Need Advise from Certified Trainers, please. :)

I'd start off using some of the resistance machines that appeal to you, then figure out the free-weight exercises that are similar and gradually move to the free weights, do your cardio after you lift IMO!

Been working as a trainer in gyms for just under 2 years

Most gyms with trainers will give you a free assessment & workout to try and sell you the services.

Hi there,

I'm a trainer, but I'll be the first to say that it doesn't mean much. Consider it fair warning, but if you're walking into your typical big box commercial gym, it's likely that there won't be one certified trainer there who's actually qualified to offer your individual guidance.

certification =/= qualified

But regarding your situation, I definitely feel where you're coming from. It can be so dang intimidating walking into the gym for the first time.

At the stage of the game you're in... the good thing is pretty much anything will work. Literally. You have a good amount of fat left to lose and you're pretty new to the whole working out thing. What this means is your body is primed to respond very favorably to any stimulus you provide it for change.

I've seen people lose fat and gain muscle simply by sticking with cardio equipment for a short stint.

The point is, I would start with what you're comfortable with. I'm sure you're looking for optimality... who isn't. If we were going to structure something that's optimal for you, it'd likely have 2-3 sessions of resistance training per week and 2-3 sessions of conditioning per week.

On the resistance training side, I wouldn't worry too much about free weights vs. machines. I'm sure some people will gasp at that... and don't get me wrong... I'm a huge proponent of using free weights. But again, when you're first starting out, it's about doing things you're most comfortable with.

Regardless of what you choose, free weights or machines, I'd likely structure things in circuit type fashion. Make your resistance training sessions more about burning calories than maximizing the load lifted. Therefore it should contain little rest and involve relatively high reps per set... something in the tune of 12-20.

There are endless ways of structuring circuits... you can pick 4-8 exercises and do one right after the other. When you're finished.... call that 1 set. Maybe in the beginning that's all you do. As your capacity improves, you can add more volume by adding additional sets.

In terms of exercises, it's going to depend on what you're using - free weights or machines. And I should note that it shouldn't be an either-or proposition... you can certainly use free weights AND machines. It's just that free weights tend to have a bigger learning curve... especially if you don't have someone qualified showing you proper movement patterns and form.

But you want to be hitting the big, economical exercises that call on the most muscle. This will offer the most bang for your buck, the most stimulus for change, and the most energy expenditure per unit of time. So think squats, lunges, step-ups, leg presses, deadlift variations, hip thrusts, pull throughs, bench press variations, chest press machines, cable rows, rowing machines, pulldowns, etc. I'm sure some of these are foreign to you... but youtube can show you examples. And it's certainly not an extensive list.

A lot of people are quick to recommend heavy, basic barbell strength training as the solution to all issues. I think that's absurd. Yeah, I'm big on heavy barbell training. But if someone comes to me with 50+ lbs of fat to lose... it's not always the focus of programming. Sometimes it's about, as I said before, calorie wastage. Given the novelty of the stimulus to your muscles, even with the lower load circuit-esque type of training, you'll still get stimulus for muscle growth and strength gain... so why not get the best of both worlds. Plus, this high volume, low rest type of training (which I refer to as metabolic lifting) tends to favor insulin sensitivity which goes a long way for people in your camp.

I highly suggest reading this interview with Lyle McDonald that I conducted... specially the part about resistance training:

http://body-improvements.com/articles/interviews/lyle-mcdonald-interview/

As for the conditioning, I'd pick the equipment of your choosing. I personally opt for lower impact things such as eliptical, versa climber, rower, bike, etc. But go with what you're comfortable with. Personally, I wouldn't make it about hitting certain calorie expenditures or distances at first. I'd simply get familiar with movement quality on whatever device you use and push yourself enough to build up your work capacity over the first month or so but no so much that you're feeling destroyed. I know the temptation is there to wreck yourself in order to accelerate gains... but that's a naive way of looking at things. Build a foundation first and then build upon that down the road.

Once you build that foundation, you can start experimenting with different conditioning structures such as steady state vs. different interval forms of training.

I'll stop here as I likely already said too much. Hopefully I didn't confuse you more... but if I did... please feel free to ask more questions. I'm happy to help.

Thanks Steve.

When working with a client on something like this, do you have a general progression that gets implemented in terms of increasing volume or intensity over time? (Specifically for the circuit portion).

What metrics or other indicators do you use with a client that tell you to move away from circuit style training and towards more traditional resistance training, if at all?

I became a certified personal trainer to conquer my own weight loss issues. I found that when I started at 240lbs there were more exercises that I couldn't do than those I could. I made a commitment to do no less than a half hour of cardio a day. Every day I tried to push myself a little harder because if you're comfortable you aren't moving forward. The one thing you have to keep in mind is that no amount of exercise will overcome a bad diet so tracking your intake and commiting to cardio are key to losing however it has to fit into your lifestyle. If you can't see yourself going to the gym regularly then you have to find something you can stick with not as a punishment but that you look forward to doing. Eventually the weight will be a thing of the past and it will feel effortless. Cardio is anything that gets your heart pumping so dance like no one is watching, never walk when you can skip and try and beat your kid to the ball everytime. Good luck and great health ♥♥♥

In our gym at Johnson & Johnson we have a trainer who take s classes 3 times a week and he does circuit training where we do a minute on one machine or doing one exercise as many reps as we can then move onto the next, he's recently incorporated cardio into the work out, so we would do a minute of knees to elbows on the floor then knees to elbows standing up or jumping jacks or something which gets your heart rate up, then the next minute we do something which takes your heart rate down again and so on and so on for 35 minutes, I find it work s for me sometimes.

