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Bodyweight Guidance

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Gunsmoke

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Hey guys I am a 24 year old man 5’8 inches tall. I was 240 plus pounds almost four months ago since then I have lost 69 pounds. This was a positive thing but a mistake.

I lost the weight too fast I am nowhere near as strong as I once was. I have always been pretty strong my whole life being an ex athlete. I have also suffered injuries during this journey (shoulder impingement) and injuries to both feet.

I have a skinny fat build as of right now. No muscle at all I eliminated all carbs and just did heavy cardio to lose the weight. Till this day I currently only eat 1,500 calories a day. I do know I need to up my calories....

My plan is to get into boxing or jiu jitsu soon so I need to get my strength back.

what are some good floor exercises to help eliminate belly fat and build up overall muscle?
I know a lot of strong men in the past built muscle this way. Due to the shoulder injury I don’t really want to lift right now my shoulder is about 80-85%
 

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@Gunsmoke, welcome to the StrongFirst forum.

Given what you've said, my first recommendation is a thorough physical examination from your doctor. Specifically ask your doctor if you are cleared to exercise without restrictions, and let us know what the result of that examination and conversation is. It's important you establish a good baseline for yourself before you try to do too much else. You mention foot injuries, but if you can walk, that's a great place to start. And if your doctor permits, I'm sure many of us would recommend you get a kettlebell or two and read "Kettlebell Simple and Sinister" and start there - bodyweight exercise is great, too, but S&S has an excellent track record as both a starting point and an ongoing foundation-building and -supporting program.

-S-
 
you found yourself in the same position of many of us. Learn the swing and the Turkish get up (TGU) and follow the simple & sinister program and I suspect you will find 6 months from now that you have improved the body composition.

Also, great job losing the weight!
 
Bodyweight exercise can be abused, like push up, dips, chins, hspu...for high reps (but it will build muscle). I'm not sure that you shoulder can handle that.

You mention building strength. If you have access to the gym then I recommend deadlift and some sled push/pull. If your gym have a safety bar then safety bar squat and good morning can be very helpful. Or belt squat.

I cannot thing about any bodyweight exercises right now for the upper body. For the lower body things with one leg can do the work, like split squat for step up.
 
Gunsmoke said:
My plan is to get into boxing or jiu jitsu soon so I need to get my strength back.

what are some good floor exercises to help eliminate belly fat and build up overall muscle?
Click to expand...

Push up aiming to single arm push up. Squat aiming to pistol squat. Leg raise(on floor)

Find/ create a place to do hanging exercise. Pull Up:aiming to single arm pull up. And hanging leg raise.

Also forget about losing belly fat. Eat for strength. Train for strength. Mass will follow as you accumulate volume.. And eat. Just eat clean.
 
Shawn90 said:
Push up aiming to single arm push up. Squat aiming to pistol squat. Leg raise(on floor)

Find/ create a place to do hanging exercise. Pull Up:aiming to single arm pull up. And hanging leg raise.

Also forget about losing belly fat. Eat for strength. Train for strength. Mass will follow as you accumulate volume.. And eat. Just eat clean.
Click to expand...

How many calories would you say I should aim to consume?
 
Congratulations on the weight loss!

looking at how low your calories are I’d really focus on maintaining or even a reverse diet for at least the next two or three months.
I’d do strength or hyper trophy training but I’d eat to stay the same weight. Your body is roaring to put on mass right now so you will have to be very careful to not gain too much back
 
silveraw said:
Congratulations on the weight loss!

looking at how low your calories are I’d really focus on maintaining or even a reverse diet for at least the next two or three months.
I’d do strength or hyper trophy training but I’d eat to stay the same weight. Your body is roaring to put on mass right now so you will have to be very careful to not gain too much back
Click to expand...

reverse diet?
 
Hey gunsmoke, welcome to the forum. I’ll offer some thoughts regarding putting together a training routine. I think the best piece of advice I can give you is find what activity you enjoy, weights, kettlebells, calisthenics, etc. and dive in. The best exercise program is going to be the one you enjoy and stick with.

