I've been doing the weight-loss thing for quite a while now, and am still seeing progress, but I'm getting bored with cardio, and I know its time to start adding some muscle so I'm going to focus on that for a while. Currently, I do very little. I do 30 pushups and 50 sit ups daily, or something similar, but thats about it. The thing is, I hate it. I don't find it fun at all. That said, I know I have to do it, and I think maybe I'll start to like it more once I can see some results. I would like to do only body weight exercises. I am looking for a very specific routine including what exercises and how many reps I should be doing, but any input as to where to start would be greatly appreciated.

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I have friends that train and fight in mixed martial arts. They swear by this guy for body weight/no gym workouts. RossTraining - Bridging The Gap Between Ordinary and Extraordinary he has a couple of books and tons of youtube vids.
There are some sample work outs on the site. I have done the "Deck of Cards" one.

I don't know about fun though. I did a set of "burpees" and didn't enjoy them very much lol.

Ross is the man... I highly respect him as a professional. A lot of what he does is geared more towards training for mix martial arts. I'm sure anyone and everyone could find some utility out of his coaching.

To the OP, you could check out something like Workout Routines & Exercises - New iPod Videos! to get some ideas for body weight exercises you can do.

My site will be our sooner than later, I hope, and will also have a ton of exercises with instructional videos.

Designing a program really isn't tough. It's about building a routine that matches your goals. If you merely want your strength training routine to aid in the caloric deficit to lose weight as well as possibly add some muscle to help develop that toned look, I suggest sticking with 2-3 full body sessions per week that contain exercises that utilize multiple joints and muscles (compound movements).

You could set it up so you have a Workout A and B. You'd alternate between the two each time you train. So if you were going to train 3 times per week....

Week1 would look like this: ABA
Week2 would look like this: BAB

And so on.

You'd want to hit each major muscle group each workout. You could have 1-2 exercises per muscle group. So some work for legs, back, chest, core, and possibly shoulders. If you want, you can throw some stuff for arms and calves at the end, but that's really not necessary at this stage in the game.

In terms of reps, higher reps are usually better for a complete novice for a couple of reasons. Weight dictates reps or vice versa. This simply means the more weight that's 'on the bar' the less reps you can do. Or the lower the rep range you're shooting for, the higher the weight you can use. You're going to start with body weight exercises, so you can focus on higher reps. This is also great for a novice as well b/c it allows for more practice on whatever exercises you choose.

Something in the range of 10-15 reps per exercise would be about right.

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Steve,
Thank you very very much. That was so helpful. I'm going to make two workouts right now. I'll post them on here later so everyone can see what they think. Question though: When working abs, won't the reps have to be higher in order to actually feel anything?

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You're welcome. I'm glad to hear you're willing to do some of your own research and construct what you think will be a good routine. Most would have responded with, "can you tell me what exercises to do?"

You'll learn much more taking this route. It's a process, but once you're used to it things will be easy to modify on the 'fly.'

With regards to the abs question, not necessarily. It really depends on what exercises we're talking about. And here's something to keep in mind.... you don't necessarily have to 'feel it' in the muscle you're working in order for it to be working. An exercise is working, in terms of resistance training, if it is supplying a 'stress' to the body above and beyond what it's used to dealing with. When this occurs, our bodies/muscle will adapt so it can better handle such a stress the next time an equivalent one is encountered. Make sense?

And supplying a sufficient stress to the body isn't something that is always 'felt.' It can be, but not always. Just want to make sure you're gauging things properly.

Also, remember, you're abs are just like any other muscle. There's no real reason to train them differently than say, your chest or legs.

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Ok, here it is. I've made two workouts and will use them as Steve suggested, 3 days a week (Friday, Sunday, Monday). Friday and Monday will be BAB and Sunday will be ABA. That website was extremely helpful, and I think once in a while, or on Wed./Thu. on weeks I don't have gymnastics I will do some of those workouts to mix it up a little bit. For the workouts I have made up I followed Steve's advice once again, and used two exercises per body part with a couple changes. I really like working arms and shoulders so I added those in, and I wasn't sure what to do for back and chest so I just put in two back exercises that I know. But only for one of the workouts, and just regular push ups for chest.

workout A: 15 squats, 1 minute wall sit, 15 arch lifts (lie on stomach, arms above head, lift shoulders and legs off ground), 15 arch rocks, 10 push ups, 10 in-arm push ups (elbows next to body), 15 leg ups (lie on back, raise legs from ground to 90 degrees and back down), 15 toe touches (lie on back, feet straight up, reach hand for opposite toe, then other side), 1 minute handstand (great for shoulders), 1 minute push up position hold

workout B: 10 mountain climbers (kneeling with one leg in front, jump up and switch legs, and back down), 10 squat jumps, 10 push ups, 10 in-arm push ups, 10 triangle push ups (thumb and index fingers touch to form a triangle, chest goes into the triangle), 15 dips, 15 sit ups, 15 tuck ups, 10 handstands for as long as I can, 10 pike push ups (for shoulders: butt in air, hands a couple feet from feet, put head between hands)

I hope that all made sense. Any comments? Suggestions?

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I don't think I was clear in what I said to you above. Each day should only contain one workout.

So week 1 might look something like this:

Day 1 - A
Day 2 - B
Day 3 - A

Week 2 would look like this:

Day 1 - B
Day 2 - A
Day 3 - B

Also, you should try and space your workouts out as best you can throughout the week.... Friday, Sunday, and Monday are too crammed.

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Ahhh, I see. It did seem like an awful lot to me. The problem with spacing is that I do gymnastics on wednesday and thursday and am often tired and sore usually the second day after, which is why I chose not to do Saturday, and I thought doing it Tuesday, the day before, might make it hard to do gymnastics on Wednesday. But maybe I could do Friday, Sunday, Tuesday. I know thats only one day different, but would that be better? Do the exercises I chose seem okay?

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I did my first day yesterday and it went well. It wasn't all that hard though. I felt like I could have done more. Should I just do more of each thing, or should I add more exercises?

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Depends.

What are you expecting to feel?

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Well, I guess I just expected that my muscles would feel more tired afterwards. I was sore the next day though, but i can't be sure whether that was from the strength or gymnastics or both.

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There are often times I'm not feeling run down after lifting. It's actually something I try to avoid while dieting actually.

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ok, good to know. Thanks. I'll just keep at it.

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