The Fysical Phitness Thread

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Xhizors said:
I just started taking protein shakes and whey protein. My question is: can protein supplements harm my body if I'm only 15 years old? Please, only answer if you have experience in this subject.
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No, as long as you participate in enough exercise. Simple but true :pimp:

I started taking protein supplements around 14 years old, when I joined my local football team. A whole year-and-a-bit on, and I haven't noticed any differences (well, bar better fitness, that is).
 
It might be stored as fat but realistically speaking that's the only risk. I trust you've done plenty of research before you've started taking it though?

http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weeklyquestion/a/708_protein_shk.htm

That article seems a little bias to me but it pretty much sums up my thoughts on the use of supplements.

article said:
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "protein supplements have not been shown to enhance muscle development, strength, or endurance."

...

The average American diet already has two or three times the amount of protein they need, so they typically don't need extra protein.
In fact, this extra protein may simply be stored as fat and may not lead to extra muscle mass as you would expect. In addition, high levels of protein intake may lead to dehydration, kidney damage, and increased excretion of calcium, which puts them at risk for kidney stones.
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The last sentence seems like hyperbole but I've come to believe the rest through my own experimentation and research.

btw i'm thinking of making a social group for this thread...one thread just isn't enough to contain our combined muscle mass.
 
taking supplements doesn't harm your body man, it doesn't matter how old you are.

edit: assuming you are taking them responsibly. there can always be too much of a good thing :)

also, i was under the impression that protein shakes and other protein supplements were used to increase the rate at which your muscles repair themselves
 
Ok, done it.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/group.php?groupid=76

Everybody join that group - I'm sure it'll be helpful for people who want to concentrate their discussion on specific areas a little more than this thread allows for and there's room for people to make threads of their own focused on their own development etc.

vespa, i suppose they're good at that but they don't provide anything that can't be found in a healthy diet. if you're getting your protein from supplements then not only are you filling yourself with empty and inferior calories but there's less obligation to consume food sources like lean meat and oily fish etc. i have to insist that somebody who eats a healthy diet is always going to be stronger and fitter than somebody who does the exact same training but relies on protein supplements.
 
Awhile back I was squatting 275 for a single set of 5 and hurt my back. I'd been working through it until recently I was doing 270 3 x 8 and hurt it pretty bad. I've been out of the gym for almost two weeks and am just feeling better. I would not suggest puhing through back injuries.
 
I just increased my milk diet by a ton this past month. (Possibly like 7-8 cups including cereal over my old usual 3-4) I use whole milk rather than skim.

Somehow, my weight didn't go up proportionally as I expected. Is it true that milk doesn't increase your weight or something? Does it basically increase muscle and decrease fat?
 
Hey guys, I came here in the hope of getting some tips.
I'm just your average skinny guy, and I'd like to change that. No, because of university I hardly have time left for any kind of moderately heavy workout, so I was wondering if you could give me some tips for good exercises that don't take too long (like 30 min), but will still improve my physique if I keep it up.

Any help appreciated.

PS I don't really have any weigths or anything, so if you're gonna suggest those, could you give me some household object I could substitute it with?
 
My roommate got me into weightlifting, and I started out 2 months back. I have a bulkier body by nature (when I started, I was 6', 200 lbs. Now, I weigh 185 lbs). I'm really lazy about doing cardio, but I usually end up doing 15 minutes of running or whatever, and I walk across campus frequently, so it adds up. What I do consists of the following done once every two days:

Bench Press
Bicep Curl/Hammer Curl
Tricep Pull Down/Tricep Dip
Vertical Knee Raise/Leg Lifts
Ab Crunch
The Dreaded Treadmill (~10-15 min)

Does anyone have any advice on how I can make my cardio experience less annoying? Does the machine I use make that much of a difference? Are there any exercises I must include that I'm forgetting right now? I'm not really concentrating on my lower body atm, but I'll work on it someday.

