Fitness freak?

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

This might be a good thread to ask this question - If you feel sore from your previous workout, should you take a day off and let the muscles heal or relax? I never know whether I should push through and workout anyways when that happens or if I should skip a days workout and then get back into it? Thoughts?

rest days are definitely important. But if you're going to work out a day when you're sore, take it a little easier and you should be all right.

Trying to shake this damn cold, then I'm going to be hitting the rollers in my basement and get some cycling interval training in. I have two big bike races in 08 I'll be doing and a lot of work to do to get into the shape I want to be in.

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by J pold

This thread is perfectly timed for me I plan in the new year to get back too the gym, I am teetering on the overweight scale which for me as a person who is normally very active is not good

I stopped going to the Gym regularly about a year ago when school and work didn’t leave me with enough time, since that time I have been meaning to go back but it just hasn’t happened

I am hoping that this can change in the New Year and that I can get back into the shape I was in a coupe of years ago

Do any of you guys have any sort of recommendations in terms of a good program? I am not looking for anything too intense, but I would like to get a regular mixture of weight training and cardio…I am about 6’4, 225 and am looking to be at the gym 3-4 times a week

Sounds like you are in the same workout regiment as me so I'll tell you what I do

3-4 times per week

start off with 30 minutes on elipticle, then jump on the bike for another 25 minutes

I usually only work out a major muscle group once per week

day 1 Chest and Triceps 4 sets of 8, 3 different excercises for each muscle group increasing weight every 2-3 weeks as needed

day 2 Back and Biceps

day 3 Shoulders and Legs

If I go a forth day I start back at day 1

before I Stretch at the end of each workout I usually try to do some ab and core excercises. Nothing as extensive as the above workouts because i'm doing it every day or every second day.

It keeps me in shape and keeps the wife on my back about staying active.

[Muta]

Is there any way to get your metabolism to slow down? Mine is ridiculously high.... I'm 24, and it seems like it hasn't changed since I was 12.

Us ectomorphs prolly have a harder time changing the way we look than meso or endomorphs. Maybe it's just a combination of much greater food intake and lifting heavy weights that will do the trick, I dunno. Any advice / sharing of experience would be good!

[worth]

Started doing this workout for about 4 months about 3x per week.

http://www.rippedworkout.ca/

It's a total body workout and lasted about an hour. It combined low weight with high reps. Was almost cardio in itself. The program is more geared to women and overweight people. Both of which I am not. I'm a 24 year old male at about 5'7" and 140lbs. The program helps reducing injuries and is good for endurance and that sort of thing. However I found myself wanting to get a little bit bigger, not just lifting low weights. I found that I definitely couldn't lift as much as I could before when I was doing normal weight training.
So what I’ve done is taken the workouts from the program I’ve been doing for the last 4 months and integrated those into a higher weight, lower rep routine.

Routine includes:

Squats
Lunges
Stiff leg dead lift
Bent knee dead lift
Chest press
Overhead press
Chest flys
Pushups
Tricep dips
Skull crushers
Overhead pulls
Bicep curls
Abs

And a few other things I can't remember at the moment.

Should probably break this up into separate days, but I’ve been doing it all in one session in about an hour. Probably less intense than someone who does 4 of those things in one session, but I am trying do this 3x per week.

In addition to weights, I recently acquired a stationary bike and do cardio on days I’m not lifting. I don't really like going to the gym so all of my routine is done in my house with basically free weights and a bench press.

The first time I went from my normal routine of light weight high reps to high weight low reps I really felt it the next day.

What I’m really looking for is a program that I can do with free weights at home in my own time about an hour long 3x per week. Don’t think I’ve found that yet unfortunately. So if anyone has any recommendations, I’m all ears.

[burn_baby_burn]

I have been weight training for a couple years now. Earlier this year my wife and I had a baby boy and I found it hard to get to the gym. I knew I needed to go early in the morning but the hardest part was motivating myself to get up at 5:30am everyday. I did it once back in September and it has been easy. (not so easy after Flames home games).

I run on the treadmill on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I use the hill program on the treadmill. Right now I am running 2.75 miles with a quarter mile warmup and a quarter mile cool down. After my cardio I do my ab work.

On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday I do my strength training. I alternate doing arms / legs one day. Then chest, back, shoulders another day.

