Originally posted by: dmw16
EDIT: Tons of questions...just sending you a PM
I responded to your PM with a long reply, but then realized that the info might be generally useful in this thread as well, so I'm copying it here too:
First, I want to mention that "improved definition" is not a useful goal. A useful goal is one that you can concretely measure so that you can see your progress toward it. For example, "I want to have X% body fat and weigh Y lbs by date Z" is a concrete goal that will result in "improved definition" but also give you something specific to work towards. This can give you more of a training/challenge mentality, which can be very motivating and typically, more effective at producing results. Having said that, "improved definition" consists of lowering your body fat percentage. As discussed in the
fat loss sticky, it's very difficult to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. Resistance training is immensely helpful towards either goal, but you'll want to pick one or the other and set-up your diet accordingly. If you pick fat loss, the resistance training will be primarily for maintaining lean body mass and while you may still get stronger, you won't add on too much extra muscle. You'll also want to be careful with exercise volume as it'll be harder for the body to recover while on a caloric deficit. On the other hand, if you go towards increasing mass, then the resistance training will be the tool to convince your body to make most of the mass gain muscle.
In terms of what routine to do, the gold standard for beginners is the routine described in
Starting Strength. Not only does the book describe a simple and effective routine, it also does an incredibly good job of explaining why you should do strength training, why use free weights instead of machines, which lifts tend to be most effective, and thorough instructions (including great pictures & diagrams) of how to do each of these lifts. If you are not 100% confident in your form on the low bar back squat, deadlift, OH press, bench press, and power clean, the book is very worthwhile, even if you choose to do some other routine. There is also a
complementary DVD that came out recently which is extremely helpful. If you're going to spend multiple hours a week for months on end doing these routines, it's worth spending a little money & time up front to sure you learn to do the exercises properly.
If you're averse to spending money, you can check out some of the same content on the
Starting Strength wiki. For that matter, the
Stronglifts website is also an excellent (free) resource that I use all the time. The
Stronglifts 5x5 routine is very similar to Starting Strength, with a few minor tweaks that make it a bit easier to get into. I personally prefer Starting Strength, but you'll have great results with either program.
The one catch, as I mentioned before, is that both routines are designed to be done on 3 non-consecutive days per week. Since you work the entire body each day, it's hard to recover enough between workouts to do two consecutive days. I'd suggest starting with just 2 days a week (e.g., Monday and Wednesday) and see how it goes. As long as you are adding weight to the bar just about every workout, then you don't need to change anything. However, if you quickly get stuck, you may need to make tweaks. Adding a 3rd day on Friday or the weekends is a good choice. I definitely understand the issue of wanting to see your wife, but perhaps she'll forgive you for disappearing for 60-90 minutes on one of those days. Otherwise, you could try doing two consecutive days (e.g., Monday, Tuesday and Thursday) with the second of the two consecutive days being tweaked to use lighter (or no) squats. I'm not sure how successful that'll be, but it's an option.
One other option is for you to consider
Crossfit, especially if there is a Crossfit gym near you. It's the workout routine of many military, police, firefighters, mixed martial artists, etc and is designed to develop general physical preparedness (ie, overall fitness). Rather than improving just strength, Crossfit is designed to improve "each of 10 fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy." It does involve weight lifting, but also gymnastics, running, plyometrics, climbing and a whole lot more. I'd recommend reading the article
"What is Fitness?" in the Crossfit journal for more info. You can also check out
my workout journal to see my experiences with Crossfit since I started it back in July. Since not each day involves heavy lifting in Crossfit, you could do 4 consecutive days of CF (some people even do 5) without overloading your CNS. Of course, when you first start out, you'd definitely want to only do 1-2 days per week and scale the workouts down. Most people are not prepared for the intensity of Crossfit workouts, so you'd definitely want to get into them gradually. Once you're going full tilt though and have a proper diet to match, CF is definitely a great tool towards exceptional overall fitness.
As for your cardio question, if by "cardio" you mean the traditional jogging/biking/elliptical type exercise, it depends on your goal. In general, traditional cardio activites help improve your endurance, stamina and other health indicators and if those are important to you, then you can definitely toss in some cardio on off days from lifting. As far as weight loss, however, cardio's only role is that it's an efficient way to burn calories. So if you need to increase your caloric deficit, feel free to do some, but make sure you aren't (over) compensating by eating more, as it will have no effect otherwise.
It's worth noting that "cardio" is already part of Crossfit. However, rather than doing traditional long slow distance (LSD) training, Crossfit typically uses metcon (metabolic conditioning) workouts. These usually combine multiple types of exercises (weight lifting, running, gymnastics, etc) and are done at very high intensity. Although they don't look like standard cardio, these short workouts can produce the same (and often far better) improvements in endurance/stamina/health indicators while also building strength, speed, power, agility, etc. So if you do Crossfit, you don't have to worry about "cardio" at all - it's already taken care of. And if you don't want to do Crossfit, you could do Starting Strength or Stronglifts 5x5 two days a week (Monday and Thursday) and do 1 or 2 "metcon" CF workouts in between (on Tuesday & Wednesday).
