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2015 Fitness and Working Out Thread

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Paladin said:
I think this is an opportunity to introduce myself, since this is probably a thread I frequent the most here on THP...especially since I'm playing less golf than last year. I'm Steve. I'm a Staff Sergeant in the US Army, and while I'm not a very good golfer, I'm a pretty decent athlete. Always have been, honestly. Before I joined the Army 12 years ago I was an active practitioner of Karate, an avid cyclist, and just a pretty fit young guy. The Army introduced me to weightlifting, and some injuries introduced me to lifting weights properly. Funny how that works. I started doing Crossfit about 2 years ago, and stopped about a year ago, for a variety of reasons. I still think developing anaerobic endurance is one of the most ignored parts of overall fitness, and Crossfit is one way to do that, I just don't like some of the bad habits too much of the community has running through it, especially for good athletes like me who also don't compete or don't really want to. Yes, I just said I'm a good athlete. I'm not great, but I'm working on it. The Army says I have to be fit, so I try to be as fit as possible. I've tried a ton of diets, a ton of supplements, and a TON of weightlifting plans since I got into lifting actively about 10 years ago. I'm not trying to say I'm a physical trainer, a nutritionist, or a dietitian. If you consult those guys, please take their word over mine. Most of my advice I try to keep rooted in simplicity without being vague.

OK, so, got home a few hours ago from Phoenix...the Spartan Race has gotten to be an annual event for my family...my kids love the kids event, and this is the second year running I've done the Spartan Sprint. For those who haven't really seen these, a Spartan race is one of 3 distances (Sprint = 3+ miles, Super = 7+ miles, Beast = 13+ miles) with a bunch of obstacles and challenges along the way. The running is almost exclusively on trails, and the obstacles are unknown to the racers until the day of the event, but there are some common themes...Climb ropes, get muddy, climb over, under, through things, cargo nets, carry sandbags, scurry under barbed wire, those sorts of things that were awesome when we were kids. For the record, I don't really like running. Running is the stuff I put up with because they refuse to just put all the obstacles next to each other. Still, I accept it, because it taxes your reserves, especially mentally. I like Spartan Races for a few reasons...they're challenging, but rarely dangerous, and I don't feel like I need a tetanus booster before, during, or after the event. Failure to complete the obstacle results in a penalty (30 burpees). Lastly, there really is a sense of wanting to see people succeed. Even if you run alone, you'll still find yourself cheering, helping, offering encouragement, fist-bumping, and smiling through big stretches of the course.

So I got to the course a bit later than I expected and shuffled into the 1045 start time. There's a big spiel about being a Spartan, blah, blah, blah, and off we go. Temps were in the mid 70's (be jealous), and sunny. I'm glad, because I've done stuff like this in the cold, and it seems like they put some soaking wet obstacle early on to make you miserable for the rest of the course. Instead, lots of sunshine, and the first few obstacles are over, under, through type stuff. I've got more than an hour of head-mounted video to wade through (you don't want to just watch the camera bounce to my running, so I'll have to edit it) but it's all pretty simple. Fun, easy pace for the most part. First mile down inside 9 minutes.

Climbing rope is about technique. Climbing walls is about coordination. You have to be brutally fit to legless rope climb 20'. Go track down your middle school teacher and make her actually show you the right way to foot-lock the rope. Aside from those things, the first 1.5 miles are easy. A couple of obstacles demand some brute force & ignorance -- two of my favorite things -- but otherwise most of the first couple of miles seem pretty simple. At about 2.5 miles in, there's a board where you correspond the last two digits of your bib # to an 8 character code...I do some sign language and repeat it to myself a dozen times before heading back out...technical single-track, monkey bars, more singletrack...and then we get to the bucket carry...fill a 5 gallon bucket with gravel, and carry it a ways. In 9 minutes, I move less than 400 meters. My lower back is lit up, and I hate everything. Fortunately, after that was some mud pits to cool off in. I love mud. I think it's fun. It's sad, IMO, that grown men are fretting about how muddy they're getting, or that they're getting slop inside their shoes. I think it's awesome. But it's over all too soon, and they want me to recite that 8 character code. Simple enough, and then some more wall-climbing things, and a sandbag carry.

As flippant as I'm making this sound, I am gassed. The alternating between aerobic and anaerobic, along with the mental focus of coordinated movement, is brutal. It's supposed to be. Nothing about these things is too terribly difficult individually. Collectively, it's a fight. I have no idea how much longer it is or what obstacles are left. But I'm confident I can handle them. Don't let things psyche you out. Only stable failed involved going from one vertical rope to another as a sort of Tarzan swing. I grabbed a rope funny and ended up splitting open my left pinky (still not sure how) and fell. 30 burpees. Nailed the spear-throw, though. Crawl under some barbed wire, down in some more cool, sweet mud. Jump over some flames into one last mud pit, and that's all.

