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[Fitness]. Like when you run and stuff. Or pick up heavy objects.
Chake99
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
What do y'all do with your meat sacks to try and keep them healthy? Are there runners/cyclists/p90xers/crossfitters/wii fitters in attendance?
Also for general fitness related discussion and such. Not sure if this is the most penny arcade of topics but you folks are a good crowd so I thought it might be neat if this had a topic.
For myself I've been doing fuck all for cardio, but have been going to the gym 3x a week for the past 3 months and doing a strength program called Stronglifts 5x5. I am more muscle-y and can now carry heavier things. It's great. I've been interested in also learning how to do Olympic style lifts (like clean and jerk, snatch) but haven't really had an opportunity.
Hic Rhodus, Hic Salta.
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I expect I'll get my comeuppance around age 35.
Any time things got easier I would ramp things up, and then eventually realized just improving my form did the trick mostly.
Then about two months ago, my wife got me the Rack on sale at target. I've really been loving it. So far I just do the intro workout three times a week. The thing only weighs 23 lbs. but again by improving my form, or moving faster, or using deeper movement I've been able to really push myself.
It hasn't been very long, but I think I can tell the difference. What I would really like is to bulk up over the next six months enough so that at some point I can get my wife to do a double take.
--LeVar Burton
What weight you squatting? My next workout I'm trying 5x5 with 2 plate (225 lbs) for the first time and I'm kind of pumped for it. Also a little scared.
Looking up the Rack it looks useful for doing dips and a couple other things. It's a pity it doesn't look like you can attach plates to it.
For dips you can buy weight belts that have a chain to attach plates to
http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/product/index.jsp?productId=18150426&locale=en_US&clickid=prod_cs&recid=Product_PageElement_product_rr_1_158
Tried one like twice. I was really worried about my junk, but it went well.
The workout routine in the rack video is basically intensified calisthenics, interspersing legs with upper body resistance to maintain cardio while building strength.
It's nothing that'll give you 20" biceps, but for someone who's never done resistance training, it's impressive how difficult you can make a push-up.
--LeVar Burton
I have been doing confused nub arm curls and squats and such with a barbell and need to figure out a real weights routine.
But yeah I can do crow pose now and it makes me stupidly happy.
Tried yoga once, swore never again, that stuff's harder than it looks.
I do on average 4 crossfit workouts a week, and on top of that usually 1 hour at my job's gym to do a bit of solo strength training or practicing my lifts (clean/snatch).
My favorite stuff is the clean n jerks, and heavy backsquats.
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The peddle machine is pretty handy since that allows me to multitask some, which in turn makes it far less boring (depending on what I'm working on, I can either watch TV, read or use the internet).
Mainly trying to keep fit and undo some of the flexibility loss and prevent further loss from ankylosing spondylitis. Not interested in bulking up at all (IMO my body type is terrible for the concept), but now that I'm getting a little more active, wouldn't mind making sure that I get a nice lean and toned build.
Used to do track (endurance runner), swimming (endurance swimming fuck 500 freestyle) and cross country in high school. I fucking hated the two mile event in track because that got tedious fast.
While I had always trained strength, it was more doing basic exercises counteract my slovenly ways. Once I had the Stamina part up, I went nuts in the strength department. I started adding a rep to each set, each week. Once I hit 15 reps, I would reset the reps with a higher weight. I can see the results, I have gained way more muscles. I would probably have six pack abs if not for my love of chocolate, but fuck giving that up!
So what have I learned? That training seriously is like being in Fight Club, only you keep fighting yourself. Which means that if you don't focus, its like being on the loosing side of a fight every time. Especially at the start. You have to use your willpower to power trough the startup period of your training. Building a habit of training regularly at high intensity is the hardest part of any program. Way harder then any bench press or pull up. 1 great training session is nothing compared to 10 so-so sessions.
By far the biggest thing is doing it together with 2 friends on set days of the weeks.
Running is pretty boring at times, having people to talk to helps a lot. And we combine it with dinner, meaning that you get a bit of your time back by cooking a bit less. We're also lucky in where we live, each of us has access to a long stretch of (nearly) uninterrupted carfree paths. I can do 15km from my house only crossing streets 3 times.
