I need advice....please help.

J

Jamesthecat

0
Hey there,

I need some advice on weight lose and how to best get to where I need to be.

I have a police fitness test coming up in 6 weeks. To pass the test I must run 2.4kms in just under 11mins. Complete near 40 press ups perfectly and be in a very good general fit condition.

I've signed up to a gym and today was my first session. I did a 1 hr spinning (riding) class which absolutely killed me! I then did a few leg exercises on the machines and then 20mins cool down on the cross trainer.

I'm 115kgs (230-ish pounds) at the moment and would like to get down to 95-ish Kg in 3 months however I need to get fit enough to pass the running and push-up test in 6 weeks.

What are the best exercises to gain strength in the muscles used to complete push ups and also is there any such thing as to much cardio, what method of training is going to see me get fast and fit the quickest.

I can train 2 or 3 times a day if needed hehehe....the trainers at the gym are very helpful but I would like to hear from you guys and gals to get a broader idea.

My diet consists of a lot of chicken, veggies, fruit, wheat type snacks, low fat yogout. No potato etc or bread, fizzy drink or beer etc... I'm in it for the long haul.

Thanks so much for you times and I look forward to hearing any ideas you people can suggest.

Kind Regards

James.
 
James,

Just keep it simple and mainly stick to the core lifts; squats, deadlifts, bench press. overhead press, rows and pull downs. For your needs you can probably stick to 3-4 sets of 12 and keep increasing the weight each week. Bench, squat and row on one day, deadlift, overhead press and pull down on another and repeat. You can add things like lunges, bicep curls, crunches etc if you want but dont go crazy with it.

As for is there too much cardio, yes there is. Your body needs to recover from whatever exercise you do, it is in fact the recovery that makes you fitter/stronger as your body repairs. Therefore, you could argue that you should judge how often you can exercise by how much you rest. Personally, I train 4 times a week at most with one of those being some sort of sport or cardio. Therefore I always have 3 days rest per week.

As you are required to run then the best cardio you can do is to run. If you can do this under the exact same conditons as your test will be. Therefore, if your test is on a treadmill, use a treadmill, if its running on grass go for your training runs on grass and so on. I would keep it quite simple and try running about 10% further than your test twice a week and aim to get faster each time. That may be enough for you to suceed but if not you can also run it interval style so run at a higher pace for 500m, then a slower pace for 100m and repeat once a week and the other run constant speed.

Try something like this.

Monday - Weights - 90% effort
Tuesday - Run - intervals
Wednesday - Weights - 80% effort
Thu - Rest, maybe some gentle stretching
Friday - Weights - 100% effort
Sat - Run - constant speed
Sunday - Rest, minimal acitvity.

If you are pushed for time and need ot run and do weights on the same day do the weights first, ideally in the morning and run afterwards or in the evening. Make sure you rest and feed well!

If you let me know your age and rough bodyfat I will give you an idea of the calories you need.
 
Hey Wardy257,

Thank you very much for the write up...that's been a great help.

As for how much rest I will be getting, other than my workout I wont be doing any labour intensive work.....thank goodness my job allows good rest time.

What kind of warm up should I perform before the weights?? 20mins on the cross trainer OK?

Thanks a ton mate!
 
Your warm up only needs to be 5-10 mins, nice and slow doing something that uses the whole body. You can also use a very light weight at the start of each exercise to get the muscles warmed up and/or gentle stretching.
 
You've given yourself quite the challenge there. Weight loss wise to be able to sustain it you need to be looking at a maximum of two pounds a week, this will mean burning 1,000 calories a day more than you burn if it's fat loss, no mean feat. This means the 44 pounds you wish to lose would take at least 22 weeks especially if needing to maintain health for a fitness test. Sorry the news may not be what you wanted to see but I don't believe in giving people unrealistic expectations.

Most militaristic fitness tests rely on cardio and endurance style so intervals will be great, as will cicuit sessions if the gym have them. Heavy work will not likely help you much in preperation for this test, though it may help instill a bit of fear in those you need to arrest, but you have to get the job first.
Nothing will help you prepare for the tests like finding out what you need to do and practicing those things. Bench press will work roughly the same muscles as press ups but doing sets of 50 bench press with the same load as press ups would give you doesn't equate to being able to do 50 press ups.
If you know the exercises you will be asked to do, build them into a circuit and do them in sets twice a week and to max once a week to monitor. Below is an example only, I don't know what you will be asked to do, or what you can
3 circuits of 1 minute each
Pull ups
Press ups
Shuttle runs
Sit ups

Assement day
As many pull ups as you can
As many press ups as you can
Bleep test
As many sit ups as you can

Obviously you can increase number of circuits etc. and if you had more than 6 weeks I would give far more advice on accompanying exercises, but in that time frame nothing will replace specific practice. So prep for running by running etc.

Best of luck and keep us informed.
 
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