Official Workout/Fitness Thread (Re-born)

[verbal8]

I did the Reston Sprint Triathlon yesterday.

It is a 400 meter swim(snake swim in a pool), 12 mile bike ride and 5k run. My time was 1:30 which was nothing special, but I was pretty happy with. My bike time was pretty weak, but my run and swim were roughly what I was expecting.

The pool swim was kind of crazy at the turn-arounds. I think I need to do some water polo to train for them.

It was definitely a great event for a first time triathlon. It was pretty well run, but not overly competitive.

[dobrojim]

dang Verbal. Didn't realize you would be there. Good job.
I keep asking at the Y (on the courts) if someone there
goes by Verbal online. Everyone just looks at me weird.

I know a bunch of folks who did it. I'm doing the Oly Reston Tri
in Sept.

in the meantime, nursing a bum left calf - first injury in
several years - hoping it clears up sooner rather than later
since I've paid my money to run the 100 in July.

[Induveca]

Only major occurrence in my fitness is a drop in weight since my move. The gyms in London are more crowded than Miami, and the equipment not nearly as good. Also a hell of a lot more walking in London compared to Miami, so need to adjust the diet. Went through the same thing in Paris last year, and eventually you find a way to continue to keep the weight up alongside the increase in cardio. For now I'm just adding on double protein shakes and more creatine.

Also there is the constant conversion of kilos to pounds in my head. That's the most difficult for now, I go to grab what I think is a 65 pounder, and end up grabbing an 85 pounder. Can't put it down because I already hoisted it, but screws up the flow.

Anyways, I have to say it is nice to be back in a city where you really don't have to think about cardio if you eat correctly and lift. I'm walking 2-4 miles a day without even realizing it. I've actually had to drop elliptical and have switches to slow/long swims for resistance training more than cardio.

And I can say unequivocally, completely off topic English/Irish girls win hands down for least attractive women in the world. It's absolutely amazing how poorly these chicks take care of themselves. It's been a nightmare coming from Miami. 4s in Miami are 9s here.......not an exaggeration.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I have never been to Europe, but my impressions from what I've seen through media are the English girls are not well-kept and they tend to smoke. (Was going to joke that I like girls who have nice teeth, but that would be cruel.) I'm just going by my perceptions, which could be stereotypes. (In all fairness, from past experience my theories on women are it takes a real man to get with an ugly woman and make her happy. Plus, once you get with her all her friends want you. I digress...)

I have seen some really cute Irish girls, red hair and all and other beauties from that region in media, but I think they're the exception.

[pancakes3]

further question... so you're saying even though Americans statistically are fatter, it's because we've got a large concentration of people at both hotties and notties, where as there it's a more traditional bell curve? i'm assuming you mean they're overweight by "how poorly these chicks take care of themselves" in the workout/fitness thread.

[miller31time]

Stupidly entered a half-marathon for work. It's 3 months away but I have zero running experience. Hell, I really don't have any fitness experience with the exception of playing basketball once in a while. But since I've signed up, I have been running trails around my house and local parks about 3 or 4 times a week. Started out horribly (having to stop a few times) but now I can finish most of them without much of a problem.

But even that is peanuts compared to a half-marathon. Ugh...

[verbal8]

Stupidly entered a half-marathon for work. It's 3 months away but I have zero running experience. Hell, I really don't have any fitness experience with the exception of playing basketball once in a while. But since I've signed up, I have been running trails around my house and local parks about 3 or 4 times a week. Started out horribly (having to stop a few times) but now I can finish most of them without much of a problem.

But even that is peanuts compared to a half-marathon. Ugh...

Given your background, I would expect to walk during the race. As long as you don't have pain, I would try to complete your workouts even if it means walking.

You might want to do the first 10 weeks of this training schedule, and then weeks 19 and 20:

http://running.about.com/od/marathonpro ... honbeg.htm

You can probably shorten the long distance runs, but you want to get a couple of 10 or 12 mile runs in at least 2 weeks before the race.

