Fit Club ahoy! Where men are bros and women are also bros!

[Argle]

That's what I'm sayin! Short, sweet, and to the point. What kind of core exercises have you been doing in your tabatas?

People will probably laugh at my choice of exercises (I still consider myself an exercise noob, only been at it regularly for a year). For the last couple weeks I've been doing L pull ups, weighted calf raises, one armed push ups (on an incline, I'm not really good at the regular ones yet), handstands/handstand push ups, burpees. I work out at home, don't have a lot of equipment. I'm trying to find exercises that give the most bang for the buck. I'm mainly interested in strength training, but by the time I finish this it feels like brutal cardio. I usually hop in the shower afterwards cuz I'm sweating like a pig.

[OceansAndrew]

People will probably laugh at my choice of exercises (I still consider myself an exercise noob, only been at it regularly for a year). For the last couple weeks I've been doing L pull ups, weighted calf raises, one armed push ups (on an incline, I'm not really good at the regular ones yet), handstands/handstand push ups, burpees. I work out at home, don't have a lot of equipment. I'm trying to find exercises that give the most bang for the buck. I'm mainly interested in strength training, but by the time I finish this it feels like brutal cardio. I usually hop in the shower afterwards cuz I'm sweating like a pig.

Get some sort of squat in there and you are completely set; with a tabata, bodyweight jump lunges would be perfect and require zero gear, and compliment burpees really well.

I've done some tabata stuff and it's pretty fun; definitely keeps me interested; other cardio stuff i like is kettlebell circuits, works the posterior chain something fierce!

[Soul Splint]

Please Mommy, no more meat and sweet potatoes.

[Mr. Bottle Rocket]

I've been lax on going to the gym lately, my sleeps are just too out of order...so much so I've actually got to take pills for it. D:

I want to get buff goddamnit. Stop getting in the way of that, life.

[Soul Splint]

I've been lax on going to the gym lately, my sleeps are just too out of order...so much so I've actually got to take pills for it. D:

I want to get buff goddamnit. Stop getting in the way of that, life.

Buffness is hard.

I've gotten to the point where I have to eat angry. I have to pretend that salmon jumped out of the water and slapped me across the face before I cooked it, otherwise I can't make myself chew. On the bright side, I gained two pounds last week. Nine more and I'll be at my previous max weight, but with a body fat percentage at least four points lower than the last mark

[OceansAndrew]

Go to the gym! Lift heavy things! Actually, before you read any more posts in this thread, do 20 pushups! It's fun!

[Argle]

Does anyone here take creatine? Seems like it just provides you with some extra energy during a workout after you've ingested enough of it. Wondering if it's worth it, or are there side effects.

[Argle]

Figure I'll share some progress... I actually have some semi-abs going on. Nothing to write home about, but I've never had anything approaching visible abs in my entire life, even during my teenage years when I didn't have a belly pouch. Course I never exercised regularly before. I'm a classic ectomorph/hardgainer, so this is pretty cool for me, and makes me want to go even further.

[XPRTNovice]

Does anyone here take creatine? Seems like it just provides you with some extra energy during a workout after you've ingested enough of it. Wondering if it's worth it, or are there side effects.

Major dehydration is a side effect. When I wrestled in high school, the medical guy would always come in at the beginning of the season and tell everyone to get the hell off creatine because it was going to kill them if they were trying to cut weight at the same time, etc...

[OceansAndrew]

Creatine basically forces your body to store more water in the muscle fibers themselves, meaning you won't get as sore post workouts, and may be able to push yourself a little harder.

As Joe said, it is possible to get super dehydrated if you don't drink at least a gallon of water a day, and depending on your goals, it may or may not be decent. If you are going to be doing a ton of volume of high-intensity intervals like wrestling and you aren't prepared to drink even more than a gallon, then skip it. If you are just lifting weights, it's probably fine.

