The worst part about dumbbells is that once you get to a certain weight, you can only move up in 5lb increments -- which for a benchpress means jumping up by 10lbs total. Mixing it up, like leftright said, is the best way to get over a hump whenever you're stuck.
I don't see how it's a bigger pain in the ass or makes you more prone to injury. It's a slightly better exercise. Do it if you want, don't if you don't.
dumbells are safer because they're easier to drop if you get stuck
as for the hip abductors (the muscles on the inside of your thigh) the machine can help strengthen them, hip abductors are used in a wide stance (powerlifting stance) squat. A less womanly way to strengthen them is a plate slide, stand and put one foot next to a plate of any weight (45 lbs is the standard), using only that foot slide it away from you in a straight line. You can also do this by attaching your ankel to a low cable machine.
So here's my strange situation: my forearms are disproportionally weak. What I mean is, my chest is strong enough to bench press dumbbells that my weak forearms have a hard time just getting off the rack. I was thinking of working out my forearms more frequently (say 3 times a week rather than once) given the fact that the forearms muscles heal so quickly.
What I need are suggestions for excercises along with appropriate numbers of sets and reps.
your forearms will be weak like you described, usually you have to sit with the dumbells on your knees then as you lay back on the bench, "boost" them in the air.
There are a couple exercises to work your forearms directly but you can also try fatter grips, change from a 1inch circumfrence bar to a 2 or 3 and you'll increase your grip strength, or wrap a towel around the bar.
Deadlifts work your grip like mad, also do reverse curls, basically a bicep curl except with your hands pronated (palms down). You can also do wrist curls, sit with your arms on your knees and a barbell in your fingers, relax your fingers then curl them up with the bar. A couple sets of 5-10 reps will be fine, also, don't deadlift more than once a week because your lower back muscles take around 100 hours to recover.
Okay, so what I'm doing is chest and arms on Mondays and Fridays, legs, shoulders and back on Wednesday, and cardio on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On my weight training days, I start with 15 minutes on a bike doing an interval program. The way it works is you do a 2 minute warm up, then you do an 11 minute race, and a 2 minute cool down. During the "race", the bike generates a rival based on your age/weight/gender/difficulty level and you're supposed to keep pace with it. The resistance remains even, you just bike faster or slower.
For my weight training I have 10 excercises that I do in super sets where I'll switch off between machines or whatever, so I'll do 6-10 straight arm pull-overs and then 6-10 pec decs, and then back and forth for 3 sets of each. The result is that I don't have any real breaks where I'm not using one muscle or another.
On my cardio days, I do 30 minutes on the bike instead of 15, same type of program.
Now a few restrictions: I fucked up and sprained my ankle badly about a month ago, so any type of running or jogging is still out. I've tried and I can do short distances (3 or 4 blocks) but the ankle starts to give me trouble after that, and then I get treated to a little stretch of intense throbbing pain in the ankle afterwards. I'm working on the ankle, but for now, running is out, and anyhow, I bike around the city a lot in the summer, so practicing on a bike is more applicable to my day to day life anyhow.
My weight routine was designed by a personal trainer who's been managing the gym for a couple of decades now, so I have a certain measure of faith in that and I don't necessarily feel the need to change that.
The problem I have right now is that I've got some stubborn belly fat. Over the summer I moved to the city and started biking a lot, so I shed some there, but when it got cold and then when Christmas/etc bullshit kicked in I put a good bit back on. I've been hitting the gym seriously for about a month now and I'm eating mostly clean. I've had a few weekends of pretty heavy drinking, but I'm more or less going to quit that moving forward until the summer.
The thing is, the belly fat, it goes down slowly. It's the only place I really have a noticeable amount of fat, so this isn't a spot reduction thing, it's just really the last stage of getting into really good shape from decent shape.
I have two basic ideas for dropping weight a little faster, I can either extend my cardio sessions at the start of my weight training, or I can add a cardio session to the end of my weight training.
I've tried the latter once, but it was reeeeeally hard after being in the gym for about an hour already and I didn't quite make it all the way through the race phase, I had to cut it short at about 4 minutes remaining of the 11.
So, can anyone make some suggestions? Am I more or less on the right track and need to get more patience? I theoretically could probably convince myself to get to the gym a sixth day each week, but there's the question of what to do.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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I was reading in my biology book that you never lose the fat, the fat cells just get smaller. It looks like you're doing everything in your power to keep your exercise routine going, perhaps you're getting impatient?
If you go to the gym one more day, when are you going to give your body a break?
Just wait till your body adapts. There is such a thing as too much exercise, and especially obsession with the belly fat in particular.
Relax man, you'll get there in your own time. Don't stress it out and do something drastic.
I was reading in my biology book that you never lose the fat, the fat cells just get smaller. It looks like you're doing everything in your power to keep your exercise routine going, perhaps you're getting impatient?
If you go to the gym one more day, when are you going to give your body a break?
Just wait till your body adapts. There is such a thing as too much exercise, and especially obsession with the belly fat in particular.
Relax man, you'll get there in your own time. Don't stress it out and do something drastic.
Okay now can someone who knows what they are talking about please reply to my post
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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Losing the fat will be mostly diet, not so much exercise. But the most effective form of cardio for fat loss is HIIT, which you can find info on if you search the past few pages or so, I think. Also remember that alcohol is pretty much pure calories -- it will make losing that stomach fat very hard.