We also do interval training on the treadmill where we try and run for as long as possible then we cool down for a minute and so on and so on for 30 minutes, i'm no good at running yet so I'm only managing 1minute 30 secconds running n a minute off, it's supposed to be really good for fat burning, give it a try

Bump-to read the great info later :-)

Stroutman81 and sidesteel in the same thread?

Heck, I'm in...

...if for no other reason than to see where that discussion goes.

Thanks Steve.

When working with a client on something like this, do you have a general progression that gets implemented in terms of increasing volume or intensity over time? (Specifically for the circuit portion).

None of my training is template... so the short answer is no. How I structure things at the onset will depend on their experience, whether or not they were a former athlete, their movement quality and muscle imbalances, their current work capacity, the amount of time they can realistically dedicate to training each week (schedule and mental tolerability), etc.

In general though, I'm going to prescribe as much work as possible within those aforementioned confines. The more removed from ideal a client is, the less I'll have them do in the beginning, which is common sense obviously. But even there, it depends. I'm sure you've read about or you've seen the research suggesting that bigger calorie deficits work better at first for obese folks as it gives them the belief and positive reinforcement needed to facilitate lasting change... a jump start if you will. I've found the same to hold true with some of my beginner clients. Not all of them, mind you... but some simply feed on attacking this head on.

For them it's about pumping the brakes. For the others it's about stepping on the gas at a pace and volume that matches their circumstances.

Regardless though, the volume, frequency, and progression is always custom tailored.

I actually have two new beginner clients this month.

One of them started back mid June. She had no history of resistance training, pretty poor movement quality, and she was mostly interested in fat loss. I could tell she had a pretty negative perception of working out. My initial goals were to fix her relationship with exercise. Avoid unnecessary soreness. Provide her homework to do at home and during her warm-ups to help correct some of the postural issues she had. And start very gradually on building up some work capacity.

Her first week entailed 2 sessions. Each session was circuit fashion and mostly bodyweight.... think bodyweight squats, modified pushups, band rows, med ball slams, glute bridges, low level core activation stuff a la Shirley Sahrmann, etc.

By the time we got her warmed up, answered some questions, foam rolled a bit, and did one round of her first circuit... I could tell she "worked out." I killed it there.

Fast forward to today. She's banging out 3 rounds of a juiced up circuit from the original that includes more external loading. Her work capacity has improved quite a bit, she's down 12 lbs, and not once did she feel so sore where she couldn't move, which is what she was accustomed to with a boot camp she had tried years ago.

My other new client I got in early July. This dude was big... about 345. Tall though and a former D2 offensive tackle. After assessing him, it was clear that his work capacity was much higher than most people his size. He had fantastic body awareness and great movement mechanics... especially considering that his center of gravity was a bit skewed due to his added girth.

He had a lot of history with strength training and definitely feeds off of moving loads. He wanted 3 sessions per week, so I built each day to include some low volume strength work at the onset followed by a ton of calorie wasting stuff at the end.

Point is... it's mostly art mixed with a little science. After a lot of years, you sort of get a sixth sense in terms of reading someone's needs and tolerances (on the physical and mental sides of things).

What metrics or other indicators do you use with a client that tell you to move away from circuit style training and towards more traditional resistance training, if at all?

Again depends, but the biggest is body composition and level of fatness. I'm not tracking bf% per se, but we know that trainees are less likely to lose muscle while dieting if they're carrying an abundance of fat. So until I get them down to something reasonable, I don't see much a point in focusing on strength stuff unless they're actually coming to me with experience with heavy loading.

In the former group, like I said above, anything works. Why reduce their training volume down to traditional strength training when circuit-esque type training is likely going to provide the same stimulus for improvement in the strength/muscle departments plus it's going to expend a lot more energy, deplete glycogen more, etc.

In the latter camp, if they come in with a base of strength... I'm not going to move them entirely to circuits for fear of losing said strength. So I'll likely do some sort of combo of the two, as in my second example above with the former football player. And we know that it takes less volume to maintain strength than it does to build it, so we can afford to trim the strength programming way back and replace what was trimmed with metabolic stuff.

So yeah, level of fatness is going to be a major factor in my decision of when to transition. I can't give you exacts as, again, I pretty much go by feel and my own two eyes. One thing for certain is the fact that's it's not an on/off switch. I'll typically start transitioning strength stuff slowly into the mix.

Once they're getting toward the leaner end of the spectrum though, then muscle maintenance becomes a concern and that's when I'm going to prioritize things toward strength over metabolic.

Of course I've dealt with those clients who don't give a rat's butt about calorie wastage... they want to build strength from the onset even though they're toting around lots of fat. I can think of a former wrestler I had. He wanted to get under some heavy weights from the onset and was not having circuits at all. His take was he'll handle the fat loss side of things with diet... and he did. So again, it's going to depend on the person.