Working Out
May. 15th, 2011 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI managed seven visits to the gym in seven days, mixing up personal trainer sessions (two), my own mainly strength training sessions (two) and mainly cardio/calorie-burn (three).
So I gave myself today off.
Progress is good, although not in the leaps and bounds that impatient people such as me would obviously like. Since I returned to the gym on Feb 1st I've dropped about nine pounds and maybe 2.5 inches off the wasteline. I reckon there's a good ten pounds to a stone still to go before I'd have a 'satisfactory' body-fat ratio (i.e, one where I can start to focus on putting the weight back on, rather than the current 'half-and'half' concept of trying to lose fat (requires fewer calories) and gain strength (requires bigger muscles, therefore requires more calories).
I never thought that I would turn into a food bore, but the more I read on things, the more convinced I am that the food manufacturers of the world are slowly trying to poison us in the name of "tasty snacks". I've now given up virtually anything "pre-processed" with the exception of some canned stuff that has fairly explicit content listing on the outside (e.g., canned kidney beans, canned fish). Combined with a cutting down on carbohydrate consumption, I feel about 10 times healthier, and 10 times less lethargic after eating a meal.
I'm no angel or ascetic when it comes to food (perhaps unfortunately). I often still succumb to a toasted cheese sandwuich of an evening. But at least it's good cheese and my own bread. I'm also making slow progress each week. Last week I moved from semi-skimmed milk to fully skimmed milk. This week I moved from margarine to butter. Just by keeping an eye on food balance intake (see below) I am getting better physical results.
One of the odd things that I have learnt in the past month or so is that there is a difference between strength-training and muscle-building training. Although the two are related, body-builders and weight-lifters have different training and dietary regimes. So, you can in quite a few cases build strength without a significant build-up in muscle mass (e.g., triceps). That's good for power-lifters, but bad for bodybuilders.
My personal trainer is from a bodybulding rather than power-lifting background, but my specific target at the beginning of this was "strength, with muscle-build-up as a consequence", rather than the other way round. Inevitably, as time has gone on, there have been compromises, and I'm now more in a half-way house of neither having priority.
One example where the two work in (slight) opposition is in cardio. There's actually an "interference effect" in muscle build-up if you do a fair bit of cardio at the same time. This is mainly because the cardio diverts any strength (i.e., endurance) build-up to the type 1 muscle fibres, which is no good for power lifting or body building, but is fine for, say 10-to-12 repetition lifts.
Anyhoo, my main areas of weakness are clearly abdomen (those external 'six-packs') core (the muscles that sit behind those six-packs which we use for simply staying upright when on our feet, and for nearly everything else), biceps (and its many front-arm-based friends), triceps, deltoids.
I'm coming along well on hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, gluteals (just above the bum on your back), and the various combination of back muscles which for convenience sake I'll call laterals, rhomboids and trapezium (trapezia?).
We've dropped off the single-rep dead lifts for a few weeks, so on Thursday I did three sets of 90kg 10-repetitions each.
+++++++++++
So I gave myself today off.
Progress is good, although not in the leaps and bounds that impatient people such as me would obviously like. Since I returned to the gym on Feb 1st I've dropped about nine pounds and maybe 2.5 inches off the wasteline. I reckon there's a good ten pounds to a stone still to go before I'd have a 'satisfactory' body-fat ratio (i.e, one where I can start to focus on putting the weight back on, rather than the current 'half-and'half' concept of trying to lose fat (requires fewer calories) and gain strength (requires bigger muscles, therefore requires more calories).
I never thought that I would turn into a food bore, but the more I read on things, the more convinced I am that the food manufacturers of the world are slowly trying to poison us in the name of "tasty snacks". I've now given up virtually anything "pre-processed" with the exception of some canned stuff that has fairly explicit content listing on the outside (e.g., canned kidney beans, canned fish). Combined with a cutting down on carbohydrate consumption, I feel about 10 times healthier, and 10 times less lethargic after eating a meal.
I'm no angel or ascetic when it comes to food (perhaps unfortunately). I often still succumb to a toasted cheese sandwuich of an evening. But at least it's good cheese and my own bread. I'm also making slow progress each week. Last week I moved from semi-skimmed milk to fully skimmed milk. This week I moved from margarine to butter. Just by keeping an eye on food balance intake (see below) I am getting better physical results.
