Getting fit with SwordsMaster

[tibilicus]

So I still need to intake protein, no?

EDIT: It's the lower abs that are fatty, the upper body is almost fat free.

High protein is good anyway as you'll need it to maintain your muscles. If it's your lower abs that are fatty but your still looking to get rid of the fat I'd still advice you to burn it first. That way when you decide to really build muscle you'll have a clean slate to do it on.

[Strike For The South]

What do you mean by swollen and look more pumped?

I don't want to do heavy lifting because I'm still growing and the heavy lifting can stop my growing, even if its only 2-3 cms until I get around 19.
The exercises I'm doing are fairly straightforward, and I usually add 5kgs each week so my muscles will go with the extra load every time, making them stronger.

Plus, there's also the thing I need to do - burn my fat. I have a spare tire around my waist which I need to take care of, and the workout routine is also good for burning fat.

My diet is healthy, I eat two salads each day, I eat a lot of protein + supplements plus I eat 1-2 apples each day instead of sweet stuff.

The "pump" is the blood that rushes to the muscle after your workout.

Your routine right now contains only one compound movement and a bunch of filler at weight that really isn't very useful. I see no leg or back excersiceses of any value . You can keep doing that routine and keep looking the same or you can change.

Heavy lifting will not stop your growing, that's a myth.

The only thing that has any bearing on weight loss/gain is calories. I would say at 160 you don't have much of a tire but your goals are your goals. I would say you would look better once you added 20 lbs.

@India

Show me your routine and start tracking your diet. Even pro BBs and strongman have days off from weights. Do you lift everyday.

You probably have a bad routine and are eating way below what you need. This is a battle and your weapon is a fork.

[edyzmedieval]

The "pump" is the blood that rushes to the muscle after your workout.

Your routine right now contains only one compound movement and a bunch of filler at weight that really isn't very useful. I see no leg or back excersiceses of any value . You can keep doing that routine and keep looking the same or you can change.

Heavy lifting will not stop your growing, that's a myth.

The only thing that has any bearing on weight loss/gain is calories. I would say at 160 you don't have much of a tire but your goals are your goals. I would say you would look better once you added 20 lbs.

I'm 5'8" and 160 pounds. Pretty equal I must say, but the tire is burdensome, especially when you need speed in soccer and basketball.

Any suggestions regarding pumping iron? Bench press is very useful, and I can see it definitely on my chest, but I need biceps/triceps. Abs are worked out by crunches, "bridges" (press up position, instead of going down, you stay on your elbows and keep there for 2 minutes) and other exercises.

Leg workout - the leg curl for the harmstrings, leg extensions for the quadriceps. Sometimes even a leg press with 110kgs. (another one of the big differences between my legs and my upper body)

Back exercise - the only one that im doing in the seated row which is very good for your lower back. I need another one for my upper back.

I monitor my calories closely, and the only "feast" is a ice cream a week or maybe a slice of pizza.

Any suggestions?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

triceps--close grip bench press
biceps--curl or chin up
legs--skip the leg extensions they aren't good for your knees. Try deadlift, front squat, and back squat although honestly if you're playing a lot of soccer you might want to skip legs entirely.
Back--row is good, so is pullup and deadlift.

[PershsNhpios]

Interesting!

I have been using stones out in the field for my lifting.
Now I have a collection of them ranging from 10-100kg and I am 'dead-lifting' some, kneeling and using two hands for some, jogging with others held firmly in front of my chest, and the smallest used at the moment (15-25kg) I am working with one hand.
There is also an excellent branch nearby for chin-ups, but they are rather easy now.
(I live many kilometres from the nearest gymnasion.)

The stones I could not deadlift two weeks ago I am currently jogging with, and I therefore believe my unorthodox and antique routine to be quite effective.

[edyzmedieval]

Your muscles got used to the extra weight, as they received different signals from the nervous system, prepared to support more weight.

[edyzmedieval]

Question - What protein supplements do you guys use? Does it make any big difference if it's a type or another?

