Just found this forum, will be seeping in all the info I can get. I think my log will be an interesting read since I am starting on a clean slate as a skinnyfat person with very little gym experience who has realized that his habits of laziness and eating crappy have caught up with him. So, now its time to change my life habits. Fortunately I have money to splurge on personal trainers for 10 months time (wasting money possibly, but still a solid investment at $30 a session so whatever) so I will just post what I've been doing, my general feelings at the time, how my body is holding up.

The goal is for me to hold myself accountable and be a useful read for anyone else who is a skinnyfat nerd that has the resources to get fit but no idea wtf to do. I came to the best gym in my city with an open mind and told the head trainer "Whatever it takes, I'll put forth the effort. Tell me what to do". And this log is what follows.

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Background: turn 22 in less than a week, 5'9 and 180 pounds with 29% bodyfat (this seems freakishly high but I have a gut so w/e ship it)

I have been in this physical state for almost 2 years now and its bugging me. In high school I was same height but like 145 pounds, and from then til now I was gaining prob 5 pounds a year until I plateuad at 180 because I knew I wasnt gonna let myself get above 180 as that means you've hit the "you're getting too fat" zone.

The differences between then and now are relatively simple. In high school and early college years, I was a busto kid that was skinny thanks to running and tennis, and when I found poker I translated my competitive outlet from physical to mental. This made me a lazy bastard.

Fortunately I am now more robusto from pokers, enough so to splurge on a trainer for the next 10 months before I move to the west coast. I think 2p2 standards might say "you are wasting money on a trainer", but I need the experience and someone to push me to get back from my period of inactivity. Also I feel way more guilty if I miss a lifting session when I have a trainer compared to just lifting by myself (lol apathy).

In the mean time, I plan on getting in the best shape of my life. The personal trainer I hired wants my long term goals to be to get down to 165 and be more cut, and build from there, but we will be working on a month to month, day to day basis. This means nutrition (small means, 5 or 6 a day) and going to the gym 4 days a week for cardio and lifting on each parts of my body. Ideally from a vanity perspective I want to have the kind of body that gets on covers of mens health magazine but realistically I just want to be a lot more fit looking than I am now, which I would qualify as skinnyfat.

WEEK 1: (week of November 2nd)

On Monday I scheduled an appointment with the head trainer at the athletic club I joined.

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Tuesday

I had a meeting with the head trainer, which constituted us talking about my goals and what direction the head trainer wanted me to go. I did a strength test that involved pulling on this handle-attached-to-a-rope-from-a-machine-on-the-ground, and then I did a flexibility test. I did pretty decent in strength test, MISERABLY in flexibility tests. I signed up for the 4-day-a-week program, and off I went. Me and the head trainer started with a small 12-minute workout which consisted of him spotting me for some chest-exercises. They were free-weight machines that were incline bench and regular bench (sitting upright). I think I did maybe 7 sets total with lowish weights since I'm a noob, including some regular sets and drop sets. I found drop sets to be a huge pain in the ass, since it's 30 reps with 10 reps -> less weight -> 10 reps -> less weight -> 10 reps. By the later stages I would consistently need spots.

I was already feeling the soreness Tuesday night watching the election, and since Tuesday I have kinda felt like Snorlax, in that to get up from couches and beds I've needed to use momentum of my body to swing myself since my upper body and triceps are totally shot.

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Wednesday

Today involved seeing my new trainer, since head trainers are I guess the "high school principal" version of trainers at this place. I haven't gotten strong vibes from my new trainer yet. He looks just fresh out of college and doesn't really carry the same level of authenticity (the aura, i guess) that the head trainer guy did.

I can't explain it well enough for the log, but the head trainer has a calm demeanor and lays everything out for you, but his seriousness and intencity with regards to improving my health is like Samuel L. Jackson staring into your eyes and saying "I'm gonna do every mothafu&&ing thing in my power to make you a mothafu%%ing mountain of manliness, motharfu%%a!!!!" and the new trainer is like a caddy on a golf course, just calmly and directly helping me out. Not to say he's a bad trainer, I am sure he's qualified, but the head trainer was such a badass that I wish I just had him instead.

I mean, truth be told, if it's all about just getting me to do X exercises with Y frequency at Z weight, and continually put forth the effort, then there's really no way I could be wasting my money.

