:unitedbarbell.com/dox/30%2520Day%2520Paleo%2520Challenge%2520Packet.pdf+paleo+challenge&hl=en&gl=ca&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjxqd83z9U6w9gKMDTkG1GkPKJeqwrhAM4c9D7rw3evABBesOJh0fFIWB7Wvo2xVJWfi_ywh2QGejFu1dDuO11t2TkB6bTVhc4hw-5bDxMnvEdx64udd1Hx7qPZSj2Z5mhApQCi&sig=AHIEtbQH03sVT3Q7Jefv1JHCngwsrMjn6A&pli=1
I'm not kidding, you would likely drop something like 20-30 lbs in the first month of this type of eating, and your energy levels would stabilize. It's also a really great way to eat for training, because the fuel for your engine is so high quality. The only thing you have to watch is portion control, so if you need help with that just drop me a line.

Does this seem feasible to you? It will work if you give it a chance, but I know it's pretty different to what you're doing now.

[Boss Man]

I'd definitely warm up before you workout.

You can do a combination of 5 minutes of cardio with some stretching to follow, or do some warm-up sets instead. 8-10 reps of very light stuff, before each exercise. This should help to bolster circulation and synovial fluid mobilisation around the joints, to hopefully promote more thermogenic activity and fluidity of joint actions.

If the Squats hurt your knees it's likely you could be over-extending.

Squats should be done by mimicing sitting down on a chair, so if you practice doing that a few times with no weight, then you should be able to notice your Knees moving forwards very little, because you shouldn't end up with your going past the ends of your feet, they should move forwards with minimal distance, because you should be getting a goodly amount of buttock protrusion during the downward motion, which you might, in part, be sacrificing with an over-extending action instead.