Overall, I love these things. There are people who will forever remember finishing, and people who will shoot to get a lower time, move faster, have a penalty-free run, whatever. They're an awesome goal. Next year I hope to do a Super in El Paso. Like I said, I'll have some video up in the next week or so. It's always a lot of fun, though a very tough challenge. I know if you live in a bigger city, there are pre-Spartan camps you can attend and do some preparation there, and many gyms offer classes on how to get ready and learn some of the skills you'll need. If I'm gonna play golf in my 70's, first I have to live to my 70's. And that means staying fit in my 30's and 40's.
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This is spot on man.
 
Nice writeup Steve! Sounds like fun - when I'm not doing it haha! I've got a long ways to go before I'm up for something like this, but who knows?
 
Grins said:
Nice writeup Steve! Sounds like fun - when I'm not doing it haha! I've got a long ways to go before I'm up for something like this, but who knows?
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Won't know until you try, right? I find putting down some money and putting something on the calendar is a great way to get motivated. Knowing it would be tough to do on your own (and it is) will help you get involved in a group, and then the group keeps you motivated. Whether that's a local 5K for the PTA or a Spartan race or anything else. Find something, register early, save the date, and start training. We get told all the time that our retirement years will be a byproduct of our prime-earning years, and all those financial planners are 110% correct, only they're not talking about your 401K. They don't know they're talking about knee replacements and type II diabetes and high blood pressure meds. How we treat ourselves in our 30's is the crop we harvest when we have all the time in the world to do what we want.

Trust me, you won't be the most out of shape person at a Spartan Race. Everyone's just trying to get better somehow, man.
 
haha I am in such pathetic shape. It's embarrassing, really. Spent probably 45 minutes to an hour on the bench and total gym last night and I know I'm going to pay for it over the next couple days. I really need to commit to a better stretching routine before and after I spend time exercising because I absolutely HATE the tight feeling I get when I don't.

Whatever. I want more golf this year, and zero pain while doing so. Time to pay the price now while it mostly sucks outside.
 
Just finished my abbreviated workout for today. Lunch got cut short, so I worked my way up on the bench from 135 to 205 and then back down again and did a buttload of tricep pull downs and tricep extensions. Chest doesn't feel bad at all, I should have thrown some flyes in for good measure but my triceps are absolutely smoked. I didn't realize how much until I had to push the handle on the door to get out of my office.

This week will be a bit random, since I have to get a tooth pulled on Wednesday so I decided to wait to start the new program until next Monday.
 
I'm glad to see this thread. I turned 50 last year and visited a nutritionist as I was unhappy with the 200lbs on my 5'10 frame. She gave me some good tips and the most important thing she said was to think of it as a lifestyle change vice diet. I'm happy to say that as I get ready to turn 51 next week, I now weigh 173lbs, going from a 38" waist to 34". I have eliminated sweets, I substitute egg whites and egg beaters for whole eggs, I eliminated sodas, drink tons of water and eat turkey, chicken or fish MOST of the time. I walk EVERY time I play. Really helps to be in San Diego where the weather is conducive to living a healthy lifestyle. I no longer feel tired after a round of golf. And yes, I still get to enjoy beer (light) and wine.
 
Getting home late, and then not bothering to make lunch, led to me eating a completely disgusting lunch today.

Back to the gym tomorrow. Back to my routine. Hopefully back to normal.
 
Mile and a half tonight, felt like a quicker pace but I forgot to turn on mapmyrun.

Followed by a 1 mile walk.
 
15 miles on the bike tonight. The gym was slammed so couldn't get to a weight bench. Gonna knock out some yoga in the morning
 
Squats. Bench. Chins. It's going to be a heavy night
 
jubess said:
I'm glad to see this thread. I turned 50 last year and visited a nutritionist as I was unhappy with the 200lbs on my 5'10 frame. She gave me some good tips and the most important thing she said was to think of it as a lifestyle change vice diet. I'm happy to say that as I get ready to turn 51 next week, I now weigh 173lbs, going from a 38" waist to 34". I have eliminated sweets, I substitute egg whites and egg beaters for whole eggs, I eliminated sodas, drink tons of water and eat turkey, chicken or fish MOST of the time. I walk EVERY time I play. Really helps to be in San Diego where the weather is conducive to living a healthy lifestyle. I no longer feel tired after a round of golf. And yes, I still get to enjoy beer (light) and wine.
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Nice work! I'm right there with you - almost a carbon copy of stats lol! Trying to get back to 175 (haven't seen that since my 20's) - but at least now I'm heading in the right direction. Surprisingly (to me) reading posts like this are very motivating & encouraging to keep me focused day-to-day. When I think of the final goal (40 lb loss) it just seems so large & unattainable. This past week has seen some real solid losses - hopefully I'll be down to a 34" waist before too long!
 
