The Fysical Phitness Thread

[Stylish Interval]

@tennis

Why not give this article a read through? Supplement it with the articles found at the end if you'd like (and it never hurts to read a little more!).

I don't know if it would work for you but it never hurts to get some ideas from other places. You could mod it to fit into five days or less, as I've seen some others do. I just finished reading through a log of someone who had gone through this program for the six week cycle and he hit PRs and gained size while improving his conditioning. I don't know if the exact program would work for you (everyone I've seen that does it usually starts with high weights) but you could always give it a go if you like it.

I don't know much about doing multiple variations of bench during one workout. Personally I'd just pick one and go with it for two or four weeks, then change if I didn't like it anymore. I think I've read that improving your incline bench significantly improves your flat bench, but I don't know about decline bench (never done decline before). Maybe Lee / pope / Venom has some advice / tips regarding it. This goes over my head haha.

 

[Nosferalto]

ok so i made a protein cake, it was pretty disgusting. if anyone's interested, here's my famous recipe:

- 4 scoops of vanilla whey protein

- 2 cups of skim milk

- 3 cups of oatmeal

- 1 and 1/2 of peanut butter

- 1/2 cup of chocolate coated almonds

- 2 cups of whole weat flour

- 2 whole eggs and 4 egg whites

i forgot to put that bakind soda/powder so it was hard as a rock so you can put that if you like it soft

after you do all this, bake it. enjoy

 

[Venom]

^ this is probably very helpful for that dude up there that can't gain weight.

 

[Stathakis]

went to the gym as a guest today with a couple of friends. it was their back/bicep day but that doesn't really interest me so after they finished their deadlifts I went over to the leg press machine. yes I know squatting is better but I always stall in the squat (all 3 times I've ever done it) due to the weight hurting my skinny ass shoulders and I wanted to see how much my legs could move before other parts of my body gave out.

first time leg pressing ever so I just started with 2 plates and kept working up in sets of 5, making sure I could do them with full range of motion before adding weight. I completed all sets with no issue till I hit 6 plates, for which I managed 4 reps then failed. that's 540 pounds, which I feel pretty good about, considering it was my first time ever doing the exercise. I feel like I could've done more if I weren't tired for the other sets done before, as well as having already run twice today. 5 plates really took it out of me. but 540x4 at a bodyweight of 120 can't be that bad. yes it was a 45 degree press but let me have my day OK it was the first time I've ever leg pressed.



/brag


PS the local gym rats use hilariously low range of motion, to the point where on any exercise, it's like they're just racking and unracking the weight. I never realized how funny 2" squats were till I saw them in person!

 

[Stylish Interval]

Nice man :)

rom is something i've always found that people lack when squatting, what's worse is everyone seems to lack the ability to take advice and just ignores your help >,>

 

[Bad Ass]

Hello! Echoing Stylish Interval when it comes to drinking water! I pretty much quit soda except for the occasional gas station Pepsi when I'm in the mood (once or twice a month, really). All I drink is water, milk, and various juices. Giving up soda is really great once you get past the first stage of "oh man a soda would be nice right now". It just feels so much...better when you finish off a nice tall glass of milk or water.

But why I came was to give a tip to those who do not like water. I know that many people's excuse for not drinking water is that, oh, they can't stand the stuff. I, too, am not one for water water water all the time. The best way to make myself drink water is to squeeze half of a lemon into it (i'm normally around with 32 oz glasses). It gives the stuff a nice taste, and I can down three quarters of a gallon of the stuff or more each day with it. Seriously, try a bit of lemon in your water. You can even add a packet of sugar to make lemonade of sorts. Even shit like Crystal Light (just an example off the top of my head), if it's what you need to get off soda.

edit: oh yeah and seriously guys eat tuna and chicken like its your job, popemobile has the right idea

 

[Nosferalto]

how can you possibly not like water?