[tibilicus]

I've never noticed any difference when buying different brands of protein shake. They're essentially all the same product it's just that the more expensive ones tend to mix a lot easier.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Question - What protein supplements do you guys use? Does it make any big difference if it's a type or another?

I use kroger brand. Wouldn't waste waste money on the expensive stuff.

[edyzmedieval]

Do you guys use other supplements as well? Some of the ripped guys over here use like nitrogen supplements and other ones which greatly speed recovery. The "Fitness Addict", one of my classmates, uses a blend of protein, creatine, taurine and other shizzniz. Any usefulness?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Supplements and stuff are mostly a scam. Usually the "studies" done on them are conducted by the company that is selling the product, and anecdotal reports of efficiency aren't reliable. The main boost is probably from people working harder because they have more belief that what they are doing is going to work.

[Ice]

Supplements and stuff are mostly a scam. Usually the "studies" done on them are conducted by the company that is selling the product, and anecdotal reports of efficiency aren't reliable. The main boost is probably from people working harder because they have more belief that what they are doing is going to work.

I don't use it, but I've heard creatine yields good results.

[edyzmedieval]

I don't use it, but I've heard creatine yields good results.

Creatine is naturally found in the body, and more creatine retains more water in the muscles, therefore they operate better and you don't feel that fatigued. However in some countries creatine supplements are banned, especially in performance sports like football (soccer), as creatine enhances their performance.


I'm curious about the other ones, if they have any real effect.

[rajpoot]

There is a guy here who uses creatine. And he's got huge muscles. he's been working out for just 6 months. But I don't think it's worth it....I mean taking extra protein is one thing. Adding to it all these funny sounding enzymes and stuff that the body produces naturally, is well....not natural.....and for the record, while this chap has big muscles, his body is damn out of proportion. Always looks as if he has a few balloons stuck inside.

[Strike For The South]

Lift and eat. I wouldn't worry about supps just yet. Get some whey if you feel you can't reach your protien requriements.

Taruine in a supp? What is the world coming to. Does everything now have to be UBERXTREME. Back in my day we didn't worry about this stuff. We ate spagetti and moved heavy objects.

Food+Gym+Sleep=result

[TosaInu]

Hello,

True about the water and creatine edyzmedieval. During the loading phase (extra creatine intake) one can easily gain an extra kg (water).

ATP is used as direct energysource for the musclefibres to contract. When fat or sugars are burned, ATP is generated from ADP and P. So when the supply of ATP is 'exhausted' during a workout, that supply needs to be regenerated first (rest) by burning something. Creatine is stored as creatinephospate in the muscles and can quickly react with ADP to produce ATP and creatine.

So, creatine is an extra (indirect yet fast) energysupply.

Creatine is produced in the human body like edyzmedieval said and can also be found in red meat (yes ofc). The dosage (and gain from it) is often overrated and it's good to take a break after a few weeks of consuming such a supplement.

I would also be wary of supplements like taurine, guarine and extra caffeine. When the body claims to be tired, it's better to listen. Creatine is something different though. It doesn't 'mute' the tired signal (afaik), instead it provides more energy allowing the muscle to work. This shouldn't be overdone either of course.

I think Strike For The South's advice is most important: Food+Gym+Sleep=result. I think extra long chain sugars (pasta, dextrose) are even more important than extra proteins (considering you already have a good diet).

[edyzmedieval]

Lift and eat. I wouldn't worry about supps just yet. Get some whey if you feel you can't reach your protien requriements.

Taruine in a supp? What is the world coming to. Does everything now have to be UBERXTREME. Back in my day we didn't worry about this stuff. We ate spagetti and moved heavy objects.

Food+Gym+Sleep=result

I didn't want a super special protein supplement, so I went for a combination of protein + vitamins and minerals. 25g of powder + 300 ml of milk gives me about 30g of protein, a very healthy dose of calcium plus a third of almost all of the vitamins required in a day. I couldn't get the required protein intake each day for me to build, so that's why I chose it.

As for sleep, my time has been reduced each night to around 7 hours because of the huge amount of schoolwork I have to do, but I recuperate everything in the weekend. Today I went to bed, I woke up 6 hours later...

