The Weightloss/ Getting Fit Thread!

Aye it's the same everytime I'm out here, a diet of sticky rice, sangsom and San mig light and neglect water intake lol

Usually lose about 7-9 in the first week without doing anything.

Still feel like a big watery carbohydrate mess though lol

 

Thinnest iv ever been was coming back from thailand ate everything going but the tap water ice cubes and suspiciously cheap slush tea things left me with the comedy runs and a qaulity weight loss

 

How's everyone doing?!

I'm down an inch in waist and 2.5% BF

Maintaining my muscle with two full body splits per week. Being honest with myself as I know I wouldn't stick to 3 per week and would beat myself up about it

 

Lost a solitary KG.

I’m not dieting or anything, but I am feeling a lot fitter and I’m still going to the gym consistently, tonight’s the first time in a week I won’t be going (Mrs wants to go out). Big difference from a couple of years ago and I kept getting niggly injuries, or broken feet. Concentrating a bit more on weights now, with one cardio session per week, and a couple of runs outdoors for my 10k.

 

Alright gym goers.

Just joined a gym. Not really sure where to start lol. Feeling really unfit as I haven’t played footie for over a year with another knee injury and still waiting for scan results.

Looking to work on upper body while I’m waiting on getting the knee fixed.

So have a couple questions

What kinda warm up do people do for the gym?

Is Protein powder worth buying? And if so when are the best times to drink the shakes?

And is 3 days a week enough? Will struggle to do any more than that but will hope to get back running and playing football aswell this summer.

Cheers.

 

Think the best warm up is a brisk walk on the treadmill 5/10 mins or the bike,all ye want is to get the heart rate up and get the muscles loose.

Guess peoples opinions on Protein will be split,imo their oky if ye struggle to eat the correct food before and after the gym but im sure others on here will be better informed.Iv tried them before training and find im nearly throwing them back up so for me its after training.

I go the gym daily but really thing every second day is enough unless your trying to lose a lot of weight or trying some serious bulking up.

Had a bad knee a while back, damaged ligaments lucky i didnt need an op but was told by the doc no gym for six weeks.I went the gym that day and started walking on the treadmill(no running).Kept that up for a while and moved onto the bike and rowing and was back to near normal within 4 weeks,i just went by how i felt as i went along didnt push myself tohard.

 

Thanks for the reply mate.

Yeah that’s sounds fine I will try the treadmill it shouldn’t be to bad on the knee. It’s running on tarmac that is a no no atm.Waiting time for ops atm is very long but gives me time to work on upper body.

Think I will try the protein and see how it’s goes

Work a manual labour job so it’s keeps me in decent shape but makes me quite tired so hoping 3 days will be enough. Not carrying much weight just a slight beer belly haha so looking to lose that and put on a bit more muscle, nothing major.

I take it a warm do is pretty essential for recovery aswell?

 

Great point about the warm up/warm down,most people tend to do their work out without a warm down.

What i do after a workout is either a 5 min walk on the treadmill and/or 5 mins on the cross trainer.
The cross trainer warm downs a bit unusual but i find i can adjust the settings so i can stretch the leg muscle,s as i warm down.
The main thing is to stretch the muscles without overdoing it and bring the heart rate back down,amazing how the personal trainers in my gym give this so little consideration.

I,v done a bit of training with national champion boxers and its great to listen to them about training and try some of the things they do,if you ever get the chance to try boxercise give it a go,i have tried it in my own gym and they were rubbish but with the guys who were boxers it was outstanding,a proper workout where you are left absolutely shattered but your Adrenalin is pumping and ye feel great inside(really good for people who struggle with depression).

 

I was about 40 seconds off my PB 10k time last night - 44 mins 40 seconds. I would have actually beaten it only the paths were quite icy and I also got caught at train tracks and had to run over a bridge.

Haven’t even been training that hard, in comparison to when I got the PB anyway, but since the new year I’ve not had a drink or takeaway and have seriously cut down on white flour, while sticking to wholegrain and fruit for carbs and it seems to have made a big difference.

 

Cheers. Interesting stuff about the boxing. Would love to get into that side of things at some point.

 

Training run in the woods today. Going to increase this to three times a week until my 10km.

Drove straight to the gym afterwards. 10mins x trainer, 10mins on the stair machine, kettlebell circuit, then a 2km row.

