In my post “10 Ways to Fatten Up your Kids,” I talked about my desire to start helping out obese/morbidly obese individuals. I’m not an expert, but I have noticed one important thing about obese individuals: they lack mobility.

Well, that’s obvious you may say. Yes, it is obvious, but not very many training programs are mobility-specific. My point is that before you even think about weight loss, it’s important to improve mobility and strength.

Mobility is simply the quality of moving freely. I’m talking about walking upright and with full range of motion. Most overweight and obese individuals walk as if they’re dragging their legs behind them. They lack fundamental strength to even move their legs freely to be able to walk.

Click here to Learn How to Perform over a 100 Bodyweight Exercises you can Do in the Comfort of Your own Home

When I searched for a training program for obese individuals, I did not find any. Perhaps the Biggest Loser website has some training tips, and I’m sure there are few scattered websites out there offering advice for obese individuals. However, I do have an idea, although not tested. So the following program should be followed with caution.

The Exercises

Body Swing

Wall Pushups

Resistance Band Rows

The Workouts

Level One: Start off with Body Swings and Wall Push Ups

3 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 10 reps
• 60 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 10 reps
• 60 Seconds Rest

On the first level, if you are unable to complete all three rounds with 60 seconds rest, then try to complete one or two rounds with 60 seconds rest, or increase the rest periods to 120 or 180 seconds between each set, and follow the progressions as the levels increase.

• For example, in the next two levels you are asked to reduce rest periods. Instead of going from 60 seconds to 45 seconds, move from 180 seconds to 150 seconds.
• If you have extremely poor cardiovascular endurance, it is best to start off with 180 seconds rest between each set. However, if after 3 rounds you are not sweating or tired, then you know you have rested too long between each set.
• Call it a day, and next time perform the workout with 120 seconds rest. Finding the right rest periods between each set is extremely crucial for your progress.

Level Two: Reduce rest periods between each exercise

3 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 10 reps
• 45 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 10 reps
• 45 Seconds Rest

Click here to Learn How to Perform over a 100 Bodyweight Exercises you can Do in the Comfort of Your own Home

You can substitute the wall pushups with decline pushups or regular pushups at any time. The best time to do it is when you feel strong. The main focus of this program is to improve basic strength, mobility, and conditioning.

• So if you do decide to substitute the wall pushups, try not to deviate too much from the recommended rest periods and repetitions.

Level Three: Reduce rest periods between each exercise, again

3 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Level Four: Perform one more round

4 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Click here to Learn How to Perform over a 100 Bodyweight Exercises you can Do in the Comfort of Your own Home

Level Five: Increase repetitions per set

4 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Level Six: Add one more round

5 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Level Seven: Add in Resistance Band Rows

5 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest
• Resistance Band Rows, 10 reps
• 60 Seconds Rest

Level Eight: Reduce Rest periods

5 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• 15 Seconds Rest
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• 15 Seconds Rest
• Resistance Band Rows, 10 Reps
• 45 Seconds Rest

Level Nine: Reduce Rest Periods

5 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• Resistance Band Rows, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Click here to Learn How to Perform over a 100 Bodyweight Exercises you can Do in the Comfort of Your own Home

Level Ten: Add one last round

6 rounds of:

• Body Swings, 12 reps
• Wall Push Ups, 12 reps
• Resistance Band Rows, 10 reps
• 30 Seconds Rest

Organizing your Program

The best way to organize this program is to perform it twice a week on non-consecutive days such as Monday and Thursday, or Wednesday and Saturday.

• This can be a weekend workout if you can handle training two times in a row. The benefit is that you will have five days of rest, however remember that your Sunday workout may not be as effective as the Saturday workout.
• This is because a workout can only be fully effective if you are fully rested. As a beginner, it is very easy to get burnt out and over train.
• So the organization of this program really depends on you and your ability to recover from workouts.

Click here to Learn How to Perform over a 100 Bodyweight Exercises you can Do in the Comfort of Your own Home

Now if you’re really serious about changing your body through bodyweight training exercises, then you should check out Workout Without Weights. This eBook will give you the full picture when it comes to bodyweight training. Trust me, you’ll never need another resources ever again!

Workout Without Weights

• Workout Without Weights is a manual which teaches you how to use your bodyweight to improve your health and fitness. The eBook features not only exercise descriptions, but also teaches you how to develop your own effective training programs
• If you purchase the Combo Pack, you can also get another eBook which Author Coach Eddie Lomax sells separately: “Ultimate Gymless Workout.” In addition, you will receive the Combo Calisthenic Audio Workout bonus, which is currently not for sale on the market.
• The Basic version sells for just $19.95. The value of the Combo Pack is $73.95 but coach is giving it to you for just $47.00.