I made a mistake off the bat in not telling my new trainer that I hadn't worked out in ages, and he overworked me. We did lunges, then hamstring machine, then quads machine, then lunges, then stretching, then lunges, then quads machine, and by the time I was through 2 sets I was about to throw up so I laid on the floor and poured water on my head so I didnt get any more nauseous than I was. We ended the session there for the day for the sake of my own noob health, and I walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes then drove home

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Thursday

Today I rested. Most sore I have ever been in my life. Walking on these legs felt like being a newborn deer. I have to drink out of a cup with my wrist pronated the opposite way, so as to disallow me from using triceps/pecs that are still really sore. I'm not thrilled about going to the gym tomorrow to work on Back/Arms, but my friends are insisting I have to keep up with it and I'll be fine in a couple weeks. So, on I go, because lol pain thresholds. I just hope I dont embarrass myself like I did on Wednesday, borderline throwing up and stuff.

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Thats it for now, since its early AM Friday and I have my gym session Friday afternoon. Hopefully will get a structured diet plan from head trainer after getting owned by regular trainer.

Pictures of me to better help the log.


At the Jackson-Griffith UFC Fight this summer in vegas


At a Georgia football game



World Series of Poker uberstar

Ok that is it, hope everyone enjoys my log for the next 10 months before I move to west coast

Clayton

Read the faq. Stop doing isolation excercises. What area are you from someone can prolly recommend a decent trainer if money isnt a big issue if you really need one. Buy starting strength by Rippetoe. Your diet plan looks decent. Do HIIT instead of jogging on the treadmill for 30 min (esp. once you get in a bit better shape..might not be able to handle it very well now). And yes your DOMS (soreness) will decrease drastically after workouts in the coming weeks.

edit: Oh yah, good job...stick with it, and good luck.

-Mike

- Will read the FAQ, ty

- I live in Athens, GA. money is not an issue for me. I am investing probably around $6k for the year with the hopes that the knowledge I get in the gym from the trainers and on 2p2 that by the time I move to the west coast I will not need a PT anymore and can do all sorts of training stuff on my own. But as someone that knows diddly, I am more than fine with shelling out a lot of money to get hands-on experience. I'm assuming I'm overpaying, whatever.

- I will buy starting strength

- Don't really have a diet plan yet, but gonna get one from the head trainer. It focuses on 6 small meals, but I dunno where to go with this. I will get more info on Friday. I also have a huge nutrition leak in that I am chemically addicted to caffeine/soda and will drink it with most meals if given the opportunity. I've tried quitting but I can never go more than a week without soda, on the basis that I enjoy it too much to quit cold turkey.

- What is HIIT?

- Yay soreness!

Where do you live now? Go to crossfit.com and find a local affiliate gym. This is much better than using a trainer at a health club, AINEC. It is probably cheaper as well, based on what my sister paid for a PT.


This is a contradiction. It is either a free weight, or a machine. Can't be both. Barbells are your friend, learn to use them and they will get you strong and they will make you mentally tough. You can't bench press sitting up, gravity doesn't work sideways. He's an idiot if he has you doing drop sets and other assorted stupid **** like that. Getting stronger and in shape is really very very simple. If you can't make a rep without a spot, the rep doesn't count, period.


They are using horrible exercise selection. God awful. And I really think that relying on someone else for motivation isn't going to really do you any good in the long run. It has to come from within or else you'll never keep it up and will end up right where you started. But, sure, using them for motivation at first is fine. I would actually pick up a sport if you need competition or motivation to keep on exercising.

When coming back from a layoff, it is smart to keep the first few workouts light so you don't temporarily disable yourself. The idea is to be able to recover and get back in the gym quicker then you can ramp up the amount of work. Your trainers made a pretty poor decision here imo.

Also, some advice:
Your body composition changes will come mostly from your diet. Lose FAT through diet. Eat food that was recently alive (meat, veggies, fruit) instead of bread, grain, pasta etc. Weightlifting will give you some muscle, but it really isn't going to significantly help you lose fat. Also, getting in shape is not just about lifting weights. Which is why I recommend crossfit. You'll improve your strength, endurance, stamina, flexibility, body composition etc if you eat right and do crossfit. It is a great general physical preparedness (GPP) program. After you have some experience, you may have some other goals.

blackkeys,

I am doing cardio in addition to the lifting. Also doing diet plan.