One of the odd things that I have learnt in the past month or so is that there is a difference between strength-training and muscle-building training. Although the two are related, body-builders and weight-lifters have different training and dietary regimes. So, you can in quite a few cases build strength without a significant build-up in muscle mass (e.g., triceps). That's good for power-lifters, but bad for bodybuilders.
My personal trainer is from a bodybulding rather than power-lifting background, but my specific target at the beginning of this was "strength, with muscle-build-up as a consequence", rather than the other way round. Inevitably, as time has gone on, there have been compromises, and I'm now more in a half-way house of neither having priority.
One example where the two work in (slight) opposition is in cardio. There's actually an "interference effect" in muscle build-up if you do a fair bit of cardio at the same time. This is mainly because the cardio diverts any strength (i.e., endurance) build-up to the type 1 muscle fibres, which is no good for power lifting or body building, but is fine for, say 10-to-12 repetition lifts.
Anyhoo, my main areas of weakness are clearly abdomen (those external 'six-packs') core (the muscles that sit behind those six-packs which we use for simply staying upright when on our feet, and for nearly everything else), biceps (and its many front-arm-based friends), triceps, deltoids.
I'm coming along well on hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, gluteals (just above the bum on your back), and the various combination of back muscles which for convenience sake I'll call laterals, rhomboids and trapezium (trapezia?).
We've dropped off the single-rep dead lifts for a few weeks, so on Thursday I did three sets of 90kg 10-repetitions each.
+++++++++++
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Life, Health, Food
Date: 2011-05-17 08:44 am (UTC)However, although self-knowledge if a wonderful thing, this does not keep me away from the cookies. I find that living a busy but single life in the week leads me away from cooking - if it's only me consuming it then the effort/result ratio doesn't make as much sense. I do tend to cook for 4/5 about twice a week. But life and work may be getting easier shortly so I must try and devote more time to it.
Anyway, your particularly virtuous circle seems to be going well and more power to your elbow - I may try the PT route next month. However I don't think I'll ever be able to go back to butter, it's too clarty (just a Northern word?). It feels like full-cream milk or regular Coke. Of course I cook with it rather than spread, but the thought of it on bread would make me gag.
Re: Life, Health, Food
Date: 2011-05-17 12:19 pm (UTC)The margarine/butter thingy is all really about "types of fat", but I know what you mean about the richer taste of it. As for cooking, well, I use olive oil for that, obv.
The major breakthrough for me was telling the personal trainer that I wanted to focus on strength rather than losing weight. TBH, losing weight is easy. Cycle, swim, run, eat less. But, because it's easy, it's also easy to fall by the wayside. It's a bit like cutting down on cigarettes and/or booze. Gradually the commitment fades, and you find yourself exercising less and eating more.
With strength training and a personal trainer, you don't need to focus on losing weight. Your food intake is based solely around increasing your strength, and weight loss will inevitably follow. Far from "eating less", a proper diet would see you eating just as much, but different stuff and at different times of the day.
The diet side of it certainly isn't easy, but it's 'easier' than the "eat less" stricture solely because it's a diet focused on something other than just losing weight.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 10:45 am (UTC)Never come close to a six-pack, so can't talk about that. Pullups/chinups and dips are good way to build the upper arms. Both exercises score high for volume of muscle used, so if time-efficiency matters, they're probably the way to go.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-18 01:27 pm (UTC)The 3 x 10 reps were at about 70% single-rep max, is my guess. Perhaps a bit less. Can't really remember about the strain involved, but if it was ore than 48 hours I would have definitely remembered (because I've had a couple of those and I distinctly DID remember those! One on quads (caused by lunges), one on hamstrings (caused by stiff-leg deadlifts a couple of weeks ago).
Yeah, I do get the feeling that we are moving a bit more towards the bodybuilding regime, but I think the balance is ok for the moment.
Did a pyramid of dumbbell stiff-leg deadlifts on Monday, but Nick started me off at too light a weight. I got up to 10 reps of 28kg in each arm, and it was only my forearms going dead on me that stopped me going higher. Stripped back to a 12-set of 16kg in each hand and it felt like it was nothing! Very pleasing.
Tried some abdomen work on my own on Tuesday -- which wsa amazingly tiring -- and then perhaps pushed too hard on the cross-trainer at a high resistance level. Definitely felt that in the quadriceps last night.
But thanks for the feedback on this. It's proved very useful.
PJ