Side effects are gaining some water weight. I've been taking it for about 2 months and at my level, gives me a few extra reps on heavier lifts. I am very dubious about any sort of supplements due to the unregulated nature of them, so I spent about 6 months reading up on it before trying it. There are a lot of good (and dry) articles here about it:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=creatine+supplementation+exercise

[Arrow]

Currently 40lbs. overweight for my body type. Bought an exercise bike on Monday, put it together in my room. I can't handle anything more than 15 minute biking runs at a time (less because of how tiring it is, more because of faint twitches in my left calf after I bike that long, so I'm taking it slow for now), but I'm happy to be actively exercising, something I've never really done with any level of commitment before. I'll create an account for that Fitocracy group when I get a spare moment at work today.

[XPRTNovice]

Currently 40lbs. overweight for my body type. Bought an exercise bike on Monday, put it together in my room. I can't handle anything more than 15 minute biking runs at a time (less because of how tiring it is, more because of faint twitches in my left calf after I bike that long, so I'm taking it slow for now), but I'm happy to be actively exercising, something I've never really done with any level of commitment before. I'll create an account for that Fitocracy group when I get a spare moment at work today.

It's awesome that you're striving for new goals!

Be careful on depending on long stretches of aerobic exercise for weight loss (mix it with weights and burst exercises - I almost never do long cardio), and don't forget that 80% of your health comes from your diet, not from your activity level. If you're packing your stomach with sugar, bread, and grains, you're going to have a really hard time cutting fat and you'll lose the same 40 pounds over and over again.

Best of luck and keep coming back to this thread for encouragement and advice.

[Mr. Bottle Rocket]

I'm on a nutritionist aproved diet, need to lose about 40lbs, remaining fat will be turned to muscle in the gym.

In other news my sleep issue seems to be fixed now, I can sleep regular hours at decent ones again.

[Argle]

@creatine, hmm, I tend not to drink enough water as it is, so maybe I should avoid it.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

I've been trying to avoid this thread so much because I haven't been able to be that active at all since my thorascopy after TWO instances of my lung collapsing! I still have another few weeks before I can do anything intensive and I'm going CRAZY!

[Mr. Bottle Rocket]

^Ew, get better brah.

[Arrow]

It's awesome that you're striving for new goals!

Be careful on depending on long stretches of aerobic exercise for weight loss (mix it with weights and burst exercises - I almost never do long cardio), and don't forget that 80% of your health comes from your diet, not from your activity level. If you're packing your stomach with sugar, bread, and grains, you're going to have a really hard time cutting fat and you'll lose the same 40 pounds over and over again.

Best of luck and keep coming back to this thread for encouragement and advice.

Thanks for the advice Joe; that's really helpful! I'm gonna be honest, I've not been eating healthy for a while. Way too much fast food. I still have to keep obvious track of my diet, because even eating significantly healthier could involve eating things such as what you mention that wouldn't necessarily get rid of the weight, but I get the feeling that by exercising and quitting McDonalds cold turkey, that would at least guarantee some weight loss. Even if I switched primarily to canned soups (which is not the plan; I'm learning how to cook in general as I go through this whole process), just not eating, well, shit would help a lot.

[XPRTNovice]

Thanks for the advice Joe; that's really helpful! I'm gonna be honest, I've not been eating healthy for a while. Way too much fast food. I still have to keep obvious track of my diet, because even eating significantly healthier could involve eating things such as what you mention that wouldn't necessarily get rid of the weight, but I get the feeling that by exercising and quitting McDonalds cold turkey, that would at least guarantee some weight loss. Even if I switched primarily to canned soups (which is not the plan; I'm learning how to cook in general as I go through this whole process), just not eating, well, shit would help a lot.

If you want a ridiculously good book on how to reshape your diet from the ground up, you should check out "It Starts With Food." It has scientific explanations for a lot of its principles - think of it as Paleo Plus - and you can do a 30-day challenge called Whole 30. But it's not a DIET. It's not going to deprive your body of calories so that you lose weight; it changes what you're eating so that you're maximizing nutrition while minimizing sugar intake. Both my wife and I did it for 30 days, though we weren't trying to lose weight. You will feel shitty for about 5 days as your body goes through sugar withdrawal (yes, that's an actual thing) but then you WILL feel awesome and start dropping weight.

