Hit my goal, now push me beyond! Need a workout plan!

[ParaMedicMan]

Hey all, about a year ago I started on this message board with one simple goal in mind, to drop some serious weight and enlist in the armed forces. Well, I'm seriously proud to say that as of March 2nd, I officially swore in and am down 112 lbs. I can't honestly thank you folks enough for the motivation and advice that you've given me. It's been, well, life changing. All that being said, I need you to push me harder.

I'm currently 222lbs and I'm 70" tall. I'd like to be about 190-200 when I ship (in Sept of this year). I've been able to push my BF down to 26%, now it's really time to ramp it up. I'm not looking to bulk a ton, I'm a stocky build as is. My diet is spot on as my results will show. I've got 7 days a week to workout as I'm not currently employed so please, I beg of you, build me a workout that will cut me down and get me ready. I know it's a lot to ask and as usual, I'm open to all advice. If that means tweaking my diet, supplements, whatever. Help me push past this and get there. Thanks for your time and dedication and I look forward to your advice.

 

[The Instrumentalist]

Hey bro,

First of all, congratulations! Losing 112lbs is no easy feat, and to say the least, extremely impressive. It shows a great amount of motivation and hardcore dedication to get the results you have.
Nothing short of inspirational my friend.

Let's see you post up your current diet and training regimen, along with supps you are currently taking, and I'm sure we can make some tweaks to get you shredding even more of that weight and building nice lean muscle mass in the process.

 

[zedhed]

Congrats bro on that loss. Outstanding!
Keep in mind what you are gonna be doing...Basic!
I guarentee that you will loose there too.
What is your MOS gonna be? That could determing what you really wanna do with your bod...
Post up man!

 

[ParaMedicMan]

Thanx for the thoughts, and truthfully I couldn't have done it without the support and advice of you all. I can't stress it enough! Over the 4-6 weeks my diet and routine changed, cut down to around 500-600 cal's a day and a lot of cardio in order to lose the max amt of weight/fat I could to enlist. Now that I'm in, it's time to ramp up the fat burning. Prior to changing my diet to the one listed above, I was eating the following:

0600 - Lean meat (chicken/tuna)
0900 - Protein Bar (like 2:1)
1200 - Lean meat & veggie (spinach, broccoli)
1500 - Protein Shake (GNC Amp'd Wheybolic is what I currently use)
1800 - Lean Meat & Veggie again

Of course I was consuming a gallon of water a day and adding the fiber x3 a day. I don't use any supplements because the truth is all of the current "thermo's" don't do a thing for me anymore. Yes that includes ECA as well. I tried a run of Clen/T3 and won't touch the stuff, worst headaches I've ever felt. The only "supplement" I will be returning to is GH. I was on it for a few months and it really worked for me. I saw some pretty dramatic changes. Now that I have 6 months to play with, I'm going back!

As far as routine:

Monday AM: Cardio
Monday PM: Chest, Shoulders, Back, Abs

Tuesday AM: Cardio
Tuesday PM: Legs, Abs

Wednesday AM: Cardio
Wednesday PM: Arms

Thursday AM: Cardio
Thursday PM: Chest, Shoulders, Back, Abs

Friday AM: Cardio
Friday PM: Legs, Abs

Saturday AM: Cardio
Saturday PM: Arms

Sunday: Lords Day of rest, thank God!

That's what I have, please feel free to change it all around. I'm seriously open to anything that can ramp it up for me. Thanks for your time.

* I do take protein right after lifting as well!

 

[The Instrumentalist]

bro that is a fucking intense schedule lol. all that AM cardio is some serious dedication, nice work!
your diet is 600 calories a day? is that correct?

im just heading out for a bit now but when i get in tonight i'll post up some ideas you can take a look at.
what kind of equipment do you have access to? is there a power rack and barbell where you work out??

 

[ParaMedicMan]

Yeah it is, but at 29, or rather 30, when I ship out I'm going to need that extra to whip kids that are 18/19 years old. If you know what I mean! My calorie intake isn't 600 anymore, it was for about a month prior. It was a very strict lowcal diet and tons of cardio to drop weight fast and make the cut. Now that I'm in, I want to improve my strength and seriously destroy some BF. I am not sure about a power rack, but they do have barbells. I use a Golds Gym, it's not the best Golds I've been too but it can get the job done. It's got most of the major machines, weight sets that one would normally see.

 

[Tblock1]

Fantastic work! A few questions for ya:

What branch and MOS are you doing?
What are your lifts right now?
Depending on what branch how would you do on that branch's PT test?

I'm in Army ROTC and I know all too well how hard it is to balance lifting and cardio. Good luck!

 

[ramnares]

IMHO a 600 calorie a day diet isn't something you can maintain successfully once you start working full time again. Since you're looking to build strength you'll definitely need to bump up your caloric intake, particularly if you plan on working out twice a day. For your cardio days you should definitely incorporate a HIIT workout, this should be particularly beneficial in improving your run time for your PT test, as well as blasting body fat and upping your metabolism. Also, working chest, shoulders, back and abs all on the same day seems like overkill to me. That's two major muscle groups, and you plan on working them twice a week. Either switch to a 5X5 program, there's tons of 5X5 calculators available (just google), or do a traditional chest/tri, back/bi, legs/shoulders routine.

 

[The Instrumentalist]

to be honest, i don't think a chest/tri back/bi legs/shoulders routine would benefit him a whole lot.

my thoughts are this. keep doing the cardio as much as you want, fasted cardio is great for burning that body fat. however, ramnares is right in where you're going to have to ramp up your calories. being that you're still above 200 lbs, i would say you could up your calories safely to 1800, especially with all that cardio. just be sure to KEEP IT CLEAN, and have a good portion of that in the form of proteins.

as for your lifting routine, with all that cardio if you're also lifting 6 days a week and hitting each muscle twice in that 6 day period, you are going to seriously overtrain. you're definitely not going to maximize your gains lifting that much.
as ramnares said, i would move to a 5x5 program. no cable or machine work, it is all compound barbell movements IE - squats, rows, bench, overhead press, and deadlifts. working your biceps twice a week is going to have *very* little functional application when it comes to your military training.
stick to this program, you will likely be lifting 3 times a week. you might think that's not enough compared to your 6 day schedule now, but i promise you, the gains will come much more efficiently than with the gross overtraining that you're currently participating in.

keep in mind you want to be functionally strong. that is the key word here. bicep curls, tricep pushdowns, machine work, lateral shoulder raises, etc. are all bodybuilding fodder. they have no place in functional strength training. look at powerlifters and strongmen, you never see them doing cable crossovers or reverse flyes.
things like biceps triceps, etc. will all get hit hard with the likes of rows and close grip bench, respectively.

feel free to pm me if you'd like any additional input on new exercises, etc. and i'd be happy to help out bro.

 

[ramnares]

"keep in mind you want to be functionally strong. that is the key word here. bicep curls, tricep pushdowns, machine work, lateral shoulder raises, etc. are all bodybuilding fodder. they have no place in functional strength training. look at powerlifters and strongmen, you never see them doing cable crossovers or reverse flyes.
things like biceps triceps, etc. will all get hit hard with the likes of rows and close grip bench, respectively."

Bingo!!! Couldn't have stated this much better.