My weight routine was designed by a personal trainer who's been managing the gym for a couple of decades now, so I have a certain measure of faith in that and I don't necessarily feel the need to change that.
I have this feeling that your routine isn't so good. You don't have to change it if you're really attached to it, but compare it to any of the routines recommended in this thread and you'll see why I'm saying this. You shouldn't do intense cardio before lifting -- and definitely not 15 minutes of it. You shouldn't be using machines. You probably shouldn't be doing supersets because it'll tire you out and you won't be able to lift as heavy (which means you'll get smaller gains!). But most importantly, you have to lift.
Sorry if I was mischaracterizing your routine based on the small amount of information you gave, but "personal trainer" + "pec deck" is the road to a crappy routine 99% of the time.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
edited February 2007
Your body really doesn't like dropping your last bit of fat, it takes extra effort.
Eating clean wont cut it anymore, you're going to have to bring you calorie intake to around 1200 to 1500 a day and pop in a 20 minute cycling into your mornings (sorry not fully clear if you are still riding to work which would do it nicely)
if the cardio seems to be working and you're losing the fat then continue doing it. It does take time so you have to be patient. However, if you seem to be stalling on fatloss try upping the intensity of the bike ride, and also start watching your diet more (there a million diets out there, check out precision nutrition by john berardi though). It is better to do your cardio after weight training, you can do a quick warmup on the bike before lifting though.
What does your weight training look like at the gym? Unless you've been lifting for a while I'd make it three total body workouts a week instead of the split you have going on.
I'm not lying. Fat cells do get bigger and smaller depending on how many lipids you are eating in your diet.
Some cells store raw energy as lipids (fat) Our so called "fat cells" are so specialized for this purpose that most of their volume consists of large droplets of stored lipids. Dieting and exercise tend to reduce the amount of stored fat cells. That is, it makes the fat cells leaner. However, it does not reduce their number. They are available to store fat again, which is why it is so hard to keep lost weight off.
I'm literally writing that from my biology book. It seems to me you already know how to "drop the weight" by keeping a low fat diet and keeping the fat cells lean. If not, that is what you should do. You can do as much exercise as you want, but if your eating too many "fats", that fat is never "going to go away", colloquially speaking.
Of course you already knew that, and I'm assuming, since you have read this thread and you are following that plan by your trainer and that you don't believe in spot reduction, then I assume that your diet is good too. In that case, your body is going the right way and it just needs time to adjust.
Be patient is what I advised. The response of "shut the fuck up and I'm covering my ears." was a real a-hole thing to do.
I don't care though. It's your body. Do what you want with it.
Your body really doesn't like dropping your last bit of fat, it takes extra effort.
Eating clean wont cut it anymore, you're going to have to bring you calorie intake to around 1200 to 1500 a day and pop in a 20 minute cycling into your mornings (sorry not fully clear if you are still riding to work which would do it nicely)
I live in Manitoba. Yes, you see the rare cyclist here in February, but they're fucking insane. It'll be another month, maybe more before I can bike to work again.
ecchi: I'm not really in it to build a lot of muscle, it's more about getting leaner than getting big. I was hesitant about the amount of time I spend on machines during my workout too, but it does seem to hit all of the muscle groups between the two different routines. I definitely do tire out towards the end of my routine though, and I am lifting less than I do at the start.
The 15 minutes of intense cardio at the start was more my doing than the trainer's, it was just stated that I needed to put in at least 5 minutes of cardio to get my heart pumping and so forth.
leftright: I could see that, but I'm spending about an hour, sometimes a little longer in the gym on each of my weight days as-is, and a half hour on the cardio days. Spending two hours after work in the gym sounds like fun, but it's less than entirely practical, and I get pretty exhausted by the end of the sessions as-is.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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A low fat diet isn't the best way to lose weight. Fat people are fat...therefore fat makes you fat isn't a good way to think of it (I'm not saying you think this way). About 30% of your daily calories should come from fat, the best fats would be polyunsaturated and of course omega-3 (fish oil) those will even aid in fatloss.
The reason why most americans are overweight are too many calories, too many carbs and the most important: little to no exercise.
PHeezer: do three total body sessions a week (these should take 45 minutes or so) and do the cardio 2-3x a week on the other days.
I am still in XC ski season so very little weight lifting (plus being sick for 19 days now hinders me) but in the offseason I lift 3-4x a week and run 2x a week.
Fat doesn't make you fat, yes, I know. But to keep "lean and toned" , especially around the belly, you're going to have to keep a low fat percentage in your body.
You really don't need to spend a lot of time in the gym if you do full-body workouts like we've been advocating. A simple one: 5x5, ramping up the weight each set, of bench press, bent-over rows, and squats on Monday and Friday and deadlifts, military press, and squats on Wednesday. Tricep extensions, chip-ups, etc as support to mix in once in a while. That's not an amazing routine, but it's pretty good for a beginner and you can be done in 30-45 minutes if you don't have to wait around for equipment.
I'm not really in it to build a lot of muscle, it's more about getting leaner than getting big.
