Calisthenic workouts will get you started and may serve your fitness needs indefinitely, depending on how comitted you are to improvement. Here are a couple videos that are competently arranged and can be a good source of ideas for bodyweight exercises.
You may eventually decide to get a gym membership, but don’t think that it is prerequisite for achieving almost any fitness/physique goals you may have.
To arrange a program, decide how many days a week you are going to train and divide your body parts and functions so that each area receives equal attention but on different days. Starting off, you may want to keep your workouts more general and fewer in number to allow plenty of recovery time in between. As you progress, you may start to parse it out and increase the number of days you exercise while focusing more on a single group each day. Limit your bodyweight/lifting sessions to about 30 minutes per day. Try to get at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night to promote healthy recovery.
Lifting three days a week is fine if you’re in decent health already.
Upper legs/calves
Chest/shoulders/triceps
Back/biceps
Adding at least three days of low-intensity cardiovascular exercise (such as brisk walking or moderate cycling) for 25-45 minutes will do wonders for your overall energy level and sleep quality.
As your fitness level progresses, you may begin to split duties and days on your routine, all the way until you are working out 6 days a week. An example would be
Upper legs (gluteal, hamstring and quadriceps muscles)
Pectoral muscles (upper and lower)
Shoulder muscles (deltoid and upper trapezius muscles)
Back muscles (latissimus, trapezius, romboid, posterior deltoid, erector spinae)
Arms (bicep, triceps and forearm)
Calves
Be sure not to neglect your legs as they are the foundation for everything you do. Every time you lift a ladder or a bucket, the weight is borne first by your legs, then by your arms and hands. It sucks to work on ladders with sore legs and can be dangerous as well so I’d recommend saving your leg training for Friday or whatever is the last day of your work week so you will get three whole nights of sleep to recover before you exert them again.
Nutrition is just as important as exercise for visible progress. If your goal is to lose weight or stay lean then you must keep your protein intake high, your carb intake low (NOT ZERO) and your intake of healthy fats moderate. Dividing your total daily calories into 6 small meals is generally believed to maintain a higher metabolic rate and will greatly reduce cravings that occur during longer breaks between larger meals.
You will have to decide how careful you want to be about caloric intake. If you really want to get down to brass tacks here are a few formulas for calculating fat burning calorie levels.
Measure your body weight in pounds, then multiply
×15 = Daily calories to maintain weight
×13.5 = Daily calories to lose weight
Then take your daily calorie intake and calculate a percentage ratio to find out how much protein, carbs and fat to take in.
40/30/30 is a good place to start. That is 40% of your daily calories from protein, 30% from carbs and 30% from fat. Protein and carbs each have 4 calories per gram, fat has 9 calories per gram. So in this model your fat intake (in grams) should be just less than half your carb intake.
As an example let’s say the average active male weighs about 180 pounds. So to lose weight at a good pace while maintaining muscle mass he should be eating 2,400 (180×13.5) calories per day.
40% of those calories (2400×0.4) should come from protein. So 960 protein calories at 4 calories per gram gives us 240 grams of protein, per day. Chicken breast has about 100 grams of protein per pound so 2.4 pounds (before cooking) of chicken breast will get your daily protein intake where it needs to be. Whey protein shakes are an adequate substitute for any lean meat once a day.
30% of the daily calories from carbs means 720 (2400×0.3) calories, or 180 (720÷4) grams of carbs. Good carb sources include rice, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit. 25% of your carb intake should occur upon waking, the other 25% should be timed no more than 20 minutes following your workout. The rest of you carbs should be spread out throughout the day.
30% of the daily calories from fat also gives us 720 total calories, but since fat has more than twice as many calories per gram we only want 80 (720÷9) grams of fat per day. Good fat sources include olive oil, almonds and other fatty nuts, eggs, and fish oil. Animal fat is acceptable, as is butter in moderation.
Once you have reached your target weight you can change the calorie ratio to 30/40/30 and increase your calories by 10% while maintaining your exercise routine.
There calculations are not absolute, as everyone has a different metabolism and different levels of activity. But they are good general guidelines to use as a starting point and adjust as necessary to reach your goals.
Hope this helps. Hit me up if you want more info I will gladly share whatever I know and research whatever I don’t.
Source: Former health club general manager and lifelong fitness enthusiast.