Also, it was free weight, not a machine, but it wasnt a standard bench for this particular small exercise session. Dunno how to describe it.

That said, I am not thrilled at your post because it makes me feel like I'm not going about this the right way. The trainers I am dealing with are NCSA-certified (which I was told to look for) so I have been trying to be like a sponge. I specifically told my first guy I wanted to start slow, so we did just the 12 minutes, but even those 12 minutes had me super sore. And it was my fault for not telling my 2nd trainer I was new (but I feel like the head trainer should have done a better job telling my 2nd trainer that I was starting slow).

I'm gonna shrug it off for now and just continue posting updates, and if a lot of people agree the trends of my exercise selection arent great then I'll see what I can do.

oooo, the cooking threads from the FAQ have me excited. i think my diet is largely why i have become skinnyfat, but since i dont know anything about nutrition and common applications for cooking, ive sucked

i will stockpile a bunch of foods tomorrow and will seek feedback

Clayton: EVERYONE is going to agree that your exercise selection isnt that great. Most PT's are garbage. Prolly 80% of the regular posters on this forum could train a novice better than the head PT at your gym (at least). Again, read the faq etc and ull figure it out. Also, you need to switch to diet soda if you really cant live without, thats probably the worst thing for a diet ever.

-Mike

I thought the consensus on diet soda was that it was worse longterm than regular soda?

Either way, I'm gonna make a genuine effort to stop drinking soda, but ideally I will limit myself to a couple beverages a week since if I went cold turkey I would probably go insane

Hmm, this does sound disheartening, and I kinda wish I visited this thread before making such a big financial splurge.

That said, I still do not regret my decision, because even if the PT's are retards they are helping me out (with so little experience I dont trust myself to succeed with just myself and 2p2), which combined with 2p2 knowledge will be beneficial.

How about this: I will post the exercises my PT's offer me, and friendly critiques will be much appreciated. Stuff that I can add/remove for future exercises.

I haven't found anything besides studies where they gave rats ridiculous amounts of aspartame and they suffered or died or something. Normal amounts I'm pretty sure are a-ok. I'm not dead yet, and I feel great.

Tell them you want to learn the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and row. At least that will get you on the right exercises even though they'll probably give you bad form advice.

If the bench press wasn't done using a barbell or dumbells, it was not a free weight exercise. If there was a lever attached to the thing you were sitting on somehow, that is a machine.

Clayton: Not sure about aspartame...I think its sorta up in the air. But w/e its prolly not THAT bad for you, and if it can help you quit then itd prolly be well worth it. Plus its seriously gonna be hard to lose weight drinking pop all the time.

As far as critiquing what they say...I can already tell you what they are gonna say and what everyone here will say.

PT: Yo, do all these isolation movements and machines. Do high reps cuz that makes you cut yo. Deadlifts are bad for your back and squats are bad for your knees, except quarter squats, theyre cool.

Us: Yo, those exercises suck man. Do what it says to do in the faq and read starting strength. Read this thread Then buy starting strength so you can do the exercises better. Also, videotape urself if you can and post on youtube as a form check and you can post that here too.

Here's a short list of stuff your PT will probably tell you to do that sucks: bicep curls, a bunch of stuff with cables, leg extensions, leg press, any machine basically, pec flies and delt raises. You can also ask them to show you how to squat but id be pretty wary and make sure its not on the smith machine. And then Id videotape urself doing what they told you and post it here/youtube.

-Mike

Meh. I woulda rather wasted a bunch of money than a bunch of months worth of time and energy (which is what I did)

-Mike

If i were you i would try to read up and educate yourself more on exercise and lifting(faq's maybe?Starting Strength for sure any other rcommended books,vids).
That way you can go in and finetune your own programme.It's quite interesting once you get into it.
The PT's "make me look like Brad Pitt!" programmes are probably less individualised than you think.
I'm sure the everyone has the same template half the time only things that change are the weights.That's what it's like at my place.

As for the DOMS it's always really bad for me at the beginning gets much better though.

And as for the hamstring machine,quad machines and lunges thing you did, do BB Squats instead as so,so much better.I always assumed it was only a leg exercise.I was very wrong.Half your bodies involved in it.

GL sir and looking forward to your posting.

This.

I wasted ~5yrs in the gym doing mickey mouse routines/programmes.
I would much rather have just wasted a few grand at the beginning for sure.