Training and Nutrition Basics

Thank you to everyone who has been following me on twitter and reading my blog, its been fantastic seeing so many people taking an interest.

Anyway, as promised, this post is going to be about training and nutrition. The first thing that you should do is to decide on your goal. What do you want to achieve? For me, my goal was to become one of the best Masters competitors in the country. In a previous post I said how I identified my weaker areas and tailored my training regime accordingly.

So what do you what to achieve? What are your goals?

I am aware that people of different training backgrounds will read this, and as such I think its important to start fairly basic. But even if you are experienced you may find that you can improve your own fundamentals.

It is important to try and enjoy your training. Its not essential, but a long term commitment to your goal is. Bodybuilding, or just general body conditioning takes time.

My training will fall into two distinct cycles - competition and off season. Competition has specific requirements which are for another time, today will be about the off season. In the off season I like to train Monday to Friday, weekends are for growth and recovery, along with family time. This is not to be undervalued, and forms an essential part of your training life.

Training

Below is a basic three week plan to show you what sort of things need to be incorporated, and to show you how you can build from week to week.

Week 1 - Heavy weight for 8 to 10 reps with the last 2 being negative reps. I will explain about negative reps at a later date or you can contact me.

Week 2 - Still heavy weight, but one that you can do for 12 to 15 reps with the last 5 being negative reps.

Week 3 - 20 reps at your heavy weight.

Your week should look something like this -

Monday: Chest & Calves
Tuesday: Back
Wednesday: Legs & Hamstrings (Hamstrings first)
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Arms & Calves

It is very important that you keep a record of your progress because training programs are not a 'one size fits all'. If you are not making progress then you simply need to change something.

Food & Nutrition

This is a big subject, but as before it will be basic to start with. This example would be a typical weekday workout day.

Meal 1 - 40g of cooked oats, 1 1/2 scoops of whey, 1 banana.

Meal 2 - 135g of drained tuna in brine (1 can) and 100g of sweet potato.

Meal 3 - 150g of cooked chicked and 150g of sweet potato.

Meal 4 - 25g of uncooked oats and 1 1/2 scoops of whey.

Train

Meal 5 - 25g of uncooked oats and 1 1/2 scoops of whey.

Meal 6 - A chicken breast, broccoli (as much as you need), 200g of sweet potato.

Meal 7 - 125g of low fat yogurt and 1 1/2 scoops of whey with 25g of all bran mixed in.

This will hopefully either give you some direction in your current training or even give you a place to start.