I’d like to use this thread to ask questions about training people who are new and very overweight.
A friend of mine asked me to help him to lose weight. I agreed, if he’d train with me. He’s a complete newbie, about 5’8" and maybe 220lbs with almost no muscle.
Thus far (about 4 weeks) he’s been doing pretty well. I started him out with deadlifts, squats, bench, and pulldowns. His technique is coming along decently. Decent motivation.
Question #1
I’m having a problem teaching squats. He somewhat “leans forward” throughout the motion of the squat, even as he’s standing upright. His back is straight, but there’s a definite lean (looks kinda like the beginning of a good morning). He does this motion even without weight (only bodyweight). I think the problem might be flexibility. Any suggestions about how to teach him to “stand up straight?” I’ve just been keeping the weight very low and doing a lot of reps and showing him some stretches after training.
Question #2
Cardio. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I’ve started him with walking. Then moved to walking on a steep incline on the treadmill. But I think it’s time to kick up the intensity a bit. I’m not sure if he can jog, and I very much doubt sprint. I’m going to try to use a modified HIIT program today with him, 90sec walk, 30 “jogging” or fast walking. I’d like to ease him into this so he doesn’t get hurt.
#1 I doubt it’s flexibility. It sounds like a kyphotic posture condition. I don’t have too much experience correcting it, but cressey’s Neanderthal No More article would be a good place to check that diagnosis and correct it, if it’s accurate. http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459206
#2 walking and uphill walking are probably fine for right now. If you wanna increase the intensity anywhere, have him do more in the gym. High-rep power snatch sets with 60-90 seconds of rest on his ‘off’ days. It’s like HIIT, but without the impact on his knees.
Flexibility in the calf muscles is actually the culprit many times and possibly poor core strength to go along with the obvious lack of strength/weight ration and back flexibility
Send a cougar after him, Im sure he’ll sprint…but seriously, he can suck it up
[quote]Otep wrote: #1 I doubt it’s flexibility. It sounds like a kyphotic posture condition. I don’t have too much experience correcting it, but cressey’s Neanderthal No More article would be a good place to check that diagnosis and correct it, if it’s accurate. http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459206
#2 walking and uphill walking are probably fine for right now. If you wanna increase the intensity anywhere, have him do more in the gym. High-rep power snatch sets with 60-90 seconds of rest on his ‘off’ days. It’s like HIIT, but without the impact on his knees.
You’re doing a good thing. [/quote]
I will comment based on experience.
I myself started at about 300 pounds I am different because I still have tons of muscle from my athletic days with gobs of fat thrown in so what works for me wont work for him becuase you say hes almost no muscle.because of that I will not comment on lifting because again I only know what works for me being very heavy,but stronger.
for cardio I would say recumbant bike only.
reason I say this is when I started back again,if I hit the treadmill it was horror on my joints not to mention embarrassing to be flopping around.
R-bike 15 mins at level 2-3 before lifting and 20 mins after keeping the rpms up above 60 was the ticket for a few weeks untill I got my lungs back.
as you progress do not add time to the session but add one level intesity instead.
speak with him have a nice,freindly,laughing,jolly old time make it fun but also watch if hes breathing alright.you want him breathing good but not struggling too bad yet,once he starts then get him to cool down
I personally think hiit is something that a over weight person should not do. And before every one jumps on my back let me explain.
First off the traditional hit is jogging with sprints. If you get a over weight person out there that has not done anything in years the risk of injury goes through the roof.
Also i doubt the person doing hiit has the fitness lvls to be able to do it effectively for the 20min thats needed.
With squats, I’ve only just started doing it and it’s taken me almost 4 weeks to get them right ( and i was doing them 3 times a week), but I just kept adding weight but not going over the top, so it just might be a time thing.
I also disagree with lvl intensity with bike work, becasue getting you heart rate up is where its at and i think that keeping the rpm up will allow you to keep your heart rate up longer and not reley on leg strength which comes from weights not cardio.
What ive been doing is getting the rpm to 90-100 for that lvl once i get it there i then go up a lvl. or a do something like this
0-5 min low lvl easy
5-15 up a lvl
15-25 up a lvl
If you could keep that lvl at 100 rpm you then go up a lvl for a further ten min or you go up a lvl for 10 min
then you take 5min to lower the lvls and cool down. The more you do it the more you lift the starting lvl.
For example i started on lvl one now i starting on lvl 5 and finishing on lvl 9
This is all hard to read but its just another way to what floats around
Speaking as someone on this particular trail DO NOT RUN
Any exercise at this point where your weight impacts on your joints will give you more problems than you can cope with
If you want to do Cardio then bike, crosstrain, row etc etc
Good heavy weights sessions will increase your actual cardio anyway so what you are trying to do by “doing cardio” is to increase your metabolic rate to increase fat loss. (If I have understood that right)
Thanks everyone, this is exactly what I was looking for.
We tried the “modified hiit”–but maybe I shouldn’t call it that as it seems to have caused some confusion. I had him walk 90sec then “jog” for 30. The jogging was pretty slow. He did okay with it, but told me he was completely wiped out today. I really like the biking idea, I don’t much like biking myself, but it’ll probably be great for him.
I’ll keep bumping this thread as I have questions.
[quote]Otep wrote: #1 I doubt it’s flexibility. It sounds like a kyphotic posture condition. I don’t have too much experience correcting it, but cressey’s Neanderthal No More article would be a good place to check that diagnosis and correct it, if it’s accurate. http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459206
[/quote]
Good call, this looks to be the problem. I’ll try to read these articles (or forward them on) when I’ve more time.