You can't get big unless you eat big. Freeweights will not get you huge if you don't want to get huge, but they will give you better results in less time, no matter what your goals are, than machines. They also have the advantage of cutting down your workout time because, like I showed above, you can target a ton of muscles with a single lift. There's no reason for a beginner to work his chest and triceps separately when you can just bench.
EDIT: oh yeah, I didn't see this post earlier:
Eating clean wont cut it anymore, you're going to have to bring you calorie intake to around 1200 to 1500 a day...
That is INSANE and very stupid. Don't even think about doing that. Cutting your caloric intake that low will cause you to lose muscle mass along with fat, and that fat loss will actually be slower than if you ate normally.
You can't get big unless you eat big. Freeweights will not get you huge if you don't want to get huge, but they will give you better results in less time, no matter what your goals are, than machines. They also have the advantage of cutting down your workout time because, like I showed above, you can target a ton of muscles with a single lift. There's no reason for a beginner to work his chest and triceps separately when you can just bench.
QFT, a lot of people say they don't want to "Get too big" but it will take you years to go from 150 to 200 pounds while staying the same leaness/getting leaner and building lots of muscle. Go pick up some freeweights and start lifting.
Edit: you'll have to play around with your calories, I have no idea what your height and weight is but start reducing your calories by 500 a day and see if you have improved fat loss. If you notice muscle loss/drastic reduce in strength bump it back up. I don't think you need to worry about dieting too much if you seem to be losing fat already and (assumption) you probably aren't massive and ripped to shreds.
I'm not lying. Fat cells do get bigger and smaller depending on how many lipids you are eating in your diet.
I'm literally writing that from my biology book. It seems to me you already know how to "drop the weight" by keeping a low fat diet and keeping the fat cells lean. If not, that is what you should do. You can do as much exercise as you want, but if your eating too many "fats", that fat is never "going to go away", colloquially speaking.
Of course you already knew that, and I'm assuming, since you have read this thread and you are following that plan by your trainer and that you don't believe in spot reduction, then I assume that your diet is good too. In that case, your body is going the right way and it just needs time to adjust.
Okay, seriously, what does that have to do with anything? Someone says "Hi, I'm try to reduce the amount of fat around my belly, here's what I'm doing" and you spout off about how fat cells grow and shrink according to your biology book.
Where is the advice in that? Where is the help? What is useful about what you've said there?
Hint: Nothing. You're spouting off on how much you know about fat cells, great, but completely irrelevant. Thanks for coming out, but next time, don't.
Be patient is what I advised. The response of "shut the fuck up and I'm covering my ears." was a real a-hole thing to do.
I don't care though. It's your body. Do what you want with it.
Okay, so your advice was "uh, just be patient". Completely unqualified, not supported by any argument or reasoning whatsoever, just "oh hey, neat fact about fat cells, and I guess you should just be patient". Not quite fucking helpful to anyone. And you'll note that no one told you to "shut the fuck up", and for you to take the indignant tact you have with regards to being told that your contribution isn't being valued, you should probably make a better effort to make a contribution that could be legitimately argued to be valuable in the first place.
In short, you have offered no help or advice. The comment you made about being patient was tacked onto a long string of irrelevancies, and offered no reasoning or logic to support it, making it about as useful to me as a coin flip. In the future, save yourself some time and just don't make the post if that's all you've got to say. No one here cares what you've read about fat cells, this forum is not here for you to wow the masses with your high school bio course.
Fat doesn't make you fat, yes, I know. But to keep "lean and toned" , especially around the belly, you're going to have to keep a low fat percentage in your body.
Okay, so you're just mashing together different terms and coming up with advice now?
Leftright tried to explain that keeping a "low fat percentage" was not something that relied solely on keeping fats out of the diet, and that a certain portion of a healthy diet will include fats. The fact that appearing lean relies on maintaining a low body fat percentage is true by the definition of "lean" though, so again you've managed to contribute nothing.
Unless you're actually disagreeing with leftright in a really hard to interpret manner, arguing that contrary to his advice, one would need to keep a really low amount of fat intake in their diet to maintain a lean appearance. Which is of course, in classic Munacra fashion, not backed up by anything, at all.
The rules for this thread were very clearly laid out in the first post. Stop posting in this thread until you can follow them, AND you have something useful to contribute.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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QFT, a lot of people say they don't want to "Get too big" but it will take you years to go from 150 to 200 pounds while staying the same leaness/getting leaner and building lots of muscle. Go pick up some freeweights and start lifting.
Edit: you'll have to play around with your calories, I have no idea what your height and weight is but start reducing your calories by 500 a day and see if you have improved fat loss. If you notice muscle loss/drastic reduce in strength bump it back up. I don't think you need to worry about dieting too much if you seem to be losing fat already and (assumption) you probably aren't massive and ripped to shreds.
Well, I don't want to give the impression that I'm trying to avoid getting bigger. I'm in no way afraid to do so, and would have no problem with it if I did, it's just that getting bigger isn't my focus, getting leaner is, so advice targetted at someone who really wants to bulk up isn't necessarily what I'm looking for. That's all I wanted to get across by saying that I'm not looking to get big.
As for size, I'm currently 5'6", I wear a size 32 pair of pants very comfortably, and I think I weigh in around 155-160ish right now. The weight is mostly coming from pretty big thigh muscles and a pretty decent chest and set of arms. I don't think I have much more than 10 or 15 pounds that I really want to get rid of, and if I did, I'd drop maybe an inch or two on the waist, not more than that though. As it stands I'm not in ridiculous shape, but I could stand to look a good bit better I think.
