Exercise Habits

[Keunert]

i destroyed the last chocolate and the last cookies by eating them real fast yesterday.
looking down i see only a moderate christmas growth of myself. that's quite an achievement.
and after a flu i did restart my exercise stuff two days ago.

[Keunert]

i am 4 months into my exercise regime.  i reached a level where i do not make anymore progress and stay with the same weights for weeks now. my body changed: i lost maybe 8-12 pounds and gained some muscles. i use my bike to go to the trainstation, i restarted badminton once a week and most important: i am ready to start a running routine.

i thought of two or three runs a week. how long would you suggest?

[Gusington]

I run 5k 5 times a week. This is a winter schedule on a treadmill since its icy and dangerous to run outside. Each 5k run takes me about 26 or 27 minutes. Since I started running in October I am down 10 pounds. Once spring and summer come I hope to lose a bit more. I am in better shape than I have been in for a while. I am sore all the time now, however.

On the days I don't run I use the ski machine and do some free weights and crunches. I go on the ski machine between 30 and 60 minutes.

[Keunert]

a ski machine???

5k is 5000 meters?

thanks for the info Gus.

[Gusington]

Sorry 5km, or 3.5 miles.

And yeah a ski machine. It used to be much more effective for me but I don't even break a sweat on it now.

[GJK]

I'm getting back to my "normal" workout routine after taking a year off due to life events; new job, moving, Bell's Palsy illness, and becoming the custodial parent of my youngest son (a blessing).  I've been in competitive bodybuilding before and my brother was a competitive powerlifting and we used to train together.  After just a few weeks, my squat is up over 500lbs, my bench is at 365 and I'm deadlifting 550lbs.  Shooting for 600 in squat (previous max), 405+ in bench and whatever I can get in deadlifting.  This as I'm approaching 50 (48 now).  I may not realize those numbers at this point however since I'm really bumping up the cardio to cut off all the excess fat that I accumulated in that year off.  I'm a big guy (currently weight 285) at 6' so I'm not one for ass kicking cardio.  I will either do a pure fat-burning routine (one minute walk at around 2.5mph alternated with one minute sprint at up to 8.5-9mph).  Thirty minutes is usually my max for that effort though I have gone on for longer at times (when down around 255lbs).  My gym has a "Cardio Theater" where they play recent DVD releases on a large projector screen.  I've found that I can do an 1.5-1.75 hour "cardio" routine while watching the entire movie.  This will be a slow pace elliptical/treadmill/bike mix.  I do make sure that I break a good sweat and I will increase the intensity for brief periods if I feel my HR is dropping too low to sustain a fat-burn. 


Attached are a couple of photo's from 2009/2010.  I use them as inspiration and as a goal of where I need to get back to.  I appreciate threads like this as I can refer back to my post and read others when periods of burn-out and come or when there's a lack of motivation.

[Keunert]

GJK: impressive muscles! good luck in getting back there.

Today i did my first run. my aim was to get 5km like Gus. I took my phone with me and a free running app that tracks length, speed, time and the height of the track. i run a course in a nearby wood i knew from a walk last summer. when i finally made the round i had only made 3.5km. but with snow still lying and temperature at a freezing point i called it a day. but i was able to constantly run without stopping and felt like i had still some reserves. it took me 23minutes (quite slow i know) but there was 100 hundred meter of height to run up to (well and down again)

i already know how to make the course five kilometers and hope to run it three times a week. once a week i will skip it and instead play an hour of badminton with friends.

it's really more fun than i expected it.

[Gusington]

Running can be quite addicting. I know that's a cliche but it's true. I do 5k 5 times a week and have lost 10-11 pounds in about 5 months. That is significant for me - since I am short I have less of a threshold for packing on extra weight!

Work up to where you want to be Keunert, take your time. And try to vary the speed you run. Go a little quicker for a little bit, then slow down, then try to speed up again. That variation is supposedly very good for your heart.

And somebody remind me to hire GJK as my personal bodyguard.

[Keunert]

I wondered lately if my excersizes would be a lot more effective if i would eat proteins. my father in law adviced me not to eat it.
how about you guys? do you eat additional proteins and how did it affect your workout and how did it influence your body?

[GJK]

I wondered lately if my excersizes would be a lot more effective if i would eat proteins. my father in law adviced me not to eat it.
how about you guys? do you eat additional proteins and how did it affect your workout and how did it influence your body?

Protein breaks down into amino acids which are the building blocks of muscles.  Have to have protein if the intent is to add lean muscle - and that should be your intent.  We all begin to lose muscle mass at various rates once we hit our thirties unless we work to build muscle mass.  Muscle mass controls your metabolism and obviously oversees your strength and endurance (the heart being a muscle as well as the endurance of other muscles). 
I'm a bit extreme at working to add muscle mass so my protein supplementation is not a normal one.  I add about 150 to 200 grams of protein a day to my diet for three consecutive days and then restrict protein to about 50 grams on the fourth day.  Extra protein can be taxing on the kidneys. 
I'm curious about the rationale to NOT eat protein? 

[Staggerwing]

I've another question for all you guys. For those of us who have limited exercise time- for repetitive exercises such as knee bends, crunches, free weights, etc, is it better to rest the muscles between each end of the movement or keep tension until the return? In other words, if I do a knee bend is it best to rest on my haunches before standing back up or stay tensed up and is it best to lift up a free weight in a flex, let it back down, relax the arm, and repeat, or is it best to never relax the muscles between each lift until the set is done?

[Gusington]

^I have no real idea but it sounds like the road to an injury of some kind if you don't relax at least a little.

[GJK]

Depends on the exercise.  Heavy exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench for example), I might take a brief pause at the top of the movement but then I get back to the starting position.  This is for the working sets with heavier weights.  During light weight warm-ups I might hold the movement at the top for a bit longer just to get the blood concentrated in the area. 
Concentration movements I will hold it at the top of the movement.  Example was tonight with concentration curls. 

As Gus said, you definitely don't want to "bounce" at the top of the movement (or down in the squat) as that will surely cause injury at some point.

You want a controlled lift.  If you're hurky-jerky the weights are too heavy.  If your form breaks down, you're too heavy with the weights or too fatigued with that muscle group.

And really there is just no way that you could keep the muscle tense through the entire lift.  As you return to the beginning of the movement, the antogonistic muscles are at work so keeping your pecs tight as you're lowering the bar in the bench (where your back muscles are controlling the descent) would be near impossible physically (as an example).

[Keunert]

would you take additional proteine if you do 4 sessions a week (30minutes) with leight weights (10kg)? or is a balanced food diet enough?

my father in law mentioned bad side effects for the kidneys and also some effects on the Mr Johnson. my wife finds it disgusting because of the raw material

[GJK]

A balanced diet would be sufficient for you and you increase your protein intake naturally by eating more fish and fowl or from the best source of protein, eggs; it doesn't have to come from a powder.