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


OceansAndrew
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Speaking of which, what kind of music do you listen to while exercising?

My gym used to have a playlist with a ton of ballads and such, really terrible music to lift to. Recently they compiled a playlist from what the regulars wanted, which is (off the top of my head) Motley Crue, Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest (nothing gets that lift going like the intro to Painkiller), Metallica and the likes. I'm really content :)

I've been slacking a bit the last couple of weeks, but I'm ready for the new challenge!

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I don't listen to music while exercising - I rather be attentive to my body so that I know when something is wrong. Music also tends to get you to change your workout pace depending on the tempo of the music, which can screw you up or get you to not work as hard. Headphone also can create a danger when working out if the headphone cord gets caught on a weight or machine. If I'm in the gym, I put up with whatever crappy music is playing.

Edit: If I had to choose songs for workouts though, I'd go with some good old metal. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Demons & Wizards, Angra, HammerFall, Manowar, Symphony X, etc.

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You know what? Forget what I said before about MoAbi being great for workout music. I just bought 2 CD's from "Two Steps From Hell" and it is incredible.

But still, my all time favorite piece of workout music would have to be Daniel K's

.

Say you're going for a run. You start out gaining speed in a jog and then then at 15 seconds in, you explode in a really fast sprint. Then at 1:20, you can cool off in a walk or a slow jog to catch your breath. Then at 1:58, you continue your sprint till 2:35 and finish off on a slower pace. It's the perfect way for me to end those long runs. For some reason, this song makes me want to push myself to full throttle.

Edited by Thin Crust
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You know what? Forget what I said before about MoAbi being great for workout music. I just bought 2 CD's from "Two Steps From Hell" and it is incredible.

QFT. I bought one of their albums last week. Most epic drive to work ever. Every song is like a cross between the soundtracks from Troy, Gladiator, and The Davinci Code.

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Not sure I really get the appeal of Fitocracy... it's awfully confusing, and some of the help text is just straight-up outdated or wrong. For example, I tried for 5 minutes to figure out how to log a workout that I just did, and absolutely couldn't see where to do it. I got a message telling me to look for the "Exercises" tab which doesn't exist. All I want to do is just record what I do after I go back from the gym but I guess that's not complicated enough for this website :/

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Click "Track" tab on the top. Sometimes you need to click it twice for it to change pages.

On the box that says "search for an activity" type elliptical and it will auto-search for every exercise with the words that you type...much like google does when you start typing in the search box.

Enter how much time you were on it

Click "Save workout"

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Hey Bahamut, I'm sorry I never responded to your thoughtful post for me.

I have heard before about muscle memory and about how the same exercise won't do much for you after a while and that's what I'm going to try. To be honest, my arms and legs are strong and don't have much fat on them, the the exact opposite is true of my gut. Basically, I need a way to lose my weight in my abdomen. So that's why, if you've seen my feed, I've started doing push ups and squat thrusts (knows as burpees nowadays for some reason) and making sure to stretch my stomach down very far.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I absolutely hate abdominal exercises. I hate that burning feeling in my gut. I think that swimming was the only exercise that I could stomach (pun intended) that worked my abs.

Do you have any recommendations on ab workouts that don't involve situps or crunches? Things that I could rotate through a week at a time. Things like biking that work your abs but don't give you that overwhelming burn?

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You sure that what you're doing is a burpee? A burpee involves going from standing to the push up position, doing a push up, and then jumping up.

You're probably going to have to do some sort of crunch or sit up to get the abs well - there is the upper and lower part for them. Working out your core in general is a good thing too - jumping jacks, burpees, and mountain climbers are good for that.

Oh, you can also work out your abs by doing planks.

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Thin Crust, there is no way to 'spot remove' excess fat. Basically by doing any cardio or weightlifting, if you are eating pretty well, your stomach will get a reduction in weight. The body is a pretty sweet machine and it is all connected, so even if you lift a ton of heavy weights with your arms or (especially) your legs, if you are using more calories than you take in, it's overall fat stores are depleted. :-)

The good news is you don't need to annihilate your core to lose weight, just do a good all-around program, don't eat crazily, and (most important) be consistent! :-)

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I've done that too. Earlier, I said how I was on a vegetable and cereal diet for a month while running 3-4 miles a day and I still didn't lose a pound. For some reason my body refuses to lose the fat it has. I'm thinking about joining that "6-week body makeover" that is supposed to be really good. Basically, they take a medical approach to weight loss in that they analyze your specific body and how it reacts to specific foods. Then they build a customized plan based around it.