Right now I strictly do a bodyweight routine so I‘ll offer some suggestions on putting your own bodyweight routine together if you decide to go that route.

An effective training routine has to be manageable and repeatable so start off slow. Maybe one movement of a push, pull, and squat. If you jump into 12 movements with 100s of reps that takes you 2 hours, you'll be so sore and will burn out pretty quick.

Train the entire body 3x a week, can either be full body 3 days a week or split into upper and lower over 6 days.

2 push, 2 pulling, and 2 squat movements are all you'll need for a results producing routine. Accessory movements like calf raises, hanging, abdominal training, etc are perfectly fine, but you don't HAVE to include them.

Push: pushups, dips, pike pushups, planche, handstand pushups, one arm pushup, etc.
Pull: pullups, inverted rows, one arm pull-ups, front levers, etc.
Squat: air squats, Bulgarian split squats, rear leg elevated Bulgarian split squats, shrimp squats, pistols, etc.

Each movement does not require more than 3 sets.

When you master a movement, you can then make it harder by either adding external weight, progress to one arm/leg movements, or decreasing leverage (pseudo planche push-up)

Utilize light / heavy / & medium training days. So on Monday for push ups, you're going to do a hard version where you can roughly get 3-6 reps for 3 sets. Then on Wednesday, do a much easier version of pushups where you can get 3 sets of 12-17 reps. On Friday, you do a version that is something in between and can complete 3 sets of 8-12 reps. Don't be fooled, the medium and light days will be just as fatiguing as the heavy day. You can change the order of light / heavy / medium days, that's just an example of what you want to do.
Target:
Heavy 3 x 5
Medium 3 x 8
Light 3 x 12
When you can do 5 reps above the target number for each set, then you can progress to a more difficult progression. If you rush through to a harder progression, then you invite injury, plateauing, or just lengthen the time you'll need to work through that progression.

If you make Monday your heavy day for push-ups, then squats will either be light or medium, and the pull will be whatever out of the 3 is left.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do
 
mrdave100 said:
Push: pushups, dips, pike pushups, planche, handstand pushups, one arm pushup, etc.
Pull: pullups, inverted rows, one arm pull-ups, front levers, etc.
Click to expand...
It's a good and also very ambition list (planche, hspu...). Not sure @Gunsmoke shoulders can take it.
 
First of all, do not look down on your success! You are doing great and have overcome a great obstacle already. This is just the next step :)

One thing to also consider is adding some mobility work to your weekly schedule. This is something I wish I would of heavily focused on when starting out after years of no training. Would of saved me a lot of trouble and given me a good base to work on. Instead I jumped right in to doing a strength program 5 times a week (in my case the S&S). I would of progressed much much faster with another approach.

From my personal experience, ”mobility” (or rather a combination of mobility/stability/movement quality/body control/mind-muscle connection) training should be the main program when starting out after years of inactivity, with a strength program gradually introduced in to your weekly schedule. If I were to start all over, I would do 30 minute mobility sessions 3-4x/week and strength 1-2x/week, then gradually substitute mobility sessions for strength. This might not be the optimal path for you or anyone else, but this is the path I should of taken. In addition, I see no harm in starting with some extra mobility!

There are many options out there. I see Original Strength, Flexible Steel, Beyond Stretching and yoga being recommended quite often in the forum. I personally prefer Original Strength resets and some basic stretching.
 
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Working around injuries is a personal thing, some movements will cause a lot of pain & irritation for people with a history injury so avoiding movements that aggravate old problems is good way to start. That's not say you'll never be able to do those movements again, you might find easier progressions you can tolerate without issue and gradually work back to a point where they don't cause problems and you could even excel at them.

Just think to yourself in the days following any routine - did that build me up, or is it wearing me down. A bit of muscle soreness can be good but anything that causes chronic pain needs a rethink.
 
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