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Icalasari kills himself trying to get fit!
Deciding to just start slow at first and go with 20 minutes on the elliptical
Already my thighs are screaming at me, "WHY!?", and I'm not even 5 minutes in
Already my thighs are screaming at me, "WHY!?", and I'm not even 5 minutes in
Comments
Rubbererererer
WHEE Rubbery
Now where to get in exercise tomorrow, since I won't be home until late?
I read this as: "Icalasari kills himself trying to get it" and I was thinking "Dude, suicide won't get you laid"
I read "get it" as "philosophical epiphany". And if I had a better knowledge of the field, I could probably namedrop someone.
But anyway, good luck with the shape-get-in, Ica.
Thanks Don!
^^ Well I'll never know for certain if I don't try! Besides, what about the necrophile crowd, huh!?
Sounds like you're doing fine so far~.
Just don't forget about strength training. XD So many people forget about that part of the equation.
^^ Like anyone'd do your corpse.
This reminds me that I haven't hit the gym recently. Given how much more time I have on Thursdays now that I don't work 6-9, I should probably fit that somewhere into my errands for today; it's my best chance before I hit Anime Boston.
Godspeed, Icalasari. We'll both feel the burn.
Good luck, you two.
Yay! >.>
I have no idea what that means but I'm thinking it means, "You're a lazy slob who needs to exercise more!"
What kind of schedule are you on?
For best results, you probably want to work out three days a week; Monday, Wednesday and Friday are good options, and you can rest on the weekends. Leaving a day between sessions is recommended for proper recovery, although it depends on what you're doing. Strength training, in particular, can be dangerous if you chain adjacent days together.
The nature of each sessions depends on your goals. When I was working out, I did about 66% strength training and 33% cardiovascular training. Within that strength training, I was going for tone rather than bulk. For the purposes of strength, this is my recommendation -- bulk gives you more "capacity", but tone is about the efficiency of your muscles and your muscle/fat ratio. Basically, toning increases your strength with the minimum amount of weight gain (and you'll gain weight with muscle training, albeit it "good weight"). This means that someone undergoing this amount of training will have more strength to mass than someone with very bulky muscles -- the bulky one might have more overall brute strength, but the more slender one will move faster, having comparable strength with less mass to move.
Overall, the toning method is a lot more practical for day-to-day life, sports, martial arts and pretty much anything that doesn't require specialised brute strength. It's also much easier to "keep" if you stop working out -- muscles will atrophy without attention, but bulky muscles do this more quickly and become fat.
Toning is about doing more at a lighter weight, whereas heavier weights will bulk more. I recommend starting with something like a 3-5kg weight (depending on your initial strength; try a few different ones) and doing each arm individually with curls. For the legs, squats. To round it out, do some pushups (do them wide and tense your pectorals) and crunches. I find crunches better than situps, personally, because crunches are more "forgiving" but it's also much easier to do more of them, working the specific muscles you want without going to the effort of raising your entire back. When you're tiring yourself out like this, finding efficient methods to get what you want is important.
Start with small groups of these things, depending on how you feel. 5-10 pushups, twice, with a small rest in between those sets is a good idea. The bicep curls should be at a similar number, if a tad higher. Squats, again, about the same. You probably want more like 25-30 crunches to begin with, though.
The rule of thumb, doing things safely, is that you should do something until you're feeling proper strain -- then do it some more. Will yourself a bit further, and then come down from that exercise slowly to rest. I recommend upping the ante on a regular schedule, be that biweekly, weekly, whatever. You only have to go further by one extra curl, squat, what-have-you each time, although you might choose to go up by two or three.
When you've "mastered" a particular weight (like 3kg), you take the weight up a notch and reset that exercise to its initial number. If you started with 7 curls per set and worked your way up to 12 before going up a weight, you keep it consistent -- start a 3.5kg or 4kg at 7 curls again and do those consistently until you master doing 12. Then you go up again.
