Exercise and Fitness: Keep On Keepin' On

[baxus]

On 8/7/2018 at 8:29 PM, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

@baxus

You should give morning workouts a try. One of my best friends is about to be on kid three, and he totally lost the ability to workout after work unless he did it really late at night. He found what worked best is to lift weights a half hour before he gets his kids up and take them for walks after work. He’ll never be confused for a body builder, but he says it’s great for functionality, as you mentioned above.  

I've already been working out before work. My crossfit box has 7.15 and 8.45 mixed group classes and I've usually been in the later. The plan is to switch to the earlier one so that I can be at work by 9, off work by 5PM and home by 5.30PM.

Still, it'll have to wait for my wife to be back to 100% from her C-section and for us both to get a bit more acquainted with our new role.

[Jo498]

I don't think grip strength is a factor if one can only do none to five pullups. The bar has to be gripped 10 seconds or less for this. It will become an issue with lots/series of pullups, toes to bar, or other hanging exercises, e.g. holding the body in a "L-shape" for some period of time.

There are several guides at youtube and elsewhere for pull-ups. One trick is "negative" pullups: jump or step with a stool or box into the end position and slowly lower the body into the hanging position. To do the "negative part" of the movement very slowly is also good training if one can already do a few pullups. Another important thing I tended to ignore before I was made aware of it, is to engage the shoulders by pulling the scapula back and trying to "pull with your lats/back", not only with your arms.

Besides for pull-ups and the like, simply hanging from a bar, both in the "dead hang" (ears between shoulders) and the active hang (shoulders pulled back) is good for your shoulders, your spine and training grip strength as well.

Also every pound less is an advantage. Gymnasts and Climbers are well-muscled but they do not look like bodybuilders or strength athletes.

[Iskaral Pust]

Pull-ups are hard for most people, especially women, because it demands a certain strength-to-total weight ratio in your upper torso.  They’re not intrinsically hard, and grip shouldn’t be a problem (most people dead lift more than they pull-up, and evolution certainly selected for the ability to grip your own body weight) it’s just hard to progress from zero to one rep at full body weight because you cannot easily increase the weight in increments as you progress.  So the early days can involve a lot of frustratingly short sets that aren’t really developing the muscle very much.

So try pull-down cable machines as a way to practice at a large fraction of body weight, or else use an assist to your body weight doing the pull-up, or just do the negative for several reps.  

It’s a really rewarding exercise and a great benchmark of overall fitness.  They’re worth sticking with. 

Edit: Also chin-ups are easier than pull-ups.  You can start with those and then switch as you develop. 

[Ice Queen]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Pull-ups are hard for most people, especially women, because it demands a certain strength-to-total weight ratio in your upper torso.  They’re not intrinsically hard, and grip shouldn’t be a problem (most people dead lift more than they pull-up, and evolution certainly selected for the ability to grip your own body weight) it’s just hard to progress from zero to one rep at full body weight because you cannot easily increase the weight in increments as you progress.  So the early days can involve a lot of frustratingly short sets that aren’t really developing the muscle very much.

So try pull-down cable machines as a way to practice at a large fraction of body weight, or else use an assist to your body weight doing the pull-up, or just do the negative for several reps.  

It’s a really rewarding exercise and a great benchmark of overall fitness.  They’re worth sticking with. 

Edit: Also chin-ups are easier than pull-ups.  You can start with those and then switch as you develop. 

I can totally relate to this. As a woman, I can deadlift 75% of my body weight...but I can't do a single pull up, chin up or push up, and never could. It's very sad LOL

[Kalbear]

I'm aiming to be able to do a pullup at my current body weight - that's one of my major fitness goals. 250lb pullups are HARD. 

[Iskaral Pust]

32 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm aiming to be able to do a pullup at my current body weight - that's one of my major fitness goals. 250lb pullups are HARD. 

No doubt.  But you already trimmed 100lbs from the weight to lift.  That's practically cheating. 

Seriously though, one or two pull-ups might be viable soon but you'll need some significant upper body development to do big sets (10+) of pull-ups at 250lbs.  Whereas you could probably do 10+ at 200lbs if you're generally lifting well.  The strength-to-weight ratio is hard to overcome.

