For your upper body, if you want to lose some weight, then think about circuit training. It will help you increase your heart rate, burn some fat, and hopefully preserve some muscle with the resistance training. Throw in some boxing and steady state cardio at the end for additional fat burning. Ab training isn’t usually efficient so I would just do planks.

Happy to elaborate further on any areas if needed.

Good luck!
Dave

I am a male 6 feet tall, 36 years old, 210 lbs (down from 223due to recent diet changes and daily, sometimes twice daily moderate cardio at a target heart rate of 128) my goal is to lose weight fast. I generally feel better and look better around 185 lbs. Furthermore, I have a weight loss bet with a friend that ends April 1st. I only care about dropping weight at this time as I will build muscle back after I have won the bet.

I have a precor elliptical and a decent gym at home. I have started HIIT recently doing a 1min all-out sprint. Burning in my legs starts at 30secs and by 45 i am seriously struggling, by 1min im about ready to collapse. Then i recover for 3 min with a walking pace. I need this entire 3 min to recover at this point. My heat rate peaks at 170+ and by the end of the routine my recovery rate is around 140. I wear a chest strap heart rate monitor. Is this a routine you would recommend? Is the and acceptable heart rate range for fat loss?

My plan is to do this HIIT MWF and full upper body weights (dumbbells and body weight) as well as core/abs TTh&sat or Sunday. I want to be as efficient as possible.

Thanks for all the info.

Here is a compilation of some of my articles on resistance training:

Strength training: http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/fitness-tips#strength-training

Gaining muscle mass: http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/fitness-tips#gain-muscle-mass

Bodyweight training: http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/fitness-tips#bodyweight-training

If you’re just looking for an intro to weight lifting, here’s an article I did on that:

http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/beginners-workouts/workout-routines-for-beginners-strength-training-exercises

Sorry to point you in so many directions but it’s easier than retyping everything I’ve already written.

Dave

http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/fitness-tips#strength-training

http://www.notyouraveragefitnesstips.com/fitness-tips#gain-muscle-mass

Happy to help after that if needed. You seem to have a pretty good handle on things.

Dave

Thanks for your tips. My 20 minute time isn’t concrete…I have maybe up to 40 minutes tops. I’d rather focus on the right workout and worry about the time after. Also, I am in no rush for a 20lb muscle gain…this is just my new goal no matter how long it takes me to get there. My perspective has changed a lost since my previous posts…I have luckily lost a lot of my old obsessions and exercise rituals and have lightened up a bit. I like your idea about doing ciruits one day, than HIIT, then low rep, then HIIT…

First, what a game…it’s going to be a tough Super Bowl.

As for mixing both, you could simply switch off. Do circuit training day 1, HIIT day 2, low rep training day 3, HIIT day 4, and repeat. Obviously throw in a day off once a week as well.

How to fit it in 20 minutes…I’d do 3 supersets. Given your time constraint, you’d only be able to do 2 or 3 sets. I like to pair incline DB press with barbell curls; barbell bench press with DB curls; and barbell shoulder press with renegade rows. Check out the post on circuit and you can hopefully design your own. You can either choose a handful of exercises and perform multiple sets or choose a lot of exercises and only perform one set.

Finally, adding 20lbs of muscle is extremely difficult for just about everyone except beginners. From my understanding, even bodybuilders on steroids hope for 15lbs of muscle gain in a year. Just want to make sure you have the right expectations. I have plenty of posts on the best way to gain muscle, but ultimately, you’ll need to eat more calories. To optimized muscle:fat gain, I only recommend a slight caloric surplus. If you really want to quickly add muscle, then you might consider low weight, high rep training to failure to generate sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. The muscles won’t be as tight and dense because sarcoplasm is a liquid, but they’ll be bigger.

Lots to potentially discuss so let me know what I can do.
Dave

Sorry for the third post…my goal is to add ~20lbs of muscle. So maybe that will help you decide which I should do…thanks!