Exercise and Fitness II

[Lucky Pierre]

you alternate weeks

wk1: U C L C U C off

wk2: L C U C L C off

so in 2weeks you do upper and lower 3x each.

Thats 6 days a week... :rolleyes:

[Eponine]

I learned my lesson about doing things with strangers... you never know who might turn out to be really tedious.

I met an older man yesterday on my run, and he started talking about all the different hikes and things to see in Denver. He asked if he could show me around Red Rocks, and I said ok. It's a well-frequented area and I figured that it wasn't any less safe than if I'd been alone and run across him on the trail, especially since he was old enough to be my grandfather.

He really was just a nice old man, but ohhh, it lasted ALL morning, he stopped to point out every little thing, and even after I said I needed to head back soon, it seemed like he got slower and slower. I think I'd better stick to my own running/hiking plans and meet random people through the running club.

[Stego]

No, it's not. Cardio is NOT the same thing as strength training.

I believe heartily in the ABA-BAB split.

It would look like this:

Week One:

Mon: Upper body workout

Tues: Cardio

Wed: Lower body workout

Thurs: Cardio

Fri: Upper body

Sat: Cardio

Sun: rest

Week Two:

Mon: Lower Body

Tues: Cardio

Wed: Upper Body

Thurs: Cardio

Fri: Lower body

Sat: Cardio

Sun: rest

You don't have to do cardio. A lot of people have a day of active rest. Biking or racquetball or something that is enjoyable and not intense. You never go more than 5 days between any group, and so you do these exercises "twice a week." A calendar is like scale weight.....it doesn't mean shit.

You can roll your eyes if you want, but you are working some muscles 3 times in 4-5 days, and you are not only making absolute certain that you will not gain muscle, but you are also seriously risking injury if you use real weight. (However, if you are using soloflex, it's a non-issue. You're not really lifting weights anyway.

Upper means upper body. Lower means lower body. Cut yourself in two at the waist. There's your upper and lower.

And drop ab workouts. No reason to do sit-ups. That is not how you get abs. Deadlifts and squats will do a lot more for them. Cutting your body fat will do the most.

I stated that just because a LOT of people are wrong about something it does not make it less wrong. (Simply because a lot of people are wrong, get it?)

You seem generally dedicated to improving your performance in the gym. I would recommend doing some homework and saving yourself months and months of mistakes.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I want Stego to be my personal trainer.

I have adopted him as mine :)

[seastarr]

I once helped a pro body builder choreograph his routine that he did before the judges. Just the stand and flex stuff. He was having trouble transitioning from one flex to the next without looking like a clod. That project really brought home the problem with just working out to LOOK a certain way. This guy was all built up, but he couldn't move in a coordinated way to pay his bills. How silly is that?

I favor the approach that every exercise is for your whole body. That's how you live, and that's how you move. So I hardly ever think about my workouts as broken down into arm day or leg day or anything. I do exercise for my whole body, everyday, but I focus especially on my center while I do my exercises, whatever they happen to be. Center is where any movement should begin, whether you're picking up a heavy thing, scaling a wall, swinging a bat, or leveraging yourself up to standing on a surfboard. It's the point of integration that makes the body work as one coordinated unit. Center makes the body agile and adept and economical in motion.

[lokisnow]

spinning off Chat's mention of donating blood in the other thread, how do you all mix blood donations and working out. I generally take a week off from working out every eight weeks, so that would be the time for me to donate. but if I were to donate blood during an eight week workout session, how much recovery time should I take between the donation and the next workout?

[Elrostar]

I just did a three mile jog on 2% incline (6mph) followed by an upper body workout. I tried to follow Stego's suggested workout as best as I could, but those pull-ups were just killing me. I anticipate severe stiffness to come, but it will be good.

And running is getting so much easier now that I'm getting back into the swing of things. It's just a question of setting aside the time to actually go to the gym now.

Frosty, it will get much much easier the more you do it. Initially you should see a very steep improvement curve. Then you're likely to kind of hit a sort of period of where that initial burst has hit its maximum and progress becomes much slower. That's been my personal experience, in any case. Results may vary.

[QuietColours]

I had a great night at the gym tonight. It was a mostly beam-and-floor night, and I had solid cartwheels on the middle beam. The only thing keeping me off high beam was the lack of safety spot--I'm a chicken. My cross handstand was going really well too. I can now do all of the level five beam routine except the dismount. Round off back handsprings were going really well on floor, too. I'll have them by myself as soon as I stop being afraid of running into the coach. Front handsprings and back extension rolls really came together, too. Bars didn't go very well, but at least I got an arm workout jumping back into a front support every time I fell. Didn't vault tonight--they had a visiting member of the men's national team working out, mostly on vault, and I didn't want to get in his way. It was really cool to watch, though.

I think when you donate blood, the official recommendation is to avoid working out for either eight or twenty-four hours. I think a lot of it depends on how well you usually tolerate giving blood--I've watched some people go straight into working out without any real problems. I'm usually out of commission until the next day, to the extent where I really shouldn't take the stairs for risk of blacking out--but I'm a little smaller then is actually supposed to donate. If you can workout without feeling the effects, I'm not sure if it would impact the quality of your workout at all or not.

[Elrostar]

This blood-donation talk is making me envious :( I'm not allowed to donate blood in the US because I grew up in Denmark. Apparently having spent more than five years in Europe since 1980 means you're ineligible to donate blood over here.

For a while I was just ineligible because of the time I'd spent in the UK (although it was after the time of the mad cow disease), but they've now changed their requirements. I'd be ok as far as my time in the UK, but I'd fail because of my years in Denmark. Bah.

[Kat]

I'm not allowed to give blood because I would fall down the stairs.