It has definitely helped with weightloss, though I lost track of diet after the summer and so my weight has stabilised.
I considering taking up swimming, I can get discounts at the local pool and I think that it'll help as a more upperbody exercise while being nontaxing.
I also bought a combination pull up/push up bar, and I do push ups + leg raises or pull ups/chin ups + leg raises on alternating days, generally after my runs. Sometimes it actually works and I'm sore the rest of the week as my muscles heal, but other times I don't think I'm pushing myself hard enough, despite hitting a wall on doing anymore reps.
I've been ok about keeping to my routine, whenever I have normal days, but whenever I get stuck doing double shifts at work or have guests over my house sleeping on the couch, I can't exercise at midnight. Still, it's worlds better than sitting on my ass all the time.
I guess I'm the rare sort who is actually trying to gain weight, since I look emaciated with my ribs showing no matter how much I eat, so after each workout session I tend to eat some kind of protein, usually a chicken dish, as well as drinking about 16oz of milk.
I'm probably doing a lot of things wrong, but the internet is incredibly overwhelming with lots of competing theories on what is good for you and what's not.
I might even get to go running and hiking again in a month or two.
Fuck CrossFit.
If you do it right, your lower body should get good exercise. If you have a bad habit of mostly using your arms and not using kicks, a kick board can be used to make sure you work out the lower body (you can do it without one, but I find that a kick board makes the breathing part easier). A swim pull buoy is good for those that have the opposite problem of relying on the lower body too much, while slacking with the upper. Both the kick board and swim pull buoy are also great tools for refining one's form when it comes to the different kinds of strokes.
If you want a routine Stronglifts 5x5 and Starting Strength are both awesome beginner ones with a lot of reference material online. They are both 2 alternating workouts, 3 exercises per workout. SL (which I'm currently doing) is day A squats, overhead press, deadlifts; day B squats bench press, bent-over row. Both programs are all barbell exercises. My impression is that they're pretty much the best thing for gaining strength or bulking up as a beginner (bulking if you're eating @ caloric surplus).
In terms of getting form down, if you have a gym usually people are willing to give pointers. If you're doing things at home there's always the tried and true method of take a video and ask the internet for a form check.
Crossfit looks like a lot of fun, but I hear all the time online how people doing the exercises for speed / with improper form results in injuries. How much do people seem to get damaged? Cantido seems to have been among the number. Also what's an example of some sort of improvement you've managed in that time if I might ask? Either in terms of pushups/pullups/weight you can squat/clean.
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On top of that, I've started with a real basic circuit bodyweight exercise routine every other day. This one here. When I started, I'll admit, I couldn't even go through one whole circuit. Squats and lunges kicked my ass. However, I've worked my way up to a full circuit followed by 2 circuits at half reps. I'm also trying to work up the willpower to work on the Couch to 5k program on the days I'm not doing the bodyweight circuit, and looking into local gyms to see about starting a weightlifting regime. I've also seen a lot of good things about Stronglifts and Starting Strength. My major deal is I've never done weightlifting before, I don't know proper form, and I don't really have anyone at the moment who is willing to commit to go with me and workout regularly. I'm concerned that I would just wind up injuring myself.
On the whole, though, this seems like it's working out pretty well. I feel like I've already got more energy, and I've lost 10 pounds in the 3 weeks I've been paying attention.
I'll probably start going regularly pretty soon.
You can ask someone at the gym to spot you and check your form, like a supervisor or something. Most people at gyms are actually pretty amicable to helping you. It's what I did while learning how to properly do deadlifts and squats. There's also tons of online resources, like this video you can use. Remember that nobody gives a shit how heavy you're lifting, they only care if they are going to have to pick a barbell off you, so don't go up a lot of weight until you have decent form.
What this means in practice is that you should be doing mostly compound lifts (like deadlifts, squats, benchpress, etc), your breaks between sets should be short (under a minute), no breaks between reps, and your weights need to be heavy enough that you cannot finish the last rep of your last set (or just barely finish the last rep of your last set).
