Beginning training for the morbidly obese?

[Exhibitionist]

I know someone that wants me to give him advice on beginning a workout program. He is what I would consider morbidly obese, that is about 50 kilos overweight. I really don't have the slightest idea how to start him out. I'm afraid to push him to do something too strenuos that might cause a cardiac arrest. This person is 33 years old and has problems with hypertension as well. What would be best? Starting out walking and then move up to jogging?

 

[Sub-Zero]

well for one, id say get his diet in order, DEFINATELY, if u need help with that...diet board.


then, yeah walking- but not for too long, remember no heart attack..

you shouldnt need to move up to running, because fixing his diet and going tfrom probably ZERO activity to some healthy walking will help some.

also, when he starts to lose some weight, and become better heart condition maybe think of some aerobic stuff, like buns of steal, jumping jacks-stuff like that

 

[Exhibitionist]

Diet is going to be the hard part since I can't be there all the time to make sure no cheating happens . Otherwise, I can help with the workouts.

 

[casualbb]

You may have to put him on a low or no carb diet... morbidly obese people often have really low insulin sensitivities, driving them to overeat on carbs.

 

[bran987]

GLUCORELL-R at his age and obesity level

diet alone will work wonders for somebody umm.... 50 kilos equals like.. what.. 110 lbs. overweight?

DIET will make him lose LBS. also, why not get him on a high rep low weight cardio type weight training routine if you can be around him while he's training?

any progress you can achieve (either through diet or training) will be an impetus to progress further in other areas.

 

[bignate73]

water work
band work
dbell work
walking
stretching

in general they gotta get moving. also their food issues will be the biggest challenge, even beyond the difficulties they have in moving and doing exercise.

i worked with a guy who was just under 500lbs. he got to walking about 35 min and did some pool work, we would work together with bands, dbells etc. machines just dont work too well for people that large. pulldowns maybe, they love the stretch, its like traction for their spine which is compressed so much.

 

[Synpax]

bignate - what were the results of your client? How much did you help him loose?

 

[big4life]

Walking and the diet are the big things. You need to get him up and doing things, but you also need to make sure that he is eating right, or all the physical activity in the world isn't going to help.

 

[bignate73]

bignate - what were the results of your client? How much did you help him loose?

unfortunately i only worked with him for about a month. then he went to a different club, worked with someone else (walking, aqua exercises) and dropped 100lbs.

basically the prescription was walk/exercise to burn the equivalent of 700 cals, per day 5 days a week. thats what he told me when i saw him a year later.

im not sure what he was doing for his food intake. i worked his meal plans but dont remember what we did.

 

[Synpax]

Bummer. It sounded like it would have been a great project. You could put up a before-after pic on your wall to show to other clients.