If you need more specific guidance, I suggest you seek out professional trainer of some kind. You don't need to pay for a whole lot of sessions, but you'll want to get some one-on-one about what's safe, what's not and how you in particular should begin.
I also have some drop in yoga classes I paid for that I plan to use (that would work the best for me as I'm naturally flexible, so it plays into my strengths)
Overall, I'm going for toned - I want to be fit instead of buff. The hardest part is changing diet - I'm doing well with cutting down pop (down to two-three a week. Considering I had one every day, that's a vast improvement), but I find myself still snacking constantly (If I can find out where that "dessert gum", as my sister calls it, is sold, and get a steady supply of good jerky, then that problem should go away (I snack way less (and also chew my fingernails less...) if I keep my mouth busy, so I think the problem is that I'm just a compulsive chewer))
I know the 20 minutes are working for me currently - at around 15 minutes I stop feeling extremely worn out and sore, and my legs just feel dull and not quite there, basically on auto pilot. Any suggestions on how far I should go beyond that, or if the time I go beyond that point is good as is?
Edit: I'll get a trainer once I have money coming in again
45-90 minutes is what you want for a full routine, with cardio and strength training together.
So, how is this coming along? I was reminded of this by a workout I just found.
Related: planking is fucking agonizing.
And do a warm-up. Five to ten minutes on the bike should do.
If you're training legs with machines, keep your leg exercises together. Other than that, order doesn't matter.
Try to do cool-downs. It's not necessary, but it helps ease your muscles.
Oh, and if you're exercising arms, arm wrestle with your bros a lot. See how well you do.
I'm no expert, but I'm currently exercising and going for toned muscles also, and this is stuff I have been advised to do.
Thanks for the advice
Also, it is hard to keep up with something when you take a break at one point because everything is hectic. Destroys the schedule completely. On the plus side, hey, summer, I can exercise every day now ^o.o^
Try compound exercises with free weights, they'll challenge more muscles at once than isolation by machines. Do them with lighter weights first, just to learn the motion, then go heavy and low reps (4-6 reps per set). This will lead to the fastest strength increases. When training outside of the typical hypertrophy repetition range(the 6-12 range most recommend), you aren't likely to gain all that much bulk relative to strength increases.
Which compound exercises am I talking about? Bench press, deadlift, squats, and military/overhead press. Alongside those, to minimize training imbalances between pushing and pulling, add in rows and work toward pull-ups if you can't do them yet. Try to do as many total repetitions in pulling as you do in pushing movements.
For people who just want "tone", it's best to just hit these big exercises and hit them hard. Notice that it's the bodybuilders who focus more on isolation compared to strength athletes(ie. football players and olympic lifters). Strength is about learning how to use the most of one's muscles to move something and this is more of a neurological adaption than a strictly muscular kind. Training for strength will give you muscle development as something of a happy accident and not treat muscle gain as an end to itself, which may be what you want since you wish to be more "fit".
Also, if you don't wish to bulk up, don't eat like you wish to bulk up. Strength training primes the body for bulking, but the body needs actual building materials to add bulk.
Do you mean the compound exercises you mentioned earlier?
I bought a 20-pound dumbbell a couple of minutes ago. Realizing that I don't really have the motivation to hit the gym even three times a week, I'm trying to see if I can bring my workout down to something I can just do at home. Problem with attempting to get more weights, though: they're expensive as hell.
So, in your experience, how much would I be able to get out of using one weight, and maybe a 10-pounder (for warming up), for toning? Any recommended exercises? Also, how effective are curls and dumbbell extensions, or things of that nature?
Use the 20 pounds for rowing, making sure you progress by being able to do at least one more repetition each time. This will ensure progress without you stagnating because I understand what you mean by the costs yeah.
Try replacing bench press with dips, most schoolyard playgrounds have bars and railings low enough for that I recall? Dips will work the triceps and chest hard. Triceps compose about 2/3 of the upper arm's size, so if you want good looking arms, you want to hit triceps at least as hard as you hit biceps.