Tomorrow I'll bring my workout routine home from the gym and type up exactly what I'm doing here and get some opinions on it. A few of the excercises feel a little silly and replaceable, like the shoulder press machine. I'm pretty sure I'm going to swap that out for Arnold presses, and I'm going to switch to freeweights for my biceps and triceps.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Literally. I saw a speed rope for $5 at Wal*Mart, so I took it home and tried it out. Hopped once, landed, and dropped straight to my knees. My ankle is nowhere near that strong yet.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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160 for 5'6" is actually pretty good, I forgot where I saw it but there is some greek statue dimensions chart (ideal weight for your height) and I'm sure you're close to it.
If you want to save time in the gym try dropping some isolation exercises for a bit and do the total body workout. I'd use freeweights for more than biceps/triceps. If you're relatively new to weights then you don't need much direct arm work, focus more on compound lifts. Arnold presses are pretty killer.
Also, while I'm here, I had a few more questions. When I was in high school (I'm 23 right now) I used to run cross country, and played basketball and baseball. I'm pretty athletic and have great stamina. However, every time I play basketball, my calves are always the first to give out. I could literally play forever, except my calves always cramp up after about an hour and a half of playing. I've heard that eating lots of bananas help recovery, but the problem keeps coming back. Is it a dehydration issue? Do I need to drink more water? Is this a problem that could be solved by calf raises, or do I need more cardio that focuses on my calves?
While I love playing basketball, I've always wanted to be stronger. Its very hard for me though. I have crohn's disease, which is a condition where my intestine has difficulty digesting food. Ive been on medication for it for the last 3 years or so for it. Naturally, its hard to replenish the body with nutrients when my digestive track isn't very cooperative. Also, I'm allergic to eggs, peanuts and fish. My only protein intake has been chicken, more chicken and a protein shake after each workout. Its very hard for me to gain muscle mass when my body has so much trouble putting on weight.
Basically, I'm open to any suggestions anyone has regarding diets.
The calves thing is hard to know, but since the rest of you doesn't seem to get tired I'd just focus on stretching the calves and doing calf raises. I'm not sure about bananas helping recovery but being deficent in potassium can cause cramps/stitches.
as for protein besides chicken and protein shakes, red meat and casein come to mind. Casein is a milk protein that absorbs much slower than whey (it's best to have whey right after you workout) so have some casein in the morning before you workout and some before you go to sleep. You can get casein in some protein powders and it is also found in cottage cheese.
I'm not saying it's not true, I've just never heard it before. I run xc too and I used to get side stitches during the race, it was because of potassium deficincy and once i started eating bananas a lot they went away.
I used to be a highly competitve swimmer (years ago), so I have decent knowledge about my body and how stuff works. Never been into weights training much though. I don't have a barbell, but I've been putting together a program for myself with a bunch of exercises I have the equipment to do (dumbells, chin-up space etc) that's going pretty well. I forget where I read about bent-over dumbell rows, but as far as I can tell it's a decent thing to do for shoulders/upper back/neck.
Anything I should really know about form for these? Or should I perhaps not do them because they're bad? Anyone who's experienced with weight/strength training have an opinion?
Solvent on
I don't know where he got the scorpions, or how he got them into my mattress.
I used to be a highly competitve swimmer (years ago), so I have decent knowledge about my body and how stuff works. Never been into weights training much though. I don't have a barbell, but I've been putting together a program for myself with a bunch of exercises I have the equipment to do (dumbells, chin-up space etc) that's going pretty well. I forget where I read about bent-over dumbell rows, but as far as I can tell it's a decent thing to do for shoulders/upper back/neck.
Anything I should really know about form for these? Or should I perhaps not do them because they're bad? Anyone who's experienced with weight/strength training have an opinion?
I actually just did my first set of these a couple days ago. It's mostly an upper-back/bicep thing. Nothing wrong with them, just make sure you're doing them with proper form.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
That is INSANE and very stupid. Don't even think about doing that. Cutting your caloric intake that low will cause you to lose muscle mass along with fat, and that fat loss will actually be slower than if you ate normally.
Yawn. No.
If you keep your ratios correct with healthy proportions of the basics (protein, carbs and fats) you will be fine in not loosing muscle mass. Eating nothing but salads will make you loose all your weight eating healthy proportions while keeping for excersise regime up will cause you to loose primarily fat.
According to this BMR calculator a guy of pheezer's approximate stature needs ~1700 calories a day to maintain his body. He's obviously fairly active so he really burns quite a bit more than that. Dropping to 1200 (which is what really made me have that knee-jerk reaction) or even 1500 is way too low, especially for someone who's doing resistance training.
Eating at 1200 to 1500 a day won't be too detrimental. For the last few pounds, it's pretty common practice to get that low, or even to 800 cals. Only thing is, at that low of a calorie intake, you'd pretty much be eating protein and fat, no carbs. It will work. Look up PSMF if you are interested.
Starfuck on
jackfaces
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
if you're doing the rows bent over it's better to use a barbell, use the dumbells for chest supported rows or one arm rows.
