Weight lifting/fitness thread

[Jeremy C]

After reading the "100 pushups" thread in general, I figured might as well see if there is anyone else that is working out regularly.

Anyone that knows me knows I ain't a small fella. I don't have a sweet tooth - I have a sweet jaw. I eat way too much junk, and simply don't take the time to try to work any of the extra crap off. For the longest, I would much prefer to my activity to be in from of my PC blowing heads off and bitching if I ran out of stamina in game.

Then a couple weeks ago, it hit me that something as simple as walking across the parking lot to the cafeteria, walking back, and going up a set of steps back to my cube would wind me. I would be breathing fairly hard to where I couldn't hold a normal conversation due to breathing.

I'm 29. I've got a loving girlfriend, and her 3 kids think I'm the greatest. I can't let myself waste away like this. I decided it was time to start using the small gym that my apartment complex has. It's only open during business hours, so I shifted my work schedule up to where when I get off, I can get home and have time for a decent workout. I carry my clothes to change with me and a water bottle so that I have no excuse to go home.

I started going to the gym in modest about 6 weeks ago. The first 2 weeks, I didn't even touch weights. 4 days a week of nothing but biking. I was averaging about 6 miles each day before my legs started to really complain, and I was running enough resistance to where I was unsteady when I stood up afterwards. No heart rate monitor on the bokes, so I had to use the "is my heart about to burst out of my chest?" unit of measurement. :D

After the first 2 weeks, I decided to mix it up and start adding weight training. I'm very limited as there are no free weights and only one multi-function machine (simulated bench/incline, lat pull down, and military press, then a ground hookup for accessories and one high hookup for accessories, of which there are none to hookup, then the standard hamstring/calf machine). I started with simply running through 3 sets of 7 reps, working my best to fail on the last rep. I've found a place that sells the straight bar accessory and rope for pretty cheap, so I'll be buying the accessories myself so that I can do more isolated workouts. At this moment, I alternate days of aerobics and weights until I can add more weight training and get to 4 days weights, one aerobic.

I still have to work on my diet, as that's the most important part of fitness, and easily my worst traight. Even with the amount of weight I can lift increasing (already upped my bench 40lbs from the start) and my stamina getting better, I'm not losing any weight, and I'm not noticing a change in my girth as of yet. I can see definition in my arms and upper chest that weren't there before (and I think my legs are slimming a little but can't tell for sure), but my belly is just as woefully large.

So now that I have a set workout routine, time to get the healthy food thing down. I do not look forward to this as it's going to require a shift in the entire families eating habits. Any good meals that are cheap, can feed 7.5 adults (3 kids that eat like 5.5 adults), and easy to prep? How about simple things that can be taken to work?

[DocWalt]

Beans.

Congrats on the work so far, I've gained a good bit of weight, and would like to lose it as well. Gonna start with the 100 pushups thing, and mix in some of their other programs too.

[Zaroth]

When I was serious into working out I generally premade meals of chicken and vegetables and put them in those ziplock plastic containers. I tryed to limit the amount of olive oil and butter I cooked with also. Focus on a 4-5 small protein rich meals a day and cut out ALL other drinks besides water. Drinking some caffeine before you go to the gym will help out. I generally did it in a cup of coffee or so. Helps with giving you that burst of energy that keeps you working out hard.

Also, if you are trying to lose weight and get in shape you need to be doing more reps of less weight. Doing 3 sets of 7 reps is good for building strength and muscle mass, but more reps of less weight will build endurance and burn more calories. Muscle burns fat, so either way you will lose weight. If your trying to slim down though I would go with more reps.

Sounds like your doing great on your cardio. I need to get back in to working out. Been hella lazy lately. :redface:

[Jeremy C]

I'm not too worried about dropping weight at the moment as I'm not obese by any stretch (~210, 6'0"). I'm hoping to get back down to about 180lbs, but my immediate goal is to rebuild loss muscle. I have Muscular Dystrophy, so any muscle I can build and keep is an extreme bonus to keeping myself in good health later on. That's why I went with the lower rep/higher weight to start with. I figure when I vary my routine around week 16 or so I'll switch to higher rep/lower weight for a while. By that time I should have put on a couple lbs of muscle mass which will help burn extra calories and will compound with the higher calorie burn routine at that time to really cut down the weight.

My main concern is trying to get a good all around exercise routine AND diet combined as the kitchen is just as important as the gym when it comes to being healthy.

