Fitness And Nutrition General

I tried doing SLDLs with deficit today. Is rounding of the back as the plates hit the floor ok? Or is that something I need to work in?

So I've been running 5k like 3 times a week trying to work up to running 12k for a relay. Every once in awhile I can run 10k but I feel like me endurance for running isn't improving at all. I average about 25-27 minutes. Any suggestions on how to lower that time and to increase endurance to run longer without dying?

Edit* been running since April a little on and off but mostly 3 times a week.

As a cert fitness trainer , coach and elite level triathlete I will tell you, to get faster you must in this order focus on . Core ( hips glute ) speed work ( above threshold pace shorter efforts 2-5 min efforts x 4-5 ) and strength training. Lunges- stabilization work. focus on firing the glutes.


oh - endurance will come


if you run x3 a week I would say

1 day :4-6 mile long run- ease into a comfortable pace
1 day: 6-10 minute warmup - ( youtube running warmups will include jogging and some drills) 3min x4-10 (depending on fitness) minute faster then race pace efforts ( you will be breathing heavy during these ) 6-10 minute cooldown
1 day : 6-10 min warmup then - > 2-4 5 minute efforts (faster then long run pace )

so 3 runs- each run has a different goal. If time permits then do some glute/ core work after your long run or after your short effort run- the second one I posted. Idk Your fitness but this is a general plan I would give.

You need to up your lactate threshold. Do your normal 5k except with intervals in dead sprints for 60-90 seconds intermixed with 50-70% of your normal pace for 90-120 seconds.

Thanks guys I always know where to go for help~

I was looking to get a pair of actual running shoes. I grew up on $20 kmart shoes and never strayed far from it. However after a back injury in 2008 i became disabled. It only went down hill from there, including ankle and now knee pains, but thats another story.

Using online templates/guides it looks like i have a high arch with a Overpronator which seems odd by there listings. It recommended certain shoes based on those. But i have professionally made orthotics to help with those problems which i wear all the time. Would it be better to stick to those shoes based on my natural feet or ones that would support a more normal one that the orthotics would give?

or better yet, do you no any types of shoe stores that have ppl that actually know what they are tlaking about; that could in depthly help me find the right runing shoe?

I skipped pictures last month, but haven't been working out or eating healthy and such because... well life. Still at 210 pounds, and judging by my love chub I still got going, not sure 200 is gonna be quite low enough.

Weakness you don't look bad at all for 210 lbs. May I ask how tall you are? Not to be invasive, but are you involved in any weight training weekly? I see tons of potential if you had a schedule. Could really shed and define a lot of that 'chub'.

I know its really late Bacon, but rounding the back is not bad at all. its good form if you aren't jerky on the way up. As long as its one fluid motion.

I'm 6'2", so not exactly a small guy. I was on a pretty regular schedule minus a few hiccups (had pericarditis, so couldn't work out for a month and then through July I have just been lazy because I haven't had much down time between work, school, and hospital rotations). I think I have had pictures posted in this thread every month since March or so (was like 245 or 235 first picture). Have gone from 270 to 210 since January, so I know I have done quite a bit and the end is in sight... I'm just being lazy.

Before July it was A shift off, B and C shift light weights + cardio. Have been far more focused on losing fat than building anything right now. Did a rotation of

Day 1 - Bench > Lying tricep extensions > Squats > 25 minutes moderate intensity on a stationary bike (per my cardiologist's recommendation after the whole pericarditis thing)

Day 2 - One-Arm Dumbbell Row > Curls > Bike

Day 3 - Seated military press > Dumbbell flyes > Squats > Bike

And repeat. Everything is done with dumbbells since that and a bench are what I have at home... just no time to go to a real gym and the AAFES workout room doesn't have a lot of options outside of machines to be honest. They do have a smith machine for real-ish weight lifting, but meh.

Trying to get back into the swing of things, but getting motivated again has been more difficult than expected. Once I was down in weight I had planned on maybe trying to build a little, mainly arms/chest/shoulders for the vanity factor... but really that part isn't needed.