Have you ever seen mountain climbers on American Ninja Warrior?  These guys have a huge advantage because they can hang for long periods.   Usually they weigh only 150-160lbs but they have huge lats and forearms, with underdeveloped legs (and chest, delts, traps, etc).  Anyone weighing above 180lbs and who squats and deadlifts anything over 300lbs would find that obstacle course close to impossible for their body shape.  I doubt even LeBron, who is very overdeveloped in his upper body, would finish that course.

[lessthanluke]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I'm aiming to be able to do a pullup at my current body weight - that's one of my major fitness goals. 250lb pullups are HARD. 

Yup. I think people are often more impressed with my pull ups than anything else hah. 

Using resistance bands to take some bodyweight off is a great way to progress the pull ups. 

[Kalbear]

Yeah, I'm doing machine-assisted pullups with about 60-70lbs off, and those are hard but doable (I can do about 8 right now). Probably easier to lose weight than to gain the muscles for doing a lot of 250s.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 8/7/2018 at 5:30 PM, Kalbear said:

Am stuck on my bench presses though, and it's starting to bug me. Am working on improving my chest by itself, but it doesn't seem to have done a lot yet. 

What are you doing and what weight are you stuck at? Chest exercise have a ton of options and some minor changes can help you get past your plateau.

[Kalbear]

24 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

What are you doing and what weight are you stuck at? Chest exercise have a ton of options and some minor changes can help you get past your plateau.

For the last two months I've been stuck on basically (barbell) 185x10, 3 sets. I've been doing a number of other chest exercises the same week or alternating - incline dumbbell, chest fly, pushups w/ one hand on a medicine ball, tricep extensions, dips, probably a few others. But it isn't getting better, even though everything else seems to be.

I've been focusing on it even more in the last two weeks to try and break through, and here's my basic routine (either on one day or two days depending on availability). They vary from 3x10 to 4x12 depending on what I've done that day. All are at weights so that the last 2 reps are pretty hard to complete or are failure. 

• BP 
• Incline dumbbell
• Decline barbell
• machine chest fly
• machine-assisted dips
• dumbbell pullover

With some pushup variants (pushup w/legs on exercise ball, pushups w/one hand on medicine ball, pushup w/ hamstring pullin). 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

K, I don't have much to offer then as I was going to suggest more or less that.  If I read that correctly you're only hitting it once a week. Maybe try decreasing the load a bit and doing it twice per week? I had my best overall gains (when training to be an athlete) by doing Chest, back and cavs on Mondays and Thursdays. Could try that.

[Erik of Hazelfield]

In my experience you always feel dead weak at the assisted chins machine. I manage about as many chins on the bar without assistance as with +20 kg or so assisted. There’s just something about the awkward position that makes it so much harder than it should be.

[Kalbear]

19 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

K, I don't have much to offer then as I was going to suggest more or less that.  If I read that correctly you're only hitting it once a week. Maybe try decreasing the load a bit and doing it twice per week? I had my best overall gains (when training to be an athlete) by doing Chest, back and cavs on Mondays and Thursdays. Could try that.

I'm doing the full chest routine like the above usually once a week, but I also usually do major chest exercises at least another time during the week. I typically do BBP and some other chest exercise, and then the full routine another day. 

But I can start trying to do it even more and see. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I'm doing the full chest routine like the above usually once a week, but I also usually do major chest exercises at least another time during the week. I typically do BBP and some other chest exercise, and then the full routine another day. 

But I can start trying to do it even more and see. 

Is it fair to assume that you target your chest specifically on one day and do arms on a different day each week?

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Is it fair to assume that you target your chest specifically on one day and do arms on a different day each week?

Kinda? I'm not going for the 5-day bodybuilding plan like a lot of folks do. I have training sessions twice a week, and in those we do one big leg exercise (deadlifts or squats) and then focus on pulling motions (pulldown, row, curls) or pushing (press, tricep extensions etc). In those we tend to be a bit more all over. In my sessions alone, I'm trying to be more specifically focused, but even those have elements. Like my chest workout has tricep extensions as part of one superset, my back workout has bicep curls and arnold curls. 

[Starkess]

Yeah I cannot do pull ups and never have been able to. Unfortunately my current gym doesn't have an assisted pull up machine, but I've been trying to do lat pull downs to help improve that. I doubt I'll ever be able to do one, though.

Decided to switch up my lower body routine because my quads were getting too developed. Now I'm trying out Bret Contreras's Gorgeous Glutes routine because I don't really have the desire to put in the effort to design my own plan. Lots of interesting new exercises for me to try. Today I had the fun of looking ridiculous on the hyperextension machine doing reverse hypers. 