also this is what ive had today

- 2 whole eggs 4 egg whites + 1 cup of oatmeal + cup of milk

- workout

- protein shake

- 1 can of tuna (In water ofc) + 1 boiled potato + some fruit

- protein cake (see recipe in my earlier post) + cup of milk + banana

- grilled chiken breast + steamed vegetables + cup of milk

- casein protein before bed (slow digesting protein)

it doesnt have to be this extreme but you get the idea

 

[Stylish Interval]

do you eat an entire cake in one sitting? better question, how big is the cake? cos if it's as big as i'm thinking holy shit that's a lot of cake.

also did you use baking soda or w/e this time and make it soft? if so did it taste better? i'm feeling experimentatious (yeah i just made that a word it sounds cooler than experimental)

 

[Ouro]

Hey I've noticed a huge asymmetry in my arms. Not size-wise but strength-wise. I did some searching but did not find a definitive answer.

Recently I started working out at the gym again after about a year and a half. Previously I used to work out with my room mate who was an amateur body builder. Never in my time with him did I notice a discrepancy in arm strength but it appears that now my left arm is significantly weaker than my right.

Last week and today I tried what I thought would be a light alternating bicep curl set with dumbbells. Much to my surprise I could not finish my intended set of 12 with my left arm even though I found the weight incredibly light for my right arm.

My left arm literally stops at midpoint, and even though I feel it is not fatigued/stressed it will not finish the motion. I tried to remedy the problem by dropping weight but I found that even after I halved the weight of the dumb bell I could not finish a set. I have the problem when I'm doing Hammer and Preacher Curls as well.

As far as I'm aware I don't have any deep psychological traumas or nerve injuries that would keep me from completing the motions. I would attribute it to not going to the gym for an extended period of time but I remained somewhat physically active due to the high frequency of emergency restraints I have to employ at my job...

What can I do in this situation?
Should I just try and do what my left arm can do or is there some sort of magical trick that will help me fix this?
Will replacing all of the dumbbell exercises with barbell exercises be the best route?

I posted this on another board but I expect to get a lot of dumb responses. One of Smogon's scientists must have the answer!

 

[Venom]

I don't know what to say, everybody naturally has a arm that is weaker than the other one. I would recommend repeating exercising with really low weight on your weak arm and just keep pressuring it. Carry/Pull whatever with your weak hand, not put to make your strong hand work that much.

I guess Barbell could help, but it will probably be pretty hard since you need a balance of strength which you seem to not have. Just don't get discouraged by this.

 

[Stylish Interval]

Might do some curls on your strong arm for maintenance (maintain the strength you have) and work on your weak arm for a period. Shouldn't be too long to work up to equal strength. But doing barbell will probably cause your strong side to compensate for your weak side and only make your strong side stronger. I agree with carrying / pulling with your weak hand, holding things with your weak side, etc.

Also for soccer it seems we're starting off the morning at 7.30 with a solid ~3.5 mile run. My time yesterday was 35:31 and today was 34:24. Obviously not great. We still have two practices on top of that and today I'm going to try working out. I didn't yesterday because I couldn't even move after the shock of 3.5 miles + practice (which includes sprints) so this week I'm doing T/T/S. And like usual, we have ridiculous push up endurance work. "Ladder up to 10 and then back down! It'll make you a better soccer player!" >,>

BUT DAMNIT I'M NOT GONNA FAIL I'M GONNA LIFT AND PLAY AT THE SAME TIME BLARRRGGGGHHHHH unless it gets really tough then i'll probably give up

edit @below: cut me some slack! not only am i american, i'm from kentucky to boot! the fact that i'm spelling half my words right should earn me a medal on it's own!

everyday i'm editting: FUCKIN 30:59 TODAY TOMORROW SUB 30 :D

 

[Nosferalto]

^ its football ffs @_@

 

[Stathakis]

just keep runnin, SI. do good work~! as the runs get easier, just keep adding them till you're doing one every day, then make one or two each week longer, etc. you know all that. glad you finally got up off your arse and started doing it though!

