Any other iron sport enthusiasts here? Cardio bunnies in the house? I have been hitting the weights pretty hard for the last year and a half. I have made huge strength gains and finally broke the 1,000 pound primary lifts, but this constant bulk has left me considerably doughy. I have decided to cut at least 20 pounds. With the wife being pregnant it has been way to easy to overeat, and now I am paying the piper for it. Anyone else hit some milestone lately? Or starting the crappy period of a cut?
Hey 3rd. At the beginning of the year. I got back in the gym and altered my diet. I cut about 20 lbs, while increasing mass and strength. The key was diet and at least 25 minutes of cardio 5 days a week. Along with weights 4 days a week. High protein diet, low sugar and fat. I even make my own protein bars. They taste like banana bread. I can post the recipe if your interested.
For sure I will take anything that is good that I can eat while cutting. Because of my size I still get 2900 calories a day, but it still sucks when I am used to eating nearly 4000. Oh how I love being 6'4". What type of routine you running? I mostly focus on DL Bench, OHP, & squat. with assistance. Cardio is the bane of my existence, but I have picked up boxing on off days, but it is so tiring its tough to do it for a meaningful amount of time.
last year I did insanity and had a decent diet to go with it. I lost 16lbs, and 11 inches in total. Then on the 1st or 2nd of April this year I got into a car accident and I couldn't do much but sit down and play games. I couldn't even walk because my ankle took a critical hit. So coming into the year I was at 250lbs and now I'm at 275lbs. Last week I enrolled into a gym and just being there and thinking about going has pumped me up into battling to lose the weight I gained, and to continue losing weight.
My rugby coach told me about 2 years ago to, and I quote, "Get bigger or you snap like twig". I went from 200 to 220-225 and have stayed put ever since. I have 15 and 25 lbs free wieghts at home. What I'll often do when playing a lot of video games is do some simple lifting or push-ups when there is a break. EX: When the TF2 map is changing (about 2 mins) I can do 2 sets of 20 pushups. Nothing extreme, but over 6-8 hours doing about 120 pushups an hour, you can get some decent work in and still get all the gaming you desire. Instead of push-ups I might use my weights to do curls, overheads, triceps, etc. quick set of 15 each and back to games. Sometimes I do core work with sit-ups, leg lifts, bicycles, etc. All while the map loads!
Hrm.. this is a good idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I've got a set of 35 lbs weights, and I do curls, overheads and such four days a week, usually at 2 sets of 15. Right now, I"m at 300 lbs, 6'4"... slowly converting my chub to muscle mass.
You guys should write up a fitness regime for those of us who are alcoholics and fat and out of shape. :coughcough:
I dropped 35lbs doing my first cycle of P90X. We started in cold turkey after quitting WoW. So OLD, out of shape, non-flexible etc. It is a good program to start up in any condition. They do a great job showing how to modify the moves and coaching you just do to what you can and improve as you go. Beachbody has a great system with free meal planners, coaches to answer questions, you can also join accountability groups to help you stay motivated and chat with people doing the same thing you are. They also have lot of different styles of programs.
Well, I've never been much of a diet/exercise buff, but I've started really trying to get inshape recently (past few months). Had a setback mid-summer, was getting into a dumbbell routine when I hurt my wrist for a week effectively killing it. This time, I tried a different route and started running. Now mind you, I HATE running. Don't have an ipod (can't AFFORD an ipod), don't listen to much music, and I don't have the needed attention to concentrate on running for minutes on end. So I run on an elliptical in our basement, with a 'rolling' resistance set on it to my preference and weight (where I can run and watch TV at the same time - genius!). Have gotten up to 3-4 days per week I run 20-26 mins on it, usually resulting in about 2-3 equivalent miles. Last night I hit a real milestone. Fortunately 'Top Gear' had an interesting show on, so the hour long program pushed me to keep running. After completing 3 miles in 26 minutes (about average for me atm) I decided that I actually felt pretty good, so I reset the elliptical and continued running. Dunno time-wise how much longer I ran (I think it was about 13-16 mins) but I managed to run another 2 miles before calling it quits, for a grand total of 5 miles. Again, I HATE running; so I was pretty damn happy about that. Also, as mentioned I don't diet...just don't care that much. However, I do have a protein shake immediately afterwards, usually just a serving of protein powder in a glass of milk stirred up. That usually keeps me from REALLY feeling it in the morning, and I believe I've been putting on some muscle from it.
