WOOHOOO! I got my strength back in less than a month! / Memeber Exercise thread.

Memeber Exercise thread / WOOHOOO! I got my strength back in less than a month!

Something people don't know about it is I'm a big advocate for weight training and lifting as a form of self improvement and general exercise, on top of combat, and boxing. Its a way for my to counteract the hours upon hours of sitting in from of a computer.

Yea, weight training is different then other forms exercise.

MM is medical for Muscle

As of last month I was 310 and 40% body fat (roughly 186 lb MM , 124lb fat) thanks to stress, being poor, and general lack of activity.

As of yesterday, I'm 294 and 19.2% body fat. (237.56 MM, 56.44 lb's of fat. )

I'm back up to a 640lb leg press, 310 lb bench press, 225 military press.
I'll probably never get back to my max leg press from highschool. (2178 lb, I was going for a record but missed the date by a month. Aw well)

And for people who know that losing weight too fast is bad. Weight training is one of those great thing. Supplementing Muscle for fat is one of the few exceptions to that weight rule. That and my body is simply weird and not really like a normal person. >.>

So now that I'm done announcing my happiness for exercise. I will not help anyone move unless there is beer, pizza, or... never-mind. >.> *cough*
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THE QUESTION
So what sort of thing to the people of SoR do for exercise? I know we have a few joggers, a handful of SCA, Dag, Belegarth and other Medieval combat people. But what else?

 

congrats bro! You've got more motivation than me. I keep my weight down purely by controlling my food intake

 

congrats!!!

 

Weightlifting mostly. Unless you consider remodeling the house to keep the wife off my back exercise.

Right now I am running around 20% BF @ 243. Currently cutting, never had a 6-pack before, figured I would go for it.

Last time I maxed:
Bench-295
Squat-315 (sucking right now, in HS I maxed at 350)
DL-405

 

I would like to excercise, currently with my wife's ridiculous resident schedule and 1 year old daughter, the only time I'd literally have time to do anything would be around 10-11 PM, by which time I'm exhausted, so I don't really get any exercise at the moment. Used to mostly play sports, soccer, hockey, etc. Getting a little pudgy, but only at around 175 lbs now

 

I play floorball and practise quite alot with that. i play as a goalie

I live in Sweden and floorball is pretty big here. Also our season is starting this sunday

A link to a wiki page about floorball if you dont know what it is

 

I'm an ice hockey goalie, but I definitely need to find some way to boost strength this season.

 

update: My leg press is now 720 two sets of 15. Basically I'me back to there my knees no longer hurt. I have poper mm support. (long story short, too much MM too young slightly damaged my knees.)

I upped my heavy armor from the standard 35lb to a full 50lb.

 

I do pole dancing and I love it.

No, i don't strip, it is purely for exercise.
Excellent core muscle exercises.

Want to participate in the nationals next year!

 

At the time of my divorce in 2011, I was 210lb.

Now, I've hit 181 and dropping, thanks solely to diet changes and MOAR EXERCISE!

I play tactical airsoft, am a heavy fighter in SCA, and have made a habit of doing isometric exercises while sitting at my desk.

 

My brother's a big weight lifting advocate as well, he got me into it actually.

I went from 180lb to 150lb over a summer of weight training. And it's lot's of fun too!

Though I can only lift barely half what you do Blackfire

 

I run 5k every other day offset with some interval training in combination with weight lifting and ~100 pushups/situps daily. I usually play rugby as well but I haven't had the time this year
I'm around 190lbs right now I believe

I love working out, it does wonders for my general mood and is a phenomenal stress reliever

 

Awesome work guys! Any suggestions for a little girl (me) on how to start/mold a routine?

 

For starters just stick with the core lifts.

Squat
Bench
Row
Overhead press (Military if you like to stand)
Deadlift if you understand that messing up your form will likely injure you.

Here is a workout from Mark Rippetoe, he has a pretty big following in workouts for beginners. The only thing I would change would be to add rows and dips not just chins. For me benching 3x5 isn't enough to shred my tris and he lacks any real bicep work except pull-ups. But it should be a good place to start. Do not overestimate your current strength. And remember everyone using heavy weight in the room started somewhere.

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/rippetoe-wichita-falls-novice-program.html

 

yay finally found thiskind of thread here, oh joy!
I really enjoy lifting, I'm not bodybuilding or powerlifting, I just....lift?

Background WALL OF TEXT so you have been warned:
ex passive coach potato, bad eating habits, never into sports, mostly spend youth playing games and eating crap....
When I turned 24, I started noticing how I felt bad most of the time, and I wasn't happy of myself although I had a job, some money, decent flat etc. nothing to complain really.

I was thinking well is this all? Ofc I knew I was in bad shape, but you know, you look into mirror and your brains fool you "that aint too bad if you ask me" or "I'm not in bad shape, I could still run half marathon like....eerrrr 7 years ago? btw what was the last time i did run?" So on that summer 2009 my friends started giving me crap like that "man you look like crap" and "maybe you should check your weight man" ofc I was like "hell with you! i dont need no stinkin' diet!".
Ofc I rushed to the scale and it showed me nice numbers: 101kg (over 200 pounds). So, that was when I realized I never gonna live past 40 if I kept living on soda, french fries and PC games.

I've had it.
I started better diet (I red quite alot of books of the matter and made my own opinion of things and decided to follow it through; if it wouldn't work, I would go back to the planning board and start again. I figured better that than nothing), and started walking.

