Exercise and Fitness!

[Eponine]

Ran 5 miles in 38:50. I was hovering around 40 minutes for the last couple weeks, so I'm happy I finally broke through. I'm finding that running is about 50% mental, in that I have to force myself to keep pace even though my body keeps telling me to slow down.

Great job! How often do you time yourself on that route?

[Iskaral Pust]

I'm finding that running is about 50% mental

At least.

I know that when I can ease into that zone where the breathing rhythm is just right and the running motion is unconciously perfect, that long distances at high speeds feel effortless. But it can take a while to find it with treadmill running because of the unnatural imposition of pace.

[daremo]

Ran 5 miles in 38:50. I was hovering around 40 minutes for the last couple weeks, so I'm happy I finally broke through. I'm finding that running is about 50% mental, in that I have to force myself to keep pace even though my body keeps telling me to slow down.

I enjoy hiking a lot more. Going on a long hike this weekend in the San Gabriels. Planning to hike up Mt. Baldy (highest peak in the San Gabriels at over 10,000 ft) and several other peaks if the ridges are clear enough of snow. Should have a great view of the area from the top.

Great job bro. Distance running for me has always been about 7:30 miles and you are almost there. Hiking is a motherfscker but you know what you are getting into if you are planning that trip. Good luck.

[Mudguard]

As much as I love the Bay Area, all your talk of hiking in the San Gabriels is really making me miss SoCal. I will have to go down sometime soon to do some hiking. Post pictures please. :)

Yeah, SoCal is really growing on me. I'm so glad I decided to hike Mt. Whitney. Without that, I probably wouldn't have bothered hiking the San Gabriels. I'll definitely takes pics and will try posting a link to my album. That might be the easiest way to do it.

Congrats Mudguard! It's always great to break through those mental barriers. I've always thougth the ability to run through the tiredness is what separates the runners from the joggers. I know how hard it is to stretch your body, but I can promise you it gets easier. (Well, it gets easier to stretch it to a certain level of exertion. Unfortunately there is always another level to get after)

Thanks! Yeah, no rest for me. My goal time has been a sliding target. Shooting for 5 miles in 35 minutes now. I still have about 5 lbs of weight to lose, maybe more, so I think it shouldn't take that long. Maybe a month or two. My times have been decreasing at about a minute for every pound I lose, and I lose about a pound a week. Once I'm done losing the excess weight, I think the time gains will be a lot harder to come by. The excess weight is great for training purposes though; it's like I'm carrying around weights as I run!

Great job! How often do you time yourself on that route?

Thanks! I run the same 5 mile route about every other day, and I time myself each time. I need to have some target time to keep myself motivated and interested in running. Once I'm happy with my times, I'll probably start increasing the distance to give myself a new goal. I was worried that I'd be really bored while running, but I've found that if I push myself hard enough, my mind pretty much shuts down and I can only focus on trying to keep pace for the next couple hundred yards. Hard to be bored when in pain!

[ztemhead]

At least.

I know that when I can ease into that zone where the breathing rhythm is just right and the running motion is unconciously perfect, that long distances at high speeds feel effortless. But it can take a while to find it with treadmill running because of the unnatural imposition of pace.

yeah I'm just not in that headspace with my running at the moment. I just don't care about it enough to work that hard. If I was five to ten pounds lighter I think I would be, but right now I get more satisfaction from weights.

[lokisnow]

saw a fifteen pound increase in my bench from week one to week two, a 170 bench @ 5 reps (just missed the sixth, had maybe a 5% help on the spot) is right inline with my 6Repmax when I quit training five years ago. :D

I am thinking of quitting the current program I have which has a lot of different exercises and takes a while (because it's really designed for five days a week, rather than three) and switching to just alternating day 1 and day 2:

Day 1: Squat, Bench, Deadlift,

Day 2: Squat, Press, Clean

three days a week, That's fine for a Monday, Wed, Friday workout, but if I want to do something Friday night it makes it unlikely that a Monday Wednesday, Thursday workout will be effective, and a Monday Wednesday Saturday workout cuts into my weekend, rather than giving me two nice days off. the other caveat is it makes it hard to work in a cardio day (if I want to keep one) because doing cardio after a squat day is just awful.

