Official fitness discussion!

[Howl 945]

seeing lots on here about home equipment, so I thought I'd make my case for body weight workouts

even why I would consistently go to the gym (pre-covid), I was doing 80-90% body weight workouts

 

Why body weight?

Ease of access being the simplest reason. Do a workout anywhere: your bedroom, the park, etc.

However, from a training perspective, body weight workouts also help to achieve my own personal goals. I started boxing in college and though I don't compete anymore, I'm (usually) a regular at the gym and help coach guys getting ready to compete. Boxers need to be strong, quick, and lean, with a heavy emphasis on cardio. Body weight workouts are great for building up that lean muscle mass. Many professional boxers are famous for putting a strong emphasis on body weight workouts (such as Floyd Mayweather: https://www.balancethegrind.com.au/daily-routines/floyd-mayweather-daily-routine/)

 

What kind of exercises are we talking about?

There are the most generic/stereotypical ones (still good to do!) like pushups, situps, planks, squats, dips, etc.

Then we can get into more dynamic exercises that start to work the full body, such as burpees (pushup at the bottom or it's not a burpee), jump squats, monkey business (shoulder press into a tuck jump), etc.

And with any body weight workout, there's bound to be an emphasis on core (my old trainer said at least 8 minutes of core a day), with exercises like slow bikes, wipers, judo twists, flutter/scissor crunches, etc

 

A typical workout:

I get pretty creative with my workout formats, but a typical on/off interval is always a safe bet. For HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), most people say a 2:1 or 3:1 work/rest ratio. This is fine, although I find I like high ratios as I get more out of the workout. Some of my favorite intervals are 30s on/5s off and 50s on/10s off.

A short workout might be something like:

 

30s/5s x5

Sit ups

Jump Squats

High Plank

Russian Twist

Jump Lunges

Burpees

 

 

The workout ends up being ~18 minutes with ~15-16 minutes of exercise, a pretty efficient way to train ?

 

 

If anyone ever has any questions/wants to talk about workouts, feel free to pm me on discord (Howl#6118). I've also been writing out a new workout for every day of quarantine and I'd be happy to share ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tika191 1,099]

Still in physio for a shoulder injury from ages ago but finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, soon I might actually be able to contribute to this ?

 

 

[inf` 132]

17 hours ago, Krystal said:

 

Yeah, sorry that I couldn't be super specific. I don't know what the hell I'm doing or where to begin, so I apologize for being so vague.  You helped loads just by saying that I should focus on different groups each day. I didn't know that was a real thing. I thought the whole "Don't skip leg day!" stuff was just memes or w/e. *facepalm* That's how bad I am.  I just want to improve muscle tone all over my body so that I am able to do more heavy lifting (like I feel terrible when my husband has to get a friend to help him with heavy duty things since I'm too weak), do outdoor activities, and be more effective with weight loss. (I've heard that increasing muscle mass helps burn fat?).  Will definitely check out those videos! Thanks so much. ? Hopefully there's vids there for doing squats. I remember trying to do them a long time ago and it scared the hell out of me because I felt like I would mess up and hurt my back. =X

 

And as far as I know increasing muscle mass will help you burn fat in the long run better but then again I'm no scientist. Any other questions feel free to ask anyone here. A bunch of knowledgeable folk around

Don't mind the meme intro's and what not this channel has decent content. 

 

 

[Scleritis 981]

3 hours ago, Tika191 said:

Still in physio for a shoulder injury from ages ago but finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, soon I might actually be able to contribute to this ?

 

 

What did you injure? I fucked my rotator cuff playing footy like a year ago and I don't think it's ever gonna heal without surgery. It's not the end of the world but it still hurts when my arms in a certain position like under my pillow when I'm sleeping.

[Tika191 1,099]

26 minutes ago, Scleritis said:

What did you injure? I fucked my rotator cuff playing footy like a year ago and I don't think it's ever gonna heal without surgery. It's not the end of the world but it still hurts when my arms in a certain position like under my pillow when I'm sleeping.

I injured something in my shoulder water tubing while drunk lol, I didn't get it checked out for a solid 6-8 months so I'm still not sure exactly what the original problem was. The original injury was a sharp pain near the intersection of the chest / bicep / shoulder / front end of rotator cuff (hard to tell with that cluster fuck of muscles lol). Unfortunately by not getting it looked at / doing physiomy body's natural way of dealing with it involved hunching that shoulder forward to avoid pain and using it significantly less often, which left me with terrible posture, reduced movement and an incredibly weak rotator cuff / tricep / pretty much any stabilizing muscle. I did a first round of physio which helped my range of movement tremendously and now I'm doing a second round which has really helped strengthen the area and I'm slowly getting back to being able to work out normally, which is really exciting. 

All this is to say definitely get your rotator cuff looked at, have surgery if needed. I'm pretty confident my original injury was relatively minor and it was the months and months of inaction that led to a much bigger (and avoidable) issue.

[zoey 15]

Highly recommend Yoga with Adriene if anyone's interested in yoga - https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene

She's incredibly zen and easy to follow ? 

[Go Leafs 11]

On 10/21/2020 at 5:07 PM, inf` said:

Now finding any form of training schedule can be a bit tricky as there are a lot out there. I would just recommend to google which muscle group you want to train + dumbbell exercises and start from there. For optimal results people generally choose one muscle or two muscle groups a day.

Example: 

Back/biceps

Chest

Legs

Shoulder/triceps

You're pushing a bro split on someone that is just starting to get into weight training? I'm no expert but I've seen enough both personally and with friends/random people to know that frequency is the king of everything. If I had to do it all over again, I would full body train for the first year before I even think about any back/bicep or chest day. 

[Mk 17 149]

11 minutes ago, Go Leafs said:

You're pushing a bro split on someone that is just starting to get into weight training? I'm no expert but I've seen enough both personally and with friends/random people to know that frequency is the king of everything. If I had to do it all over again, I would full body train for the first year before I even think about any back/bicep or chest day. 

Those full body workouts are bollocks, the science is in no way there at all to start with that “do 5x5 full body split you need to build core” that is a bro view. A proper split and diet will get you what you want, the full body splits are generally pretty shitty for visible gains unless you only care about being skinny and strong (which you can most likely be the same with more weight with a proper split). Compounds and isolations with their separate days are the way forward, trained many people my way and have all gotten better results than I’ve seen doing that full body 5x5 shit. If you wanna waste a year doing that then go for it, it’s actually worse than a proper split getting stuck in properly

Edited October 30, 2020 by Mk 17

[Go Leafs 11]

1 minute ago, Mk 17 said:

Those full body workouts are bollocks, the science is in no way there at all to start with that “do 5x5 full body split you need to build core” that is a bro view. A proper split and diet will get you what you want, the full body splits are generally pretty shitty for visible gains unless you only care about being skinny and strong (which you can most likely be the same with more weight with a proper split). Compounds and isolations with their separate days are the way forward, trained many people my way and have all gotten better results than I’ve seen doing that full body 5x5 shit. If you wanna waste a year doing that then go for it, it’s actually worse than a proper split getting stuck in properly

There is no such thing as a 'proper' split. Certain bodies will react well to certain routines while others wont. You have zero idea what the person's end result is and you are talking about a 'proper split'. Now that is bullshit. I didn't say a bro split was bad, it can work but you have to be an advanced lifter...Why the hell would anyone recommend a beginner to do a back/bi workout with a concentration curl programmed in?

Your first year are the best year for gains, if you think specificity for a BEGINNER is better than frequency, I hope you're not a personal trainer.

[inf` 132]

16 minutes ago, Go Leafs said:

You're pushing a bro split on someone that is just starting to get into weight training? I'm no expert but I've seen enough both personally and with friends/random people to know that frequency is the king of everything. If I had to do it all over again, I would full body train for the first year before I even think about any back/bicep or chest day. 

You may have missed an important word: Example

And we don't know what a persons goals are so we can't just throw around what they should or should not train

 

[Chris 34]

Let me chime in for the whole "split" and "full body" e.g. starting strength training. I personally never did anything strength wise when I first started I literally went into splits which was around 9 years ago or so and never really looked back on it. The whole idea for more core exercises or things like starting strength is highly recommended for power lifters or people who want to have the advantage of lifting higher. I also found that a lot of people who do start the gym can be a little in-secure specially the younger ones and quite shy which is what I was like at first and if you're doing a split and you're lifting like 8kg which is really light compared to everyone else it doesn't make u feel better if ur looking around and not fully concentrating on yourself. 

I remember going in the gym years ago doing my split and the was 3 fellas who use to take the piss out of me for no reason. 2 big fellas as in "fat" and some fella who did look pretty good who had more mass than me at the time. They use to laugh at me sometimes because of my lifts compared to theirs but in time as angry as it made me I knew things would change.. Well I stuck to my split and ended up within 2 month or so looking better than all 3 of them and never saw them again. Remember that gains are slow as fuck, taking any amount of steriods isn't as fast as people make it out to be as well. Remember those Ronnie Colemans and Jay Cutlers were lifting from a young age and took gear for over 20+ years to get that amount of mass which is a ton of hard work and dieting. 

If you don't care what other people think and your diet is on point from the start id say that doing a split is a good way to start. If you're training for power lifting purposes or you want to make your lifts heavier in a shorter amount of time then go for more body weight exercises. Remember also that bodyweight exercises very heavy too can also cause injuries and set backs. Id say there's pro's and con's for both when starting off and its also different based on your overall goals & confidence because not everyone is the same and some people do suffer with anxiety and other things.

[Mk 17 149]

Good post Chris 

 

took my preworkout too late tonight didn’t i and have had the worst set of sleep ever... didn’t get to sleep until about 12, got booted in the head by saga about 1 to let her out for a wee and then slept until about 230 and was up for good.... so 330 I’ll throw in the towel and make my first meal of the day and have an extra early start 2 hours ahead of schedule 

[inf` 132]

4 hours ago, Mk 17 said:

Good post Chris 

 

took my preworkout too late tonight didn’t i and have had the worst set of sleep ever... didn’t get to sleep until about 12, got booted in the head by saga about 1 to let her out for a wee and then slept until about 230 and was up for good.... so 330 I’ll throw in the towel and make my first meal of the day and have an extra early start 2 hours ahead of schedule 

 

Ye took mine at 7.30 -> sleep at 1 am. Not ideal is it

[Benji 34]

Im doing cardio running around 6-7 miles and adding some extra weigh to my arms

 

 

[Alex 35]

On 10/30/2020 at 11:00 AM, Go Leafs said:

There is no such thing as a 'proper' split. Certain bodies will react well to certain routines while others wont. You have zero idea what the person's end result is and you are talking about a 'proper split'. Now that is bullshit. I didn't say a bro split was bad, it can work but you have to be an advanced lifter...Why the hell would anyone recommend a beginner to do a back/bi workout with a concentration curl programmed in?

Your first year are the best year for gains, if you think specificity for a BEGINNER is better than frequency, I hope you're not a personal trainer.

There's no such things as a proper split, but essentially all scientific research points towards hitting muscle groups two, maybe three times a week. Nothing wrong with a back/bi day, chest/tri etc regardless of how long they've been training, and it's likely better to get people set up with a well structured split from day one. The most important thing is the recovery period between working a muscle group, and setting up what @Mk 17 referred to as a "proper split" will (almost) always garner better results. The volume per muscle group is too low, and the frequency is too high to see real progress if you're hitting things every day.