I was in so bad aerobic condition, I couldn't run the Cooper test and clocked like barely 1000m or smthing first time. So, summer and winter some dieting, and the changes to my diet were only small, nothing too radical: I quitted drinking soft drinks like Coke (I consumed Coca-Cola atleast 1,5l per day!) etc. gave up fast carbohydrates (I like to divide carbs into fast and slow ones to keep things simple), started eating healthier but didn't go any crazy apeshit spartan-X9000-amazing-marvel-see results in 30 days! diets people usually fall into when they start something. I just ate normal food with emphasis on veggies, fruits and full grains & oats.
2010 May my bw was down to 95kg. Not too bad. I was excited because my slow and steady approach worked!

I always liked cycling when I was younger, so I took a risk and bought this shiny italian road bicycle and started cycling.
Had no clue about anything I was doing, didn't even know how to use the gears of that bike but still I rolled. At first I was amazed I could actually ride 10km! It was truly a heroic feat back then.
By 2010 october my bw was down to 85kg! just by adding cycling!

So the winter came and I had to figure out a subsitute for cycling. Aaa gym!
I had no friggin' clue about weight training so I went to this fancy fitness club where a foxy lady with nice tit- errr I mean fitness instructor made me a "tailored" lifting...plan...thing.
Ofc it friggin' sucked: go around the machines 1-9 in clockwise order, and then some spinning or other zumba etc. classes or smthing. But I didn't quit. I spent whole friggin' winter in the gym 5 days per week. (3 days machines, 2 days in spinning class like I'm gonna puke).
I saw the guys there who did squats and bench presses and all that cool stuff and they looked like they knew their business, I had spent now months jerking with these machines and I saw no chance after first 2 months. So I took a mental note about what I saw there.

2011 summer: more cycling - holy shit I can go faster! and I can go longer!
Did first 50km ride in end of May. And it was amazing! So cool!
Cooper test went better, got like 2500m or smthing now. I could actually run the whole thing!
The same summer I clocked first 100km ride with the bicycle and the 50km rides became my main staple.
Body weight at the end of summer 75kg! Lean and mean.
But now I was looking like a stick with ears. No body strenght at all. But I looked like I used to look when I was in "shape".
I also found interesting book by a fellow named Mark Rippetoe, the book's name was "Starting Strenght"...

Next fall I cancelled my fitness club membership, and tracked down the grittiest warehouse gym I could find and dragged my brother there with me.
We learned to do the big three: squat, bench press and deadlift and watched youtube videos about right form and did reps, reps and reps.
Been fan of compound movements and free weights since, although I still look like a stick with ears (my brother, who's, well he's more gifted with
weightlifting, has made way better gains than I have. Seems like my body's responding better for cycling and running and thatkind of endurance sports than lifting heavy).

I can do 50km route usually with average speed of 30-34km/h and best time has been around 1h30mins. Not something special but I'm damn proud of myself,
thinking about where I started from.

Right now my weight's around 75-80kgs. Not a clue about body fat but cant see any abs so I'd say around 15-20% still.
Havent even tried cutting. In summer my body weight goes down to around 70kg because of cycling alot, but that's not only fat what's lost there.

Anywyas, weightlifting: Big fan of squats. I love them.
Most guys concentrate on bench press and bicep curls, and many have complained to me how they dislike the squat,
I feel different; I like to do squats and it's variations. ofc the whiners' squat form usually makes my eyes bleed.

First I used to do weights just to improve my cycling performance and do conditioning, this year I'm actually thinking about having a year off from cycling
(and saving for new road bicycle and mountain bike) and just contentrate on improving upper body strenght because I feel that's seriously lacking. Not thinking about my bicep, would be just nice be able to do
dips and 20 reps of pull ups etc. Because why not?

Oh yeah my bench press FRIGGING SUCKS, but I'm improving this year. Totally.
Goals for this year:
-Squat 5 rep max to 100kgs (~220 pounds?)
-Deadlift 5 rep max to 120-140kgs (~264pounds?)
-OHP 5 rep max to 50kg for starters (~110 pounds?) having some shoulder stability issues, have to work work work
-Improve Bench Press
-Do more abs
-Learn kossack squats
-Learn skipping rope like a pro
-Do some crossfit (try to find more time)
-Learn Snatch, Clean & Jerk

I do enjoy lifting, and the feeling after the shower and sauna, when you're back home and you sip a cup of coffee....priceless.
Takes all the stress and shit away when you really concentrate on squat set or something and you feel tired, but happy afterwards.

 

I've spent the last 3 years working in local government promoting sustainable/healthy travel... if you can't be bothered with the very explicit time sink of training, try changing how you travel to work or the shops.

I cycle 15 miles a week, which isn't much but it does the job, just to get to/from work. (1.5 miles a trip, twice a day).

Essentially, avoid this

 

I really want to do some serious training. But I have a heart condition thats being checked up. I might have a surgery. If I get it I hope to lift some weights and run

 

That reminds me of what I've noticed these past 4 years: people are FRIGGIN' STUPID when it comes to better health.
People always try to find the easiest, quickest path to their goal. Most even feel like the training you do for the specific goal is almost like torture. It's monotonous, uneventful and uninteresting borefest.
Even most of my friends who keep on dreaming about chiceled 6pack abs, huge biceps etc. and they always fall for the same thing over and over again: Hey here's this training program what Beckham does,
and it really works, see? Just 60 days and you're a superhero! It might be friggin' torture and like swimming in an ocean made of shards of glass but yeah! Im all for this shit, btw what's "superset"?
Surely it might work for Becks, he's an athlete. He gets paid for the training and he's focusing 110% on his training. On the other hand, average Joe? Not everybody's so motivated for the necessities the training program calls for.

And ofc, abs = good health, screw the rest.