someone qualified look at this and tell me if it's okay for exercises?

Question

Please I'm a beginner in my 20s - read over this quick and tell me if it's a good workout plan and if it will make a dent in weight loss and overall health:

cardio w/ barbells sometimes:

20 min. 5 days per week

strength training: 2 days a week

2 sets, 25 reps crunches with a twist

2 sets, 25 reps reverse crunches

2 sets, 10 reps modified pushups

Answer 1

I would try doing 30 minutes of cardio at a time if you can. It's better to get your heart rate up for 30 minutes than for 20. Also, be careful using weights when doing cardio. It really doesn't add much resistance, but the possibility of injuring yourself is much higher. So, I'd dump the weights during cardio. Your strength training is a great start. I'd do that for a few weeks. But, once you get used to it, don't be afraid to use resistance bands or light dumbells for exercises like curls, shoulder presses (pushing the weights up over your head) or chest presses (lying on a bench, pushing weights away from your body--like a bench press) or lat pull backs (movement like starting a lawnmower), or finally tricep exercises. These will really help you build some muscle, which will make you look and feel much healthier. Plus, weight bearing exercises help build bone density, so you'll be killing 2 birds with one stone. And don't forget a healthy diet is essential. Great job, and good luck with your continued weight loss.

Answer 2

at two sets you're not going to hurt your muscles very much, if you changed the 2's to 3's and always maxed out the last set to exhaustion I'd say that would be minimal, but since you probably don't want huge arms or a 400lb. bench that should be fine. 2 days a week at that workout is just above the amount needed to sustain muscle, you should do these strength exercises before every cardio workout, I'll explain below.

Also, your body doesn't start burning fat untill you've been at an elevated heart rate for 20min. minimum, untill that point you are burning all the carbs you have avalaible. Take it a little easier and try to make it closer to 40min. than 20 (it sucks I know but it's true)work your way up here if you need to. Weightloss with this plan will almost purely depend on your diet, balnce is the key, not eating the minimum. The greater intensity in your cardio the more and bigger holes you can cover in your diet.

Finally think about this, you can't burn fat til after 20 min. of exhaustion, so y not use your ab workouts and pushups to start that 20min. so you can burn fat the entire time you are doing cardio. If you move fast enough through these and keep you heartrate up, you will burn fat much sooner, plus it's a good warmup for your cardio.

I would also dump the weight, your cardio should be intense enough that you can't use them.

Answer 3

Add a healthy, low fat diet to the equation and you will see a dent. 30 min of cardio would be better, but be sure that you are working at a high enough intensity. Throw some pulls in too.

Answer 4

Looks good.

You may want to include some stretching in there. Yoga or pilates 1-2 times a week will help a lot. You want to tone as you lose. Maintaining flexibility will help you tone up and avoid injury.

Answer 5

It's a good start, you may want to add in strength work outs for other parts of your body besides your core (ie arms, legs)

Answer 6

everything look good to me