[Zaroth]

I generally tryed to stay away from all processed sugar. White bread, white rice, all that fun stuff. I think the biggest thing that really helped me was cutting all drinks besides water. I went from 195 to 155 in about 6 months with just cutting my sugar/carb intake, pounding water, and doing an hour of weight lifting and 30 mins of cardio a day 5 days out of the week. Left the weekends for recuperation.

[Lugnut]

Get p90x .. Trust me .. And listen to the posts above eating wise .. And if thats not enough and you really wanna get straight ripped hard body, get p90x and insanity .. If you can physically do both you will end up on a wheaties box ..

[beepbeep]

Good for you, Jeremy.
Since guys and gals are so different physically, I'll leave that kind of advise to the fellas. :P
To make good eating habits that can last I do the following....(and they do become HABITS!):
Always leave something on your plate.
Never go back for seconds.

I eat a lot of stuff that I love, but I don't overindulge. I also go to the gym, but I don't work out to be 'ripped' or 'model skinny'. I just wanna be healthy.

[lawdogg]

Skipping leg day again today. :o

[3kgt1734]

If weights ever get old pick up Jiu Jitsu! I personally hate weights, they are wayyyy too boring for me.

The classes I take are a freaking blast! You will definitley lose weight! There is a guy at my gym who started out at 207 pounds and now competes in the 150's (he walks around at 165ish). Strength or age doesn't matter in the slightest. For instance, I'm 17 years old and 175 lbs. And can school people in their 20's who are 200+ lbs. But I get my ass handed to me buy a guy who is 54 years old and weighs MAYBE 130lbs!

[marshallh]

I have the opposite problem. I can't gain weight. I'm 135lbs 6', and the 5lbs is after lifting 5 days a week and taking a gainer/protein supplement for the past 4 months.

I have a long way to go.

[bluemax_1]

Simple advice for hard gainers (I used to be one). First off, don't get overly concerned on weight. Granted, at 6' and 135#, you don't have much bodyfat at all, but it's still possible to change your body composition/condition while your weight remains the same.

The key to gaining mass for hard gainers is simple. Adequate muscle loading, nutrition and rest. Miss one of them and it doesn't work too well.

One of the mistakes I made was overtraining while not eating enough. Zero sum game. The food you eat ends up just repairing the damage you've done without adding anything.

Workout hard enough to stress your muscles. Keep repetitions to about 8-10 reps per set. With the exception of your warmup set (the first set of an exercise using light-medium weight), Progressively increase the weight from sets 1-4 so that your last 2 sets, you can just barely get the 8th rep.

Regardless of what else you eat, make sure you get at least 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight daily. Spread it out over 5-6 meals/servings i.e. don't go more than 3 hours without consuming some protein. If you don't eat enough, you can't build more muscle. If you already eat a lot and STILL don't build muscle, then you have a very high metabolism and you need to eat MORE to provide calories for the high metabolism AND fuel muscle growth. For me, when I was in college and working out a lot, my metabolism was insanely high. I needed to eat all the time just to maintain my weight. Going more than 4-5 hours without any food resulted in catabolism where my body would break down muscle protein for fuel. Just ONE day of a 6-8 hour period of not eating while being out and about (not working out, just doing daily activities) would result in a 1-2 lbs weight loss (which was not from dehydration) and a loss in strength that would take days to rebuild (i.e. instead of adding about 5lbs to my bench every week, ONE day of not eating for 6-8 hours would set me back a week or 2). In fact, another thing that seemed to help was downing a small (~30grams of protein) protein shake within a 1/2 hour before bed time (not pure whey) and waking up in the middle of my regular sleep period to down another small protein shake to maintain a positive nitrogen balance in the bloodstream overnight. I used pure whey protein for the mid-sleep shake because it digests and is absorbed very rapidly.

Get at least 8 hours of sleep a day. Your body heals and rebuilds while you sleep.

DON'T train more than 5 days a week. In fact, if the nutrition and rest coupled with 8-10 rep sets doesn't produce results (and you're working out 5 times a week) you might want to REDUCE your training to 3-4 times a week. I actually found that for me, I gained faster when I reduced my lifting to 3-4 days a week (just do a light workout, no more than 15-20 minutes tops if you absolutely feel a need to workout more often). Reduce cardio exercise and focus on strength training.

Generally, for strength and power, I tend to go as heavy as I can for 2-4 reps (meaning as much weight as you can handle so you can't do more than 3-4 reps). This tends to lead in strength increases faster (in a 2-3 month period, I went from using a 45-50lbs dumbbell for bicep curls to a 70-75lbs dumbbell). 8-10 reps tends to help build mass and strength. 16 reps or more per set tends to work best for toning without building as much mass.