I lost almost all of my spare tyre so now I switched my focus to building muscle.

@TosaInu
Wow, thank you very much for the information.

[SwordsMaster]

Hey boyos,

So due to the vicissitudes of his employer's business interests, SM finds himself stuck for a couple of months in a hotel in Ghana with a gym so small it's almost amusing.

To have a better idea: there are 2 threadmills, and 2 static bikes, a collection of dumbells of which the heaviest is 10kg, and a couple of these funny machines: a quad machine, a pullup one, and a chest-benchpress motion one.

Now, the place is claustrophobically small as I said, you might as well try and work out in a lift. I cannot for the life of me to force myself to do more than 3 supersets of all 3 machines+ some ab work in between (usually works out to be 3 sets of 10 of each) and about 5-10 min jogging. All in all, the workout takes about 45 min. I've also maxed out the weight on the upper body machines (about 100kg)

Since the crazy travel started and I lost access to my regular gym and routines my bodyfat has been going up steadily since I get to enjoy airport food, fast food and hotel food way too much for good health, and my choices are kind of limited by hygiene standards and whatnot. Bodyfat is sitting around 22% at the moment, and I weight 85kg. Yes, that means I carry 16-17 kg of fat on me.

Now, I've recently found a few guys who do some rock climbing here - something I did in college, and I have joined them on occasion, but my power-to-weight ratio isn't good so clmbing is more difficult than in should be.

So, my goals are: drop to half my bodyfat (bringing my weight to 78kg) and increase both my cardio endurance (I want to keep an under 5 min/km pace for 10km) so I wish to be able to run 10km in under 50 min, and at the same time increase my overall body strength (yes, complex lifts, I'm looking at you) and coordination with special focus on my arms/shoulders. My back is in pretty good shape - I do about 30 pullups in a session lifting 100kg or 60 or so at my bodyweight. I reckon with improved arm strength and less weight to haul around I should be able to do 100.

The timeline on this is ideally 4-6 weeks, but realistically probably closer to 2 months.

So, any advice? I can keep some of my meals under control but at least 1 meal a day is very much random and out of my hands. I can generally try and eat soup or pasta or something in that line, but not grilled asparagus with tuna type thing.

Breakfast is one of my main meals of the day and generally consists of: scrambled eggs (2) with brown toast, about 150g of pineapple, 100g of watermelon, croissant, fruit juice.

Lunch is generally chinese or pasta depending on my boss' fancy.

Dinner is more flexible, but it is hard to eat salads because they're not reliable in the hotel restaurant and already gave me food poisoning once.

Anyway, tomorrow is day 1: on the cards a gym session in the morning, 3km run in the afternoon and a 1h game of tennis in the evening. Maybe a massage afterwards. Will post some stats after.

Cheers

[tibilicus]

Hey boyos,

So due to the vicissitudes of his employer's business interests, SM finds himself stuck for a couple of months in a hotel in Ghana with a gym so small it's almost amusing.

To have a better idea: there are 2 threadmills, and 2 static bikes, a collection of dumbells of which the heaviest is 10kg, and a couple of these funny machines: a quad machine, a pullup one, and a chest-benchpress motion one.

Now, the place is claustrophobically small as I said, you might as well try and work out in a lift. I cannot for the life of me to force myself to do more than 3 supersets of all 3 machines+ some ab work in between (usually works out to be 3 sets of 10 of each) and about 5-10 min jogging. All in all, the workout takes about 45 min. I've also maxed out the weight on the upper body machines (about 100kg)

Since the crazy travel started and I lost access to my regular gym and routines my bodyfat has been going up steadily since I get to enjoy airport food, fast food and hotel food way too much for good health, and my choices are kind of limited by hygiene standards and whatnot. Bodyfat is sitting around 22% at the moment, and I weight 85kg. Yes, that means I carry 16-17 kg of fat on me.

Now, I've recently found a few guys who do some rock climbing here - something I did in college, and I have joined them on occasion, but my power-to-weight ratio isn't good so clmbing is more difficult than in should be.