To find around your ideal calories multiply your LBM by 100, so a 200 pound person with 20% body fat would need 1600 calories a day. That should be your matience level (no weight gain or loss). Adjust it as necessary.
Okay, excercises grouped together are super sets. Weights/reps listed are what I managed to do during my most recent workout, and things listed as (machine) are excercises done with a machine-like piece of equipment rather than free weights. Almost all of the hardware is somewhat new looking Cybex brand stuff, if that matters at all. I also use a swiss ball/yoga ball/whatever you want to call it for two excercises as noted.
This is my Monday/Friday weight routine:
Lat Pulldown (machine) - 75 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps
Seated Chest Press (machine) - 80 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps.
Row (machine) - 85 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps.
Incline Chest Press (machine) - 60 pounds, 3 sets of 6-10 reps. Something to note on this one is that as I push up, I push in, so that the motion is similar to moving ones hands around a barrel. The trainer told me to do it this way because it's a hundred times harder and works more muscles, and it sure as hell is a lot harder.
Lying Straight Arm Lat Pull-Over - 25 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Pec Dec - 60 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps (going up to 70 on Friday, 60 is pretty easy now)
Arm Curl - 50 pounds, 3 sets of 6-10 pounds
Arm Extension - 37.5 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Oblique Ab Curl on Ball - 2 sets of 15 reps
Reverse Ab Curl - 2 sets of 8-12 reps.
And this is my Wednesday weight routine:
Leg Press - 90 pounds per leg, 3 sets of 10 reps. This one is sitting in a chair, pushing a weight out with my legs.
Lever Shoulder Press (machine) - 35 pounds per arm, 3 sets of 10 reps
Today I switched this to Arnold Press - 30 pound dumbbells, 3 sets of 6-10 reps.
Lying Ball Leg Curl - No weights, 3 sets of about 10 reps. Goal is to be able to do 3 sets of 15.
Dumbbell Straight Leg Deadlift - 30 pounds, 3 sets of 8-10 reps.
Leg Press (machine) - 140 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps. This, and the next, are on the same machine. You lay down almost horizontal and push away from a platform, as if the resistance were on your shoulders. This to me is an attractive alternative to doing the same with a barbell because I'll be working out alone.
Straight Leg Calf Press (machine) - 140 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps
Lateral Raise (machine) - 50 pounds, 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Reverse Pec Dec - 60 pounds, 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Dumbbell Rotator Cuff on Wall - 10 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Back Extension - No weights. 2 sets of 10-13 reps.
So, comments? Suggestions on excercises to replace/change? I'm thinking I'm going to trade up the arm curls on the cybex deal for dumb bell curls on Friday.
Pheezer on
IT'S GOT ME REACHING IN MY POCKET IT'S GOT ME FORKING OVER CASH
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My suggestion is to replace absolutely everything and do something along the lines of what I mentioned earlier, or what leftright outlined on the second page of the thread. Doing the machine stuff is a waste of time -- both in the long term (you won't see anywhere near the same gains) and the short term (you will spend longer at the gym to work the same [actually fewer] muscles).
I mean, I know a long-time trainer recommended it, but that doesn't make it good.
Also, even if you're sure you want to stick with all the machine stuff, make sure you're increasing the resistance as often as you can. Consider changing the reps to 5x5 at higher weights sometimes.
5x5 is a good program but I've heard a lot of people overtrain on it. Check out TTT or TBT by chad waterbury, they're both good and pretty short programs (45 or so minutes, 3x a week).
Yes, change to freeweights. The need for a spotter is pretty much moot, you can squat (and sometimes) bench in a power rack. If you fall, the weight will land on the supports, you'll be fine.
Also, I'd reccomend pullups over the lat pulldown as pullups build more muscles than the pulldown and they do it faster. It's weird you included pounds in the exercises, I hope you're not using the same weight every time, you won't improve if you do. Please please please do not leg press. You can also take out the back extensions if you deadlift and squat as that works your lower back.
Also with regards to weights: I use a given weight until I can do 3 sets of 10 reps at it, then I go up the next step and work at that until I can hit 3 sets of 10 reps. Bad? Good? Why?
Pheezer on
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I mean, it seems to me like doing a dumbell press is a much bigger pain in the ass, and much more likely to get you injured. Is it worth it?
I do the dumbbell press to prevent injury. I work out alone, so for me the dumbbell press is much, much safer than the barbell press.
Anyway, here's an unrelated question: Do men get any benefit from the hip abduction/adduction machines, or are they designed for women's thighs?
as for the hip abductors (the muscles on the inside of your thigh) the machine can help strengthen them, hip abductors are used in a wide stance (powerlifting stance) squat. A less womanly way to strengthen them is a plate slide, stand and put one foot next to a plate of any weight (45 lbs is the standard), using only that foot slide it away from you in a straight line. You can also do this by attaching your ankel to a low cable machine.
What I need are suggestions for excercises along with appropriate numbers of sets and reps.
There are a couple exercises to work your forearms directly but you can also try fatter grips, change from a 1inch circumfrence bar to a 2 or 3 and you'll increase your grip strength, or wrap a towel around the bar.