A 2-3 week interval with 16-20 rep sets (moderate weight so you could potentially do 25 reps but limit yourself to 16-20) should be performed every couple of months for folks focusing on strength (3-4 rep max sets). This is to allow the connective tissue to keep up with your strength gains and should be done even with the 8-10 rep programs. Muscle tissue reacts to increased stress much faster and your muscular growth can outstrip the development of your ligaments and tendons (which tend to adapt at a slower rate). Continue with a hard core muscle/strength building program without a break and you can reach the point where your muscles can generate more force than your tendons can support and you can start experiencing injuries that can set back your training.

A 2-week break of doing the lighter intensity sets allows time for the body to recover and the rest of your body to catch up. I've found that this 2 week break or sometimes even a week off from strength training with nothing but light cardio (no maximal exertion on anything, just enough to get the heart rate up), and I tend to come back even stronger.

If you want even more specific advise, try talking to i3igPete.


Max

[Zaroth]

How often do you eat marshall? I had a friend that I use to work out with that was like that. His problem was that he had really bad eating habits. He would eat two HUGE meals a day which is really bad for good weight gain and building muscle. For gaining weight I would say to eat 3-4 high protein high carb meals every day not including the protein shake, maybe more if you have a good workout routine.

[marshallh]

For me, when I was in college and working out a lot, my metabolism was insanely high. I needed to eat all the time just to maintain my weight. Going more than 4-5 hours without any food resulted in catabolism where my body would break down muscle protein for fuel. Just ONE day of a 6-8 hour period of not eating while being out and about (not working out, just doing daily activities) would result in a 1-2 lbs weight loss (which was not from dehydration) and a loss in strength that would take days to rebuild (i.e. instead of adding about 5lbs to my bench every week, ONE day of not eating for 6-8 hours would set me back a week or 2). In fact, another thing that seemed to help was downing a small (~30grams of protein) protein shake within a 1/2 hour before bed time (not pure whey) and waking up in the middle of my regular sleep period to down another small protein shake to maintain a positive nitrogen balance in the bloodstream overnight. I used pure whey protein for the mid-sleep shake because it digests and is absorbed very rapidly.


Thanks for the info Max. I would say that describes me down to a T. I am a bottomless pit.

Right now I am eating 3 times a day, lifting about 7pm and taking the supplement after that. I do usually 3 sets of 10, and get to maybe 6-7 on the last set.


It sounds like I need to start eating more, thanks again for the tips.

[Jeremy C]

Well, oddly enough - I stepped on my scales yesterday and I've dropped 5 lbs in about 2 weeks. I haven't changed any habits whatsoever. Guess my body doesn't intend to drop smoothly. I'm working on figuring out a 5-meal day that I can work into my job. I used to do a protein shake that would replace actual food for the meals between the 3 major ones, so I might go back to that since it was easy to prep before I left for work.

I will say that having definition in my arms, shoulders, chest, and my thighs (calfs were always defined just because I've got sticks for legs under my knees) is starting to feel pretty good. Actually having bumps in places I didn't before is always a treat. :)

[bluemax_1]

Thanks for the info Max. I would say that describes me down to a T. I am a bottomless pit.

Right now I am eating 3 times a day, lifting about 7pm and taking the supplement after that. I do usually 3 sets of 10, and get to maybe 6-7 on the last set.


It sounds like I need to start eating more, thanks again for the tips.
Yeah, eating more will definitely help. Like I said, you need enough protein to build muscle. Although there are folks making good gains and progress eating healthy whole foods, getting enough protein daily is the area where I've found (for me) protein supplementation to be the key. For me, it would take more time, and effort to ensure that I can eat 5-6 actual meals daily to get enough protein which is where the protein shakes/supplements come in. So easy to just bring along a shaker bottle with the serving of protein powder in it, when it's time, add water, gulp down, back to whatever I'm doing. Much faster and more convenient for me. I actually down protein shakes on average ~3 times a day + the 3 normal meals. Yeah, it ain't the cheapest, but the convenience pays for itself. I bring 2 44gram servings to work and space 'em out about every 3 hours.

I also buy my supplements online as it tends to be cheaper shipped to my door than the 'ol GNC discount BS. I order my supplements from FitRX. They ship to me generally the next day (they're only 1 state over from me). $24 shipped to my door for a 2.71 lbs can of BSN Syntha-6 (best tasting protein shakes ever!), vs. $43.xx at GNC (last time I looked).