[nate33]

Don't worry miller31time. A half-marathon is doable. The bottom line is that the human body stores enough glycogen to last for most of the duration. You don't really have to reprogram your carb/fat burning ratios like you do when training for a full marathon. Just get yourself into decent shape and you should be able to will yourself through it.

While training don't be embarrassed to walk. Just try and keep the walk breaks relatively short. You want to do two short runs and one long run per week - increasing the length of all three as the weeks go by. The short runs should be more intense, the long run can be nice and slow with frequent walk breaks if necessary.

verbal's link is fine. Make the Tuesday runs a "tempo run" during which you go pretty fast the whole time. On the Thursday runs, do some sprint work where you run real fast for 30-60 seconds and then walk for 30-60 seconds. On the weekend long runs, just run slow and maybe walk for a minute once per mile if necessary. If you work your way up to 5 miles, 5 miles, 10 miles, you'll do just fine on the half marathon. If you really want to do well, get up to 6, 6, 12.

[miller31time]

Thanks for the input, verbal and Nate. I don't want to give the impression that I'm a terribly out-of-shape person. At 22, I'm 5-10 and about 155lbs. But up until signing up for the marathon, I've lived a fairly sedentary life. I'll certainly take your advice though. Appreciate it.

[nate33]

The one thing I found is that intensity matters more so than raw mileage. On every run, you should be working on either speed, oxygen utilization, or endurance. Doing a short, slow run does none of this. It just wastes your time and accumulates unnecessary wear and tear on your muscles and joints.

You improve your speed (and oxygen utilization) by doing sprint work. On your sprint days, just mix it up a bit. One day, sprint 30 seconds than walk 30 seconds until you've gone 4 miles. On another day, go 60/60. On another day, run a 95% effort one-mile sprint for time; walk for 2 minutes; and repeat 2 more times. (You should always warm up for at least five minutes first.)

You improve your oxygen utilization by doing tempo runs. Tempo runs are hard, sustained runs for 3, 4, or 5 miles. You should be pushing your maximum sustainable speed but not really going into oxygen debt where you get lactic acid build-up in your muscles. (Again, warm up for five minutes before doing this.)

The long runs are easy runs. Your goal isn't to push your speed or lung capacity. You are simply teaching your body how to run for a lot longer than it's naturally willing to do. It's okay to take short walk breaks, and you should be running at least 90 seconds per mile slower than your tempo pace.

[dobrojim]

which half are you doing Miller?

[W. Unseld]

HELP--I'm looking for a workout routine that focuses on the hip flexors through the feet ie the lower body. I'd love something that "opens up the hips", protects against knee/foot injuries and generally helps you get your legs book. Despite the article I posted a few weeks back I'm kind of leery of squats from a knee perspective. Basically I think I want whatever it is the Phoenix Suns training staff is doing for Grant Hill.

[miller31time]

which half are you doing Miller?

If you'll believe it, I am actually not 100% sure (since co-workers asked me if it was something I'd be interested in...never actually looking at the flier or anything), but I'm assuming it is the Baltimore Marathon.

[fugop]

HELP--I'm looking for a workout routine that focuses on the hip flexors through the feet ie the lower body. I'd love something that "opens up the hips", protects against knee/foot injuries and generally helps you get your legs book. Despite the article I posted a few weeks back I'm kind of leery of squats from a knee perspective. Basically I think I want whatever it is the Phoenix Suns training staff is doing for Grant Hill.

Since I read that article, I've been doing squats at the gym three times a week. This is the fifth week. I weigh 170, started off doing three sets of 12 at 110, next two weeks three sets of 12 at 140, the last two weeks three sets of 12 at 180.

I haven't felt any strain on my knees whatsoever. I use a guided bar, so they aren't free squats, and provided that I keep my hips back and head up, they feel pretty good. I probably won't go much higher in the near future -- I just wanted to ease myself into the exercise, as I was scared.

My plan for next week is to work in lunge squats, as my left leg is significantly weaker than my right and I'm overcompensating when I don't work the legs independently.

Aside from that, I've been working calves and jumping rope.