Deadlifts work your grip like mad, also do reverse curls, basically a bicep curl except with your hands pronated (palms down). You can also do wrist curls, sit with your arms on your knees and a barbell in your fingers, relax your fingers then curl them up with the bar. A couple sets of 5-10 reps will be fine, also, don't deadlift more than once a week because your lower back muscles take around 100 hours to recover.
On my weight training days, I start with 15 minutes on a bike doing an interval program. The way it works is you do a 2 minute warm up, then you do an 11 minute race, and a 2 minute cool down. During the "race", the bike generates a rival based on your age/weight/gender/difficulty level and you're supposed to keep pace with it. The resistance remains even, you just bike faster or slower.
For my weight training I have 10 excercises that I do in super sets where I'll switch off between machines or whatever, so I'll do 6-10 straight arm pull-overs and then 6-10 pec decs, and then back and forth for 3 sets of each. The result is that I don't have any real breaks where I'm not using one muscle or another.
On my cardio days, I do 30 minutes on the bike instead of 15, same type of program.
Now a few restrictions: I fucked up and sprained my ankle badly about a month ago, so any type of running or jogging is still out. I've tried and I can do short distances (3 or 4 blocks) but the ankle starts to give me trouble after that, and then I get treated to a little stretch of intense throbbing pain in the ankle afterwards. I'm working on the ankle, but for now, running is out, and anyhow, I bike around the city a lot in the summer, so practicing on a bike is more applicable to my day to day life anyhow.
My weight routine was designed by a personal trainer who's been managing the gym for a couple of decades now, so I have a certain measure of faith in that and I don't necessarily feel the need to change that.
The problem I have right now is that I've got some stubborn belly fat. Over the summer I moved to the city and started biking a lot, so I shed some there, but when it got cold and then when Christmas/etc bullshit kicked in I put a good bit back on. I've been hitting the gym seriously for about a month now and I'm eating mostly clean. I've had a few weekends of pretty heavy drinking, but I'm more or less going to quit that moving forward until the summer.
The thing is, the belly fat, it goes down slowly. It's the only place I really have a noticeable amount of fat, so this isn't a spot reduction thing, it's just really the last stage of getting into really good shape from decent shape.
I have two basic ideas for dropping weight a little faster, I can either extend my cardio sessions at the start of my weight training, or I can add a cardio session to the end of my weight training.
I've tried the latter once, but it was reeeeeally hard after being in the gym for about an hour already and I didn't quite make it all the way through the race phase, I had to cut it short at about 4 minutes remaining of the 11.
So, can anyone make some suggestions? Am I more or less on the right track and need to get more patience? I theoretically could probably convince myself to get to the gym a sixth day each week, but there's the question of what to do.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
If you go to the gym one more day, when are you going to give your body a break?
Just wait till your body adapts. There is such a thing as too much exercise, and especially obsession with the belly fat in particular.
Relax man, you'll get there in your own time. Don't stress it out and do something drastic.
Okay now can someone who knows what they are talking about please reply to my post
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I have this feeling that your routine isn't so good. You don't have to change it if you're really attached to it, but compare it to any of the routines recommended in this thread and you'll see why I'm saying this. You shouldn't do intense cardio before lifting -- and definitely not 15 minutes of it. You shouldn't be using machines. You probably shouldn't be doing supersets because it'll tire you out and you won't be able to lift as heavy (which means you'll get smaller gains!). But most importantly, you have to lift.
Sorry if I was mischaracterizing your routine based on the small amount of information you gave, but "personal trainer" + "pec deck" is the road to a crappy routine 99% of the time.
Eating clean wont cut it anymore, you're going to have to bring you calorie intake to around 1200 to 1500 a day and pop in a 20 minute cycling into your mornings (sorry not fully clear if you are still riding to work which would do it nicely)
Satans..... hints.....
What does your weight training look like at the gym? Unless you've been lifting for a while I'd make it three total body workouts a week instead of the split you have going on.
Also: for the person wondering about forearms this article might help: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1411503
I'm literally writing that from my biology book. It seems to me you already know how to "drop the weight" by keeping a low fat diet and keeping the fat cells lean. If not, that is what you should do. You can do as much exercise as you want, but if your eating too many "fats", that fat is never "going to go away", colloquially speaking.
Of course you already knew that, and I'm assuming, since you have read this thread and you are following that plan by your trainer and that you don't believe in spot reduction, then I assume that your diet is good too. In that case, your body is going the right way and it just needs time to adjust.
Be patient is what I advised. The response of "shut the fuck up and I'm covering my ears." was a real a-hole thing to do.
I don't care though. It's your body. Do what you want with it.
I live in Manitoba. Yes, you see the rare cyclist here in February, but they're fucking insane. It'll be another month, maybe more before I can bike to work again.
ecchi: I'm not really in it to build a lot of muscle, it's more about getting leaner than getting big. I was hesitant about the amount of time I spend on machines during my workout too, but it does seem to hit all of the muscle groups between the two different routines. I definitely do tire out towards the end of my routine though, and I am lifting less than I do at the start.
The 15 minutes of intense cardio at the start was more my doing than the trainer's, it was just stated that I needed to put in at least 5 minutes of cardio to get my heart pumping and so forth.
leftright: I could see that, but I'm spending about an hour, sometimes a little longer in the gym on each of my weight days as-is, and a half hour on the cardio days. Spending two hours after work in the gym sounds like fun, but it's less than entirely practical, and I get pretty exhausted by the end of the sessions as-is.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
The reason why most americans are overweight are too many calories, too many carbs and the most important: little to no exercise.
