2015 Fitness and Working Out Thread

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I have two knee replacements and cannot run well outside. I am ok on treadmill but get bored. Used to do marathons and need the cardio to complement the weight training.



Swimming is maybe the best cardio sport but many don't have easy access to a pool.

I started cycling 6 years ago after starting to feel father time creeping up on me and it has done wonders for my cardio and overall fitness. I've never been really out of shape but cycling has made my cardio better now at age 49 than I was in my 20's. As a bonus biking has made the start of the ski season much easier - it no longer takes me 5 or 6 days of skiing to get my legs back.

I had minor knee surgery in 2011 on my left knee and a full ACL replacement in April of 2012. Cycling is one of the main reasons I recovered fully and quickly from my ACL surgery. I was able to do a 62 mile ride 6 weeks after surgery and a very hilly 100 mile ride 3 months afterwards. Two of my buddies made the switch from running to cycling and have had similar positive results. Good luck.
 
I disagree a bit with "If your hamstrings get sore when you squat, you're doing something wrong." If you are actively pushing your knees out on the squat to activate your hamstrings (and utilizing them as the bounce at the bottom of your squat), and then firing with your hips, your hamstrings may get a bit sore.



I am going to repost this link as well. If any THPers are squating, know and love this article

http://www.t-nation.com/training/squat-mechanics-a-deep-analysis
 
A cup of coffee is my pre-workout.

note: I would snap a smelling salts capsule prior to my heavier 5+ work sets. So much better than having to wait for a supplement to kick in (and wear off).

I don't really use pre-workout because a) I often workout later in the day, and b) attempting a lot of compound & explosive lifts (overhead squats, clean & jerk, snatch, etc) with pre in my system is a recipe for disaster. Either I'll puke, or I'll adrenaline dump and just have nothing but nervous energy for the rest of the workout.
 
Do any of yall do HIIT training? I am trying to drop a sizeable amount of weight (about 40-45 more pounds) while doing some pretty intense lifting.

Currently I am dong like 30-40 minutes walking on an incline. It is a good workout, but I have heard that 20-25 minutes of HIIT training burns quite a few calories during and for quite awhile after. Looking for something to do on the bike, treadmill, elipitical whatever. Any advice would be awesome
 
I disagree a bit with "If your hamstrings get sore when you squat, you're doing something wrong." If you are actively pushing your knees out on the squat to activate your hamstrings (and utilizing them as the bounce at the bottom of your squat), and then firing with your hips, your hamstrings may get a bit sore.

If you squat and the bar travels in front of the midfoot on the way down, your hammies will take over. That's not efficient and quite dangerous. If your coming out of the bottom and your hips come up too fast and leave your chest at the bottom, your hamstrings will take over. Same problem, inefficient and dangerous. The hamstrings will be under tension in the bottom of a proper squat, but they shouldn't be the driver of the movement.

Agree or disagree?
 
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In March of 2014 between pressure from my kids and feeling like a hypocrite being a youth coach talking about the dangers of tobacco, I quit smoking. When I quit I weighed in at 210, I'm 6'4" so I wasn't skinny but also not fat.

Fast forward to just after Christmas and I get on the bathroom scale, not really one to let the scale run my life but I felt heavier in my day to day life. It said 220, ouch! I play pick up basketball two days a week for an hour each time and walk 18 holes a week. I'm also on my feet all day, walking close to 2 miles in an 8 hour shift. Figured that was my norm before so I could continue that and keep a steady weight. It never occurred to me that I had replaced smoking with extra snacking.

So January 1 I made a decision to not so much "diet" as to make better decisions when eating and drinking, I love soda! I also added one more day of cardio, 2 hours on Sunday afternoons, and I started coaching youth basketball again. I'm not the coach that stands on the sidelines blowing a whistle and barking orders. Three days a week for 1 hour at a time I'm out there running with the kids, breaking a decent sweat.

The biggest difference has been my snacking and food choices. Rather than having something structured that made me feel like I couldn't eat this or that or worse yet starving myself I now make better decisions when it comes to meal and snack time. Instead of having a candy bag or bag of chips, I eat an orange or pretzels. Instead of having a second helping at dinner, I wait to see if I'm really still hungry or am I just eating because it's there. Do I really need ice cream for dessert or will some low fat yogurt be good? Basically just better decisions about what and when I eat. I've also limited myself to one soda a day and have been drinking a lot more water.

Got on the scale this morning and I weighed 208, so a 12 pound weight lose in a little over three weeks by upping my activity level a little and making better food choices.

Now I need to find a happy medium to maintain the 200-205 range, otherwise I feel to skinny.
 
Do any of yall do HIIT training? I am trying to drop a sizeable amount of weight (about 40-45 more pounds) while doing some pretty intense lifting.