That's good news. The end is never in sight, my friend (I mean that in a positive way). Once you reach your fitness goals, which look like its coming along pretty well, you will have more confidence in attaining new goals. I have some goals of my own, and no matter how many times I cheat on my diet, get lazy and skip the gym, or tell myself "ehhh I don't CARE ABOUT HAVING THAT BODY" (which is a cop-out), I try to readjust my thinking towards why I started exercising and fitness in the first place.

Keep up the good work. You don't have long to go, but you will have more to do once you've gotten where you wanted to do!

In the grand scheme of things losing weight can be done much easier and faster than packing on muscle, and muscle for all intents and purposes is metabolism, so the more of that you put on the more calories you burn sitting there doing nothing… which if you’re anything like me is your ultimate goal. That being said, I’d try to put on some lean mass and let the “weight” chips fall where they may. Weight is just a number; it’s body composition that matters.

I used to do cardio every day, but now I just do cardio on ab day since I don’t do any “real” lifting that day, and the rest is all resistance training… It sounds like your equipment is limited at the moment, but dumbbells are great for just about everything, so search some routines online and try to get some extra sets in at various angles on top of your existing routine to maximize gains; if you don’t rest too long between sets your pulse should remain elevated enough to where cardio won’t really even matter (that, and cardiovascular exercise is boring as hell).

Also, in response to your “vanity factor” areas, don’t skimp out on legs! I hate leg day, but I do it twice a week so I don’t look weird lol :P

I LOVE leg day! I used to really hate leg day, but ever since I separated them into quad day and hamstring day. It has really made "leg day" more interesting.

Thank you so much @Buukki for that tip about quads/hams btw a few pages back.

Okay so I have a dumb question what is this called and is it that much of a disadvantage to use it? When I started working out and had no form I liked it cause it looked safer and I just never moved off of it but I literally just got told if I was gonna do squats on it the guy was gonna smack me across the face. This is a 6 foot+ 300 lb stranger might i add anyways eres the pic sorry it's blurry I'm shaking a bit]here[/url]

It's called a smith machine. It would take a long time to list all the disadvantages.

If I were to list it's advantages, we'd have a shorter one

Advantages: Makes a decent pull up bar if there are no others in the gym.

Basically, it puts you in an unnatural position to begin with (Your back doesn't go exactly straight up and down during a squat). Since you're not using your stabilizing muscles to keep your body from folding over either way, you use a lot less muscles during the exercise.

Squats are considered one of the kings of exercising for a reason, and using the smith machine basically removes all those reasons. If it came down to it, you'd be better off using a leg press exclusively than using a smith machine squat. The exercise serves no purpose

It's a smith machine. It has it's pro's and con's. It has its place in workouts for trying to isolate muscle groups.

For squats I'd argue it's not very good. The reason being is that the path of the barbell when doing a barbell squat(high bar or lowbar) isn't perfectly linear. The smith machine forces the barbell on this linear path and thus limits your range of motion. I personally find it just very awkward compared to the barbell squat.

EDIT: Tiger beat me to the whole linear motion thing lol

Okay well ill have to switch thanks the guy was a *** though just called me a girl and wouldn't explain why it was bad when I asked just said everything. I was using it for military press tonight. So isolated workouts like a calf raise it's still okay for?


*edit* also I've seen improvements from it even having more cons then pros so let's see how fun it is switching to a real squat rack~

Yeah. I use it for seated over-head presses, rows, shrugs, and calves

EDIT: This guy on bodybuilding forums sums up the smith machine pretty well.

Rofl I'm too short for the squat rack.. tippy toes and I couldn't get it off the hooks.. lol on to the other rack we have!


Edit* my ending set was 205×3 on the Smith machine and I still ended there on the rack so I'm content~ definitely felt a bit of a difference though. Mostly my balance though

I remember reading this somewhere but not sure if actually true: is it bad to exercise before going to sleep at night?

I beleive some studies showed that it could make it more difficult to get to sleep, but other than that? Not that I am aware of.

