The Health and Fitness Thread

[Rey_Piste]

Rest is important, but you see a lot of the big weightlifting guys get to the gym near enough every day. That's simply down to the body getting used to the routine and the body can be trained in a way that it gets used to the abuse being done to it. Steroids help the body heal so much quicker, that the muscle gets piled on because you can go to the gym that much more.

[Van Dammer]

Depending on what you want you can always manage and structure your workout to get enough to rest whilst also heavily working out to make gains.

[Sphinx]

My friend does a lot of running and is in much better condition than me. I joint him on doing hill sprints, my first time, yesterday. It was probably 50 yards or so. Once you sprint up, you jog or walk down and then go again once you reach the bottom. He set a timer for half an hour for us to do as many as possible and we went. He did 17, beating his record of 15. I did 4 before giving up. Four for fuck sake! His mentality is very good. He'll gee himself up as he's running and doesn't care about anything else as he's in his zone. He laid down afterwards and was alright a couple of minutes later.

 

Is this exercise worth me doing frequently if my aim is to bulk? I'd certainly like to get better at it and it seems to have a lot of benefits.

[Guest]

Down 5lbs over last few weeks by calorie counting on myfitnesspal. Sure makes you think twice over calories, cardio alone doesn't drop weight

[Dai]

My friend does a lot of running and is in much better condition than me. I joint him on doing hill sprints, my first time, yesterday. It was probably 50 yards or so. Once you sprint up, you jog or walk down and then go again once you reach the bottom. He set a timer for half an hour for us to do as many as possible and we went. He did 17, beating his record of 15. I did 4 before giving up. Four for fuck sake! His mentality is very good. He'll gee himself up as he's running and doesn't care about anything else as he's in his zone. He laid down afterwards and was alright a couple of minutes later.

 

Is this exercise worth me doing frequently if my aim is to bulk? I'd certainly like to get better at it and it seems to have a lot of benefits.

 

This is just essentially high intensity interval training, which you can do anywhere. Speaking for myself, I hate running, especially outdoors, so Id never do this. You can do this sort of thing on a treadmill, on a spin bike, on a rower, cross trainer, anything. From what Ive read, 30 mins of HIIT of too much if youre trying to gain size. 20 minutes seems to be the recommended amount for people who want to gain/retain size.

 

For 6 months Ive been doing HIIT, and its definately been worthwhile. For a start, its only 20 minutes, rather than 40+ that I used to do. 20 minutes flies by, so youre far less likely to skip doing it. 20 mins is essentially 4 or 5 songs, which is no time at all really.

 

Start by doing 1 minute intense, 1 minute rest (not literally, just much slower pace). When you feel your fitness improve, knock 5 seconds off your break and add it onto the intense part. If you want to mix it up, do 30 second intense with 30 second breaks. A spin bike is very good for this, as you can crank the resistance up instantly, to really get the heart pumping.

 

If you really blast the intense parts, you can be dripping in sweat and shattered by the time the 20 minutes is up.

 

 

Edit: Whilst Im here, I might as well mention how awful that Kerry Katona diet thing has been in the papers. The advice was to literally eat less, and do some exercise. I find it amazing that advice like "Snacks like chocolate are bad for you, fruit is better" can still be published, as if people dont already know this. There was one in the Sunday papers as well, "The No Diet Diet", where the advice is to eat fewer calories and do exercise. Not sure how they arrived at the "no diet" part, as eating completley different food/smaller portions is still a diet in my eyes.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Dai

[Guest]

Any food you eat is a diet. It's how you manage your diet that creates weight loss/ gain. People more likely to follow simple advise like that, than a diet that says buy loads of good u never normally eat and spend half your day learning how to prepare it

[herbie747]

I'm not much of an expert, but I bought one of these Breville Personal Blender things. I love it so much I thought it might be worth sharing for anyone who likes Smoothies, Shakes and Juices. It does the business for a small machine, but the great thing about it is you blend your drink in the bottle you'll be consuming it from. It's the easiest cleaning blender I've ever had.

 

 

Got one last week. Love it. So handy and such little clean-up. Really handy having 2 bottles too! Thanks for the tip.

[Ironic Indie Lad]

I recently hit a single 200kg deadlift with perfect form at 76kg bodyweight.

 

BEHOLD MY PHYSICAL POWER

[neil]

I recently hit a single 200kg deadlift with perfect form at 76kg bodyweight.

You do crossfit so that's debatable mate.

[John Matrix]

Serious, if not ridiculous question. Is there any way to try and counter act the effects of a lack of sleep.

 

Obviously with Junior arriving a few months back, sleep has been non existent and although better now, still disrupted and broken. That combined with a very hectic work schedule means i'm constantly snacking and grabbing convenience food on the move, the result of which is clothes i'd worked hard tof fit into now feel as though they're giving me a cuddle.

 

Problem is, those circumstances arent likely to change any time soon, and i spoke to a friend of mine who's a bit of a gym nut saying i thought maybe a run at lunchtimes or a workout after work might help burn off some of the excess and he felt that it could make things worse given i wouldnt get adequate rest to recover properly.

 

If i keep eating like this, the only light at the end of the tunnel i'm likely to see any time soon will closely follow chest pains and a numbing down my left hand side!

[Chest Rockwell]

Problem is, those circumstances arent likely to change any time soon, and i spoke to a friend of mine who's a bit of a gym nut saying i thought maybe a run at lunchtimes or a workout after work might help burn off some of the excess and he felt that it could make things worse given i wouldnt get adequate rest to recover properly.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that's nonsense.

[John Matrix]

To be fair, it's probably in how i've worded it.

 

I think he was making the point that because i'm generally shattered, going and ragging myself at the gym wasnt going to help if i couldnt go home and sleep to properly recover and probably just make me feel even more tired and compound the problem further.

[Dai]

You have two seperate problems, and the solution to one of them (the weight gain) may be detrimental to the other problem (lack of sleep). I think you just have to be sensible in your workouts. Dont, as you put it, "rag" yourself hard doing the cardio. Dont destroy yourself to the point where you need to be thinking about recovery after a gym session. Do a quick, 10-15 minute interval session (30 seconds sprint, 30 seconds rest) whenever you can, eat healthier, and you'll soon see the results. That sort of workout is far more appropriate for you, compared to a 45/60 minute, medium intensity workout.

[John Matrix]

You have two seperate problems, and the solution to one of them (the weight gain) may be detrimental to the other problem (lack of sleep). I think you just have to be sensible in your workouts. Dont, as you put it, "rag" yourself hard doing the cardio. Dont destroy yourself to the point where you need to be thinking about recovery after a gym session. Do a quick, 10-15 minute interval session (30 seconds sprint, 30 seconds rest) whenever you can, eat healthier, and you'll soon see the results. That sort of workout is far more appropriate for you, compared to a 45/60 minute, medium intensity workout.

 

Cheers for this mate, sorry for the delay - i dont have access over the weekends.

 

That's useful to know, i've always enjoyed HIT over tradtional endless jogging, and it gives me an excuse to convert my Gladiators CD to mp3.

[Steve Justice]

Can anyone offer any thoughts or opinions on the Protein World brand of products? My wife wants to try it out based on what she's read online, but it just looks like your standard supplements and whey protein shakes but with added extra cost. Are they any different? Does it work? Is it worth spending the extra?