Given the following person, what type of fitness program would you design for her:

Jessica:
40 y/o Female who has been out of the gym for about a year.

Okay, I know what she hasn’t been doing, then. What did she used to do in her history in the gym?

Wants to lose 15 lbs while gaining muscle/strength.

Establish appropriate dietary habits to promote slow but steady fat loss, get on a strength training program. Apply sensible sports nutrition within that context. Can’t promise she’ll gain muscle while losing fat, but she can definitely gain strength while losing fat. Once she’s lost 15lb of fat, we can assess where she’s at and whether she would like to transition to focusing on building muscle mass, losing more fat, maintaining her physique, or moving towards a different goal.

Has knee and back pain when doing certain exercises.

Which exercises? During what part of said exercises? What is her technique like? Does she have any known injuries causing this? Does she have any observable musculoskeletal imbalances?

This situation could be resolved by simply not doing the exercises that hurt. Or it could be resolved by modifying them in some way. It could be resolved by including other exercises to sort out the cause of the pain.

Has a desk job with minimal activity throughout the day.

Good, she’ll have an easy time recovering.

Nutrition is less than optimal and takes no supplements.

Depending on her personality and honest ambitions, we might just change one thing about her nutrition at a time, nudging her in the right direction. This month it’s pack lunch for work. Next month it’s add an extra handful of vegetables. Next month after that it’s replace ice cream with fruit. etc etc.

Or, if she’s really ambitious and willing to make the necessary changes, we might get her set on a more structured plan right away, focusing more specifically on energy consumption, macro-nutrient consumption and micro-nutrient consumption.

a. What workout would you suggest(can include any flexibility, warm up, etc, that you feel necessary) that should take roughly 40 minutes.

If it’s safe to do so, an equal dose of squats/leg press/lunges; deadlifts/hinges; bench/chest press; overhead/shoulder press; lat pull downs; rows; and maybe some assistance/accessory exercises for specific areas she wants to work on or needs to focus on to deal with pain. Very early on, this would simply be straight sets, so that she can focus on technique and cuing of each exercise individually without going too far into information overload. As technique becomes more consistent, this could become superset or circuit workouts. A 5 min warm up and 5 min of stretching at the end may be appropriate.

b. How many times per week?

Strength training, anywhere between 2 and 5 days per week, depending on what she is genuinely willing to commit to.

c. How would the workout evolve over time?

In any multitude of ways. Go from full body to upper/lower; go from straight sets to super sets/circuits; go from sets across to pyramids; go from simple exercises to more complex exercises (eg leg press > box squat > air squat > goblet squat > barbell squat); go from light weights to heavy; go from high reps to low reps; go from slow reps to fast reps.

Thanks for your help!