Should i be feeling sore after doing biceps correctly? If i do 3 sets of 8 with 30lbs, followed up by hammer curls 3 sets of 8 with 20lbs, followee by concentration curls with a 50lb barbell i feel sore temporarily but the next few days I don't feel that doms. I'll work until physical exhaustion wherein i cant do another rep but i dont feel the same soreness/tightness i do as when i do triceps with pulleys or standing tricep extensions etc.

The thing also about bicep exercises for me is like, lets say i do 3sets of 8 with a 30lb dumbell, if i tried to do a few 35lbs i cant even do one, or its extremely unstable/sloppy and i feel myself subconsciously recruiting back into it. I'm 5'6 155 but i also do biceps on back day so i wonder if that affects it, as lat pulldowns and t-bar pulls hit biceps too

I haven't felt much soreness in my biceps but ive had gains anyways in the past 2 months. This last time I did military press with my routine and I can feel the burn 2 days later now. Also do you switch it up a little routine wise so you're not plateauing if you've been at it awhile?

Your squat rack doesn't have adjustable pegs?



I'm 5ft7 and I have no problem. I do have to lower it myself because all the guys at my gym I swear are 6ft4 >.>

The first rack I tried didnt. The second rack was pegged like that but the guard area is too high so I just backed out and did it. I'm 5'4 :/ lol

Been 1 year since I started working out come Sept. 28th.
Old waist size 50 inches, currently at the same waist size I had in college, 32 inches.
Started at 158 kilos, down to 103 now.

Routine:
Sunday morning 45 minutes Elipt. trainer
Sunday evening 60 minutes swimming lapse, olympic size. Usually get 66-72 laps done with 5 minute intervals.

Monday Morning 45 minutes Elipt. trainer
Monday evening (7pm) Full body workout - shoulders

3 sets flat dumbell press - declining reps increased weight (12-10-until failure)

3 sets seated dumbell flies (same as above, declining reps, increased weight, but 16-14-until failure)

3 sets of the exercise where you use 1 dumbell

3 sets seated dumbell pullover - I started doing these instead of declined bench press back in May. Since then, my chest has finally started to look good without a shirt on. They hit my chest like no other exercise can. Only downside is the dumbells arent that heavy alone so I usually go to 20 reps first set.

3 sets pull down

3 sets bicep dumbel curls

2 sets of squats 200 lbs

Tuesday - no exercise in the morning
Evening - 90 minute walk on the beach

Wednesday - Morning HIT cardio in the morning (10 mins warm up, followed by 6x 30 second sprints with 20 second low intensity inbetween)
Evening - 90 minute walk on the beach

Thursday - Shoulders
(I *** hate shoulders)
3 x sets seated military press declining weights, increased reps.Barbell. Never until failure. Trying to avoid snapcity.

4x sets bent over laterals, dumbells. Declining weights increased reps.

Friday - throughout the entire weak I eat on a daily basis 2x 12 inch subway turkey breasts with no sauce, split into 6 meals (half a 6 inch as 1 meal) + how ever much carrots and cucumbers with lemon i want. On Friday, I basically eat as much junk and sugar as I can, and go to bed feeling really sick.

Saturday - no exercise, but i go to the beach from 7 am until 8 pm.

Sunday - sleep in until 2 PM. Alternate weeks with an exercise day.

not gonna post pics of me in during my 3 years of being a fat ***, but this is me nowNot bad for a 36 year old if you ask me.

Edit found a better pic

Enough info to me, since one of the main reasons I considered it was that I have trouble sleeping. Guess I'll scratch that and go with more common methods.

In my experience its not the exercise that keeps me awake, its the hunger. I had problems at the start with sleeping. I started loading up filler empty calories like cabbage soup to settle me down and eliminated Caffiene after 5 PM (I eliminated it all together now because I'm much more euphoric throughout the day without it)

I feel your struggle! Look on the bright side your height works to your advantage for the squat and many other exercise. Shorter guys = shorter limbs usually = shorter range of motion for an exercise. Work = force x distance

:)

yet another supplement type product. Any ever hear of backline elite?