Currently I am dong like 30-40 minutes walking on an incline. It is a good workout, but I have heard that 20-25 minutes of HIIT training burns quite a few calories during and for quite awhile after. Looking for something to do on the bike, treadmill, elipitical whatever. Any advice would be awesome

I do high intensity training on my bike at least once each week from March through October. On these rides I do at least 10-12 high intensity intervals that last anywhere from 30 - 90 seconds followed by 1-2 minutes of "cool down", making for a very intense 8-9 mile workout in about 30 minutes. It's very hilly where I live so it is very easy to do this type of workout because it's nearly impossible to cheat on steep hills. One of the reasons I like cycling is you can really burn a lot of calories. I burn about 900 calories an hour when I'm on a "normal" ride and for me it's much easier and less boring to ride a bike 5 - 7 hours a week than it is to run, row, or be on some other cardio machine at the gym.

For me the 5000+ calories a week I burn riding means I don't have to worry about drinking those high calorie IPA's that are always on tap in my man cave!!
 
Do any of yall do HIIT training? I am trying to drop a sizeable amount of weight (about 40-45 more pounds) while doing some pretty intense lifting.

Currently I am dong like 30-40 minutes walking on an incline. It is a good workout, but I have heard that 20-25 minutes of HIIT training burns quite a few calories during and for quite awhile after. Looking for something to do on the bike, treadmill, elipitical whatever. Any advice would be awesome

I did HIIT when I was trying to lose weight at the beginning and it worked great for me. 3 times a week. As soon as I'm done with this 8 weeks that I have left of my building program, I will do another HIIT based training cycle for 6 weeks.
 
Do any of yall do HIIT training? I am trying to drop a sizeable amount of weight (about 40-45 more pounds) while doing some pretty intense lifting.

Currently I am dong like 30-40 minutes walking on an incline. It is a good workout, but I have heard that 20-25 minutes of HIIT training burns quite a few calories during and for quite awhile after. Looking for something to do on the bike, treadmill, elipitical whatever. Any advice would be awesome
I have done quite a bit of it, and you have a bunch of options. Here are a few:

Treadmill - increase the incline and/or the speed to basically as hard as you can go for 1 minute, back off to a walk for for 1 minute. Rinse and repeat.

Bike - Similar to treadmill, only you might want to go longer on the sprints.

Complexes - Do a search online for barbell or dumbbell complexes. There was a good one on T-Nation a couple of years ago. Basically do 4 or 5 movements never putting the bar down. For example, 5 dead lifts, 5 cleans, 5 front squats, 5 presses, 5 back squats. Rest a minute and repeat.

Kettlebells - Lot of varieties here. 25 swings, rest the remaining part of the minute, repeat. One I did tonight is 25 swings followed by 400 meter run. Rest 1 minute and repeat.

One thing that will be real helpful for these is a heart rate monitor. You want to hit like 80%+ max heart rate in hard portions and recover. The recovery will take longer as you go along so you might have to extend the breaks a little for the later rounds.
 
It's extremely difficult for about an hour afterwards. It's a good thing that all I have to do is work a laser pointer after the workout.

On a side note: how many here use a pre-workout supplement? I used my last 2 scoops of the pre-ban Jack3d today and need a decent replacement.
Like a lot of people I have used C4, but don't anymore for a few of reasons. First, it has creatine nitrate in it. Never got an answer of the difference between that and creatine monohydrate, and really do not want to get involved with that. Second, I really did not notice it did much for me. Finally the cost, I decided some carbs about an hour before a workout is just fine. Usually just some type of grain toast with peanut butter does the trick.
 
So I finally feel like I can post in this thread again. I felt very hypocritical in the last thread talking the talk and not walking the walk. I was not working out regularly and was really finding it difficult to be a positive influence. Hopefully that is behind me. I have now run nearly 80 miles this month and am back focusing on on my 2014 goal of running at least 1,000 for the year. Anyways- thanks to Blugold and a few others for really picking up the slack last year! Here's to a great 2015!


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No worries man! That is a lot of what this thread is all about. When life kicks you in the butt and you get out of your rhythm, there are some guys in here encouraging you to get back to it. Happens to us all, and glad to see ya back!
 
Swimming is maybe the best cardio sport but many don't have easy access to a pool.

I started cycling 6 years ago after starting to feel father time creeping up on me and it has done wonders for my cardio and overall fitness. I've never been really out of shape but cycling has made my cardio better now at age 49 than I was in my 20's. As a bonus biking has made the start of the ski season much easier - it no longer takes me 5 or 6 days of skiing to get my legs back.

I had minor knee surgery in 2011 on my left knee and a full ACL replacement in April of 2012. Cycling is one of the main reasons I recovered fully and quickly from my ACL surgery. I was able to do a 62 mile ride 6 weeks after surgery and a very hilly 100 mile ride 3 months afterwards. Two of my buddies made the switch from running to cycling and have had similar positive results. Good luck.
Wife was a swimmer growing up and we just started swimming together 3 to 4 times a week this year. I've been sore, but not in pain like from running. Such a good workout. Getting close to 1 mile over a workout.
 
Wife was a swimmer growing up and we just started swimming together 3 to 4 times a week this year. I've been sore, but not in pain like from running. Such a good workout. Getting close to 1 mile over a workout.