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Vegetable & cereal diet doesn't sound terribly healthy. Just eat a balanced diet. Maybe 50% carbs, 40% protein, 10% fat or something like that would be solid - make sure you're getting good nutrients too. If you're exercising hard, push those carbs to 60%. You don't need any protein shakes or anything like that to get the protein you need - just eat foods good in protein like nuts, chicken, fish, etc. Your body needs some protein though for muscle recovery/strengthening.

Make sure you're working out your whole body as OA mentioned - if you skimp on an area, it will hurt you. The most consistent results I've seen for weight loss are crossfit type workouts. Ever see any jacked up Marines? It's because crossfit style workouts in boot camp (combined with starvation) slimmed them down and subsequent weight lifting built them back up the right way.

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Question for my pull-up peeps: has this ever happened to you, or do you know how to avoid it?

I was ending my third set of pull-ups earlier today, and I had gone to failure at the sixth rep (weak, I know) but when I dropped to the floor my neck EXPLODED with pain. A very serious pressure, and a pain that made me nauseated. I was incapacitated for a few minutes.

The pain is now about ninety percent gone an hour and a half later, but I want to know what I may have done wrong that caused that--it has never happened to me before. The only thing I can guess is it might be because I was depleted so bad that I let my head droop on the last rep, possibly straining those muscles. Any thoughts or advice? Needless to say, I do not want to experience it again. I dropped my fourth set altogether 'cause I didn't want to exacerbate it.

Edit: BTW, they were hammer-grip pull-ups. A whole big gym with five or more pull-up stations, and none of them have a straight bar. WTH?

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I love pull-ups and this has happened to me a couple times IIRC.

When you're getting to that stage where you're pulling up in the midst of muscle failure, it's very easy to get really tensed up and start engaging and often over-engaging the upper trapezius muscles. I've had neck pain similar to what you described and it was more than likely caused by what I described. I'd say just take it a little easier and mentally focus primarily on the muscles you're targeting. Be careful dude and don't overdo it! :)

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I love pull-ups and this has happened to me a couple times IIRC.

When you're getting to that stage where you're pulling up in the midst of muscle failure, it's very easy to get really tensed up and start engaging and often over-engaging the upper trapezius muscles. I've had neck pain similar to what you described and it was more than likely caused by what I described. I'd say just take it a little easier and mentally focus primarily on the muscles you're targeting. Be careful dude and don't overdo it! :)

You're probably right. I may have let my gym-ego get the better of me, because there was a guy about fifteen feet away from me doing sets of 12 or more. I guess I reached deeper into my bag and came up empty, which is usually when you get hurt.

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I was doing squat-thrusts (burpees) last night around 10pm and I did something with my back. When I get into the push up position, what I do is I arch my back and put my stomach to the ground while my arms are still fully extended. This makes my abs work a lot harder than normal ones but I must have overdid it. All of the sudden, something popped and I just had a lot of lower back pain and I had to stop.

Well, it's a really good thing I work at a hospital because I was able to talk to the radiologist when he came in. He said that since:

1. I'm young, strong, and healthy.

2. The pain is much less today than it was last night.

3. There is no pain radiating to the legs or feet.

4. No trouble urinating or pooping.

There's very little chance that any lasting effects will take place. He also said that if there is a disk bulge, the pain is more often due to inflammation rather than vertebral damage.

This presents sort of a problem. I don't know what kind of exercises I should do now that my back is giving me problems.

Edited by Thin Crust
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This presents sort of a problem. I don't know what kind of exercises I should do now that my back is giving me problems.

1. give it time to heal more

2. start going VERY EASY and working your back to strengthen it so it can withstand more stuff, start with extensions and just stretching.

3. other stuff you can do is arm or isolated leg stuff

4. any sort of cardio; walking, jogging, eliptical, etc

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