Actually having bumps in places I didn't before is always a treat. :)

Better get those lumps checked out by the doctor :p



BTW, for hard gainers heer are a couple of extra tips that worked for me (as always YMMV):

I tend to lift weights 4 times a week and this is how I space them out i.e. what's worked best for me:
Day 1 - Chest and back
Day 2 - Shoulders
Day 3 - Rest
Day 4 - Arms
Day 5 - Legs
Day 6 - Rest
Day 7 - Rest

The exercises I actually perform vary (gotta mix it up every few weeks/months so the body doesn't get used to it). There are tons of varieties to choose from so find out what works for you and keep it simple. If you're going for gains as opposed to definition, stick to the basic exercises and forget about the extreme isolation exercises (i.e. bench or dumbbell presses as opposed to pec-decs).

Folks may wonder why those combos or if there's any significance to doing what on which days. Well, some folks tend to prefer working the pushing muscles on one day (eg. chest, triceps, front and medial deltoids), and pulling muscles another day (eg, back, biceps, rear deltoids etc.). I tend to prefer working antagonistic muscle groups on the same day (chest and back one day, biceps and triceps another etc.). I recall years ago reading something about a study that said that working out antagonistic muscle groups on the same day resulted in greater recruitment of the muscle fibers and better forced adaptation (growth). Who knows, every so often someone comes out with a different study that says one thing followed by someone else with another study saying something else. Antagonistic groups works for me.

As for the order of the days, I came up with that order for some specific reasons.

The muscles of the chest and back are large and require quite a bit of load to stress them and force adaptation (growth) when compared to other muscle groups (except the quads). The problem is that just about all exercises that work the chest and back tend to work the arms and shoulders/delts as well, which is why I spaced the body parts the way I did. By doing it that way, I allow as much rest/recovery time as possible for the arms and especially the delts before engaging in the chest and back day. Trying to use enough resistance/weight to stress the chest and back while the delts were recovering (or the arms were still weak/not fully recovered) could result in shoulder strain/injuries, so I try to give them as much time as necessary to recover fully before subjecting them to the loading from chest and back day.

The rest period on day 3 gives the arms a little time to recover before I exert them (and for me, my arms seem to recover pretty quick). I also put leg day last in line before the 2 day break because for me, I HATE working out my legs. It takes the most out of me, and I prefer having the 2 days to recover before anything strenuous again. I discovered that for me, working out my legs really hard resulted in a reduction in maximal exertion of other body parts the day after, so by allowing a couple of days rest, I give my body enough time to recover. That also means that I have 3 days for my arms to recuperate before chest and back day (5 days for my shoulders to recover).

BTW, in an earlier post, I also touched on giving your connective tissue time to catch up with the muscular development by taking a break from training heavy for a couple of weeks every 6-8 weeks. On that note, I figured I'd mention that folks looking to get on a regular weightlifting regimen will also want to include a periodic rotator cuff workout. This is best done on the break (light workout) weeks because the rotator cuff muscles are really small (there are 3 of them and they're each about the size of a finger on average). Tiring them out before any heavy workout of any other body parts could put you at risk of straining or tearing them (and depending on how hard you work them, they can take a while to recover). Ensuring that they're in good shape is essential though, because they hold your shoulder in place.

If you continue strengthening the larger muscle groups while neglecting the rotator cuff muscles, you can potentially load the large muscle groups beyond the capacity of the rotator cuff to stabilize your shoulder. Torn rotator cuff = a lot of down time, or potentially, time for surgery.


Max

[lawdogg]

Max, didn't know you were into this. "into" being relative to your ridiculously complete amount of knowledge of anything you seem to pursue. You remind me of Timothy Ferris. Anyway. When you gonna come to Chi-town and lift with me & i3igpete (and maybe daveslow)? :)

[bluemax_1]

Ryan, didn't know you were in Chi-town now. Definitely need to head up there sometime. I used to drive up every couple of weeks to a month while going to college, but I haven't had as much time to go up there (or anywhere) recently. I miss Chi-town.

Besides I don't know what condition you're in but I know I'm not anywhere near Pete's shape. Heard he's gotten quite a bit bigger since the last time I saw him and he was already a pretty big guy. But yeah, a chance to hang out, work up an appetite and stuff our faces at any one of Chicago's good eats would be fun. Trouble is, I usually always work weekends. Heck, up until a month or two ago, I was working 6-7 nights a week. If I get some break time coming up, I'll definitely get in touch with you guys though.


Max

[lawdogg]

Max I'm nowhere near Pete. My bench is around 245. I am 5'9" 165. Deadlift 405. So I'm basically half of him, LOL. But it would be a pleasure to meet you. I'll have a short break around Thanksgiving and will be in town, if you think you can come up any specific date please shoot me a PM and let's try to coordinate.

In the meantime try not to work too hard. :)

//Ryan