(Last time I went to donate blood, they tried and tried to find my veins, and failed. Then I passed out. I have genetically lowish blood pressure, and my doctor described me as having a "strong shock system", which as far as I can tell, has no benefits at all, and just means I faint when I get poked too much with needles. Or think about needles. Or walk into a medical office. :rolleyes:)

[mashiara]

I'm not allowed to give blood because I would fall down the stairs.

Same here. I donated blood for the first 3 years after I turned 18, then I developed iron deficiency and started fainting all over the place. I'm better now and I'm not taking any supplements currently, but every time I try to donate blood they test me and turn me down.

I hate needles too.

Our brand new elevator keeps breaking down. Having to climb 80+ steps carrying school books or groceries after being on my feet all day at work is giving me an unexpected -and not entirely welcome- workout.

[Lord of Oop North]

So, it's been a while since I posted in here, but whatever.

My friends somehow convinced me to join an adult soccer league for the summer, and we've been practicing every day for the last week or so. Mind you, I've never played competitive soccer in my life, and while I watch soccer, I don't really know how to play. Lacrosse is more my thing, but none of them play ... so that wasn't an option. So far, it has been a great bit of cardio exercise, and has also been a lot of fun. My knee is a lot stronger then I thought it was (thank god for UHC ;) ) and like everything I've done since my surgery, it has been awesome to prove to myself that I can do things.

Next week, I will hopefully get to do a bit of rock climbing (weather permitting). I'm very excited about that. I have been meaning to knock it off my 'list' for a long time. I've done a fair bit of scrambling and love mountaineering, but I have never really gotten the chance to do honest rock climbing. I'm hoping to expand my skillset and perhaps tackle some more difficult mountains in the future.

For general workout stuff, I just moved, and still have not located the nearest gym. I have not really had much time to go search for it. I also have not re-setup my chin-up bar, brought over my weights, or any other equipment. Lazy me, I know. I guess I should get on that.

[seastarr]

So, it's been a while since I posted in here, but whatever.

Next week, I will hopefully get to do a bit of rock climbing (weather permitting). I'm very excited about that. I have been meaning to knock it off my 'list' for a long time. I've done a fair bit of scrambling and love mountaineering, but I have never really gotten the chance to do honest rock climbing. I'm hoping to expand my skillset and perhaps tackle some more difficult mountains in the future.

For general workout stuff, I just moved, and still have not located the nearest gym. I have not really had much time to go search for it. I also have not re-setup my chin-up bar, brought over my weights, or any other equipment. Lazy me, I know. I guess I should get on that.

Sounds like fun! I used to do some climbing but I haven't had much time for it since I landed here in NorCal. I have this little wall that I built for fun. I just try to get on the wall and stay off the ground for five or ten minutes. It's half vertical, and then there's a sloped overhang and a corner to play on. These days I mostly just hang off it like a monkey, but at one time it was actually a pretty useful training tool for climbing (esp. finger and grip strength) even though it isn't particularly high. It fits in 12 foot ceilings.

[lokisnow]

cardio day, I do an hour on the treadmill. Last week I suprised myself and did forty-two minutes or so at a 2 degree incline at 5.5mph before slowing down for a few minutes of walking to catch my breath. this week I figured I'd give it a go at 3 degree incline at 5.5mph... and I was wiped by fifteen minutes and pushed through to get to twenty five minutes. and I walked a lot more than I normally would. :-p not a great day, but that degree of incline makes a big deal. :-p

[Stego]

Abs are built in the kitchen. Abs are built in the kitchen. Abs are built in the kitchen.

That is all for today.

[Minaku]

cardio day, I do an hour on the treadmill. Last week I suprised myself and did forty-two minutes or so at a 2 degree incline at 5.5mph before slowing down for a few minutes of walking to catch my breath. this week I figured I'd give it a go at 3 degree incline at 5.5mph... and I was wiped by fifteen minutes and pushed through to get to twenty five minutes. and I walked a lot more than I normally would. :-p not a great day, but that degree of incline makes a big deal. :-p

Locke, give walking at 3.5 - 4.0 at 15% a try. It is fantastic.

[Stego]

I like to walk at 15 incline, 3.0 speed. kicks my butt.

ETA: Oh, that's what you just said. Except faster. I'm not there yet. :P

[Minaku]

I like to walk at 15 incline, 3.0 speed. kicks my butt.

ETA: Oh, that's what you just said. Except faster. I'm not there yet. :P

Takes a month but slowly you will get there. Back when I was still allowed to do hard cardio like that I was doing it 3, 4 days a week, so my progress was pretty good. When I am done holding a second person in my body my goal will be to get to 4.5. My trainer fucking runs at 5.5 at 15% for 45 minutes, she is nuts.

Of course listening to the appropriate bpm music while holding onto the rails on the treadmill for dear life will help a lot. When I'm walking at 4.0, the music needs to have a micro beat of at least 144 to keep me going, or else I will be unhappy and/or fall on my face and get treadmill burn (sadly, I have already done the second, got distracted for half a second, WHAM).

[Vethnar]

Lifting weights is fun, and getting stronger and faster is great, but there is one thing I really hate about weight training: In the long run, it makes me bigger and heavier. For some reason I've never been able to comprehend, some people seem to actually like this, but I don't: I have better ways to use my strength than moving a heavier body.

Of course I realize that it is not possible to get stronger without some increase in muscle size, but I would like to maximize the relative strength (that is, the ratio between strength and my body weight) rather than absolute strength. Any advice about how to achieve this? I'm already trying to do few (at most 6) and heavy reps, and not to eat too much proteins.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

I can't donate blood anymore, either, since I lived in Germany from 1980-1985.

Those travel restrictions sure are idiotic.

Same here. I was there from 89-92. :(

No workout today or tomorrow. No food to fuel it. :(