I found that deadlifts and olympic lifts (snatch / clean and jerk), in particular, did wonders for my cardio.
http://jamessteeleii.blogspot.com/2012/05/theres-no-such-thing-as-cardio.html
You can get hurt, just like any other sport or intense physical activity. Yeah often there's a focus on speed, but that does not mean that you must sacrifice proper form. It should not be seen as moving as fast as possible, but rather like working efficiently based on your capacity, taking a moment to catch your breath/let muscles rest a bit whenever you feel like you need it. I haven't heard of much injuries at my gym but it can happen, gotta pay attention to your body.
I think a problem with crossfit is that it's really easy to get a certificate that qualifies you to coach it. Something like a class that can be completed in a weekend or two. So depening on where you go you might be with some not-so-qualified people that just want to cash in the trend. I'm pretty confident in my gym though, the workouts are designed by the owner, who's a quirky "a beautiful mind" kind of guy that really seems to understand how the human body works, and a professional crossfit athlete (she finished 13th place this year!).
I pretty much started at 0 as previously I was just a slim dude that didn't do any sports, and did a bit of machines at the gym before starting. I'm not a very big guy so I don't do huge numbers but I still like my progress. Squats slowly climbed in the 150-200 pounds range. My latest bests on squats is 3x 225lbs for the Front Squat and 3x 255lbs for the backsquat. I can probably do a bit more than that; haven't tried a weight I failed in a while. Started cleans around 100lbs, was scared by the 1plate clean (135lbs). Now I clean n jerk that 135lbs easily and the best I've done is 185lbs. If you want to focus mostly on strenght gains you would probably be better off at a gym or doing some weightlifting class. Crossfit mixes strenght/endurance/cardio.
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It absolutely isn't. Cardio really just means "increased heart rate" and while that does happen in weight lifting, it isn't nearly as effective as actual cardiovascular activities like running etc. And lifting to exhaustion has nothing to do with cardio, you have to lift consistantly to keep your heart rate up. You can easily do that without lifting to exhaustion. Make sure you always include some cardio with weight lifting or your heart can (rarely) give out.
This past July I finally started exercising a lot more regularly, doing 2 mile runs at a hard pace about three days a week, and getting in our basement to lift about twice a week. I had to start cutting down the runs in September when it was dark in the morning after almost getting hit a couple times, but we ended up getting a treadmill the first week of October and I've been doing a pretty good job of getting up at 5 and eating breakfast at least three or four mornings a week so I can get a 20 minute or so run in - usually about 8:30 / mile pace.
Usually when I lift I do 3-5 sets of bench - right now my normal lift is something like 135x10, 145x8, 155x8, and 160/165x~3-5. I'll do 2-3 sets of dumbbell shoulder presses, bicycles for 2-3 minutes (~150), a couple sets of crunches / side bends, lat pulldowns, curls, lunges, and work on our punching bag for 5x2 minute rounds. Lately I've still been running 2-3 miles after lifting - when I lift I run, but I also just run.
I've been thinking about working out twice a day since I feel up to it, but it's just too much of a time commitment...it's tough some days to get just my 20-30 minute run in before I've got to start making lunches / get ready for work / get my daughter up.
About four months ago, I bought some home dumbbells to try some basic weight training, and it's been a blast. The visible difference is pretty encouraging.
Both starting strength and SL start with doing just the bar because of this -- you spend a week or two going to the gym and not really lifting enough weight to tire you out to make sure you can get the form down. As Adhesive said people at gyms are usually really helpful if you ask for a form check or spot. There's also tons of good instructional videos online which are helpful in terms of things to watch out for. Taking a video of yourself is also a good way to check, but to be fair I've never had the balls to film myself in a gym.
What you said about cardio is true except I think for this bit. Lifting to failure is what's advised by bodybuilders (but strangely not by powerlifters) but I don't think it has anything to do with cardio. I remember hearing the description that the heart is a dumb muscle. Anything that gets it beating faster is cardio exercise.
Doing a bunch of heavy squats or deadlifts and your heart rate definitely shoots up. Failure means the muscles can't produce enough force anymore which isn't really a requirement for getting out of breath.
Edit: huh, checked out your paper. It definitely argues that lifting to failure -> improved cardio. I don't think it examines if the "to failure" portion is necessary, but only produces evidence for when that's true.