The experts say that swimming and cross county skiing are the best cardio workouts. I'm sure rowing and cycling are up near the top as well. I love to swim and was a life guard through high school and college but I cycle because I don't have to spend time driving to a pool. My son and daughters all did swim team for at lesst 5 years and my 17 year old currently plays varsity water polo. I would argue that they are the fittest athletes in the high school. I tried to run a 5k Turkey Trot with him this year but he dropped me after the first 6:00 mile.
 
Agreed. That can lead to a strained hamstring, and having had a medically sprained hamstring (used part of the tendon as an ACL replacement) it is not fun at all. I think however, that if you're not using the hamstrings during the lift, you're missing out on some additional iron.

Reading your post again reminded me of my strength coach's punishments for not maintaining back angle during the rep: burpees with proper form push-ups and bent-over rows, all to make us focus on keeping our backs tight.

Random thought: A THP lift day would be a lot of fun to set up this year. Hit some PRs, etc.

If you squat and the bar travels in front of the midfoot on the way down, your hammies will take over. That's not efficient and quite dangerous. If your coming out of the bottom and your hips come up too fast and leave your chest at the bottom, your hamstrings will take over. Same problem, inefficient and dangerous. The hamstrings will be under tension in the bottom of a proper squat, but they shouldn't be the driver of the movement.

Agree or disagree?
 
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Agreed. That can lead to a strained hamstring, and having had a medically sprained hamstring (used part of the tendon as an ACL replacement) it is not fun at all. I think however, that if you're not using the hamstrings during the lift, you're missing out on some additional iron.

Random thought: A THP lift day would be a lot of fun to set up this year. Hit some PRs, etc.
The hamstrings are involved, but not the focal point of the squat. I think we are on the same page there. The hamstrings get work. It's boarderline impossible to have a big squat with weak hamstrings.
 
Yeah, for sure.
 
I just missed the 3rd rep of my first bench set.

Pisses me off. The first two reps felt good. Dangit!
 
I disagree a bit with "If your hamstrings get sore when you squat, you're doing something wrong." If you are actively pushing your knees out on the squat to activate your hamstrings (and utilizing them as the bounce at the bottom of your squat), and then firing with your hips, your hamstrings may get a bit sore.
On leg days I could never get my quads to get that same type of soreness as I got in the hammies unless I pounded out a bunch of extentions. Didn't matter if I did heavy or not. A good squat day always had my hamstrings sore
 
On leg days I could never get my quads to get that same type of soreness as I got in the hammies unless I pounded out a bunch of extentions. Didn't matter if I did heavy or not. A good squat day always had my hamstrings sore
Did you read the squat article I posted?
 
Did you read the squat article I posted?
Yes I read it. I'm not disputing anything. All I can say is that people's bodies are different and react different. I used to have a pretty big squat. 455lbs one rep max weighing in at 158. For me, EVERY time I did squats my hamstrings were sore for at least three days. Deadlifts too lol. I don't know why, it just was. Was I doing something wrong? Very well possible. I also believe that I am just more likely to have sore hammies just as I can't get my calves to be sore no matter how heavy or how many calf raises I do
 
Yes I read it. I'm not disputing anything. All I can say is that people's bodies are different and react different. I used to have a pretty big squat. 455lbs one rep max weighing in at 158. For me, EVERY time I did squats my hamstrings were sore for at least three days. Deadlifts too lol. I don't know why, it just was. Was I doing something wrong? Very well possible. I also believe that I am just more likely to have sore hammies just as I can't get my calves to be sore no matter how heavy or how many calf raises I do
455 is big dude. Stuffs gonna be some regardless. I understand that calves are genetic. Either they're big or they're not. Not much anything you can do about them, without pharmaceutical
 
I blame Romanian deadlifts for my hamstring soreness instead of squats. The most painful combination in the world: 4 sets of Romanian deadlifts and a toilet the next day.
 
Water Polo is the best sport out there. If y'all can swing it, the Naval Academy has an awesome summer vacation training camp. The kids at my school who went came back beasts, and one of them picked up a scholarship for it.
The experts say that swimming and cross county skiing are the best cardio workouts. I'm sure rowing and cycling are up near the top as well. I love to swim and was a life guard through high school and college but I cycle because I don't have to spend time driving to a pool. My son and daughters all did swim team for at lesst 5 years and my 17 year old currently plays varsity water polo. I would argue that they are the fittest athletes in the high school. I tried to run a 5k Turkey Trot with him this year but he dropped me after the first 6:00 mile.
 
Check this article posted today about cardio while lifting heavy:
http://www.t-nation.com/training/cardio-for-strong-people
Do any of yall do HIIT training? I am trying to drop a sizeable amount of weight (about 40-45 more pounds) while doing some pretty intense lifting.

Currently I am dong like 30-40 minutes walking on an incline. It is a good workout, but I have heard that 20-25 minutes of HIIT training burns quite a few calories during and for quite awhile after. Looking for something to do on the bike, treadmill, elipitical whatever. Any advice would be awesome
 
Back to the 170's, but a slow week for loss other than that. That's part of the game and I'm used to it though.
 
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