Click here to Learn More

The habits I formed when I was a kid followed me all the way to college. Although I was never obese (because I just cared too much about the way I looked), I had a weight problem due to horrible eating habits.

My mom bought a lot of sugary foods. She let me eat pizza and ice cream on a daily basis. I’m not blaming her, because she really didn’t know much better. As an immigrant struggling to make a living and support a family, she bought foods that were on sale. Her only goal was to keep me fed. There weren’t as many fat kids walking around twenty years ago as there are now, and so there was not as much awareness about what is healthy and what is not.

One thing I’ve realized by reading personal blogs of food addicts or former food addicts is that most of these habits are formed during child hood. If you were overweight as a kid, then you’re likely to be obese when you grow older.

Image By babble

If you’re a parent, then I urge you to pay attention to what you’re feeding your kids. You may be a healthy parent, or an overweight parent, but either way your kids future depends on the example you set for them. I’m not a parent, I don’t even have a girlfriend, so I’m not going to teach you how to raise your kids. But, I would like to share a few experiences that I believe effected my weight when I was a kid:

1. When I was around 4-5 years old, I began eating pizza on a frequent basis. My mom would take me to this place called Singas Famous Pizza, and order a half a pie of pizza almost every day. A full pie these days is around $4.50, so a half pie was probably extremely cheap back then.
2. Every time I went to the playground, I didn’t really do much. I wasn’t playing with the other kids. I remember my mom was trying to get me to play on the monkey bars, but all I really did was go down slides and swing on theswing set. Swing sets are fun, but they don’t really burn off any calories.
3. Also, at the playground, the only time I did any running was when the ice cream man came. My mom whipped out a dollar every day for me and let me run like the wind.
4. When I started grade school, my mother would pretty much give me the same thing everyday: bread and butter sandwhich, a juice box, and fruit snack. That’s all just carbs and sugar. If she gave me fruit, I didn’t eat it.
5. As I got older and began to receive an allowance. I threw out the food in the lunch box (cuz you can’t trade a bread and butter sandwich), and stood on the lunch line to be fed either a bagel with cream cheese or microwave pizza.
6. In middle school, the lunch lady remembered that I was a vegetarian. So on days where there was no pizza or pasta, she would make me a special cheese sandwich: a bread roll with three-four slices of cheese. Put some ketchup on it, and gobble it up. Eat that everyday and see what happens to your man boobs.
7. In high school, I went into the other direction, and became border line anorexic. I was skinny fat because I probably ate only 1000 calories a day. Combine that with a daily 1-2 mile run, 60 minutes in the weight room, and two intense martial arts training sessions per week, and you’ll have hunger pangs as loud as a speeding train.
8. After high school, I learned how easy it was for me to drive down to Taco Bell in between my classes and gobble up a nice Mexican Pizza or Bean and Cheese burrito. Top it off with a tall cup of soda, and drive back to another boring lecture.
9. Speaking of boring lectures, there was a Starbucks on campus. I began knocking down tall lattes to help me stay awake in class. When those didn’t work, I started a ritual of latte in the morning and Monster energy drink in the evening.
10. Finally, as if this story couldn’t get any worse, there is an Indian restaurant near my dad’s place. It’s good stuff. I would gobble up around 3parotas (a type of bread) with Palak Paneer (literally, spinach and cheese), almost every week.

There you have it. If your goal is to fatten up your kids so that one day they can audition for the Biggest Loser and win half a million dollars for entertaining other fat people who are too lazy to go to ShahTraining.com and try out a quick bodyweight workout, then just follow my tips, and you’ll achieve your goal.

Over the next few months, I will be spending a lot of time on developing content for overweight and obese individuals looking to lose weight. I realize some of the limitations that even bodyweight training can have for the morbidly obese. But I also see a lot of potential for teaching basic bodyweight movements to these individuals. I’ll get into this in a future post.

No one ever really thinks about the morbidly obese. People just say, “Oh they’re lazy.” We make fun of them and taunt them. But can it be that over-eating for the morbidly obese is a result of a disease that we have not yet discovered? Julianne Kennedy takes a stand for the morbidly obese in her report titled “Weight Loss Surgery, The Age of Consumer Diligence & How It Effects You.”

There’s some really great information in the report about how our consumerist society tempts this group of people with fast food restaurants and vending machines. The point that stuck out to me is the fact that the morbidly obese are viewed to fail, so many personal trainers and fitness industry professionals don’t bother to target these folks. And when they are targeted, they’re targeted with products destined to fail (i.e. infomercials).

You can download the free report here.

I would love to hear some feedback on this topic. Please, post your ideas to comments.