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Exercises

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12:31 / 22.12.05

Oh, nevermind. You're on your knees, right?

12:15 / 24.01.06

in order to become a better dog slash child slash giant thermonuclear waste breathing lizard killing machine, i have joined my local gym.

i intend to be the chin up and dip master by summer(aiming for twenty chinups) and would like to be able to run as close to flat out as is reasonable for twenty minutes. i'd also like to be able to do forty freestyle lengths of a full size pool, but its not a major goal. i swim to cool down, and i find the middle of the water it a nice space to think.

i'm fatter than one should be if one wishes to have long hair and a beard, and its high time i sorted that shit out and got back into active living.

i think you know the battle cry.

CONAN!
by!
JUNE!

who else is exorcising their bodies this january?

12:23 / 24.01.06

Me. I'm so fat I can't reach my penis.

ONAN! BY! JUNE!

19:41 / 24.01.06

For the past couple weeks I've been going to the gym daily (mostly just ellipticals with a little treadmill and weight training thrown in for good measure) with weekend cycling in a desperate attempt to get in shape as quick as possible. I also joined a dojo learning jun fan gung fu and kali and I started playing racquetball with my pops on the weekends. I also do nightly Parkour when it isn't too cold. Reading over this thread I think I'm gonna add in Illmatic's interval workout thingie.

I'm not stopping till I have a six-pack instead of a damn keg.

19:43 / 24.01.06

Here's a link to site on self-resistance excercises. Good stuff there.

19:50 / 24.01.06

Good for you Charrelz!

19:50 / 24.01.06

Toks: Running flat out for twenty minutes is a bit ...erm impossible. If it's sprinting you're talking about. The interval training stuff you might like though. Really challenging. Still just sticking to my shuttle runs myself, but, by God... they're good.

20:12 / 24.01.06

oh, sure.
i'm thinking foreign legion style quick march running rather than sprinting. i'm probably looking at three miles in twenty minutes or something similarly mental.
i am nowhere near it yet, so i have no idea how optimistic i am being.

20:18 / 24.01.06

I think the thing is just to stick with it past the first couple of hideous times. Eventually, you get to really enjoy it. Dunno if you're still interested in Tai Chi, but there's a great book called The Art of Running which maps bodyily awareness principles over onto running. It's really fantastic, has helped my form a lot.

20:22 / 24.01.06

Me. Nothing drastic, though. Runs with the dog (or on the treadmill if weather or time doesn't permit). Aikido classes 3 times a week. Crunches at lunch break. Occasional heavy labor on my acreage (wood chopping, rock heaving and suchlike). Just, you know, stuff I can fit in to my schedule.

I don't think I've lost any weight yet, but I'm sure starting to feel better.

20:27 / 24.01.06

i am still interested in it, but i have totally let it slip.
i learned the first short form and had to give up my class, innit. i am planning a return to the qi soon.

P. Horus Rhacoid

20:43 / 24.01.06

i'm probably looking at three miles in twenty minutes or something similarly mental.

Back when I ran cross country in high school- er, 3 years ago now- my race pace for a 5K hovered around that. In terms of varsity XC in my small (aka 'not an XC powerhouse') state I was near the back of the pack... ran 7th out of 7 on a mediocre team and generally finished about 2/3 of the way back in a given race. I'm fairly athletic but I only ran for two years and didn't put a whole lot of effort into it. I'm also very tall and skinny which probably made me faster than I otherwise would have been. Also, of course, I was young and so my body could take the punishment of getting into shape fast. Long story short it probably depends a lot on your age/body type as well as the amount of effort you're willing to put into it.

Oh and shuttle runs (aka 'suicides') are fucking awesome. I wish I wasn't sick right now, I need to get in shape...

20:49 / 24.01.06

Shuttle runs make me sick.

In school they called them "horses", and I invariably threw up after running them. Ugh.

P. Horus Rhacoid

20:50 / 24.01.06

Oh, and I've just started using an exercise band (length of rubber tubing with handles on each end) to try and build up my upper body, especially my shoulders which spent much of last year in pain and still twinge on occasion. My ability to do pushups (press-ups?) is hindered by a nagging wrist injury from a year ago as well, so this is also useful because it doesn't put stress on my wrists.

20:55 / 24.01.06

Shuttle runs are getting weirdly easier.

Having said I'm sure I'm going to go on Saturday and feel like I'm dying (again).

21:16 / 24.01.06

your mention of school cross country brings back horrible memories...

i'm 25, an ex smoker with occasional lapses, i'm 6'2" and i weigh about 110kg. i have the will, but i will be more likley to keep it if i get quick results.

i intend to hit the gym at least twice a week, and when i do my routine will typicsally consist of about a hour in the gym room, twenty minutes in the sauna or steamroom, and about half an hour swimming.
i'm still trying to figure out just what machines and strokes i'm gonna do and in what proportions, but i reckon the above times are about right.

P. Horus Rhacoid

21:47 / 24.01.06

I'm by no means an expert but 3 miles in 20 minutes sounds pretty ambitious- if I were you I'd talk to a trainer. Thinking back, though I didn't try particularly hard in the sense that I didn't run outside of practices, I had to push myself to the absolute limit during races, and at the time I was 6'4 and about 165 pounds- in other words a skinny motherfucker. I did have mild asthma but it never affected anything that I could tell. On the other hand, XC races also involved other people snapping branches in your face, getting boxed into groups of runners, uneven terrain, and hills, so where you actually plan to run would make a difference. In general I think it's much easier to run on a treadmill compared to outside but that might just be the fact that it's completely level; I also find myself pushed a little harder than I might be when trail running because if I go too slowly I'll fall off the back, so it's much easier to set yourself a pace and stick to it. Again, though, I'm not an expert so I'd see a trainer to help you plan your workouts.

