The training for a leaner body (newbies)

The approach to your training will depend on what stage your body is and the amount of muscle mass you have when the goal is to reduce body fat. Let’s assume that you’re fairly new to weight training and that you have an average muscle mass to your size and gender. Let’s also assume that you have been out of shape for a while and that you have recently started your training routine. At this point your priority will be to put on lean muscle while you’re increasing your fitness level. At this stage you need to have in mind what does it take for your body to build muscle, and there are 3 essential factors: Diet, Training and Rest. In this particular order. Take one of these away and your progress won’t happen, but regarding this I can discuss in a future article.

Let’s focus on the training side for a leaner body.

As you are starting the best approach is to start from the scratch and keeping realistic expectations and goals. Arnold arms in three months won’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that you’re condemn to keep your current shape. The muscle building is a slow process, requires determination and consistency. You won’t notice your body changing on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean that the progress is not happening as long as you stick to your plan.

As you’re starting the focus needs to be on your big muscle groups.

Spending one hour training arms its pointless at this stage. You need to start from the basics.

Bench press, bent over rows, squats and deadlifts(with proper technique), press ups, tricep dips, pull ups, and generally body weight training will make you stronger and will help you build muscle. As your goal is to reduce body fat, the best option is to do volume workouts and perhaps incorporate supersets in your workouts. A good example of a superset on your chest day is to superset bench press with press ups, or on your back day bent over rows with pull ups.

Keep the rest periods not longer than 60 seconds. The idea is to keep your heat rate high as you’ll burn more calories this way and you’ll be boosting your metabolism.

Your reps range should be more than 10 at this stage (10 – 15 reps depending on the exercise), but they must be challenging however not overloading. Keeping a good form will be ideal as you can get more muscle engagement.

At this stage is also essential that you respect your rest days. Remember that you don’t build muscle when you’re training. It’s when you’re resting that the muscle restore process happens. Generally when you have muscle soreness is a good indication that you are doing something right.

But you can train like a beast and still not get much progress if your diet isn’t right. Regarding the diet side I’ll be discussing on my next article.

Filipe