re: Arkansas health and fitness thread

Life is so boring without drinking, might as well lift heavy things and jump around

Today's Workout:

Squat:
3x3 @ 330,375,420
3x5 @ 330

That is STOUT HawgPyle!

It looks like the routine that I finally found that worked for me is pretty similar to what is CLEARLY working for you ... only, you are at the advanced stage while I'm starting over at the novice stage after an injury. It relies almost exclusively on a few, basic, multi-joint lifts, includes VERY few auxiliary/isolation lifts, and the goal is to get in, do damage, get out, and recover. Some of my best workouts and PR lifts came during workouts that lasted maybe 30 minutes.

Body Revolution is Jillian Michaels and it's more of a mix of lifting and cardio, as opposed to Insanity's full cardio.

The bonus is that BR is only about 30 minutes, but I've had to restart it a couple of times and am now sick to death of the first month workouts. Since I haven't worked out in about 30 days, I can't just go straight to month 2.

I've done Insanity twice and saw great results, but it's just hard to make myself do the 1 hour workouts in month 2.

I'm turning more and more towards bodyweight workouts. What do the fitness experts here think about that?

well, I 100% support targeted weight lifting for the entire body. shocked...I know.

You will burn a lot of calories lifting. I do. I only do 15 minutes of cardio when I work out and that is at the beginning of my work out. Enough to get my heart rate up. I DO push myself in those 15 minutes as much as I can. Sometimes, I "wind down" by doing some light cardio.

you don't have to be a hard core cardio bunny to lose weight and get in shape.

I have a lot of lifting routine plans. Even some on pdf that I use to send to friends who want something to get started with. Mine are not geared toward anything that might be perceived as too "girly". I do more styles of lifts than the majority of men. If you want, I can send you a good starter plan on lifting. Just let me know. Obviously, you would need to raise the amount you lift as compared to me. I'm only curling with dumb bells 15 lbs, 3x15. In boy world that makes me a big wimp.

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What do the fitness experts here think about that?

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As another non-expert who has tried a lot of stuff and gained and lost the same 30 lbs more times than I care to admit ...

It depends on your goals:

If your main goal is weight loss with some toning, that is fine. I got my best weight loss results with regular, low intensity workouts that let me consistently burn a lot of calories day after day after day without needing recovery. I dropped weight like crazy when I would rotate between an indoor bike ride and a treadmill walk on alternate days (walking on an incline with a 50 lb weight vest - but going slow enough to keep my heart-rate down around 145-150).

If your main goal is strength, there is no substitute for barbells.

The P90x, Insanity, & Crossfit programs are good for toning and weight loss, but they are no substitute for barbells when it comes to strength, and I view them as inefficient uses of discomfort. When you train cardio and strength at the same time, you compromise both.

The good news is, when you're just getting started, friggin anything will work. You can get decent results for a few months doing anything. When you start hitting your first plateaus after a few months, it gets harder to make gains/progress, and fewer things will work. After you've made it through a few plateaus, even fewer things will work. Fortunately, most of us aren't trying to play D-1/SEC football anymore, so late novice stage or early intermediate stage will get us where we need to be.

I only dropped 0.4 lbs last week (226.0 lbs, 18.4% bf). I didn't do so hot on cutting back on weekday evening beer last week. I got a bit too excited about making good progress in my BJJ classes this week and celebrated/rewarded myself with too many calories afterward. It's not the loss I was hoping for, but I'll take a loss over a gain any day, and it was a FUN week. My weigh-in's are Friday mornings, so it's the start of a new week, and a new chance to get it right for next week's weigh in.