Need help getting restarted. 5 year lay off

[Remington12]

Good evening,

I lifted for about 10 years, stopped for over 5 years while taking care of sick parent , and now I want to get started back. I have been inactive during that time.

My first goal is to loose weight and work on conditioning and endurance. I have developed some arthritis pain in my feet, knees and shoulder and want to get them use to lifting again before tackling heavy lifts. I followed Rippetoes Starting Strength Program years ago and understand proper form even though I am rusty.

My doctor suggested I lift at least three days a week and do low inpact cardio at least 5 days a week and to follow a zone or mediterranean type diet. I only need to loose 15 pounds and I am thinking of a 8 to 12 week conditioning program before starting back on a BB or strength routine.

Would I be better off doing 3 full body workouts on MWF and cardio on TTHSA or 5 days a week, an upper/lower routine twice a week with cardio five days a week, or single body part a day with cardio five days a week.

Any good routine you would like to suggest? I am planning on lifting in the morning and do cardio with my wife in the evening. She needs to shed some pounds too but will not lift or get up early in the am.

Thanks for any help

[Sackett]

Welcome,

Since you say you have done Rips program I would follow that except with light weights and high reps and maybe replace clean with rows. These are good compound lifts that will help you burn fat and get your body conditioned when you are ready to go heavy.

Walk in the evenings with your wife. It is what I do.

[x-trainer ben]

Good evening,

I lifted for about 10 years, stopped for over 5 years while taking care of sick parent , and now I want to get started back. I have been inactive during that time.

My first goal is to loose weight and work on conditioning and endurance. I have developed some arthritis pain in my feet, knees and shoulder and want to get them use to lifting again before tackling heavy lifts. I followed Rippetoes Starting Strength Program years ago and understand proper form even though I am rusty.

My doctor suggested I lift at least three days a week and do low inpact cardio at least 5 days a week and to follow a zone or mediterranean type diet. I only need to loose 15 pounds and I am thinking of a 8 to 12 week conditioning program before starting back on a BB or strength routine.

Would I be better off doing 3 full body workouts on MWF and cardio on TTHSA or 5 days a week, an upper/lower routine twice a week with cardio five days a week, or single body part a day with cardio five days a week.

Any good routine you would like to suggest? I am planning on lifting in the morning and do cardio with my wife in the evening. She needs to shed some pounds too but will not lift or get up early in the am.

Thanks for any help

Five years is a long ass time! Start over like you are a beginner to avoid injuries and walk for cardio for a couple of weeks b4 you "jump" right back into it. 3 days sounds reasonable, but do not do too many sets until you are sure that your joints/tendons can hang with your mind and desire. Go slow and be smart about it to prevent progress stopping injury.

[Remington12]

Five years is a long ass time! Start over like you are a beginner to avoid injuries and walk for cardio for a couple of weeks b4 you "jump" right back into it. 3 days sounds reasonable, but do not do too many sets until you are sure that your joints/tendons can hang with your mind and desire. Go slow and be smart about it to prevent progress stopping injury.

Yeah I know. Without going into alot of details when we weren't at work my wife and I were being caregivers. It took it toll physically and mentally.

[x-trainer ben]

Yeah I know. Without going into alot of details when we weren't at work my wife and I were being caregivers. It took it toll physically and mentally.

trust me! i can relate... not passing judgement just advising

[ironwill2008]

Here's an excellent full-body routine, to be run on 3 non-consecutive days a week:

Routine: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4195843


This is a link to some good basic bodybuilding nutrition info; no "diets" required:

Nutrition knowledge: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbin...icsofNutrition


As for cardio, you'll do better to limit it to 3 days a week, prefferably right after your weight training. Your body will be better-primed to get into the fat-burning zone at that time, plus you'll already be in the gym. The bigger benefit to this is that you'll have the remaining 4 days of the week as "off" days. If you attempt to weight train 3 days a week, and do cardio 5 days, you'll burn out quickly.

More is not better, where exercise is concerned; better is better.

[Dharmacootra]

I was in the same position as you. I took 7 years off and just started up again. Though I dont have arthritis I do have injuries from a car accident (back, shoulder, hip and knee).

I combined Rips SS and the "couch to 5k" running program. In case you are considering jogging (which I know is not exactly "low impact") here it is:

<I cant post links but you can google "couch to 5k>

I made modified SS to make it easier for me as follows:

1. I started with just the bar for all lifts (well below what I can lift).
2. I increased the weight weekly instead of at every workout.
3. I substituted Pendlay rows for the cleans.
4. If and when anything hurt (not just sore) I took a week off.
5. Did not drink a gallon of milk a day.
6. Spent more time stretching and warming up than lifting.

With the couch to 5k program I modified it so that at the end I would only be running 2 miles in 30 mins. I scaled the program down.

I only worked out three days a week (m-w-f). I lifted then did the run. It was really easy the first month or two. But it built a base and I lost 10 lbs (in a month) as I was excersizing and monitoring my diet. My bf% went down and now as I am gaining weight it is still going down. When I tried to split it over 6 days (alternate lift w/run) it was too much for me. I then eliminated the saturday run and was only working out m-f (3 days lifting, 2 days running) and it was still too much. The three day approach worked out way better. I had no issues whatsoever.

This was going great for me till I reinjured myself. Apparently, I am not as elastic as I was in my early 20's. What a shocker.

Best of luck.

[mofitness4u]

Welcome,

Since you say you have done Rips program I would follow that except with light weights and high reps and maybe replace clean with rows. These are good compound lifts that will help you burn fat and get your body conditioned when you are ready to go heavy.

Walk in the evenings with your wife. It is what I do.

Five years is a long ass time! Start over like you are a beginner to avoid injuries and walk for cardio for a couple of weeks b4 you "jump" right back into it. 3 days sounds reasonable, but do not do too many sets until you are sure that your joints/tendons can hang with your mind and desire. Go slow and be smart about it to prevent progress stopping injury.

listen to this^^ take things slow. It sounds like your serious, you'll be fine here at bb.com

[Bo_Flecks]

listen to this^^ take things slow. It sounds like your serious, you'll be fine here at bb.com

I had to take ten years off...been back at it for three. I took the first year of weight training slowly, and put most of my focus on cutting ten years of sedentary fat off.

By the end of that first year, I had myself in decent enough physical condition to really start hammering the weights again.

[Remington12]

Thanks for all of the replies and advice. It is appreciated and I will definately start off slow and ease back into it. I ordered Rippetoes SSII, PPII, and DVD today just to relearn the basics.

Thanks again