Trying not to freak out about my weigh in this morning. I didn't have a ton of calories but I did eat a lot of unhealthy, sodium-laden food so hopefully it's just a water weight spike. Feeling super flabby sucks though.

[Impmk2]

Mapped out my next 10 weeks training in the lead up to the marathon and slightly scared myself. Going to be averaging around 65km/week. Have given myself an easy (45km) reward week mid september to aim for. That's about the halfway mark and coincides with a 6km fun run that people from work are doing, so I'll give that a bash. Want to try for a sub-24min 6k, which I think I have a shot at, as this week I did a 6x1000m interval session (only a 30sec recovery between) and managed to hold 3:55-4min kms. Bloody hurt though.

Starting to look forward to end of October and putting the focus back on upper body & climbing, which at the moment is just 1-2 times a week for some crosstraining. I've dropped about 10kg (22lb) off my 6'1" frame, and am down to around 72.5kg (about 160lb), which while I feel is a pretty good race weight, I've had comments that I look a bit gaunt. Think I've mostly burnt fat, but have probably lost some upper body muscle too. I'm having to force myself to eat huge serves of pasta & protein shakes just to maintain.

 

[Jo498]

Pullups seem very hard for most women (it is probably the clearest example for the superior upper body strength of human males) . My sister used to be a decent climber (far better than I managed during the ca. 3 years I dabbled at the sport) weighs maybe 50-52 kg and I think she can do barely one or two (maybe more chin-ups). I could always do two pull-ups, even as a "skinny-fat" mid-40s man with almost 10 kg too much. Now with about 8kg of that 10 lost and a few months of not very systematic training I can do about 8.

chin-ups are easier for most people and also a good exercise but they train different muscles. Many probably will not need the additional biceps training chin-ups provide and profit more from pull-ups.

@trisk if you can hang for a minute you have enough grip for >10 pull-ups, the limiting factor is certainly elsewhere

@Impmk2: good race weight for distances from 1500m onwards is in fact gaunt to emasciated... your weight sounds fine to me, I would not strive for any less at your level, though. What is your best at 10k and how old are you? 65km/week is not that much for Marathon preparation where you need a weekly long run that should be going up to about 25km eventually.

Running (middle distances) was my sport as a kid (12-16) but I have some orthopaedic troubles by now and quit my attempts to get back to running already twice (once from ca. 2007-09 and again ca. 2014) because of hurting feet or knees. I am now going again at it very slowly (typically 5-6km runs about every other day) but I fear that I will not be able to get again close to decent times (say at least sub 45 min for the 10k) because I am simply too old (46) and slow and my body would not bear the mileage I'd need.

[Impmk2]

38 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

@Impmk2: good race weight for distances from 1500m onwards is in fact gaunt to emasciated... your weight sounds fine to me, I would not strive for any less at your level, though. What is your best at 10k and how old are you? 65km/week is not that much for Marathon preparation where you need a weekly long run that should be going up to about 25km eventually.

Running (middle distances) was my sport as a kid (12-16) but I have some orthopaedic troubles by now and quit my attempts to get back to running already twice (once from ca. 2007-09 and again ca. 2014) because of hurting feet or knees. I am now going again at it very slowly (typically 5-6km runs about every other day) but I fear that I will not be able to get again close to decent times (say at least sub 45 min for the 10k) because I am simply too old (46) and slow and my body would not bear the mileage I'd need.

I'm 36, and yeah I realize the mileage requirements are pretty steep, and 65k is just the average including lighter weeks and taper. I just raced a 30km (2:17:33 on a slight downhill course) a few weeks back, and have been putting in regular half marathon or greater distance runs for about the past 6 months. Todays was a 24k. Going to do a few more easy 30k runs in the lead up.

I haven't recently raced a 10k, my current best is about 44mins. Aiming for a 3:30 marathon.

Hope the slow build back up works for you. Injuries really suck. I've had struggles with itbs, but thankfully it hasn't flared recently (touch wood).

[Liffguard]

Update on the bike front. Despite wanting to keep my costs down, I've kind of fallen in love with this bad boy from Temple Cycles. Yes it's hipster and pretentious as fuck, but that classic look really appeals to me. And every review of these bikes that I've read says they're bomb proof with really nice build quality. Seriously considering pulling the trigger tomorrow.