I've recently started working out again to try and get back in shape. I'm not really "out of shape" but could benefit from gaining some muscle and getting back to where I used to be cardio-wise. A little background: I ran cross country my junior and senior year of high school and track my senior year. I haven't ran since until this past month I also worked out heavily the second semester of my senior year. This was at the close of cross country season - 6'0 and 155. I've never had a lot of body fat but I was at a ridiculously low percentage at this point. I started the semester with my bench press and power clean 1RM at 135 and ended with 170 on bench and 190 on power clean. Most of my working out was during track season so I avoided working out legs due to track practice - my squat 1RM stayed at 250. This was with a terrible diet and no supplementation other than a protein shake about once per 3 workouts. I ended the semester weighing around 160-165 but added a decent amount of muscle (and a leg injury from track). Now: Now I stay between about 165-170 after freshman year of college. I worked out maybe 5 times during the school year... but I've recently got a membership at Anytime Fitness and go 2-3 times a week and also run with my "not girlfriend" twice a week. I've dropped quite a lot of strength and endurance, but it's getting better quickly. I've already got back to the point where my 5RM for both bench and power clean are 135 and my squat 5RM is 220. I'm currently doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength program but with some slight modifications. For most lifts, I do 5-8 reps with the same weight for all 3 sets and do something that feels really heavy and I'm nearly failing by the third set. For bench and squat, I do 5 reps and generally go up 5-10 pounds per set and go until failure on the last set. I usually finish up every workout with a bicep curl/tricep extension superset - 3 sets of 8 each - and then a 1 mile run on the treadmill. Anytime doesn't have a good area to do power cleans, so I've had to remove them. As far as the diet goes, I eat pretty much whatever I want, but I try my best to avoid sugary drinks and junk food. I should probably cut back a little more of the junk, though. Most mornings I eat a bowl of high protein cereal and milk. Lunch and dinner depend on what my family eats. I'm taking vitacost's knock off of Opti-Men 2-3 times daily as I remember, 1000mg of fish oil 2 times daily, and 2250mg of creatine once daily. Most days after working out I'll drink a protein shake with about 1.5 scoops of TrueNutrition's Hydrolyzed Whey. I need to get back in the habit of making a shake with a scoop of casein every night before bed, too. If you guys have any questions, comments, encouragements, or especially suggestions, feel free to post.
