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Hi all, I’ve been reading for a while and taken a lot of good advice from on here; now I’d like to see what you chaps think of my fitness program, and if you could offer some advice in specific area.

I’ve started from scratch, with no real fitness in the past, aged 19, 6ft5”, 13.6 stone (BMI 22), and I’m aiming for (or to sail over) the infantry fitness requirements by October / November time. I’ve been going three weeks in my local gym with a 45 minute workout across the bike, cross trainer and rower every second day, upping the levels about once a week; and a run every third day.

My fitness has come along in the three weeks, but I’m thinking the “fitness advisers” aren’t quite up to scratch up at that gym… At the moment I can do 1.5 miles in roughly 16 minutes (an improvement of 3 minutes over three weeks ago, though); 10 sit ups in a minute and no push ups – more on that below.

So the advice I’m seeing regards running is to run over a set time rather than trying for speed on the 1.5, to build endurance and the running muscles. Would you agree? Personally I think that my endurance, whilst improved, remains crap, so I think a change of tack might be in order from running the 1.5 for time.

Regards press ups and sit ups, press ups I’m woeful on technique and there’s practically no strength in the arms. So I’m wondering would any of the weight machines be of use to me in the gym? I’ve seen little return over the three weeks from practicing and practicing press-ups, so I’m thinking the arms just need some strength put into them on a machine?

Sit ups are going well, I’ve got the technique down now and I suppose it’s a matter of knocking out more each day. Any other exercises, perhaps crunches, that you might recommend for this core work?

I’d also like to work on my balance – I don’t think I’ve got particularly good balance, and that and confidence are two things I’d like to work on. What exercises would you find good for improving balance? For confidence I’m thinking of going on outdoor adventure camps and so on.

Also, what frequency of exercise would you recommend? For the past three weeks I’ve been conservative, as I don’t want to burn myself out, but now that I’m getting into the groove would you recommend six days a week, or two days on, one day off, etc (????) I don’t want to push myself to the point that I see no returns, but I also want to maximise what I can actually get out of it.

Finally, dumbells… Worth having at home (where I’d do the majority of my press ups, sit ups, etc)?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Regarding running just because you need to build endurance doesn't neccesarily mean you have to switch to time, I prefer to run for a set time than distance but that doesn't suit everyone. If you want to build endurance then you just need to run further, so you could go out for 5 miles once a week say and then build distance up from that to build endurance. Do some speed sessions aswell to increase your speed, intervals or fartlek are good training techniques, you can look them up.

If you look at runners world 5K race plans try following one of them to build up, or look at the mile plans which will be more focused on speed, the mile one should be plentiful if on wednesday at least you do the run instead of rest. All of these plans are based on times not distance, although you can estimate the distance you should hope to do and run that instead of the time.

As to training days it depends how you feel, I excercise 2 sessions a day 6 days a week and feel fine with it. 2 days on one off may be a good place to start and then build up slowly making sure you don't do more than you can cope with.

For pressups, try doing three perfect form. Once you can do that, do three pressups every time you come into your room and every time you go out. When you feel ready (should be in no time) then up it to five coming in and out. After a few days try doing ten pressups in a row, if you can (even if you're struggling) then try this (got this of someone here, I take no credit, sorry can't remember who):

Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday do three sets of number of pressups you're aiming for multiplied by two then divided by three (lol, I always have to make a formula for everything...). So if you were struggling on 10 then you would aim for that, 10x2=20/3=7. You would do 3 sets of 7 pressups. Hope you understand that.

Every morning just as you wake up and every night before you go to bed do the number of pressups you're aiming for, for the example above, 10.

After a week or so you should be fine doing ten pressups, so up it maybe to fifteen or so (3 sets of 10 in that case). Then, after another few weeks up it again, and again...you should be getting stronger all the time.

As for situps, I've just started doing a routine (not including situps) Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then test myself by doing three sets of max situps in two minutes on Saturday. The idea is to get my abs hurting the next day and then recover for the day after that. There are some good exercises other than situps here, find out what works best for you.

It's hard to really suggest something to impove balance. I suppose it improves as you do more excercise. You could try freezes, they're a type of breakdancing move, hardly related to your aim at all lol but they're great for improving balance and strength. Here ya go:



Look here and here (scroll down) for more info.

_chris has pretty much covered your running. All I would add is try out HOC (high octane cardio). Basically you go for a run and every once in a while drop and do a few pressups/situps. It's good fun lol. As _chris said, fartleks are great too. Try em out.

One more thing to add, also work on your back (lower back especially), neck and legs (quads and hamstrings especially). These are areas some people often neglect and can be the most troublesome injuries. On that note, if you do feel something unnatural when training, consult a physio/doctor straight away. As AJ recently said, injuries tend to bite you in the arse when you don't want them to.

Hope that helped you. I'm sure some here might be sceptical about the breakdancing lol, but worked for me.