My diet is as good as you can get in college, and I use protein supplements after exercise or when the servery food is crap so I haven't received my daily protein from food alone.
 
mtr said:
Does anyone have any advice on how I can make my cardio experience less annoying? Does the machine I use make that much of a difference? Are there any exercises I must include that I'm forgetting right now? I'm not really concentrating on my lower body atm, but I'll work on it someday.
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Well, running on a treadmill sucks much more than just straight up running on a track or on a path. You might wanna change that. Listening to an Ipod also helps quite a bit for some people, but it makes no difference for me.

Oh yes, and I would advise that someday comes soon. I highly recommend doing some sort of leg work to avoid becoming unbalanced.
 
Man, looks like a bunch of Smogoners are a ripped and athletic bunch. Makes me look bad :P

After going to the gym for 6 months and barely seeing any results (except for a chronically hurting wrist, being able to curl 30, bench pressing 120, and shoulder lifting 35), I quit. I hated how I went to the gym the most often, and yet, people who went for less time, got stronger in a shorter span of time. My cousin went to the gym for a year, and he became pretty damn strong. Strong enough to be the biggest guy in the school at the time.

Right now, with school, the most I can do is just exercise once a week. My question is: What can I do at home to get stronger? Crunches? I have no clue.

And anyone know how to:
1)Get better endurance, and speed at running? I know practice helps, but anything I'm missing out on?
2)Gain weight? I'm sitting at 130, and cannot gain muscle mass at all. I'm almost a skeleton.
 
Eraddd said:
Man, looks like a bunch of Smogoners are a ripped and athletic bunch. Makes me look bad :P

After going to the gym for 6 months and barely seeing any results (except for a chronically hurting wrist, being able to curl 30, bench pressing 120, and shoulder lifting 35), I quit. I hated how I went to the gym the most often, and yet, people who went for less time, got stronger in a shorter span of time. My cousin went to the gym for a year, and he became pretty damn strong. Strong enough to be the biggest guy in the school at the time.

Right now, with school, the most I can do is just exercise once a week. My question is: What can I do at home to get stronger? Crunches? I have no clue.

And anyone know how to:
1)Get better endurance, and speed at running? I know practice helps, but anything I'm missing out on?
2)Gain weight? I'm sitting at 130, and cannot gain muscle mass at all. I'm almost a skeleton.
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Well, I'm going to make an assumption here. Seeing as you quit where you quit, you might make less of an hour long work out compared to someone else. Your drive may not be as intense during a workout.

Working out at home without weights is nigh impossible, at least for anything strength related. I do about 150 pushups (2 sets of 75) before I go to bed usually, but I don't think it helps all that much except for doing pushups.

As far as getting better endurance, the answer is simple. You simply run more. There are several schools of thought regarding endurance. The first one (and the more traditional one) is simply to run longer distances, increasing the length as you become more in shape. The second one is to run a shorter distance (for me, this is 3-4 miles) at a high intensity. Both seem to work, although the latter will make you feel like puking if you do it right.

Sheer speed is a much trickier matter. Overdoing long distance cardio work can actually be counterproductive, as they operate on two different muscle fibers (fast twitch vs. slow twitch). You can still do both, but you have to know what you're doing. I suggest taking a look at plyometrics and other explosive exercises.

Gaining weight is a hard thing to do, at least as far as putting muscle mass on goes. I suggest just eating and lifting. I have this problem if I ever need to gain weight.
 
bearsfan092 said:
Well, I'm going to make an assumption here. Seeing as you quit where you quit, you might make less of an hour long work out compared to someone else. Your drive may not be as intense during a workout.

Define drive for me please. I think I did do a decent intense workout. I would start off with running on the tread mill, and then after 20 minutes, do 3 sets, 10 reps of bicep curls, Bench press, Shoulder lifts, and some other exercises which I have no idea what their names are, but which my cousin had taught me to do. Really, I don't try to take a break between sets. I usually end off my workout on the bike.

Working out at home without weights is nigh impossible, at least for anything strength related. I do about 150 pushups (2 sets of 75) before I go to bed usually, but I don't think it helps all that much except for doing pushups.

Would crunches or squats help me improve my strength of abs and legs respectively? I could easily do those at home.