PS try to get to the point where they're just eeeeeeasy. once you can start hitting 6:45 pace regularly it gets addicting and you start wanting to do all your runs like that. be careful as you get stronger because the engine adapts faster than the chassis


anyways errday im hustlin, gonna hit that 1000 mile summer i was aiming for and with room to spare

 

[Stylish Interval]

no way man running def isn't for me D: the only thing it's good for is giving me more stamina to make runs as target cos i have brain dead wings who can't make a pass so all my runs are in vain >,>

also how many miles are you at now? are you doin 80+/week yet?

 

[Stathakis]

shame you've got dumbasses in the wings, because I feel like a strong (fast) winger can completely alter the way the game is played. I'm not a braindead winger. I led the team in assists this season, 11 in 16 games :D (it'd be more but

and yeah, 80/week tires me out a LOT more than I thought it would. I can do it but it's not easy. thus, what I've been doing is 80 one week and 35 the next, then 80/40, etc. I'm almost at the point where I can go 80 straight, from which point the next step will be slowly bumping to 90 and then 100. I think I can reach consistent 90/week or so by the end of august, from which point I will drop my mileage and introduce more speed. I am considering adding weight or circuit training as well, but I am hesitant to do this at the same time as increasing mileage, because that might be too much for me. I'll probably spend a few weeks at 90 just to make sure I can handle it, then add weights in with the speed work while simultaneously dropping mileage. I'll reintroduce tempo runs in august as well, aiming for 5:30/mile for 5 miles by october-ish. state meet is at the end of october and national qualifiers are the weekend after thanksgiving. it'll take me a miracle to get the far but I think I can do it the way my training's been going.


anyways yeah, summer training is going fantastic, though the heat is extremely painful. all of my runs are significantly slower than usual, like 8:00-8:30 for normal runs instead of 6:45-7:00, but I feel like they'll speed up on their own as I get fitter and as summer ends and the weather cools off. with a strong base of lots of miles behind me, winter training will be just as good, though I'll probably top out at 65-70 miles per week with a lot more emphasis on speed and strength, as well as an hour and a half of soccer practice 5 days a week. for weights, I'm not sure what I'll do but I figured I'd just do a simple 3x5 or 5x5-esque program with more emphasis on lower body (i.e. main lifts would be squats lunges and power cleans, might not even do bench press or maybe once a week). I'm also considering something like 3x3 extra heavy in order to make sure I don't grow too much muscle. dunno, I'll worry about that when I get there. if I can get to 16:00 5k or faster, I have no doubt I'll drop 1:55 in the right race. this year I'm not gonna rely on my coaches to get me in fast races, because winning every race in pedestrian times was lame. I feel like I can run fast, I just don't know how (i.e. am not reaching my body's limits) and part of that is likely because I have nobody to compete against in stupid private school competitions. I dunno. track season is far away anyways. I'm not worried about all that right now.


edit: 40 miles so far this week and it's still wednesday! this is gonna be a big week.

 

[Stylish Interval]

there is nothing better than running i'm becoming convinced. it hurts like hell to run forever, it hurts like hell to sprint forever (sprinting full field (down and back) in sets of 5 up to 30 what the fuck coach) but damn when you finish it's like the greatest thing ever

slowly i am becoming convinced that running is actually fun. slowly.

also i haven't lifted in two weeks i'm too tired after all this running next week we start one a day practices however and i can lift then. 10% drop to accomodate muscle loss and start again. also my eating has improved. my breakfast now is usually

bagel with peanut butter (holy shit toasted bagels why didn't anyone tell me about these before)
banana
sometimes oatmeal

also tuna is something i can stomach but i am not going to be eating very often. it's like a once a week thing for me right now. i mean how does anyone eat that stuff more than once a week? finally i've pretty much cut down soda to the point where i'll have one every once in a while but ice cold water is just the greatest thing for me still. also i drink gatorade (i know i'm sinning D:) during practice but i just sip on it and then down some water to get rid of the aftertaste. i like the carbs (lolcarbs it's sugar).

but seriously running is great. i don't know why no one ever told me this before!!!!!! xD



further: stat, does that mean you're going to break 90 this week?

