Skip to main content

Fitness and Gym routines for an IT Professional | Reduce Belly Fat | Building Muscle | Eating Whey Protein | Post Covid Body Weight Loss | Learnings from Dorian Yates and Herman Pontzer

Disclaimer: This blog is my personal study notes and I'm not a medical professional or nutritionist. It's only for educational purposes, not medical advice. Always talk to a professional for your specific needs.

Question: I'm less active, getting older, and gaining weight. I've very less muscles. I've a lot of extra body fat! Most of the gym trainers start me on light warm up exercises, then without quickly move to tough body weight exercises like push-ups etc. Eventually I drop-out from gym because I feel the routine can cause more harm. What's the best gym routine for me?

If you're starting gym after a long break or if you have lean muscles, don't start with free weight excercises or using body weight.

It is important to use machines in gym with low weights to build key muscles first and at the same time avoid injuries.

Use gym machines with light weights to build muscles first and prevent injuries. Your goal should be to slowly increase muscle mass and strength. Start with low weights but it is important that you make incremental progress every 2-3 weeks. Pick a safe routinue which pushes you to achieve the optimal muscle mass. One good approach is Dorian Yates's method. He won the Mr. Olympia title six consecutive times and uses high-intensity training (HIT).

  1. Warm up with 1 or 2 sets using light weights.
  2. Go for one very hard set of 6-8 reps! Push as hard as you can. Then have someone help you do a few more reps.
  3. Work on the negative to failure. There are three phases of weight movement 1) positive, 2) static 3) negative. Dorian considers the positive as the weakest, static for holds as strong and negative as the strongest. E.g. If positive you count to 2, static should be 1 count and negative should be at least 3 counts. Don't stress just reach the -ve failure.
  4. Don't create momentum during weight movement. Try to control the movement with pause, without momentum.
  5. Let your muscles rest fully. Hit the muscle with 3-5 different exercises, but he will only do that intense to total failure. Only work a muscle once per week.
  6. Works out 45mins to 1 hour per day 4 times per week. On rest days, do cardio exercise. This helps muscle recovery.

For beginner's:

  • For a month, do a whole-body routine 2-3 times a week.
  • Focus on learning the technique, and how each exercise connects the muscles.
  • Once you identify weaker body parts, do workouts for weaker parts first.

After a month, switch to:

  • Work out 3 times a week, splitting your exercises between upper body and lower body. Every day, do upper body and lower body into equal half training.
  • Do cardio exercises on rest days.

For an semi-advanced routine, each body part should be trained once every 3-4 days. You need to stress your muscles and give more time to recover.For e.g:

  • Day1. Monday: Lower body (like quadriceps hamstrings, calves)
  • Day2. Rest with cardio exercises
  • Day3. Tue: Upper body (like chest, bisceps, triceps, traps, delts, back)
  • Day4. Rest with cardio exercises
  • Day5. Fri: Lowerbody
  • Day6. Rest with cardio exercises
  • Day7. Rest with cardio exercises

Next week you start with the upper body on Monday. So in semi-advanced, you are doing each body part twice in 9-days or once in 4.5 days.

On rest days do 30mins cardio if you are moderate. Or do 10-15min if high intensity where 6-7 rounds where 1min moderate and 30 seconds all-out sprint. Go for an air bike exercise as it engages all muscles.

For advanced routine:


  • Day1. Chest and Biceps
  • Day2. Legs
  • Day3. Rest with cardio exercises
  • Day4. Back with cardio exercises
  • Day5. Shoulders and triceps
  • Day6. Rest with cardio exercises
  • Day7. Rest with cardio exercises

For advanced, train each body part once every 3-4 days. You need to put stress along with -ve failure. Give more time to recover.

Professional athletes, like Olympians, train each body part once every 9 days. They put a lot of stress on their muscles during negatives, so they need more time to recover.

Question: Does weight training burn fat?

Muscles need energy around the clock. By increasing muscle mass, you will burn more energy and lose fat. So doing weight training with cardio exercises on rest days will help you lose fat more effectively than just doing cardio exercises.

Question: Why am I not losing weight even though I've been exercising for weeks?

While muscle mass helps burn fat, exercise alone might not help you lose weight! Muscle mass help lower sugar calories but won't lower fat calories. To burn fat calories you need lower the carbs intake and eat less often, like doing intermittent fasting. There is more to this.

Our fat-free mass on the body will burn calories even if we are not exercising. But there is an overall energy budget for every person. Say around 100k.cal is burned per mile you run. If you regularly run 20 miles a week! Such a person will burn 2,000 k.cal per week. So the body gets adjusted to the regular energy needs. Our body is very clever, if 2,000k.cal is spent on running the body will spend lesser on other metabolic activities. Our body burns calories only within an allocated energy budget. An avg male burns 3000k.cal and avg female burns 2400k.cal. This is the energy budget for a person.