17:32 / 25.01.06

I am trying out the Joyce Vedral Definition workout because, basically, I am lazy.

Essentially, you do two sets of exercises for each body part, doing more reps with the lights weights, and fewer with the heaviest ones. You switch back & forth between the two exercises, and by the end of it that particular muscle is burning.

It's good for me because it goes quickly, and uses only very light weights. We'll see how it goes, I am not famous for keeping up with exercise programs.

19:57 / 25.01.06

i think the trick is to want it, dude.

i dont work at these things either, and i have loads of friends who are the same.
the difference when i do make the effort seems to be that i have a goal to be fit for, and i want that goal more than i dont.

i reckon exercise driven by a kind of vague desire to get healthy isnt very likely to be sustained. if you just feel like you should be exercising you wont really do it.

find yourself a good reason and you can keep it going until you are eighty.

what shit do you like to do? is there a game you want to be able to play that you currently cant? or a wall you wanna sit on that you just cant scale? a fire service that wont let you join?

find you reason, dude.

20:19 / 25.01.06

I checked out a savate club. Their warmup is a lot longer and more intensive than what I'm used to (i.e. it just about left me dead) but I am so going to keep doing this...

20:35 / 25.01.06

Oooh Savate... that sounds fucking cooool.

I think Toks is right, find a reason and an activity you find motivating. Martial arts is to me a thousands times more motivating than the gym. I look at the grace of my instructor and think "oh God .... if I keep going twice a week for a year, I might be a hundredth as talented as he is".

P. Horus Rhacoid

20:38 / 25.01.06

Ill and Toks- totally. The only reason I'm able to get myself to the gym and do things like suicides and sprint workouts that make me puke is that I'm training for a sport that I fucking love and that I want to be as good as possible at.

20:43 / 25.01.06

I go to the gym about 4 times a week. Run two miles, lift heavy weights. Fortunately, I'm slim to begin with so any increase in muscle mass shows up fairly quickly.

And my motivation is that which has driven mankind since the beginning of time- women.

20:58 / 25.01.06

So are you training long distance then FWP?

And Slim, do you find weight training = putting on weight if you're skinny? I'd always thought I'd have to increased my diet a lot for it to make any difference.

P. Horus Rhacoid

17:43 / 27.01.06

Ill- actually, I play ultimate frisbee. No, really. At the moment this means that I'm doing a combination of plyos, sprint/interval work, and middle distance running to try and combine speed with endurance, because there's a lot of sprinting involved with few breaks.

Ultimate Players Association.

18:18 / 27.01.06

That's really cool, dude. Actually, Haus throws a mean frisbee, believe it or not.

19:05 / 27.01.06

I used to play Ultimate, though you'd be surprised just how much a frisbee to the face can hurt. Plus when you try and explain to your colleagues how you got an enormous black eye no one believes you.
I recently joined a gym again due to some serendipitous flyering and a growing realisation that I have become weak and flabby in the past year. I am due to have a meeting where I get given a training plan, but in the meantime I am continuing with a combination of cardiovascular and resistance work in order to improve my general fitnees and tone.
What I really want to get into is climbing, though I will almost certainly kill myself, so I may well stick with the indoor climbing wall, where at least medical attention is easy to come by.

19:17 / 27.01.06

i'll partner you for a climb or two, mr phox.
i used to love that shit, but have since become a fucking weakling. i'm working on fixing that, but i'd be up for some easy indoor mincing-up-a-wall action.

who knows?
maybe we'll end up getting ropes and harnesses and scaling some clocktowers.

20:20 / 27.01.06

I would love to try that. There's a climbing wall near me actually.... perhaps.

I have a long term chest injury that I think it would aggravate... it's really bugging me. It's the one thing that has prevented me doing weights etc. It's not dehabiliting in any way but just tends to play up when I strain it. I should really go and see a physio I think. I've been waiting for it to heal for a fucking year!

21:01 / 27.01.06

do it.
that way we can have a barbelith meet on a fucking mountain.

08:33 / 28.01.06

Sounds like a plan Toks. I know there's a climbing wall in the Kelvin Hall and I think there's a climbing centre near Ibrox underground.

08:50 / 28.01.06

I will actually go down there this morning and see how much they charge. Sounds like a larf.

13:17 / 31.01.06

And Slim, do you find weight training = putting on weight if you're skinny? I'd always thought I'd have to increased my diet a lot for it to make any difference.

Weight training will increase your weight but you're right, you need to eat a healthy diet if you really want things to take effect. High protein diet and less carbs. Not because the goal is to put on weight but because you need to give your body more energy to make your workouts effective.

If I were you, I'd pick up a couple issues of something like Men's Health that can better steer you in terms of a proper diet and an excercise plan that's a fit for you.

14:01 / 31.01.06

anyone got a few quid spare?
i dont think it's in development yet, but i would love one of these:

12:49 / 24.02.06

Looking for some suggestions. I have decided to play cricket again after a long lay-off. I haven't done any exercise whatsoever since 1998 when I met my wife and started to let myself go. I have read this thread and have decided that I will probably do some running and cycling to get myself cardio-vascularly fit.

However, what I really want to know is how I can improve my suppleness and flexibility - I feel like a wardrobe. What should I do - yoga? pilates? One restriction that I do have is that I don't really want to do something at a class or gym, I want to do it on my own at home from a book, website, DVD. Any suggestions?

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