So, my goals are: drop to half my bodyfat (bringing my weight to 78kg) and increase both my cardio endurance (I want to keep an under 5 min/km pace for 10km) so I wish to be able to run 10km in under 50 min, and at the same time increase my overall body strength (yes, complex lifts, I'm looking at you) and coordination with special focus on my arms/shoulders. My back is in pretty good shape - I do about 30 pullups in a session lifting 100kg or 60 or so at my bodyweight. I reckon with improved arm strength and less weight to haul around I should be able to do 100.

The timeline on this is ideally 4-6 weeks, but realistically probably closer to 2 months.

So, any advice? I can keep some of my meals under control but at least 1 meal a day is very much random and out of my hands. I can generally try and eat soup or pasta or something in that line, but not grilled asparagus with tuna type thing.

Breakfast is one of my main meals of the day and generally consists of: scrambled eggs (2) with brown toast, about 150g of pineapple, 100g of watermelon, croissant, fruit juice.

Lunch is generally chinese or pasta depending on my boss' fancy.

Dinner is more flexible, but it is hard to eat salads because they're not reliable in the hotel restaurant and already gave me food poisoning once.

Anyway, tomorrow is day 1: on the cards a gym session in the morning, 3km run in the afternoon and a 1h game of tennis in the evening. Maybe a massage afterwards. Will post some stats after.

Cheers

The Gym nearest to me sounds exactly like the one your stuck with. I worked out there for about 2 months till I realised just how bad it was. On busy days you wouldn't get a chance to use the treadmills, there always seemed to be someone using the only constructive piece of equipment (lat pulldown), the benchpress machine went up to about 150 lbs, and the dumbell rack went up to only 20 kg..

In advice of loosing your weight I would just try and stick with "good cabs" if at all possible. Also is there no shops where you can buy reliable food or is it all bad?

[SwordsMaster]

The Gym nearest to me sounds exactly like the one your stuck with. I worked out there for about 2 months till I realised just how bad it was. On busy days you wouldn't get a chance to use the treadmills, there always seemed to be someone using the only constructive piece of equipment (lat pulldown), the benchpress machine went up to about 150 lbs, and the dumbell rack went up to only 20 kg..

In advice of loosing your weight I would just try and stick with "good cabs" if at all possible. Also is there no shops where you can buy reliable food or is it all bad?

Well, you see, I live in a hotel. So fridge space is very limited. I can buy packaged stuff, like cereal, crackers and such, but it's hard to get my hands on cottage cheese for example, and no way at all I can grill myself some chicken breasts...

I try and eat as much fruit as possible, but i don't think i have more than 3-4 servings a day anyway...

[SwordsMaster]

Well, so the weekend is out, and so here is my first update:

Saturday:

Rock climbing, 3 full ascentions, with lots of struggling and broken skin on my fingers. Overall positive.

Sunday: 45min gym workout pretty much as described above, some 20 lengths in the pool in a more relaxed fashion and a 25 min jog in 35C heat and 98% humidity which amounted to 4.5 km.

Today is rest day - my legs are not used to jogging like that anymore.

Plan for tomorrow: short gym workout, 1 hr tennis game, 3 km jog (around 15 min).

Diet is still iffy...

[SwordsMaster]

So, I don't know if anyone is reading this, but unless someone asks me to stop i'll coninue.

Anyway, today's workout turned out as follows:

Half hour's tennis, 18 min jog (3km) (the humidity is killing me) and then half an hour in the gym:

Superset:
Hanging leg raises (2x12)
Lat pulldown (3x10) @ 90, 95, 100 kg
Bench press machine (2x10, 1x8) @ 85, 95, 100 kg respectively
Weighted crunches (2x15) @ 30kg

Some light stretching and 2 sets of 30 pushups at the end.

Tomorrow, no jogging, but a full hour of tennis and probably gym with a similar setup. Alternatively maybe 20 lengths in the pool (25m), depending on how I'm feeling.

[tibilicus]

So, I don't know if anyone is reading this, but unless someone asks me to stop i'll coninue.

