Official Workout/Fitness Thread (Re-born)

[Induveca]

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.

Agreed! I've used those and compared to running or jogging you get the benefits of serious cardio at a high level, and a great resistance workout at the same time. It's also very easy on the joints, and much nicer to watch television as you workout.

I simply can't recommend jogging or running to ANYONE just trying to get in shape. Just derails the process very quickly as EVERYONE pushes too hard and gets injured. Push too hard on the elliptical? You'll just be extremely sore and miss a few days (same with swimming). Jogging/running on the treadmill? You'll tear something or worse. Also you're getting zero upper body workout. Having weak arms/chest while losing weight running is not a pretty site.

[mhd]

Update!

Down to 167 and feel great. I've basically stopped doing the elliptical and started running seriously the past three weeks. Its just so fun to run outside. I can really see the improvement in my times. All I have to do now is get rid of some excess belly fat. I can also see the improvement in my upper body strength.

[nate33]

Update!

Down to 167 and feel great. I've basically stopped doing the elliptical and started running seriously the past three weeks. Its just so fun to run outside. I can really see the improvement in my times. All I have to do now is get rid of some excess belly fat. I can also see the improvement in my upper body strength.

Nice job, mhd. That's another 11 pounds lost since your last update. Have you paid much attention to your diet or are you losing weight solely by exercise? Remember, more protein, less carbs, no sugar. That'll get rid of the love handles.

[dobrojim]

Indu - running is the most basic essential form of exercise there is.
I think you are overgeneralizing and it is definitely not (always) true that
EVERYONE "pushes too hard and gets injured". It's possible to
injure yourself doing almost anything, including using an elliptical.

[mhd]

Update!

Down to 167 and feel great. I've basically stopped doing the elliptical and started running seriously the past three weeks. Its just so fun to run outside. I can really see the improvement in my times. All I have to do now is get rid of some excess belly fat. I can also see the improvement in my upper body strength.

Nice job, mhd. That's another 11 pounds lost since your last update. Have you paid much attention to your diet or are you losing weight solely by exercise? Remember, more protein, less carbs, no sugar. That'll get rid of the love handles.

Nah, diet's hasn't been extreme, except I'm just alot less in quantity. I'm studying now, so its hard to resist a needed rush. However, once I'm done, I'll cut out the bad stuff to get really lean and ripped.

[cwb3]

For squats I would recommend using even less weight, but doing them with a barbell as opposed to a smith machine. Initially work light and focus on getting the exacting correct form. Go all the way down so the thighs touch your calves. Barbell squats, done correctly, are likely safer in the long run than a smith machine because you work the stabilizing muscles and balance. Free weight squats are really a full body exercise. Smith machines more isolate the quads. Make sure you are fully warmed up, and do several light warm up sets before going into your working set(s).

[dobrojim]

rode to work this morning. Beautiful day for a ride.

Coming through Falls Church though, I came upon a woman
60ish who had crashed apparently simply because a tire
blew out (she wasn't doing anything 'wrong' per se).
What maybe should have been not that big a deal
was compounded mightily by the fact that she wasn't wearing
a helmet so she ended up with a nasty headwound which may
have looked worse than it was but looked bad enough with
blood pasted on the back of her head and spattered on her
clothes. I used my cell to call 911 for her.

2 things about helmets - Bell helmets used to rationalize
their more expensive cost for helmets (back in the day)
with the advertising slogan, "if you have a $10 head, buy
a $10 helmet". There is some logic to this which raises
the question, what is the head worth of someone who
is not wearing a helmet?

The other thing is Does anyone ever know in advance when
they will have an accident? Stupid question with an obvious
answer. Of course not, if they knew, they wouldn't have the
accident. So why would you ever ride without a helmet?

/end sermon

[nate33]

Had knee surgery this morning. It went very well. The doctors were surprised when I could swivel my leg out of bed, stand up, and put weight on it. He now thinks that instead of 4 weeks on crutches, it'll only be 2.

[cwb3]

Had knee surgery this morning. It went very well. The doctors were surprised when I could swivel my leg out of bed, stand up, and put weight on it. He now thinks that instead of 4 weeks on crutches, it'll only be 2.

Congrats nate33! Take it slow and easy next few weeks and you'll crossing people over on Barry Farms before you know it!

[Nivek]

Glad to hear the good news, nate. REHAB!

[verbal8]

Glad to hear the good news, nate. REHAB!

+1

Glad things are off to a good start.