Those are respectable increases and the balance is definitely something that recommends crossfit. I think I'm keeping with the strength program I'm doing for now but after I run it for a while longer might try something else.
It's obvious from studies that the amount of effort determines the improvement, but how do you measure effort? James Steele, the guy who wrote that paper, concluded that you can only measure 0% effort and 100% effort reliably. Nothing in the middle can be reliably measured.
That's why all he only looked at results of studies done at 100% effort, which in weight training means lifting to momentary muscle failure.
It makes sense when you think about it. How do you know what 90% effort is? Even if you performed at 100% effort just 3 days ago, and redid the same exercise today, but at only 90% of the reps/weight/time/etc, was it really 90% effort? You could have gotten stronger in those 3 days, your diet could have affected your max effort, and more importantly, does your exercise really scale linearly, so you can say 90% of the reps/weight/time/etc is really 90% as hard? I know that neither lifting nor running scales linearly, which makes it even harder to determine what's 90%.
Like pushups shifting from more of a region-thing to only using a few arm-muscles.
I do the same thing when I'm lifting - if I don't focus on my breathing, I'd estimate I end up able to do ~10-15% less - less weight / less reps.
The biggest thing I've been finding with my treadmill is - even with the fan on - I am a sweaty beast. Like, on either side of my treadmill there are fan-shaped patterns where the sweat is just pouring off my arms as I'm running, and there is a puddle under where I hang up the chestband for the heart monitor where sweat just drips off it.
Hopefully as I lose a bit of weight I'll get less sweaty, but even when I was ~35 pounds lighter I was like a .8 on the Ewing scale. Some people just sweat, you know?
I am similar and I hate it. Even when I fit I leaked a lot of water. Now that I'm gross fat it's like oh just sweating from a walk to the store. Don't mind me. Really a huge reason I want to try to get in shape again.
So I am on... week 4 of doing the basic body weight workout from Nerd Fitness (the one linked above), but this week I'm actually doing the advanced one (except pullups... shit that was a hit to my ego, I could do 15 or more back in high-school, now I can do 2..., but the plan has alternatives to work up to it). I'm down 6.5 lbs with 16 more to go to my ideal weight, and that's only by doing the strength work, so I feel pretty good that I'm actually gaining some muscle and stuff at the same time.
Well... not just strength work, I also stopped eating bullshit and drinking a half-bottle of wine every night.
One of the big breaking points for me that finally got me to lose weight was when I started sweating from eating a big meal. The acts of raising a fork and digestion shouldn't count as cardiovascular activity. :oops:
I started out with a homemade dumbbell/calisthenics routine. High-rep / low-weight and little rest. After sticking with it for several weeks, my wife surprised me with Insanity. I did the first month's routine twice and then got burned after about 2 weeks of the second month's routine. But it was absolutely worth it. I'm down nearly 35lbs and at 35 years old I'm in the best shape I've been in since high school.
I just started another homemade DB routine (heavier weight this time because I'm looking more for muscle mass than weight loss).
For anyone wanting to know about proper technique for a whole bunch of exercises, exrx.net is a fantastic resource.
I work my ass off when I exercise (I really like that buzz of muscles pushed hard) and so when I'm choosing what to eat these days I tend to go for something that won't invalidate all that hard work.
If I'm going to eat something shitty, I'd better really want it, instead of idly snacking on garbage like I used to do.
--LeVar Burton
It was good for me over Halloween, when I could tell myself 'eating these two fun-size Snickers bars is six minutes on the treadmill - is it worth it?' It also helped eliminate some of the guilt in that I could add an extra five minutes onto my workout, and feel like I cancelled out indulging earlier.
Something I'm curious about is how the calories on the nutritional facts stack up to calories burned. If I'm eating something that says 200 calories on the pack, is that number adjusted to reflect how much my body can actually process / absorb? I.e. I eat a 200 calorie candy bar, does my body really only get 150, so burning 200 calories in exercise actually puts me ahead, or can I (for all intents and purposes) treat it as a 1:1 relationship?
I know it's not exact and everyone is different, but I've always wondered that...I assume it's close enough to be within 10-15% accuracy, but just wasn't sure.