Doing upside down rows using those is a good idea too, especially if you have trouble doing pullups well(kipping/momentum based pullups don't count) and you can change up the angles to hit different areas of the back. Pull toward upper chest to work upper-inner back and pull toward abdomen to work the outer parts of the upper back, the part right under the armpits I mean.
The 20-pound dumbbell will be plenty good for isolation arm exercises, like bicep curls, reverse curls(for forearm strength), and tricep extensions along with high repetition pulling. However, think of these as finishing touches and not the main deal. Bicep curls will add shape to your biceps, certainly, but if you want a balanced looking physique, treat curls as condiments and treat rows/pullups as the main dish.
Speaking of rowing, make sure you do your pulling exercises before your curls, because you can still train your biceps while your back is exhausted, but if your arms are exhausted, good luck doing the back training pulls.
Also, make sure that you don't neglect lower body strength training. Sprinting is good, but it alone does not add to lower body strength like an actual lower body strength training session. Try one legged squats if doing them with two legs becomes too easy, and use your dumbbells to add weight if even the pistol squat becomes easy enough to do high(12+) repetitions with.
Which ones are rows, again?
Thanks for the advice, though. It's nice having to deal less with the tons of conflicting workout advice out there.
As for lower body, I was gonna do more sprinting when I have time, in the summer or something (probably just telephone poles, 2 sprint to 1 walk), but squats would be good to try out. I'm a little afraid to do it wrong, though.
Ah, basically for rows, you can do high repetition rows using your dumbbell or lower repetition rows by hanging from a low railing/bar with your feet planted so your body sits at an angle. http://nerdfitness.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-25-at-10.18.44-PM.jpg Both are acceptable and I personally rotate heavy barbell rows and dumbbell rows between my two pull-days.
Yeah I understand, there's so much bullshit around and many bodybuilders whoring themselves to companies saying such bull in order to get money that it's really hard to know who to listen to now. Naive newbie coaches following and parroting such advice don't help either.
For squats, first try to sit down on a low chair/stool and learn from that how to squat down. Specifically, learn that your weight should be distributed somewhere between your knees and your buttocks. Try to keep your body roughly upright, or at least bent no more than about 30 degrees forward. After that, try squatting down without any support at all, keeping that weight distribution thought in mind, and do some reps. Once you get the movement down, start working with the squat with a heavier load. This will hopefully help you squat in a way that doesn't hurt your knees.
Okay.
To report on my current progress, I can tell that it's been too long since I benched because the dumbbell is a strain, but I benched 65 at the gym (I know I'm scrawny, shut up. ;_;). And rows kinda hurt, too.
I'll work on squats when I get back from supper.
Was the pain a throb or a stab? If it's more of the former, then that's nothing to worry about. To help your body recover faster, invest in protein, let it be in meat form, in dairy form, or in powder form. Do keep in mind that pain does not equal gain necessarily, it is the improvement seen during training that is a real sign of progress.
I understand about the dumbbell being a strain, especially on the wrist. If that is your bench number, then it is best to perfect your full pushups as your first short term goal. Try to strengthen your triceps and your core for that by doing holds in the upper position alongside knee pushups if you need it.
Sounds like a plan. :'D
(edited for terrible fail typo)
Here's some encouragement, guys:
"by doing holds in the upper position"
That's called planking, right? It's already part of my morning ab workout (which I'm hoping works, but if not, there's no money lost). And it's miserable.
Hm, in that case, best to work your exercise form first, yeah. Try doing the benching and rowing motions without weights at first? Also, do you remember where it hurted when you did your rows? Which joints/tendons?
I thought you said stabby was better (you said the latter, and stabby was the latter). Honestly, I can't remember how it felt.
EDIT: Ah, you edited it to be fixed. That seemed right anyway. But . . . I dunno, it wasn't like "ow, fuck, drop it" pain. More like "I don't wanna do another rep because it hurts, but I have two or three more, so bleh".
EDIT 2: Are mountain climbers any good?