I use SuperPump 250 before my workouts. Then before bed I take Size On. I highly recommend both of these products.

At present I am 6'0" bare foot and my weight fluctuates between 205lbs to 220lbs. For instance I was 205lbs Monday morning on the balance scale at the gym. Tuesday morning I was 214.5lbs on the same scale. Go figure?

As for injuries? In the past I would try to work through them. But I found things only got worse. If it is real bad I will just quit doing certain exercises for extended periods of time. Currently my left shoulder has really been bothering me. It feels like somebody is sticking a knife into it when I do heavy bench presses. So I cut the weight way down and do more reps. I'm too stupid to go to a doctor.

[mykalberta]

Sicne I have to walk past my gym to and from home -> work.

Here is my sked.

M
AM: 30 Bike, 15 Tread, 20 Row, 50 Pushups, 35*5 Crunches
PM: 30 Tread, Bicep/Chest
T
AM: 15 Tread, 20 Row, 50 Pushups, 35*5 Crunches, Wtball exc
PM: 30 Tread, Shoulder/Back
W
AM: 30 Bike, 15 Tread, 20 Row, 50 Pushups, 35*5 Crunches
PM: 30 Tread, Leg/Tricep
H
AM: 15 Tread, 20 Row, 50 Pushups, 35*5 Crunches, Wtball exc
PM: 30 Tread, Ball work.
F
AM: 15 Bike, 30 Tread, 20 Row, 50 Pushups, 35*5 Crunches, WtBall
S
AM: 15 Bike, 30 Row, 30 Stair, 100 Pushups, 35*10 Crunches, Leg/Generic, WtBall, Ball Work
S
AM: Nothing.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

I think a lot of the problems could be fixed in gym class itself (in addition to better health education). 1/2 of gym class consisted of rhymic gymnastics or social dance, not exactly ideal for getting the heart rate up. Rarely was there a lot of emphasis on what I would call "fun sports", at least when I was in school.

I can probably count the number of times I played floor hockey one 1 hand in gym. Flag football? Almost never. Things that you think might get kids interested in gym, really weren't played. The majority of the time was spent in either of the 2 areas above, or track and field. Gym wasn't fun for a lot of people.

When you're having fun, you are more likely to get your heart rate up and have a much better workout as a result.

Ain't that the truth.

I hated the fact that our gym teacher focused on stretching/drills/classroom stuff for 75% of the class, and if we were lucky we would be able to play in the 20 min of the class.

Otherwise we'd run suicides the last 20 min, depending on whether or not we behaved during the first 3/4 of the class.

Honestly, with an all guys class, it didn't take more than 10 min before everyone was screwing around.

Even Grade 12 Physical Education, where you supposedly get to do more 'fun stuff'....we spent A LOT of time in the classroom 'reading' about the stuff, rather than being out there doing it.

[return to the red]

It's ironic that 2 hours after posting my work out schedule I sit here now eating a double Big Mac Meal. all 1100 calories of it

Just thought I would share that little piece of irony

[Azure]

Originally Posted by return to the red

It's ironic that 2 hours after posting my work out schedule I sit here now eating a double Big Mac Meal. all 1100 calories of it

Just thought I would share that little piece of irony

I have days like that too.

The Big Mac in itself is not the problem; eating it 3 times a day, months on end is where the problem is. And I have a hard time believing that people are actually so stupid that they think its even 'slightly' healthy.

Hopefully you're not doing that.

[Azure]

Me and CaramonLS were talking about HIIT earlier, so some of you might be wondering what it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-in...erval_training

....is a brief explanation, but it doesn't explain how it really works.

Here is a better explanation...

The reason that High Intensity Interval Training works better for fat loss is this: When you do a cardio session at the same pace the whole time, your body goes into what is called steady state. This means that your body has adjusted itself to the speed you are going and tries hard to conserve energy (calories). You will be able to avoid this and burn more calories and FAT by doing the interval training.

The easiest way that I tell people to do it is to start off at a good pace for 5 minutes. Then take up the intensity on the machine and go as hard and as fast as you possibly can for a minute and then bring it back down for a minute or two — however long it takes for you to recover enough to do it again. ANY cardio machine will work — I like the treadmill and the elliptical trainer the best.