Generally I do 25 min on an elliptical for my cardio. I set it to read my heartrate and run it on cardio. Even if im dragging, it will adjust with resistance and incline in order to for me to hit my target heart rate. Which is the key for any weight loss and fitness. You want to increase your heart rate for at least 25 min each session. The higher you can get it and keep it level. The better your results. My lifting days consist of the following chest, legs back, biceps shoulders, triceps I rotate them throughout the week. If I feel something is lagging. I will do an extra heavy set on my cardio days. I generally only hit my legs on Saturday, since I need them during the week for work. With all the cardio, it keeps them pretty firm. I can tell you that if you keep your diet tight. You will get results no matter what. I cut out all fast food, soda and sweets. As well as beer. They are all empty calories and if you really want to get results, you will need to cut them out of your diet.
Here is my recipe for homemade protein bars. For those of you who may be interested in a healthy snack that is great for breakfast. You may want to try these. Easy to make and super cheap compared to the alternatives sold in stores. They taste almost exactly like banana bread. 1/2 cup - Banana Nut Granola 1/2 cup - Old Fasioned Oatmeal (not instant) 1 teaspoon - Cinnamon 2 tablespoon - Wheat Germ 1/2 cup - Flour 2 tablespoon - Flax Seeds 1-1/2 teaspoon - Baking Powder 5 scoops - Bananna Cream Whey Protein Powder (Optimum Nutrition) Mix all the dry ingredients above well. I use a Kitchen Aid mixer and let is sit on low as I make mine. Then follow up with the remaining ingredients below. 3 full - Banana 1 tablespoon - Honey (Natural) 2 tablespoon - Natural Peanut Butter (I use Jiff ) 1/2 cup - 1% Milk (any milk will suffice) 1/2 teaspoon - Butter (melted) 3 - Egg Whites Mix all of it together well. Automatic mixers make it easy, but you can do it by hand. However, the bananas will need to be mashed before you throw them in the mix. The peanut butter may give you a few issues as well. Leave them both till last when mixing by hand. It will make your life easier. Next: Lightly use cooking spray on your baking dish. I use a 9 x 9 glass dish. Pour everything into the dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 38 - 45 minutes. Just till the top is spongy not hard. When done, remove from the oven, let them cool. Cut into desired portion sizes. Wrap individually for easy travel or in a dish. They will need to be refrigerated and will last at least a week. Probably longer, but my wife and I eat them all before the week is up. 9 bars Calories: 220.78 Total Fat: 5.8 Total Carbohydrates: 25.11 Sugar: 7.89 Protein: 18.51 Like I said before. These are very healthy. Great for kids and adults. Regardless if you are active or doing your normal thing. All of the above ingredients are natural and very healthy. Let me know you have any questions. Enjoy!
You didn't skimp on dem squats did ya!!? Just changed the routine for a higher rep for cutting than what I normally do for strength. FML I think my chest & triceps are about to explode.
I got my membership card to the 1000 pound club sometime this spring. Haven't made that much progress since then, partially because, well, summer, but mostly due to the fact that I'm a dumbass and I didn't listen to what my body was telling me. I was hoping to hit my long-term goal of a 200kg deadlift before starting my cut, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Went back to BJJ and krav maga last month and now I'm really paying for the lack of cardio. More muscle, more weight and less conditioning is not exactly an ideal combination. Even the warm-up leaves me winded. Still, slowly but steadily clawing my way back up.
That is a legit DL. Hell my best is only 405. Don't really know what my issue is, but I cannot seem to get over 4 plate. Seems like most people are cutting right now. I will hate to see what this does to my bench after it is all settled.
I still have 7.5 kg to go before I hit 200. I'm puzzled. Why did you increase reps while cutting? For me increased volume on a deficit leads to shitty recovery times and strength loss. Have you had different experiences?
I have at least 3 days worth or rest before I hit a muscle group again. So being sore or tired for a couple of days isn't a big deal to me. The higher reps is just because I find it easier to maintain a weight that I complete 3x10 with than a weight that I would do for 3x3. I have to lose 3 reps for the same loss as 1 rep while doing 3x3. I also hate seeing my heavy weight workouts diminish so much, just a bit of a psychological factor that only tends to make me give up on a cut to quickly. It is also nice to switch it up a bit. I had been making constant gains for quite a while (DL excluded) so i had been doing nearly the same workout for 6-8 months.
Last time time I cut I did a +10%/-35% split between work and rest days while doing mostly 3x5 or 5x5. Decent weight loss with next to no loss in strength. This time around I'm actually making gains in the bp, but that might have more to do with my bench sucking than the split. If your current system doesn't work out, I reccomend trying something similar