[lessthanluke]

Make wednesdays squats lighter and do some cardio on Thursday

[Liffguard]

I am thinking of quitting the current program I have which has a lot of different exercises and takes a while (because it's really designed for five days a week, rather than three) and switching to just alternating day 1 and day 2:

Day 1: Squat, Bench, Deadlift,

Day 2: Squat, Press, Clean

three days a week, That's fine for a Monday, Wed, Friday workout, but if I want to do something Friday night it makes it unlikely that a Monday Wednesday, Thursday workout will be effective, and a Monday Wednesday Saturday workout cuts into my weekend, rather than giving me two nice days off. the other caveat is it makes it hard to work in a cardio day (if I want to keep one) because doing cardio after a squat day is just awful.

You probably should include some pulling exercises in there, either pull ups or bent over rows. I use a pretty similar routine:

Day 1: Deadlift, overhead squat, bench press, pull ups

Day 2: Squat, bent over row, military press

[Greywolf2375]

Leg workout got pushed a day due to work. Kept it simple to see how things would go - leg press, calf raises, the other bicep curl, lunges and some adductor work. And my legs hate me but if feels so good! really have missed working on my legs and to boot, my knee didn't tweak once. Someday soon I'll be able to stand back in the squat rack again.

[Lucky Pierre]

What workout tools do you have at home?

I have one of these and one of these.

Yesterday (legs and abs) and I was to the puking stage on the last exercise (incline situps). I'm up to 70# on my squats and 120# on my leg press!

And can I just say that I LOVE the library... I went online, ordered BFL audio tapes, the cds were delivered via courier this morning, they have been loaded into iTunes and I will be listening to them for the next day or so. All I have to do now is just drop them back off at any library All for $0

:)

[Xray the Enforcer]

Got my arse to the gym this AM for some cardio, some stretching (I'm still a little sore in my legs from Monday's weight training) and then some upper-body training. I have no idea what each of these exercises is officially called. Maybe pull-downs (for lats?), chest presses, shoulder presses, and some exercise that works on shoulder rotation. Basically, hold your upper arm close to your body, then pull the cable (your elbow is the pivot point) 180 degrees from your belly button to the side of your body. I also did lunges, but those were a sad affair (due to the soreness).

[GoN]

I joined a gym today, for the first time in my life. I'm not sure what to do now, but I get a free one hour introductory session with a trainer on Tuesday, so maybe s/he can point me in the right direction. Lots and lots of cardio, as I need to really start working on my weight. But I plan to do some weight training as well. I'm weirdly excited about this.

Xray- I don't know the name of anything beyond a treadmill and a bike. :lol:

My gym offers a huge selection of classes- the usual spin, yoga, and step, but also some interesting choices like Body Combat and Kick Boxing. Anyone have any negative/positive experiences with the classes? Good for motivation/technique/variety?

[Stego]

I'm so proud of you, Ness!

Long ass email coming your way.

[SwordoftheMorning]

Aiight,

still on it. 5 days a week, but I keep doing myself .... taking Sunday, then Tuesday off, which means 4 straight, Weds. to Sat. arrrrrrrgh

Upped the ante this week. Went from 7 sets of 10 on each exercise to 4 set of 20 ... damn.

The difference is ..... noticeable. lol

but I'm glad to say no soreness, just feeling more pumped at the end of my workout

Do I dare 5 sets of 20 on each apparatus next week ? we shall see.

oh, yea. Correction. My mile time is down to 6 1/2 minutes. not 5 1/2, ( I wish ) So theoretically can max the Military test right ? 2 miles in 13 mins ? yea ........ NOT

(yet anyway)

Mina, we do have Arc Trainers at my gym, but I don't like the motion. The glider gives me the sensation of running, which is what my objective is. Building wind and endurance. For muscle work, I'll stick to the weights and machines. When the weather gets really nice, I'mma trying jogging the mile and a half or so from my house to the gym and back. Road work rules.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I joined a gym today, for the first time in my life.

w00t!!!! :cheers:

I am sure Stego is going to give you the rundown, but you definitely want to get weight/resistance training in with your cardio. It'll help you lose the fat more quickly if you have a lot of muscle sitting around metabolizing.

