Make sure to always listen to your body and take a rest day if you feel tired and worn out. It’s much better to have an off day to allow your body to fully recover versus pushing yourself too hard and forcing your body into an over-trained state where you start breaking down muscle tissue and losing strength.
If you’re a beginner, I recommend weight lifting 3 days per week and make sure to only train each muscle group once per week. Here is an example of a 3 day split routine:
- Monday: Legs and Calves
- Wednesday: Chest and Back
- Friday: Shoulders, Arms and Abs
Since you will be training your chest and back, it’s a great way to target two different muscle groups without sacrificing the drop in strength levels that you might experience from working a secondary muscle group. Basically, this means that if you did a compound set of bench press with skull crushers (lying barbell triceps extensions), you would be working your triceps while doing the bench press and they would be fatigued when moving directly into the skull crushers which will have a direct impact on the amount of weight you can use on this exercise since your triceps (secondary muscle group) have been used in the bench press and are fatigued. By working the push and pull training method, you will be utilizing opposing muscle groups and this is a great workout routine to include in your weekly weight lifting plan.
If you include cardio exercise into your overall routine, make sure to do it after your weight training workout, NOT before. You want to maximize your glycogen stores for energy while you’re lifting weights and burn up all the carbs in your system before moving onto your cardio workout where your goal is to tap directly into your fat stores.
Always remember how important nutrition is for achieving your physique goals. Try to eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, each day. For example, if you weigh 175 pounds then you want to eat at least 175 grams of protein per day. Divide this number between 5-6 meals per day for optimal results. Each meal will consist of around 30-35 grams of protein per meal. Make sure to get your carbohydrates from clean carb sources like brown rice, sweet potatoes and whole wheat bread (Ezekiel bread is the best). Eat tons of fibrous veggies like broccoli, mushrooms, zucchini, red onions and Brussels sprouts. Also focus on eating healthy fats like avocados, extra virgin olive oil, almonds, walnuts and all natural peanut butter (no sugar added).
Your diet is probably the most important element in your fitness plan for building muscle and burning body fat. You can train like an animal in the gym, but if you don’t eat the right foods with the optimal macronutrient breakdown and enough protein, you simply will not make the gains you truly desire and dream of. When in doubt, always go back and analyze your diet plan and tweak elements within the foods you’re consuming to find the right combination that works best for you. Some people make better gains on lots of starchy carbs while others pack on body fat quickly if they go overboard just a little bit with their carbohydrate intake, so understand that everybody is different and you need to truly understand your own physique to make the adjustments needed to succeed.