As far as getting better endurance, the answer is simple. You simply run more. There are several schools of thought regarding endurance. The first one (and the more traditional one) is simply to run longer distances, increasing the length as you become more in shape. The second one is to run a shorter distance (for me, this is 3-4 miles) at a high intensity. Both seem to work, although the latter will make you feel like puking if you do it right.

I am, in short words, a horrible runner. In grade 11, the last time I did the beep test, I managed a 8.5 and a 9. I have no idea what kind of running state I am in right now, but I imagine it's not that good. So essentially, just keep running longer distances, without stopping?

Sheer speed is a much trickier matter. Overdoing long distance cardio work can actually be counterproductive, as they operate on two different muscle fibers (fast twitch vs. slow twitch). You can still do both, but you have to know what you're doing. I suggest taking a look at plyometrics and other explosive exercises.

Alright thanks for the advice.

Gaining weight is a hard thing to do, at least as far as putting muscle mass on goes. I suggest just eating and lifting. I have this problem if I ever need to gain weight.

People sometimes talk about a ratio of carbs, fats and proteins, for one to gain weight. Should I try that? Or no.
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Bolded.
 
Not quoting because I'll botch it.

1. Drive is defined by me as how hard you are working. Based off what you've written, you're working, but I think it's one of those things where you would want an opinion from someone who's working with you in person. I can't properly judge from here. I can only make assumptions.

2. Crunches don't really increase strength as much as the muscular endurance of the abs. The same could be said for body weight squats. Maybe I haven't done the latter correctly, but I've never really had any real tangible benefits from body weight squats.

3. Basically yes. Don't overkill yourself if you've just started running long distances, but you want to go as long as you can. The longer you can go without stopping the better, but stopping isn't a sin if you're absolutely dead.

4. You're welcome.

5. I'm no nutritionist and I don't even have a good amount of informal knowledge on the subject, so I'm probably not the guy to ask about this. The one thing I know is that nutritional information is very... trendy (only word that came to me at this time of night). Take current nutritional information with a grain of salt.
 
the wholeratio thing is overrated unless your a bodybuilder. For amateur people just working out as an activity just pretty much eat as muc protein as you can. On my workout days i have well over 100 grams of protein, probably around 75-80 ish on non workout days. Eating lots of fat is bad, but as long as you do cardio and intense weights someone like you probably wont gain fat weight, it'll turn into muscle.

I used to be like you, i weighed 147 entering university (5'11'') and was working out for a year but not taking protein shakes. Then i started having a 65~ gram protein shake after everyworkout, and now a year later i weigh 165 and can 1 rep max 50 lbs more and can bench what used to be my 1 rep max 7 times.

tl;dr I NEED MY FUCKING PROTEIN MOM!
 
what other random people say/advise is usually not always the most helpful. You need to talk to someone who has a similiar body structure to get advise from. A work out/ meal plan for a 230 pound naturally muscular person will be significantly different from a 150 lb lean stringbean. If you fall in the skinny but decent genes category I can help you out
 
Well, I weigh about 135, so yeah. I can get toned, but I've honestly never lifted to get bulky. My body actually takes quite well to exercise. I'll be glad if you'd help me. =)

Edit: Feel free to PM.
 
how much you should lift depends on how strong you are (obviously) and what you are trying to achieve. If you are trying to become much stronger and build muscle you should be lifting as much as you can so that you can do no more than 8 reps. If you are trying to "tone" you should lift somewhere from 8-12 reps and do a lot of cardio, as weight lifting doesn't burn that much fat caompared to cardio.

For example when i do bench by myself (no spotter) I bench 108% of my weight 8 times. When i have a spotter i go and do 116% 7 times. (sets of 4)
 
This was posted in the Physical Fitness Junkies group, but it seems no one stops there as often as when it first started (I know I haven't stopped there in a while), so I'll see how it goes here.


So I've been thinking about maybe changing the way I eat and act. Getting healthier, if you will. To be honest, I drink and eat so much junk it's the only reason why I can't get stronger. Problem is, I can't keep a commitment. Have any of you ever struggled with this, and if so how did you overcome your problems?
 