SOTM -- keep it up! :)

[Lord Dracarys]

I've been trying to basically rehaul alot of my habits. So I quit smoking and joined a gym for the first time since high school.

I've been reading through this thread, and the other one. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the information, and also a bit intimidated.

I was thinking of doing alternating days of weight traning, and cardio. It's been so long though that even after reading through this thread and a couple sites I'm still fairly lost with where to start.

[Kat]

My gym offers a huge selection of classes- the usual spin, yoga, and step, but also some interesting choices like Body Combat and Kick Boxing. Anyone have any negative/positive experiences with the classes? Good for motivation/technique/variety?

I go to classes at the gym all the time, but it really depends on the gym and the instructor. I would just try out the ones you can make it too, as many as possible, and then just choose the ones you liked. If it's a class with a lot of choreography and difficult steps, maybe try twice, because these things are almost impossible to pick up the first time. I don't think they're very good for technique, but the reason I go is that I like to have some variety in my life, and they introduce that very well. Also, it's motivation for me to do something on a particularly lazy day. (I hated gym class as a kid, by the way, but somehow it's grown on me as an adult. :P)

I ran today. Well, sort of, I had to take a few walking breaks, but I managed to go 3 miles. I'm sure I'm going to regret this tomorrow, but ah well.

[Red Sun]

I have not posted in the last week, but except for last Friday and Tuesday, I either made my exercises or used the bike. On Sunday, I made an almost 2 hour bike tour. As for exercises, yesterday, I did them in the morning: two sort of squats, lunges, something for the arms and shoulders, some variation of crunches for the core and for the back. And it was awesome, and I can still feel them.

I have not yet managed to go swimming as I wanted, since the swimming place has inconvenient opening hours, but it's certainly on my agenda.

[lokisnow]

leg day today, I did the same weight I did last week on squats, but five reps instead of six.

It turns out I have had years of small bad habits in my form I'm working to correct. Bar placement, Feet placement/width, how I drove a squat on the way up, depth, grip, eyeline, breathing technique, and staying off my toes. Those, at least, were the things I worked on today. HUGE thanks whoever it was that linked to Mark Rippetoe's book Starting Strength. I feel so enlightened and energized. I also thought I was doing squats right beforehand, how wrong I was, even though my squats were better than most of the people in the gym. the minor adjustments I made today were huge to me.

It's impressive how tenacious muscle memory is though, my muscles are used to doing squats a certain way, and by my last few reps of my last heavy sets the old muscle habits were trying to reassert themselves and do things the old/wrong way. :-p doing a squat properly definitely feels right.

I cut out a couple of the useless filler exercises from my workout, a trimming that was needed, and I did the squat warmup/heavyset routine in the manner Rippetoe suggests, which is 90% similar to how I'd been doing warmups, and I think I like his way better. I'll finish out this cycle of Max OT, then I'll convert to Rip's system.

[lessthanluke]

leg day today, I did the same weight I did last week on squats, but five reps instead of six.

It turns out I have had years of small bad habits in my form I'm working to correct. Bar placement, Feet placement/width, how I drove a squat on the way up, depth, grip, eyeline, breathing technique, and staying off my toes. Those, at least, were the things I worked on today. HUGE thanks whoever it was that linked to Mark Rippetoe's book Starting Strength. I feel so enlightened and energized. I also thought I was doing squats right beforehand, how wrong I was, even though my squats were better than most of the people in the gym. the minor adjustments I made today were huge to me.

It's impressive how tenacious muscle memory is though, my muscles are used to doing squats a certain way, and by my last few reps of my last heavy sets the old muscle habits were trying to reassert themselves and do things the old/wrong way. :-p doing a squat properly definitely feels right.

I cut out a couple of the useless filler exercises from my workout, a trimming that was needed, and I did the squat warmup/heavyset routine in the manner Rippetoe suggests, which is 90% similar to how I'd been doing warmups, and I think I like his way better. I'll finish out this cycle of Max OT, then I'll convert to Rip's system.

No problem. Rippetoe knows his shit .