Hey all. I'm a beginning lifter and I'd like to ask for some advice on what to do. First off, a little background. I'm 19 years old and I'm in the Navy. Currently I'm going to school in Charleston, SC. It's a pretty rigorous program; I go to school from 0600 to 1600 Monday through Friday with 2-4 hours of extra study on top of that. Because of this, I have very little time to myself during the week and the majority of that is spent eating, preparing my uniform, and of course PTing.
Here in lies the problem though, the PT gets shafted a lot of the time. I remember about a year ago, when I first became interested in weight lifting, I was more motivated to never miss a workout because of the progress I saw by squatting, benching, deadlifting, etc. I didn't stick with it though as I switched over to running/muscle endurance exercises to prepare for boot camp. Now that I'm more situated though, I'd like to get back into it while still being able to score well on the PFA (Personal Fitness Assessment) I have to take every once in awhile. 65 push-ups, 90 sit-ups and an 11 minute 1.5 mile is what I usually score. I'd like to at least maintain that, if not improve it drastically, while weight training and dropping some fat as well. All of this while only being able to reserve an hour to an hour and a half a day for working out. Can it happen?
Ok, so enough of the babbling. I've read the stickies and I like the idea of either the "Rippetoe 3x5" or "Madcow 5x5" set/rep schemes as it most closely resembles what I used to do. I also want to improve my run time though, so I was thinking of Mon/Wed/Fri weight lifting and running on Tue/Thur/Sat, maybe two days of sprinting to help with speed and one distance run to help with endurance. I get to eat free at the refueling complex 3x a day (0600, 1130, and 1730 normally) which usually serves a meat dish, a starch, and a variety of fruits/vegetables among other junk that I'm trying not to touch (desserts, ice cream, soft drinks). I gained a lot of weight in boot camp due to the lack of PT, and I'm at about 200 pounds at 6'. I'd like to get down to around 175-180 as this is the weight I feel best at. But, I want to be the most athletic and strong 180 that I can be. I'm going for the football player/olympic weight lifter type of training I guess you could say, who can also run with no problems at all.
Advice? Comments? Awake?
Here in lies the problem though, the PT gets shafted a lot of the time. I remember about a year ago, when I first became interested in weight lifting, I was more motivated to never miss a workout because of the progress I saw by squatting, benching, deadlifting, etc. I didn't stick with it though as I switched over to running/muscle endurance exercises to prepare for boot camp. Now that I'm more situated though, I'd like to get back into it while still being able to score well on the PFA (Personal Fitness Assessment) I have to take every once in awhile. 65 push-ups, 90 sit-ups and an 11 minute 1.5 mile is what I usually score. I'd like to at least maintain that, if not improve it drastically, while weight training and dropping some fat as well. All of this while only being able to reserve an hour to an hour and a half a day for working out. Can it happen?
Ok, so enough of the babbling. I've read the stickies and I like the idea of either the "Rippetoe 3x5" or "Madcow 5x5" set/rep schemes as it most closely resembles what I used to do. I also want to improve my run time though, so I was thinking of Mon/Wed/Fri weight lifting and running on Tue/Thur/Sat, maybe two days of sprinting to help with speed and one distance run to help with endurance. I get to eat free at the refueling complex 3x a day (0600, 1130, and 1730 normally) which usually serves a meat dish, a starch, and a variety of fruits/vegetables among other junk that I'm trying not to touch (desserts, ice cream, soft drinks). I gained a lot of weight in boot camp due to the lack of PT, and I'm at about 200 pounds at 6'. I'd like to get down to around 175-180 as this is the weight I feel best at. But, I want to be the most athletic and strong 180 that I can be. I'm going for the football player/olympic weight lifter type of training I guess you could say, who can also run with no problems at all.
Advice? Comments? Awake?