[fishercob]

I had mentioned this some time ago. I've had a very positive experience with MAT and believe it will become much more mainstream in the coming years.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P4GknVRptI&feature=player_embedded#at=298[/youtube]

[Chpwags]

That MAT is something I would be interested in. I have basically been fighting some imbalances between my left and right legs for over a year now and it is effecting my sprinting. I have been thinking I am just trying to fix the symptoms rather than addressing the under lying cause of my problems. It seems like this MAT would help me figure out exactly what is causing it.

[W. Unseld]

I'm curious about MAT but a lot of those moves look similar to what a chiro does (and I have nothing against a good chiro--though there is nothing worse than a bad chiro).

Nate, what type of knee surgery did you have? I'm assuming a scope with the quick recovery time.

[hrbngr]

hello,

My community pool just opened up for the summer, so since i work an evening shift, I am planning on getting up and then going to the pool 2x a week for a workout before work. My questions is should I eat a protein bar or something before hand, or just swim and then eat something afterwards w/protein in it?

Also, the main thing i eat for protein is the big 100 colossal bars in the 4 pack from walmart, as I have not really found a good,affordable shake style supplement or other alternative, btw.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

nate, I know I'm late to chime in, but I also want to also say I'm glad to hear surgery went well and that your recovery is ahead of schedule. Good news!

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Did an hour on the elliptical at mostly level 12 and burned 612 calories for my cardio today.

After losing over 20 pounds in about 7 weeks, I've been at this same weight give or take 3-5 pounds for about the last 6 weeks. Unfortunately, I haven't been disciplined at all on my eating. It's really not rational to be down about working hard and not losing because I know why--if anything I'm taking (many) more calories in. However, I will focus on the good news that I'm definitely fitter than I've been in quite a while. I've been swimming more and better since signing up my kids for swimming lessons.

Nivek, thank you very much for the advice on swimming. Seeing my son swimming the length of the pool and him toning up is great. He (Sweetney-esque in shoulders, butt, and gut) and his brother (abs of steel like him mom) LOVE the swimming pool. Lap swimming is great for all. Induveca, I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

Tomorrow I will get my shoulder checked out. I've been experiencing quite a bit of pain in one shoulder and my range of motion has been limited. I don't even try to do pull ups. My bench and dips are doable, once I get loose, but I've really let them go for the past two or three weeks due to the pain. Swimming and water activities have been about all I've done lately, aside from shooting the basketball and doing cardio.

Hopefully, I can get the shoulder issue cleared up so I can get back to toning my upper body.

My challenges, which I WILL CONQUER (along with the shoulder issue), are becoming more disciplined with my eating and most of all doing core work for about 15-20 minutes every workout.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

If you REALLY want a challenging workout and are in in the best of shape, the Versa Climber is it.



The post gym has a couple of these. Tried it once so far for 15 minutes and was done. It's no joke.

A super-fit person can burn over 1000 calories an hour on this.

What I will advise is you do it first and that most of all you warm up your quads first. Don't do it if you've got knee problems. Needless to say it gets your heart rate up, fast. So, it's not for everybody. It's like climbing straight up. Not fun, but it burns calories way faster than ellipticals or treadmills. It involves upper body and seems to be non-runner friendly, some how, while at the same time killer hard.

I will be doing this more and more in the future.

[W. Unseld]

Atkins/zone diet question--has anyone noticed a serious weight rebound effect if they fall off the wagon on one of these diets for a day or two? I swear I didn't over eat any more than I would normally over eat when I fell off the wagon but it really, really packed on the pounds in about 48 hours after doing carb restriction for about ten days before that.

[nate33]

Knee update:

My rehab is going extremely well. I was walking without crutches on the second day after surgery (albeit with a bit of a limp). Now, 9 days after the surgery, I can walk at at slightly slower than normal pace with absolutely no limp. I can walk up and down stairs alternating steps. My range of motion in my knee goes from -4 degress to 110 degrees. (The goal at this stage of healing is 0 to 90.) I feel no pain. I got off the Percocet 3 days after the surgery.

My physical therapist said she had never seen someone in this good shape just one week after surgery. Right now, I'm mostly concentrating on reducing swelling (ice and eleveate) and activating my quad muscles by flexing and holding. I'm doing a little bit on the exercise bike to help with mobility, but I'm not permitted to apply any resistance yet. I want to push things harder but my physical therapist says that there aren't any shortcuts to healing tissue.