 

[art-of-tennis]

also tuna is something i can stomach but i am not going to be eating very often. it's like a once a week thing for me right now. i mean how does anyone eat that stuff more than once a week?

Mix some cottage cheese in it. I know it sounds morbid, but try it. To me that tastes far better than either alone (it also is far more protein!)

 

[Stylish Interval]

Mix some cottage cheese in it. I know it sounds morbid, but try it. To me that tastes far better than either alone (it also is far more protein!)

I'll actually try that tonight since I don't have any other food besides pizza rolls and ramen (ate the last of the chicken for lunch!). last bag of tuna but oh well, i don't like it enough to spare a little experimentation :P

 

[Stathakis]

I was hung over yesterday morning and couldn't run so only 8 miles in the afternoon putting me at 48 miles at the end of thursday. I could go insane and run 17+ miles a day for the rest of the week to hit my first 100 mile week. I definitely feel like it's within me, but I know I shouldn't. ahhhhh, I want the triple digits so badly!

but no, I'll probably just chill around 85 miles this week. the weird thing is when I wake up my legs and feet feel like shit but after like an hour they're better.

 

[uragg]

most recent 5x5 stuff i did on friday:
squat: 165
bench: 130
bbr: 95
ohp: 85
deadlift: 175

finally got comfortable with bbr form after weeks of it feeling completely awkward and stupid. also discovered the power rack in the weight room i go to so i don't have to do bs 1x25 squats instead of 5x5.

i'm actually starting to feel less sore overall even though weights are going up, weird but i'll take it. also ohp is the lift that makes me the MOST sore, like EVERYTHING hurts the next day but I WILL OVERCOME.

i wanna be at 140 for bench before the end of the summer, that's the only lift i have a legit target for because when i tried to get my friend to try SL he did it once and told me that 'eh, i think i'm already pretty strong so i'm not gonna do it. i mean, i'm bigger than you.' i didn't really take offense from it but it amused me and i want to be able to show him up pretty good. he maxes out at 140 on bench and so i want to be able to 5x5 it and lol at him before we go back to school.

also what's the approximate conversion between 5x5 and 1RM? i haven't tried to 1RM anything since i started 5x5 and i'm thinking of trying it for each lift just for lulz

 

[Stylish Interval]

oh man you gotta hit triple digits on ohp man set that as a goal too. wednesday i'm doing 105 (holy balls) and it's scary. thought i was gonna stall at 90 but man every time i went into the garage i was like 'shut the fuck up tyler you're gonna get this done, get triple digits, and then you can fail.' scared my brother a little, but he'll understand once he gets to a point where it feels like the next set could be your failing point D:

only 2 workouts away from 140! so by next week man that's pretty chill. i'm at 150 tomorrow (i think) but i'm starting to lose gas on it. it's becoming harder for me to get my last two sets, i almost didn't get the last rep on 145. i'm gonna be sad if i fail tomorrow ):

i know what you mean with those guys who act p. strong but aren't. i'm a little farther behind the guy i talk weights with but when he tells me something i know is wrong it hurts to not be able to discuss it. it always ends up "i'm stronger than you, so i'm right" even though i want to say "it took you two years to get to a point where you're lifting 40 pounds more than me and i've only been lifting for two months" kind of thing.

i honestly don't know any conversions for lifts but i always just assume it's ~20-25 pounds since a 5RM to 1RM is generally like a 10-15 pound increase (from my experience).

 

[Wrave]

Since I don't have a lot of weights or anything in the like, I take a bicycle and just ride for a mile. Wait a bit and then do 30 crunches and 30 push ups, two sets each. It is amazing how much of a work out you can get. I know its not much but it helps.

