Pre-holiday training regime needed - advice please!

[Legend83]

Hi all, going to Spain in April and for pure vanity reasons want to get in as a good a shape as possible in 3/4 months. There are many barriers to this though!

- I can't afford gym membership at present
- I have twin 2 year olds which take up much time and energy
- I am a 'hard-gainer' - fairly lean and a touch gangly (11st-ish at 5ft 11)
- I own a set of good dumb-bells and a chin up bar. Also have ability to dips in the house
- I have some running trainers

So, I need a home-based regime / diet that will get the best out of my limited time and equipment with a view to having a decent beach-bod.

Any advice welcomed!

[dirty boy]

Legend83 said:

Hi all, going to Spain in April and for pure vanity reasons want to get in as a good a shape as possible in 3/4 months. There are many barriers to this though!

- I can't afford gym membership at present
- I have twin 2 year olds which take up much time and energy
- I am a 'hard-gainer' - fairly lean and a touch gangly (11st-ish at 5ft 11)
- I own a set of good dumb-bells and a chin up bar. Also have ability to dips in the house
- I have some running trainers

So, I need a home-based regime / diet that will get the best out of my limited time and equipment with a view to having a decent beach-bod.

Any advice welcomed!

Presumably you're a 9-5 worker?

'When' will you be exercising?

[Legend83]

dirty boy said:

Presumably you're a 9-5 worker?

'When' will you be exercising?

In principle yes (although Jan is busy for us beancounters!).

Typically do my exercise 8pm.

[dirty boy]

Legend83 said:

dirty boy said:

Presumably you're a 9-5 worker?

'When' will you be exercising?

In principle yes (although Jan is busy for us beancounters!).

Typically do my exercise 8pm.

Tell me about it! Bloody clients huh? Who needs them!

My new year starts Feb, I just can't find time for anything this time of year, so just accept I have more work to do to get in shape than most.

I'd suggest, if possible, sorting diet more than anything.

You'll hear it time and again for good reason, it works. If you're not doing much cardio (and there's not a great deal of need to do cardio) then ditch the carbs.

Have a small amount 40g or so of potatoes/rice (not bread or pasta) an hour or so before a workout to get glycogen stores sorted so you have energy to work out with. Then a small carb source afterwards (banana?) to replenish afterwards.

You should be getting roughly 2g of protein per Kg of bodyweight, so you should aim for circa 140g protein a day. Eat plenty of greens, don't go overboard on fruits, if you want to snack, i'd suggest having a pot of blueberries and mixed nuts on your desk.

What's an honest account of your daily nutritional intake at the moment?




With respect to workout...

You have access to dumb bells, I suspect they're not huge, but you can get some good gains with light weights by simply doing high reps and 4 sets. Make sure whatever you do, you feel the burn! Those last 3 reps should be bloody hard work.

Something like this? I'd suggest 10 sets of 10 reps with 60 second rests, if you can't do 10 on the next set, just do maximum, even if it's only 1 rep.

Press ups
10 of 10

Chin ups
10 of 10

Dips
5 of 10

Bulgarian squat, gets the weight on one leg, balance one on sofa or something
5 of 10 each side

Leg raises
10 of 10 (you can do these at the corner of a kitchen worktop or on your pull up bar)


With the dumb bells, you can do tricep extensions, curls and even standing press to get a shoulder workout.

I'd do 4 mins jogging gently on the spot to warm up, and stretch too.

Drink LOADS of water (DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE how beneficial this is to losing weight and leaning up)

If you decide to go the cardio route, make sure it's a very gentle jog or even a fast walk, and lasts for 40 mins or so.

You want to build muscle and lose fat.

Ignore the scales, look in the mirror.

[Legend83]

dirty boy said:

Usefull stuff

Cheers DB.

I think the diet is going to be the hardest bit to conquer as my wife has no interest in a low carb diet...and it's bad enough cooking two different meals for the kids!

I can work on breakfast and lunch as I sort those for myself but dinner is in the hands of the dear OH.

I eat a shed load of porridge for breakfast at present and lunch consists of soup, crisps, melon, apple and cheeky cake. Needs work.

That regime looks good - I think I will look to add a bit of cardio as I was planning a 10k run at some point this year.

It starts this weekend!