Almost three years and counting!!

[Give it]

Hello everyone,
Great site! Three years ago i was working out 6-7 days a week. Since then my wife and I had 2 kids . I've tried to start up again a number of times but just can't get into a routine. Can anyone recommend a program where I would not burn out after the first week and would work with a busy schedule? Also, don't know what's new and good in the world of supplements. I used to find that ephedrin helped with my intensity; has there been a replacement that has the same kind of results?

 

[Madcow2]

There are plenty of 3 day per week routines that allow for a fairly busy life and will give you a ton of results in around 1 hour each. It would be helpful to know what your past experience is in weight training though. Are you a total novice? Did you used to lift regularly? Are you fairly competent with the main powerlifts (bench/squat/dead)? How about the olympic lifts (clean/snatch/any derrivative) maybe you did some for sports? Any injuries or past problems we should be aware of?

As far as supplements, they are at best a 2% effect over a solid workout program and decent diet. That said, with a major workload and desire for homelife some type of CNS stimulant might be helpful if you are forced to train odd hours - have 2 cups of black coffee if need be. I'd get the big blocks out of the way before bothering to spend even $0.10 on anything other than food/water and a gym membership.

This is where people fail, they throw money at stuff but never actually get in there and do it. Alternatively, many try to do too much at once and end up totally unraveling and throwing everything out when they inevitably fail to be strict with one facet or another. Have a goal to get to the gym 3x per week. If you miss one, make it up. If you can't make it up, get all 3 the next week. Everyone has setbacks and interruptions, you succeed by not quitting.

 

[Give it]

I'm 29 years old. I started working out when I was about 20. So I'm not a novice, I did previously have a weight-lifting routine. When I started I used mostly machines. After a time I moved into free weights, squats, bench, etc; being self-taught I imagine my workout was quite basic; in fact I'm not familiar with what an olympic lift is.

No injuries. I currently am active, playing hockey three times a week. My wife is on Weight Watchers and so the food she cooks is healthy; however I would need to set up a diet that would complement my workout routine.

 

[big4life]

Welcome to elite!!

The one thing that I would suggest is that you take a look at the traing methods sticky at the top of the page. There is a ton of information about different routines that you can follow.

Good luck!!

 

[Madcow2]

This is a thread with some good links I posted. The 3rd one is a workout that works well for sports conditioning and BBing. Very effective, not time consuming. The other links are good reading as well specifically the 2nd one (on which the workout is based with the original layout from Bill Starr's classic 5x5).

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366951