I took weight lifting in High School and was deadlifting 300 pounds as a 1RM but I can barely get to 200 on squats. Bench was a different story. My beginning 1RM was 110. I only did the workouts three times a month and broke 180 in under 3 months total.

I will tell you Stylish that after a while you will plateau and it will take a little bit longer to increase. Towards the end of that 180, I was only increasing by about 10 lbs a month rather than once a week.

My squats I was barely increasing by 10 lbs a month from November to the end of the lifting.

As for dietary stuff, I luck out because I have such a high metabolism that I can eat anything I want and not put on but maybe three pounds a month and then burn that off in about a week.

Throughout the last 5 1/2 years, I peaked at 170 and my lowest was 130. I am currently at 137 lbs. The reason I dropped so much was the fact that during the summers, I don't eat a whole lot during the day and then sleep for 10-12 hours.

 

[Stylish Interval]

Yeah I made a long post on stronglifts about how I'm done with lifting for a while. It's really only something I posted there so that I knew that I was done lifting for real, at least for the next three months.

I've got too much shit on my plate to handle lifting so I'm going to stick to playing football (-.-) until the end of the season. basically my coach asked me why i slowed down when we switched back to one-a-day practices, we went over my training, he didn't actually believe that i squatted that much and still came out to practice but whatever it was a serious wake-up call. i was just doing too much and it was affecting my performance.

so here i am going to focus on soccer. but to be the best you have to eat like the best so here i go cleaning up my diet. lately soda has been creeping back into my life and i'm back up to that depressing bitch-like 7000+ calories of soda / week and i can't shake it. so i'm just going cold turkey, probably doing to end up killing myself of lack of soda. it's just a 4 week thing and we'll see where i am then.

yes Stat, this involves a little extra running on my part. I'm actually going to do that timed running stuff you always said to do. I actually really like running after these past few weeks. i figure a little supplemental running won't hurt since it's going to be less than we were doing in practices kthx.

damn this post is rambly i'm outta here peace.

 

[NatGeo]

Ok, this is my first post in sports arena, don't kill me :p

I do think that I am at the least somewhat physically fit - my lower body is defined and I have I have fairly toned abdominals - however, I can barely lift worth shit (most I can lift with both arms is *maybe* 70 pounds), so I'm not that bulky. I'm guessing I could probably keep around 150 - 190 pounds on my shoulders for a while, but in all honesty I'm not brawny more as i am a runner. I'm doing track this spring, since I wanted to enter athletics - it's really the only thing I have much of a shot at, and even then its not the best - I only run something like an 8:00 mile, which is still pretty good but could use some fixing.

I know how to make my running better, but do you guys have any recommendations for any exercises that could work my upper body besides my arms? I really need to work on my pectorals.

 

[art-of-tennis]

Ok, this is my first post in sports arena, don't kill me :p

I do think that I am at the least somewhat physically fit - my lower body is defined and I have I have fairly toned abdominals - however, I can barely lift worth shit (most I can lift with both arms is *maybe* 70 pounds), so I'm not that bulky. I'm guessing I could probably keep around 150 - 190 pounds on my shoulders for a while, but in all honesty I'm not brawny more as i am a runner. I'm doing track this spring, since I wanted to enter athletics - it's really the only thing I have much of a shot at, and even then its not the best - I only run something like an 8:00 mile, which is still pretty good but could use some fixing.

I know how to make my running better, but do you guys have any recommendations for any exercises that could work my upper body besides my arms? I really need to work on my pectorals.

Well some good pectoral exercises would be cable cross-overs, flies, pec dec, and incline/flat/decline bench.

My chest/bicep day looks like this.

3x8 Incline bench
3x8 Flat Bench
3x8 Decline smith Bench
3x8 Hammer curls
3x8 Cable Curls
3x8 Barbel curls

I'm thinking about swapping in some dips instead of one of my benches though. I do like cable crossovers though a lot too though.