I agree with everything you said except for cardio. Cardio is beneficial for other reasons for anyone. Two times a week in the gym, three at most a short 1.5 mile run afterwards will help with circulation. The only supplement I suggest is a multi vitimin.
Add to what you're already doing some stringent cardio,and then a regimen of sit ups, pushups and chin ups, in the morning,and right before bed...EVERY NIGHT. When you get to 100 pushups, 100 sit ups,and 10 chin ups, you'll like what's in the mirror...
I have good news (sort of) I've been slightly adding on my weightlifting and its working, I'm sore in my chest this morning so that must be a sign of improvement. Not sure if that's "good" news now that I think about it, and I got the whey protein too.
He said he just wanted to bulk up "a bit". Good exercise with cardio (not talking about running 5 miles here) will do what he wants plus the benefit of cardio for the long run, no pun intended.
Soreness is normal. Maybe up to three days for some out of shape. Longer than that and it might be injury.
weight training is certainly a hardship, during my heydeys max bench was at 420, thats four 45s on each side. all natural, no creatine, just big macs. it was needless to say, impressive to the ladies.
Good on you.You'll learn to love that stretchy feeling across your chest - its your fibres hypertophing. I suggest http://scoobysworkshop.com/ for all round honest (non-commercial) hints and discussion. That guy is huge, but he caters for different objectives. you wouldn't believe he's 50. My tips would be: 1. Make sure you get enough protein, and stay away from simple carbs like sugar, bread, white rice, potatoes and pasta. Whey protein, like you are using, is good stuff. Chicken is great. All the vegetables you can eat (corn is a cereal, not a vegetable). Brown rice, porridge, and especially lentils (suprisingly high in protein, lentils) for energy. 2. If you are relatively young, use interval training for your cardio work-out: Short bursts of intense sprints rather than a long drawn out run. I suggest a 100-200 mtr all-out sprint, then walk back to where you started and do it again. Keep going for half an hour. Simple, isn't it? This will do more to increase your overall metabolism, which continues burning fat for 24 hours after you finished the exercise (known as the the "afterburn effect".) Burning fat off allows you to eat more to promote your muscle growth, and also helps the circulation of nutrients to the muscles. Try to leave 4 hours or more between your weights and cardio, but don't worry about that too much - its more importnat that you get them both done. 3. Do different weights exercises each day of the week, and then change the whole routine every 6 weeks. Its about keeping your body guessing. The suggestions here for doing weights only 3 times a week are correct until you have built up enough, then you would increase to 6 days but heavily concentrate only on a particular muscle group each day, to give yourself 7 days muscle recovery. 4. eat within 30 minutes of either weights or cardio.
Let me get this straight. 24 years old, 6'2 and 180 pounds? That is just about ideal if you can do 75 push ups straight and run 3 miles. If you can't, do more push ups and focus on your strength and not your actual weight. A lesson that I learned at 37 was that protein can come from mushrooms, nuts and spinach.