Another easy way to introduce yourself to this kind of cardio without killing yourself right off the bat is simply to keep changing your speed and intensity level every two minutes or so — go up and down — challenge yourself. This will "trick" your body into burning more calories since it can not achieve steady state.

When it comes to the heart rate question— whether to stay lower or higher — this is your answer. At a lower % of max heart rate (65%), a larger percentage of calories burned come from fat than at a higher heart rate (75-85%). HOWEVER, despite the percentages, you will burn more total calories and therefore more total fat calories at a higher heart rate.

I've done it for a few select months to change everything up....and my progress was amazing with all my other cardio after my month of doing HIIT was up.

I also recommend it for people who have limited time to workout.

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Azure

I have days like that too.

The Big Mac in itself is not the problem; eating it 3 times a day, months on end is where the problem is. And I have a hard time believing that people are actually so stupid that they think its even 'slightly' healthy.

Hopefully you're not doing that.

It's a rare treat, I can't hide it from my wife well enough to consume Mcdicks that often

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Azure

Me and CaramonLS were talking about HIIT earlier, so some of you might be wondering what it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-in...erval_training

....is a brief explanation, but it doesn't explain how it really works.

Here is a better explanation...



I've done it for a few select months to change everything up....and my progress was amazing with all my other cardio after my month of doing HIIT was up.

I also recommend it for people who have limited time to workout.

If you were riding the stationary bike (fancy elelctronic ones), would the random Hill pretty much be the same thing ie. increasing difficulty etc.?

[GreenLantern]

I have never worked swimming into my routine. I spend a lot of time in pools and at the lake in the summer, so I do a fair amount of swimming, but never for a specific work out. That is something that I have always wanted to do on a regular basis, I understand it is huge in getting 'cut'. What type of swimming routines do you typically do Wookie?

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by return to the red

If you were riding the stationary bike (fancy elelctronic ones), would the random Hill pretty much be the same thing ie. increasing difficulty etc.?

Kind of, but HIIT sort of works on the principle of pushing yourself to the absolute limit, then taking a break for a few, then doing it all over again.

What you are talking about is more along the lines of interval training, which is still very effective.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by return to the red

If you were riding the stationary bike (fancy elelctronic ones), would the random Hill pretty much be the same thing ie. increasing difficulty etc.?

Are you going all-out for it?

A good way to know if you're actually doing HIIT instead of Medium Intensity Interval Training is if you can keep doing something for more than a minute, you're doing MIIT.

I last 30 seconds when I do HIIT.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

I have never worked swimming into my routine. I spend a lot of time in pools and at the lake in the summer, so I do a fair amount of swimming, but never for a specific work out. That is something that I have always wanted to do on a regular basis, I understand it is huge in getting 'cut'. What type of swimming routines do you typically do Wookie?

Swimming has the 'great' advantage of giving you a total body workout all at once.

And the more muscles you use in a given time = more calories burned. Hence the belief that it is huge if you're cutting.

[Ozy_Flame]

I think swimming is severely underrated in making a weekly workout routine. I am not doing it as often now, but a few months ago I was pushing 30 laps a day in the swimming pool, where i was increasing by 5 laps every week. I started at 4 laps, and worked from there.

If you have proper form, and continually stretch, you are definitely primed to shape your torso and tone your arms a bit. It's refreshing too, and you feel great after you're done.

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by Azure

Are you going all-out for it?

A good way to know if you're actually doing HIIT instead of Medium Intensity Interval Training is if you can keep doing something for more than a minute, you're doing MIIT.

I last 30 seconds when I do HIIT.

When I'm HIITing it I don't last nearly that long

Never really paid attention. I know at the end of a level my freakin legs are burning like crazy but those only last like twenty seconds anyhow.

I'll really keep an eye on that from here on out though thanks

[Azure]

Originally Posted by return to the red

When I'm HIITing it I don't last nearly that long

Never really paid attention. I know at the end of a level my freakin legs are burning like crazy but those only last like twenty seconds anyhow.

I'll really keep an eye on that from here on out though thanks

No problem.

I've done HIIT in the early morning before....on an empty stomach, while I felt sluggish.

It gives you an incredible amount of energy for the rest of the day. Perhaps a by-product of your metabolism shooting through the roof after you're done? Never know.

[Jetsfan]

I do six hours of cardio a week...1 hour a day. I lift weights twice a week...I never go heavy just lots of reps with good form.