[Soul Splint]

@creatine, hmm, I tend not to drink enough water as it is, so maybe I should avoid it.

Also very important is the type of creatine you are taking. Monohydrate (the most common creatine by far) requires a lot of dedicated water consumption, and also requires cycling on and off to avoid liver damage. Forms like pyruvate and hydrochloride don't require nearly as much water or maintenance, though it's still a good idea to drink a little extra on those.

[ectogemia]

Here's why I don't take creatine. Creatine supplementation significantly increases DHT conversion, DHT being the hormone which leads to male-pattern baldness, among other nasty things. Anecdotally, I know people as well who have actually experienced fairly rapid, permanent hair loss after having supplemented for only a few months. That being said, it has soooo many studies supporting its efficacy in strength training. It's a matter of risk-benefit if you choose to supplement with it, and I happen to believe that the risks don't outweigh the benefits.

Aaaand an update on my own gym doings... I finally started lifting again a week from Tuesday. After my 2.5 month recovery period, I lost 23 lbs. Man, that sucked to see, but honestly, it's less than I thought I had lost. But I'm feeling good, and my lifts seem to be coming back quickly, so watever. Just a big roadblock, but I'm past it, left ulna willing. Still hurts a bit during some day-to-day stuff, but it feels totally stable in the gym. I'm just hoping to be back to 186 like I was before my injury by the time MAG rolls around.

[Soul Splint]

^ I'm really, really surprised that study didn't list what kind of creatine was being used. Based on the amounts they were using and the cycle they followed, it's pretty clear they were using monohydrate, which is much harder on the body than other forms. To me, that's like doing a study about meat consumption but not clarifying what kind of meat was used. Maybe not a great analogy, but still, the type of creatine is VERY significant.

For example, creatine pyruvate does not even get filtered by the liver, whereas monohydrate will really do a number on the liver if you take it for too long or don't drink enough water. The pyruvic acid bonded to the creatine in the pyruvate form causes uptake from the digestive system directly to the bloodstream. More efficient and less harmful, though pyruvate isn't as potent for bulking.

[ectogemia]

If you were to have access to the fulltext of the study rather than just the abstract, there'd be like a 99.999% chance that the materials & methods portion of the study would tell you which creatine compound was used.

Sorta like a study I remember reading which got major media coverage which "showed" how saturated fat caused heart disease in rats. I looked at the materials & methods of the fulltext, and they fed them a diet which consisted almost entirely of hydrogenated coconut oil. That's trans fat, not saturated fat. And yet the media ate up this totally unrealistic and misleading study. Surprise!

So yeah, you make a good point that knowing *exactly* what was studied is very important, because that's the *only* thing a study directly speaks to. That being said, I'm still going to err on the side of caution and not use creatine simply because I get solid results without it. Don't wanna risk my locks for a little added performance boost. Besides, I eat lots of red meat which is loaded with creatine, so I'm not sure how much benefit I'd get out of supplementing. I'd bet my muscles are pretty nearly saturated with creatine granules.

edit: Oops, it's in the title, haha. It was monohydrate.

Edited September 26, 2013 by ectogemia

[Argle]

I don't have hair loss in my direct family, so it'd be a damn shame to ruin that with creatine.

[Halt]

I was cruisin' the interwebs, and I came across some information on bodybuilding.com.

P90X isn't geared towards muscle building? I thought it was a mix of cardio and muscle building? Some went as far to say it's more muscle endurance/weightloss?

[ectogemia]

I was cruisin' the interwebs, and I came across some information on bodybuilding.com.

P90X isn't geared towards muscle building? I thought it was a mix of cardio and muscle building? Some went as far to say it's more muscle endurance/weightloss?

P90X is not geared much towards muscle-building, no, contrary to their claims. The people in the commercials were already muscular. Their 90 day transformation is nothing but a typical weight cut which all lifters undergo after a bulking cycle. They just shed the fat covering their muscles due in part to P90X's cardio.