Anyway, today's workout turned out as follows:

Half hour's tennis, 18 min jog (3km) (the humidity is killing me) and then half an hour in the gym:

Superset:
Hanging leg raises (2x12)
Lat pulldown (3x10) @ 90, 95, 100 kg
Bench press machine (2x10, 1x8) @ 85, 95, 100 kg respectively
Weighted crunches (2x15) @ 30kg

Some light stretching and 2 sets of 30 pushups at the end.

Tomorrow, no jogging, but a full hour of tennis and probably gym with a similar setup. Alternatively maybe 20 lengths in the pool (25m), depending on how I'm feeling.

I take it the climate makes things a lot harder? I struggle to find motivation to workout if it's really warm, don't know how I'd cope if it was like that permanently

[edyzmedieval]

Continue like that Swords and by the end of June you'll lose almost all of your extra fat.
Make sure you eat proteins, or else by the end of week 2 or week 3 you'll be dead, your muscles will simply refuse to push/pull/jog. Drink a lot of water, by a lot drink more than what's needed - you're in a hot and very humid environment, hydration is important.

[SwordsMaster]

I take it the climate makes things a lot harder? I struggle to find motivation to workout if it's really warm, don't know how I'd cope if it was like that permanently

Yeah, the climate definitely makes a difference, specially on the running. It hasn't been since the nigerian pepper soup days that I've sweated so much...

Make sure you eat proteins, or else by the end of week 2 or week 3 you'll be dead, your muscles will simply refuse to push/pull/jog.

That's a good point. I eat eggs for breakfast, but could probably do with more protein. Will see if I can get more chicken/beef on...

[rajpoot]

So what really is the average temperature there?
Over here, it hovers near 40 degree Celsius at the time I go for workout.

[SwordsMaster]

So what really is the average temperature there?
Over here, it hovers near 40 degree Celsius at the time I go for workout.

Between 30-36C, but the problem is humidity, it's between 98% and 100% as it is the rainy season. So no matter how much you sweat you don't cool down which makes you sweat and dehydrate more...

[SwordsMaster]

Well, another day, another progress post:

Yesterday amounted to about an hour of playing tennis and some 20 lengths in the pools at a more leisurely pace although I did manage to pull something in my back.

Dinner ended up being a banana and half a dozen crackers with cheese and youghurt. Yeah, that healthy.

On the plus side, I've been getting enough sleep over the last couple of days and actually feel rested today.

As a side note, for anyone using iGoogle, I found a handy little gadget - DailyBurn - that allows you to track weight, nutrition and workouts, set up goals, etc. Only set it up today but it seems handy.

The plan for today includes another 3k and my usual gym workout, my back allowing. It'd be a pity to have to stop now...

[Vladimir]

So, I don't know if anyone is reading this, but unless someone asks me to stop i'll coninue.

Anyway, today's workout turned out as follows:

Half hour's tennis, 18 min jog (3km) (the humidity is killing me) and then half an hour in the gym:

Superset:
Hanging leg raises (2x12)
Lat pulldown (3x10) @ 90, 95, 100 kg
Bench press machine (2x10, 1x8) @ 85, 95, 100 kg respectively
Weighted crunches (2x15) @ 30kg

Some light stretching and 2 sets of 30 pushups at the end.

Tomorrow, no jogging, but a full hour of tennis and probably gym with a similar setup. Alternatively maybe 20 lengths in the pool (25m), depending on how I'm feeling.

Of course we're reading!

So, why are you complaining about the gym? I thought you were a soldier of fortune or something so just do curls with a 1,000 round crate of 5.56 (I prefer 7.62).

[Strike For The South]

I refuse to let this thread die.

Well let me get yall up to date.

-Tore my MCL
-Sprained my wirst, Still continued to lift which led to strain on those ligaments and a minor injury ended up keeping meet out of commison for 6 weeks

Couple that with a brutal semester and I'm sitting at 228 :ashamed: I fear I may have lost some LBM to so some of that # is probably more fat.

However with a healthy body and the end of the semster it's time to redeadicate myself.

I'll probably end up going back to Starrs 5x5 with my own twist.