Keep it up everybody! Had a good workout tonight.

I was happy at the gym tonight because it was less busy than it has been because 90% of those new years resolution people were already gone.

I was sad at the same time because that means all those people already quit and it's not even march.
 
Orange Hog said:
Had my weight in this morning and I'm down 20 lbs after the first month of the new diet plan. All my clothes are starting to get pretty loose, which is pretty exciting. Still have more work to do, though. I set a goal to drop 50 lbs and I'm nearly half way there. I'm hoping to get there by the Pittsburgh Invitational.
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Nice! Keep up the good work!
 
I found this post about MSG being a food additive that is in a lot of processed foods under the label of "natural flavors" (I guess it's in most veggieburgers, etc & a lot of diet foods). I haven't looked at the published study he references but the science seems sound (at least as far as experimental design goes). This study of rural Chinese men (who basically only add MSG to their diet when cooking) found a very strong correlation between MSG and weight gain.

FYI


http://www.truthaboutabs.com/food-additive-makes-you-overweight.html
 
Last night was squats. Did my 3 sets of 5 reps. Nothing exciting. Weight went up without a concern. Last week I did test my bench press path. As it turns out, I was bringing the bar down quite low on my chest. Last night I worked on the bar path and tried to get the weight more up on my sternum. I had to deload to do that. I dropped 100lbs off of my work weight. Over the next 2 months I will be aggressively adding weight each session, 10lbs per week, to get back up to where I want my work weight to be. I closed with chinups. Those are boring and not much needs to be said about them.
 
blugold said:
If you're goal is to move a lot of weight, do compound lifts, or any real serious training these shoes are the best options. They are not running shoes. They are not comfy pillows. They are merely ideal for strength training.
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Sorry to bring up an old post, but shopping for weight lifting shoes for my birthday.

Any reason you choose the pendlay shoes? Or would any weight lifting shoe work? I'm looking at these:http://www.roguefitness.com/inov-8-fastlift-335-blue-white

Back to the gym today, between snow and trade show work, I slacked off last week. Quick cardio session today and back to the weights tomorrow.
 
Drew Z said:
Sorry to bring up an old post, but shopping for weight lifting shoes for my birthday.

Any reason you choose the pendlay shoes? Or would any weight lifting shoe work? I'm looking at these:http://www.roguefitness.com/inov-8-fastlift-335-blue-white

Back to the gym today, between snow and trade show work, I slacked off last week. Quick cardio session today and back to the weights tomorrow.
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Love it. No problem bringing up an old post. I like the Pendlay's for a few reasons. One, they're not as expensive as comparable Nike or Adidas shoes. About $80 less. I also like the dual straps. There are some shoes that have a 1/2" heel. The Do-Wins, along with other high end weighlifting shoes, have 3/4" heels. The higher heals tend to lend themselves to more quad activation on squats, cleans and snatches. Some hardcore lifters line the flatter heals for deadlifts. In general, I like the Do-Wins because of the price. Also be aware, proper weightlifting shoes are not soft comfy pillows for your feet. If you want pillows, stay in bed.
 
Orange Hog said:
Had my weight in this morning and I'm down 20 lbs after the first month of the new diet plan. All my clothes are starting to get pretty loose, which is pretty exciting. Still have more work to do, though. I set a goal to drop 50 lbs and I'm nearly half way there. I'm hoping to get there by the Pittsburgh Invitational.
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Can't do it everyday, but love getting a lunchtime workout in. 40 minutes of cardio, 5 minutes of stretching, quick shower and right back to work. Going to try and make it a habit during the summer so I can spend my evenings practicing.
 
I find it interesting how people have different times they like to workout.
I am super weak in the morning for some reason, decent around lunch but seem to get my best workouts in the 5-8 pm range.
 
I'm this way as well, but if I want to get a workout in I'd best be at the gym before 7:30 or else I miss my chance (the gym is crowded like no other after work).

Barberakb said:
I find it interesting how people have different times they like to workout.
I am super weak in the morning for some reason, decent around lunch but seem to get my best workouts in the 5-8 pm range.
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Barberakb said:
I find it interesting how people have different times they like to workout.
I am super weak in the morning for some reason, decent around lunch but seem to get my best workouts in the 5-8 pm range.
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Right there with you on the morning workouts. I tried a couple of times to go early, just never has worked for me. I admire people that can do it though.
 
I spent too many years in the Army where they made me get up early and work out. Hated it then, still hate it now.

I would rather work out in the evening after work, but with homework, family and home stuff always going on it's more convenient to work out during lunch.
 
PT sets the tone for the day, hooah.
 
So I've got a total gym, a bench, a bike, and a treadmill in my house.

I used the bench and the total gym again tonight. We'll call it an hour mixed between a bit of club work and mostly exercise. Go me.
 
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