I had the exact same problem last year, and these very lazy solutions worked for me:
-drink less beer, more hard liquor.
-make playlists of your favourite songs and listen to them while you workout
-eat less junk food by drinking more water (makes you less hungry)
-go with friends
-give yourself rewards for doing something good. (ie i went for a bike today and set a new personal best, so i bought myself a steak for dinner instead of pork chops)
 
-drink less beer, more hard liquor.
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haha, that kinda makes sense. You would be taking in less calories at least. I can't wait to use that line at a party 'oh sorry, no beer for me, I'm on a diet. Pass the whisky.' I wouldn't reccomend it in the long term though for obvious reasons.

I was in a similar state about 4 years back Pokenerd - I was determined to get fitter and stronger but I was constantly eating junk food, drinking 4 nights a week and just generaly being a slob. I ended up developing a particularly nasty eating disorder called exercise bulimia (to be brief, bulimia is where you eat loads and then vomit to get rid of it...exercise bulimia is where you eat loads and then train at stupid intensities to get rid of it. There's obvious advantages to it but it was easily the worst 6ish months of my life). Believe me, that's the last thing you want to come out of this so it's best if you do what I couldn't and start showing some willpower. Try committing to a day or two of healthy eating and see how you feel. Chances are you'll feel a lot better about yourself and you'll be able to build on that. Don't expect to go cold turkey all of a sudden...your body won't know what hit it and will start craving for sugar, salt and all that nasty stuff in higher quantities than ever. Take it from somebody who has been through it all already.
 
Lee said:
haha, that kinda makes sense. You would be taking in less calories at least. I can't wait to use that line at a party 'oh sorry, no beer for me, I'm on a diet. Pass the whisky.' I wouldn't reccomend it in the long term though for obvious reasons.

I was in a similar state about 4 years back Pokenerd - I was determined to get fitter and stronger but I was constantly eating junk food, drinking 4 nights a week and just generaly being a slob. I ended up developing a particularly nasty eating disorder called exercise bulimia (to be brief, bulimia is where you eat loads and then vomit to get rid of it...exercise bulimia is where you eat loads and then train at stupid intensities to get rid of it. There's obvious advantages to it but it was easily the worst 6ish months of my life). Believe me, that's the last thing you want to come out of this so it's best if you do what I couldn't and start showing some willpower. Try committing to a day or two of healthy eating and see how you feel. Chances are you'll feel a lot better about yourself and you'll be able to build on that. Don't expect to go cold turkey all of a sudden...your body won't know what hit it and will start craving for sugar, salt and all that nasty stuff in higher quantities than ever. Take it from somebody who has been through it all already.
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What kind of stuff could I find around the house that would be healthier though? Thanks for the reply you guys.

EDIT: I'll definitely be doing this though. And willpower and drive are two things I think I might be able to muster up. Also, when I feel those cravings do I just need to not eat those things and fight them off?
 
I have a similar problem. Eating a diet conducive to fitness at college is difficult. I know some hardcore weightlifters who live solely on lean meat, egg whites, fruits and veggies, and protein supplements. I'm not one of them. Here's what I do.

For breakfast: well, I've always loathed it, but its important. I usually eat a banana or an apple, and drink a carton of milk along with a daily multivitamin.

For lunch: a serving of lean meat, some salad, a bit of fruit, and maybe a slice of pizza or whatever.

For dinner: Mainly the same as lunch.

After workout: protein supplements.

Also, watch what you drink. If you guzzle down soda like I used to, your carb and sugar intake will go through the roof, and you will find it difficult to change your body. Instead, cut back on it: drastically if necessary. Drink water. Make sure you get milk every day. But as Lee said, don't go cold turkey. When I was starting out in trying to cut back on soda, I tried having days without soda. Well guess what: I craved it so much that by 10 PM I gave in and paid $1.25 for a .588 L bottle. And I drank all of it. More soda than I usually had in a day, and I had to pay for it. Don't make that mistake, ease into a health diet.
 
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