 

Off work this week, so gonna try and get proper back on track and get the Christmas weight back off. Been doing some good HIIT a couple of times a week and weights most days to hit full body over the course of the week. Started trying to increase volume of what I'm doing a bit. Used to do 3 sets of 8, 4 of 9 and 5 of 10, dropping weight a little each time, sometimes twice if I could manage. Now I do heavy 5 sets of 5 then 3 sets of 10, 5 sets of 10,12,15 for normally 2-4 exercises/machines per muscle group, does that seem adequate? Diet continues to be the biggest killer for me unfortunately but I'm working on it.

 

5 x 5
3 x 10
5 x 10/12/15

Thats a bit of a mish mash mate. Usually for strength work you would stick to 5x5 for everything. Hypertrophy you are looking at sets of 10-12.

I'd say you should probably pick ONE method and stick to that. There so much info out there about drop sets, pyramid sets, etc etc. Sometimes simple works better

Also 2-4 exercises per body part? How long you spending in the gym? Looks to me like you are maybe complicating things when a basic template ought to do you. Stick to compound movements and skip any sort of isolation exercises. Try that for a month see how you do. Just an idea man

 

Have been looking at trying to train a bit smarter. Normally in the gym for about an hour or 2 depending how many machines I can get on and how busy it is.

 

Do you ever venture to the free weights? I know it can be intimidating at times but good to get some barbell/dumbbell stuff in there

 

I have weights in the house and it's generally rammed at the gym. So do some stuff at home.
I'm not doing 5 15s and 5 5s with the same weight btw, it's like double or more
But I do see now that doing all that is probably a bit counter productive.

 

I’ve no asked any daft questions in a while so here we go...

For free weights, what is the best way to approach it? For example, is it a good idea just to focus on one area each day? So day 1 - shoulders only. Day 2 - chest, etc. Or is it okay to just focus on the upper body in general?

Also, is 4 sets of 12 reps per exercise a decent amount? And if I want to gradually increase the weight, should I lower the number of reps initially?

Separately, this is a daft Q.....should you do abs exercises if you have a wee bit of belly fat you want rid of, or should you wait until that’s gone?

 

There are no daft questions M, everyone had the same questions at some point in their fitness journey

4 x 12 is good mate. Ideal with that. If you increase the weight the next workout you might only manage 8 or 9, that's fine. Rest, and fire another rep out, and again. Rest - Pause its called or something like that. In an ideal world you would have a spotter to give you a hand but it's not essential.

If you are a beginner, I wouldn't suggest one whole workout with only one body part. The bodybuilders/physique models etc manage that because they workout 5-6 days per week. I would suggest a "push workout" Chest/Shoulders/Tris. And a "pull workout" Back/Biceps/Traps. Couple exercises each. Don't neglect Squats and Deadlifts either. Maybe another wotkout there in itself.

To get your abs to show, it's almost ALL about shifting bodyfat. However, if you want good ones, you should be working them out the same way as any other body part. Upper, lower and oblique work if you want a proper sculpted look. If you just want a decent core, some basic core work is fine, you will be hitting it with other exercises too. But Yes, definitely work them out now!

 

Cheers man.

Yeah I do Pilates to help with my core, thinking of doing yoga one day too.

My issues with squats and deadlifts is my back (which is why I do Pilates). I’m paranoid it goes again.

Are you saying combine the push and pull exercises on the same day, or have a day doing one and a day doing another? And how many times a week?

Also, what’s a sensible time between reps? 30 secs, 1 min?

Lotsa questions!

I’ve done not bad shedding fat (last year went from 36 to 32 waist), mostly by seeing a nutritionist and making changes to diet (would recommend it to anyone!). No longer seeing her but still keep it up. My issue is getting a food baby then shifting the *! Already play 5s and do enough cardio at the gym but it’s now about working on my upper body as my fat to muscle ratio wasn’t great!

 

Good stuff with the pilates, and yoga is great too. I don't do yoga as such but I do specific stretching sessions. Sitting at a desk all day I simply must open up my chest and shoulders.

Push / Pull should be separate days mate. I used to to

Monday - push
Thursday - pull
Saturday - legs and some full body

If you search online you will find good routine templates.

Rest time is very dependent on your goals. If you are lifting really heavy you will need 90 seconds to 2 mins. If you are lifting more moderately you can manage 45 secs. I would say 30 seconds rest is more for light weights or circuits etc.

Personally, my rest timer is 45 seconds so by the time I'm ready to go again it's technically a 1 minute rest. Sometimes longer.