PHeezer: do three total body sessions a week (these should take 45 minutes or so) and do the cardio 2-3x a week on the other days.
I am still in XC ski season so very little weight lifting (plus being sick for 19 days now hinders me) but in the offseason I lift 3-4x a week and run 2x a week.
You can't get big unless you eat big. Freeweights will not get you huge if you don't want to get huge, but they will give you better results in less time, no matter what your goals are, than machines. They also have the advantage of cutting down your workout time because, like I showed above, you can target a ton of muscles with a single lift. There's no reason for a beginner to work his chest and triceps separately when you can just bench.
EDIT: oh yeah, I didn't see this post earlier: That is INSANE and very stupid. Don't even think about doing that. Cutting your caloric intake that low will cause you to lose muscle mass along with fat, and that fat loss will actually be slower than if you ate normally.
QFT, a lot of people say they don't want to "Get too big" but it will take you years to go from 150 to 200 pounds while staying the same leaness/getting leaner and building lots of muscle. Go pick up some freeweights and start lifting.
Edit: you'll have to play around with your calories, I have no idea what your height and weight is but start reducing your calories by 500 a day and see if you have improved fat loss. If you notice muscle loss/drastic reduce in strength bump it back up. I don't think you need to worry about dieting too much if you seem to be losing fat already and (assumption) you probably aren't massive and ripped to shreds.
Okay, seriously, what does that have to do with anything? Someone says "Hi, I'm try to reduce the amount of fat around my belly, here's what I'm doing" and you spout off about how fat cells grow and shrink according to your biology book.
Where is the advice in that? Where is the help? What is useful about what you've said there?
Hint: Nothing. You're spouting off on how much you know about fat cells, great, but completely irrelevant. Thanks for coming out, but next time, don't.
Okay, so your advice was "uh, just be patient". Completely unqualified, not supported by any argument or reasoning whatsoever, just "oh hey, neat fact about fat cells, and I guess you should just be patient". Not quite fucking helpful to anyone. And you'll note that no one told you to "shut the fuck up", and for you to take the indignant tact you have with regards to being told that your contribution isn't being valued, you should probably make a better effort to make a contribution that could be legitimately argued to be valuable in the first place.
In short, you have offered no help or advice. The comment you made about being patient was tacked onto a long string of irrelevancies, and offered no reasoning or logic to support it, making it about as useful to me as a coin flip. In the future, save yourself some time and just don't make the post if that's all you've got to say. No one here cares what you've read about fat cells, this forum is not here for you to wow the masses with your high school bio course.
And with regards to this: Okay, so you're just mashing together different terms and coming up with advice now?
Leftright tried to explain that keeping a "low fat percentage" was not something that relied solely on keeping fats out of the diet, and that a certain portion of a healthy diet will include fats. The fact that appearing lean relies on maintaining a low body fat percentage is true by the definition of "lean" though, so again you've managed to contribute nothing.
Unless you're actually disagreeing with leftright in a really hard to interpret manner, arguing that contrary to his advice, one would need to keep a really low amount of fat intake in their diet to maintain a lean appearance. Which is of course, in classic Munacra fashion, not backed up by anything, at all.
The rules for this thread were very clearly laid out in the first post. Stop posting in this thread until you can follow them, AND you have something useful to contribute.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Well, I don't want to give the impression that I'm trying to avoid getting bigger. I'm in no way afraid to do so, and would have no problem with it if I did, it's just that getting bigger isn't my focus, getting leaner is, so advice targetted at someone who really wants to bulk up isn't necessarily what I'm looking for. That's all I wanted to get across by saying that I'm not looking to get big.
As for size, I'm currently 5'6", I wear a size 32 pair of pants very comfortably, and I think I weigh in around 155-160ish right now. The weight is mostly coming from pretty big thigh muscles and a pretty decent chest and set of arms. I don't think I have much more than 10 or 15 pounds that I really want to get rid of, and if I did, I'd drop maybe an inch or two on the waist, not more than that though. As it stands I'm not in ridiculous shape, but I could stand to look a good bit better I think.
Tomorrow I'll bring my workout routine home from the gym and type up exactly what I'm doing here and get some opinions on it. A few of the excercises feel a little silly and replaceable, like the shoulder press machine. I'm pretty sure I'm going to swap that out for Arnold presses, and I'm going to switch to freeweights for my biceps and triceps.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
Literally. I saw a speed rope for $5 at Wal*Mart, so I took it home and tried it out. Hopped once, landed, and dropped straight to my knees. My ankle is nowhere near that strong yet.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
If you want to save time in the gym try dropping some isolation exercises for a bit and do the total body workout. I'd use freeweights for more than biceps/triceps. If you're relatively new to weights then you don't need much direct arm work, focus more on compound lifts. Arnold presses are pretty killer.
Also, while I'm here, I had a few more questions. When I was in high school (I'm 23 right now) I used to run cross country, and played basketball and baseball. I'm pretty athletic and have great stamina. However, every time I play basketball, my calves are always the first to give out. I could literally play forever, except my calves always cramp up after about an hour and a half of playing. I've heard that eating lots of bananas help recovery, but the problem keeps coming back. Is it a dehydration issue? Do I need to drink more water? Is this a problem that could be solved by calf raises, or do I need more cardio that focuses on my calves?