I've dropped from 200 to 170 since January. Still struggling with smoking. Jump a lot better, but hard to tell how much is more strength and how much is less weight.

I've lost some mass in the posterior, which changes the way I play ball. I haven't had much of a vertical for a while, an old injury, so I would push people around and box out, and generally make a nuisance of myself, but wouldn't/couldn't do much rebounding out of my zone. Lately, I have a harder time boxing out, but find when I go after a rebound, I'm occasionally pretty high up there.

I tore my left hamstring back when I was in college, almost 20 years ago. I've been largely a two foot jumper ever since, owing to bad rehab. My left leg has been significantly weaker than my right for all this time. I've compensated by developing a decent left and a bevy of atypical post moves for a guy my size, but my goal for the year is to get comfort in jumping off my left.

[FreeBalling]

I've always been a firm believer in swimming/elliptical only for cardio. If your goal is long term fitness/permanent healthy lifestyle avoid jogging and running. It's too hard on the knees, always causes injuries which result in prolonged downtime and zero ability to exercise.

Swimming/elliptical are highly safe and provide resistance training at the same time. More efficient exercises/better results/exponentially easier on the body.......

Induveca, I also believe in cardio training to keep myself fit for life and to keep my wife happy. Some of the cardio machines are a waste of time in my opinion. And, my gym has several different types of cardio machines but the one I found to be a great upper body workout is by Precore the 100i. The upper body workout is not like any other machine I have ever been on. I get a great back and arm workout from this machine. This machine added 25 yards to my drives playing golf and I lost 65 lbs. in about 7-8 months. The trick is getting the level over 12 and working out for 40-60 minutes 5 times a week and the pounds fly off like sheets of water and the mussel gets packed on. This machine is like no other elliptical when it comes to working the upper body.

[dobrojim]

which half are you doing Miller?

If you'll believe it, I am actually not 100% sure (since co-workers asked me if it was something I'd be interested in...never actually looking at the flier or anything), but I'm assuming it is the Baltimore Marathon.

I would try to find out sooner rather than later but I tend to take these
things pretty seriously. I want to know as much about the course before
I run on it as I can find out or better, experience it. Nothing beats course
familiarity when it comes to trying to achieve your best race.

[Severn Hoos]

which half are you doing Miller?

Have to admit, when I read this, I thought you were asking if he was going to do the first half or the second half. Little behind on the lingo....

[W. Unseld]

Darn it Fugop, you suckered me into doing squats, on very little weight I'm dying but admittedly my knees don't hurt at all.

Freeball, I'll be on the look out for that machine.

I'm still looking for stretches/exercises to benefit everything from the hip flexors through the feet. I found this but this guy strikes me as a bit of an overseller:

http://combatstretching.com/

[Nivek]

HELP--I'm looking for a workout routine that focuses on the hip flexors through the feet ie the lower body. I'd love something that "opens up the hips", protects against knee/foot injuries and generally helps you get your legs book. Despite the article I posted a few weeks back I'm kind of leery of squats from a knee perspective. Basically I think I want whatever it is the Phoenix Suns training staff is doing for Grant Hill.

Pilates works for me. Haven't been in 3-4 weeks because my schedule has been nuts, but it helps tremendously with flexibility and strength in the hip flexors. I've also been doing leg presses and calf lifts, and those have helped too.

[Induveca]

Squats are great, but go really lightweight and use a smith machine. No reason to risk injury if you're not a serious athlete or competitive lifter.

Machine leg presses are solid too, combination of both and calf lifts/hamstring machine is really all you need if just trying to keep in shape.

3 sets squats on smith machine
3 sets machines leg presses
3 sets hamstring machine
3 sets leg extensions
3 sets calf raises (use dumbells if necessary and just find a ledge somewhere if no specific calf raise machine.

That actually goes quite quickly, shouldn't be more than 20-25 minutes. Do this for a month with a solid diet and taking something like muscle milk, you'll see serious gains and a huge strength increase. Double it up with major ab work with heavy weight.....and you'll feel like a new man.