Now, say if you are not a regular runner and suddenly went on a run for 10 miles on a Tuesday, our body can't adjust to a day. So you will burn 1,000k.cal in addition to your energy budget. The reasoning here is that our body cannot get adjusted to a single day's routine changes. Rather our body adjusts to a lifestyle or long-term routines.

A long-term exercise benefits are only 2 kgs of body weight loss. This doesn't mean that exercise isn't important. Physical activity is just another activity of the body where our body spends the energy budget. If that energy budget is spent on exercises, our body won't have the energy to spend on things like inflammation, stress reaction, etc.

The point is, say if someone has a major body weight control issue, the biggest effect will be with diet and not just the exercise alone.

If you reduce the calories intake, by restricting to 2 or 1 meal(s) a day. If you do that regularly, this tells the body that I'm not eating (or getting insulin), so over time, fat is taken from the body, used as fuel, and the fat is sent to the liver which then becomes ketones.

So, do spend an appreciable amount of time not eating (like following intermittent fasting) as a primary lifestyle change rather than relying solely on weight training and cardio exercises!

While you fast, you need to take 2-3 liters of water along with electrolytes like 4700mg K+, 450mg Mg2+, and sea salt 1 tsp. When you fast, your body will be acidic, and generates heat. Those who have uric acid-related issues can add raw wheatgrass juice powder to balance off the acidity.

An ideal workout might look like eating your last meal between 7-8PM, fast overnight, fast through the morning, a workout later in the afternoon, and breaking your fast after workout. Do fasting during the biggest muscle days and fast maximum of 3 times a week.

The important point to understand is, if I am not in my ideal weight and if continue same weights/volume. Which then means that the body will get into the energy budget and start controlling energy spent on other metabolic activity which then will never help me get the desired weight loss with ease which weight training offered me. So, keep increasing the weight and volume untill I reach the ideal weight so that I don't get the body into the energy budget mode.

Note: Instead of eating 2 or 3 times some suggests to split the food into smaller portions and consume them over multiple time durations throught the day. Do not follow such advices! Eating every few hours will increase insulin swings and you'll eventually get more hungry. Instead, spend an appreciable amount of time not eating!

Question: Should I take whey protein? If so, when?

As you get older, you might need extra protein becaue of the age (applies esp. 30s or above).

The biggest driver for your health when you get older is your muscle mass!

It is important to realize that our body absorbtion for the protein you take won't be 100% percentage. I noticed that once I've started intermettient fasting, my calves size has significantly reduced. As I detailed above, if muscle mass reduces the daily calorie burn rate also comes down.

If you consume extra proteins, that will be deaminated as amino acids which the body will pee them out loading kidneys or might get stored as fat in liver. Take enough protein to build and maintain your muscle mass. In case you're doing intermittent fasting do not take "whey" protein after a fast without finishing a workout! To help with the protein absorbtion, take EAA and Omega3 along with protein.

Question: Currently I've a lot of fat. I would like to be lean with no belly fat, just about sees the abs, and have good mobility all across. I don't want big or build a professional-level muscle mass. If I follow Dorian's routine, you keep pushing the muscles and muscles keep growing. So once I reach the 12% body fat percentage, how can maintain 12% long term?

Once you've reached your desired body fat percentage, I don't think the routine mentioned by Dorian will help us maintain the muscle mass because those routines trains to grow the muscles. So I think instead of growing the muscles more than what you desire, you need to switch to a moderate workout routine with weight for strength and volume for maintaining the muscle mass. This will help us maintain the muscle which then becomes a lifestyle or long-term routine.

In terms of diet, you need to balance your intermittent fasting and food intake such that your fat-free body mass has enough to burn a day. If you observe putting on more fat or you are losing muscles, you need to tweak the diet first. If muscles are lost, you need to get back to Dorian's routine to regain the muscles.

It is crucial building your muscle following the routines that best fit you. Avoid muscle tears or injuries by using machines in gyms! Use weights that give enough volume and control there-after increase the weights over months. Through rest days do high intensity air bike cardio for minimum of 15mins! Diet plays a crucial role, so we need to spend considerable time not eating by following intermittent fasting for a maximum of 3-days per week. Good nutrition begins how we choose the quality of food (like organic or biodynamic) with minimal processing. Good recovery is essential like 8 hours of sleep and rest days. Above all, it is crucial to stay happy where you spend time with family and friends by reducing the usage of mobile phones.