While I love playing basketball, I've always wanted to be stronger. Its very hard for me though. I have crohn's disease, which is a condition where my intestine has difficulty digesting food. Ive been on medication for it for the last 3 years or so for it. Naturally, its hard to replenish the body with nutrients when my digestive track isn't very cooperative. Also, I'm allergic to eggs, peanuts and fish. My only protein intake has been chicken, more chicken and a protein shake after each workout. Its very hard for me to gain muscle mass when my body has so much trouble putting on weight.
Basically, I'm open to any suggestions anyone has regarding diets.
as for protein besides chicken and protein shakes, red meat and casein come to mind. Casein is a milk protein that absorbs much slower than whey (it's best to have whey right after you workout) so have some casein in the morning before you workout and some before you go to sleep. You can get casein in some protein powders and it is also found in cottage cheese.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I used to be a highly competitve swimmer (years ago), so I have decent knowledge about my body and how stuff works. Never been into weights training much though. I don't have a barbell, but I've been putting together a program for myself with a bunch of exercises I have the equipment to do (dumbells, chin-up space etc) that's going pretty well. I forget where I read about bent-over dumbell rows, but as far as I can tell it's a decent thing to do for shoulders/upper back/neck.
Anything I should really know about form for these? Or should I perhaps not do them because they're bad? Anyone who's experienced with weight/strength training have an opinion?
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
Yawn. No.
If you keep your ratios correct with healthy proportions of the basics (protein, carbs and fats) you will be fine in not loosing muscle mass. Eating nothing but salads will make you loose all your weight eating healthy proportions while keeping for excersise regime up will cause you to loose primarily fat.
Satans..... hints.....
Enough of this bullshit. Be civil or don't post at all.
"If you're going to play tiddly winks, play it with man hole covers."
- John McCallum
To find around your ideal calories multiply your LBM by 100, so a 200 pound person with 20% body fat would need 1600 calories a day. That should be your matience level (no weight gain or loss). Adjust it as necessary.
This is my Monday/Friday weight routine:
Lat Pulldown (machine) - 75 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps
Seated Chest Press (machine) - 80 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps.
Row (machine) - 85 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps.
Incline Chest Press (machine) - 60 pounds, 3 sets of 6-10 reps. Something to note on this one is that as I push up, I push in, so that the motion is similar to moving ones hands around a barrel. The trainer told me to do it this way because it's a hundred times harder and works more muscles, and it sure as hell is a lot harder.
Lying Straight Arm Lat Pull-Over - 25 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Pec Dec - 60 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps (going up to 70 on Friday, 60 is pretty easy now)
Arm Curl - 50 pounds, 3 sets of 6-10 pounds
Arm Extension - 37.5 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Oblique Ab Curl on Ball - 2 sets of 15 reps
Reverse Ab Curl - 2 sets of 8-12 reps.
And this is my Wednesday weight routine:
Leg Press - 90 pounds per leg, 3 sets of 10 reps. This one is sitting in a chair, pushing a weight out with my legs.
Lever Shoulder Press (machine) - 35 pounds per arm, 3 sets of 10 reps
Today I switched this to Arnold Press - 30 pound dumbbells, 3 sets of 6-10 reps.
Lying Ball Leg Curl - No weights, 3 sets of about 10 reps. Goal is to be able to do 3 sets of 15.
Dumbbell Straight Leg Deadlift - 30 pounds, 3 sets of 8-10 reps.
Leg Press (machine) - 140 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps. This, and the next, are on the same machine. You lay down almost horizontal and push away from a platform, as if the resistance were on your shoulders. This to me is an attractive alternative to doing the same with a barbell because I'll be working out alone.
Straight Leg Calf Press (machine) - 140 pounds, 3 sets of 10 reps
Lateral Raise (machine) - 50 pounds, 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Reverse Pec Dec - 60 pounds, 2 sets of 8-10 reps
Dumbbell Rotator Cuff on Wall - 10 pounds, 2 sets of 10 reps
Back Extension - No weights. 2 sets of 10-13 reps.
So, comments? Suggestions on excercises to replace/change? I'm thinking I'm going to trade up the arm curls on the cybex deal for dumb bell curls on Friday.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I mean, I know a long-time trainer recommended it, but that doesn't make it good.
Also, even if you're sure you want to stick with all the machine stuff, make sure you're increasing the resistance as often as you can. Consider changing the reps to 5x5 at higher weights sometimes.
Yes, change to freeweights. The need for a spotter is pretty much moot, you can squat (and sometimes) bench in a power rack. If you fall, the weight will land on the supports, you'll be fine.
Also, I'd reccomend pullups over the lat pulldown as pullups build more muscles than the pulldown and they do it faster. It's weird you included pounds in the exercises, I hope you're not using the same weight every time, you won't improve if you do. Please please please do not leg press. You can also take out the back extensions if you deadlift and squat as that works your lower back.
Also with regards to weights: I use a given weight until I can do 3 sets of 10 reps at it, then I go up the next step and work at that until I can hit 3 sets of 10 reps. Bad? Good? Why?
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH