Showing posts with label Fitness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fitness. Show all posts

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Fitness, Now Start Exercising

Ok, you got your diet down. You're feeling way better. If you did it right then you even have your own favourite multivitamin. Clearly you are not super toned and jacked, though, and you know you have to exercise for that. However, it does prove to be a little daunting to figure out where to start when you see all sorts of people doing all sorts of things for their exercise. So first things first, we have to define your goal!

Are you trying to improve for a sport? Then maybe you should figure out which exercises will supplement that the best and work with that. Or maybe this is something more general, like getting buff or strong, or maybe you want to be able to run for days on end. Unfortunately, you can't train all these types of fitness at once.

Endurance
Do you want endurance? Well that means you are going to be trying to stimulate your type I muscle fibers, AKA your slow twitch muscle fibers. These fibers aren't as large as their fast twitch counterparts but they do have their own unique role of allowing one to sustain stress for a long period of time. In order to gain endurance you will also want to be working on your heart, generally in the form of cardio. If you want to do weight training then you'll probably be focusing on doing high reps with less weight.


Strength and Speed
So yeah tearing phonebooks in half and bending iron rods with your bare hands is pretty cool too, so how do you get that? Well, strength, speed and explosiveness is generally found in the form of fast twitch muscle fibers. Sorta the opposite of endurance, you'll want to focus on doing sprinting and very heavy resistance for only a few reps to gain strength. Some people shy away from this thinking they aren't making any gains because their muscles aren't sore, but that's because they have a misconception of how strength and muscle works together.

You see, muscles do not produce linear strength. This is why the 150 lb powerlifter can outlift the 300 lb bodybuilder. First, lets look at the flight or fight response. When you are undergoing an adrenaline rush you get stronger, faster and smarter. If you have the capability of doing this, then clearly you are not using 100% of potential otherwise. That's because your CNS restricts you from preforming at a level which may damage you. It doesn't want you to bench 315 because that's *scary*. So what you need to do to get stronger isn't really build muscle, but rather convince your CNS that you are capable of doing what it thinks you can't. This comes from doing really, really heavy, hard things.

Cardio
The heart is your most important muscle. Having good cardiovascular function will provide a plethora of benefits ranging from immune system strengthening to improved social activity. No matter which other type of fitness you pursue you should always do some sort of running/jogging/biking/whatever in order to keep your heart strong. The human heart beat is finite!

Flexibility
Similar to how you only use part of your muscular capacity, you only stretch as far as your body thinks is safe. Flexibility is a very easy part of fitness to implement within one's routine. Convenient times to stretch or do yoga would be in the morning and after (not before) exercise. If you do any form of stretching other than dynamic you risk tearing soft muscle tissue, which could lead to injury during exercise.


There's are lots of different pursuits that you can have with your fitness, but as long as you focus on the right areas you should be able to apply the same simple concepts to all of them.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Fitness, From the Top

I find myself training people or giving advice to people about fitness as part of my daily life. Something that I can never really fit in, but find to be the most important part for any new fitness enthusiast, is how to get your diet down. The reasons this is the initial issue that needs to be fixed is attributed to the following

Why begin with your diet?

1. Muscles aren't Everything

Alright, lets say you're the person that eats whatever you want and goes to the gym (also probably whenever you want) in order to build fitness. You probably even see some progress. Well, if you're not eating well while your muscles are getting enough fuel to get bigger and stronger (bigger probably because you're just now filling out your natural frame. Stronger because your CNS was so inefficient before) then your organs are probably having some difficulty keeping up. This is because every day you work out your organs have to deal with the breakdown of your body as well and aren't getting all the proper support they need. You can't keep this up for long before your body rejects you from making any more progress.


2. Muscle is Rebuilt in the Kitchen

Going to the gym does not necessarily make you stronger. For example, when fresh to working out and when after working out one can no longer perform as well athletically. That's because the person's muscle fibers are all ripped up and need some time healing back together. The only way they can do that is if they are properly fueled. This comes from a good diet. Another note, if you tear your fibers up too bad don't expect them to heal up very quickly. So if you work out biceps every day a week, there's the reason you still have 13" Pythons. ;)

3. Healthier

Because everything you do will be effected by the support of a good diet whereas only certain operations are effected by the support of good exercise; most notably, your capacity to experience and internalize information related to fitness objectively.

4. Required

No matter where somebody start with their fitness pursuits, this is always something that they will be required to eventually do.



How to diet


Step 1: Organization

One can't expect to have very luxurious understanding and success when it comes to projects, including a diet plan, unless they're organized. Keep track of what you eat. Now don't go overboard and try to write down every calorie and every type of calorie if you don't want to. Just do something that works for you. maybe that's just taking a glance and what's on the label and trying to remember it. You must however, be reading nutrition facts. ;)

Step 2: Information

The best result will always come from the most informed decision. Before you try throwing together a random diet based on what people tell you and the media shows you it does well to read a tad; not talking about reading all the latest gimmicks and what _exact_ food may be something to avoid, but rather the physiology and science behind what you are eating. Here's a inquisition method you could use to progressively learn relevant information:

1. What does protein do? What about carbs? And now fat?
2. What are all the types of fats? Trans? Saturated? Unsaturated?
3. Complex carbs vs. simple carbs?
4. What do amino acids do? Enzymes?
5. How long does it take for certain foods to digest?
6. What are ways digestion might be slowed down or sped up?
7. What are all these micronutrients and vitamins for?
8. Can I overdose on different vitamins?

You better have your own questions by here. :P


Step 3: Motivation

You probably won't like doing things you don't want to, so a little motivation can help. If you want you can keep track of your measurements, weight, exercise stats, etc. Other things like how fast you can solve a Sudoku (lame) puzzle are effected by health, too, keep in mind. Learn some neat quotes, whatever. Just keep yourself interested! (I do this by learning new things in the field (: )



By the way. You can use those same three steps for doing anything.

You're welcome (:

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Six Day Powerlifting Routine

I've established a unique routine for myself and those that I train that is somewhat similar to Westside Barbell's method of weight training. The routine that I run's main focus is to build strength in all muscle fiber types as well as cardiovascular fitness, not muscle-mass:

Standard Rep Scheme: (harder) 3x12 or 4x8 or 5x5 or 6x4 or 8x3 (easier)

ME = Max Effort
DE = Dynamic Effort

Sunday: Deadlift ME/Back day
Main: Deadlift, work up to one-rep max
Secondary: Pullups, endurance exercise: focus on increasing number of reps in a standard set scheme
Compound: Barbell rows, standard
Isolated: Shrugs, 3x20
Isolated: Rear Delt Flies, standard

Monday: Bench ME/Chest day
Main: Bench, work up to one-rep max
Secondary: Dips, endurance exercise: focus on increasing number of reps in a standard set scheme
Compound: DB Bench, Standard
Isolated: Front Raises, Standard
Isolated: Skullcrushers, Standard

Tuesday: Squat ME/Leg day
Main: ATG Squat, work up to one-rep max
Secondary: Squat, Standard
Compound: SLDL, Standard
Treadmill: 20 mins

Wendesday: Accessory Day
During this day you work out any weaknesses you may have noticed alongside some sort of overhead pressing movement and some grip exercises.

Thursday: Bench DE/Upper Body day
Main Chest: Bench, 60% of max for 8 sets of 3
Main Back: Pullups, endurance
Secondary Chest: Dips, endurance
Secondary Back: BB Rows, standard
Compound Chest: DB Bench, standard
Compound Back: Bodyweight rows

Friday: Squat DE/ Leg day
Main: ATG Squat, 60% of max for 8 sets of 3
Secondary: Squat, Standard
Compound: SLDL, Standard
Treadmill: 20 mins

Saturday: Off


My stats:
Bench: 305, 6x4
Squat: 370, 5x5
Deadlift: 505