Thanks for the tip, I'm generally not a fan of the decline anyways, so yeah I'll probably be hitting the flat bench there...

Dan, sounds like you've been reading westside. Thar be giants with good advice where you're looking, but I think westside is a fairly advanced routine, something this guy should probably shy away from. I again have to side with rachel, for a guy starting out...5x5 is the way to go.

If that ever loses effectiveness, both in terms of weight loss or muscular growth, then consider moving on to a more complex routine that may specialize you towards a particular goal...but that is at least 100 lbs away right now.

As usual, I agree with Bour, pretty sure we're on the same page in terms of exercise philosophy...

And yes, you should always do weights before your cardio for a plethora of reasons, but I would personally recommend only doing one or the other per visit to the gym. If you REALLY want to do both you should space the workouts out by a few hours and preferably a meal. I can elaborate if you like, but I tend to be long winded enough in my posts...

As far as GVT, I've read a few different routines that seem intriguing from alternating between two exercises (the way Bour described) to focusing on a particular muscle group and doing various exercises that hit that group (bench, flat fly, inclined bench, inclined fly, etc.) with the goal to get 100 reps that hit that muscle group.

Still trying to figure out what routine I'm going to do next week though...

Bour if you abandon this thread I can't ask you what your GVT workouts look like! I think I'll actually draw up a GVT workout for the next two months (starting next week) so yeah, I am kind of curious what you do/did.

Fine fine, grainy photo but here you go:

">http://www.fortawesome.biz/images/current.jpg[/img]

Don't feel like it looks a whole lot different from the last photo I posted...

@Bour: I cycle through a few different workout routines but right now I'm kind of restricted in movements from a few injuries that I'm nursing (ankle and shoulder) so it's been light for the past few weeks. I'll probably try a GVT cycle when I get back close to 100%.

Plus, I could NEVER starve myself or run marathons; both of them go against the very fiber of my being: I LOVE food and I HATE running... for more than 30 minutes anyways.

I might have to give the carb/calorie cycling a try... no better way to know what works and what doesn't if you don't try it right?

@Angie: Are you flirting with me? heh, I'll post some when I get home if I remember... always feels weird to post pics now as it feels kind of vain. I'm still, believe it or not, pretty humble when people acknowledge my weight loss... I usually just make a joke about it, "Hey Cliff, you've lost a lot of weight (You look sexy and amazing)" "Yeah, one or two pounds... just from key places..."

Haha, whatever makes you think that I don't wanna hear about fasting?

Yeah, it's been a while for me too... decided that logging stuff here became more of a chore than it was worth so I just track my stuff in Excel now. Good to know my GLORIOUS return inspired yours as well

Not sure I'd have the willpower (or desire) to go with that eating routine though, although I could be inclined to give it a short trial run... I'll see what else this community delivers first though :)

So most of the threads here are either venting threads for eating binges or have to do with people looking to do significant weight loss, which I can relate to (I hover at minus 85lbs now and was at minus 90lbs at one point), but I thought it would be interesting to start up a thread discussing diet thoughts/ideas for people who are already pretty lean.

It is my personal opinion that low-carb/fat/protein diets are misleading to people who are just getting started or have a lot to lose; the focus early on should be on developing sustainable eating patterns, but for those of us who are already there or close to there, the results start to diminish. Depending on your tastes and eating habits, your body will balance out based on what and how you eat, for me I hover right around 11% the way that I eat normally with no adjustments.

Going from 11% to 8% (my summer goal) would require a dietary change (in addition to continuing to push the weights/routines). Essentially, I'm going to treat the next few weeks as "prepping for a competition" even though I won't actually be going to any fitness competitions.

I have a diet plan, and it's a plan that's worked pretty well in the past (increased lean protein, reduced fat and carbs, simple stuff really) but I'm of the opinion that the man who thinks he knows everything actually knows nothing at all, so what do you guys do/suggest for getting into "fighting shape"?

That calculator (and every other calculator I've ever tried online) had me at 0% body fat before... and I'm leaner now.

There are simply too many variables in body fat for any thing that doesn't actually look at your body to measure accurately. If it's within 1% of what your actual body fat percentage is, it's probably luck.

Invest in a pair of calipers, they're like 5 bucks or spend more money and get a scale or electric monitor (although those can have accuracy problems as well, especially at lower body fat percentages.)

Darilyn is wise; you've identified the problem so don't wallow in it and talk about it... do something about it.

I know you're probably looking for motivation from others here, but really if you can do it on your own you'll be better off and FEEL better about it.

Pretty sure Angie can't stand nachos...

Kind of like how I can't eat buffalo wings.

At all.

86lbs ago I started on a treadmill, so don't necessarily abandon it because people tell you to, figuer out what your body is telling you. Personally I focused on interval running, mainly HIIT on ellipticals and pretty "standard" intervals on a treadmill. When I started training for 5ks I'd make myself run 3.2 miles (either outdoors or on a treadmill) and focused on getting the time down... so right now you'd getting "not so great" times on a mile, you could just run a mile and work on getting your time down into the 7 minute range... run your one mile and leave everything on the treadmill (ie. when you get off you should not feel able to run at all.) The key is to push yourself.

As far as intervals, which I found to be very effective in my weight loss, I usually ran twice a week and lifted 3-4 days a week. Intervals are more effective for fat/weight loss because your body can never adjust to a pace and therefore has to work harder, and intervals also encourage muscle growth considerably more than standard sustained pace runs. The interval routines I followed were:

Elliptical (HIIT)
[list]

0:00-2:00 - 2 minute warmup at a "brisk walk" speed

2:00-2:15 - ~15 second SPRINTS

(as FAST as you can humanly go, aim for 15 second, but by the last few you may not be able to push)

2:15-3:00 - ~45 seconds of rest

(brisk walk speed, possibly the same or slower than your warmup speed.)

3:00-3:15 - SPRINT

3:15-4:00 - Rest interval

Rinse and repeat SPRINT/rest intervals for 10-15 total sets

17:00-19:00 - Cool down

[/list]
That's it, you're done in less than 20 minutes and will likely be sweating harder than you've sweat in your life if you REALLY pushed those sprints.

"Standard" Interval Running (Treadmill/outdoors)
This workout is pretty similar (both intervals, duh!) but you start with a warmup/rest interval (I use 3mph) for a minute, then a work interval for a minute (I'm currently at 10mph, but when I started I was at maybe 6.5mph) for a minute. I do 15 of those intervals and a 2 minute cooldown, so this is a 32 minute exercise. Don't be tempted to push your rest speed up; if you still have energy at the end of a workout push your work interval speed up the next time.

Now, back on subject, as far as your breathing, I don't listen to music when I work out; I find that especially with intervals, I tend to tune it out anyways, so bringing my Zune (yes, I have a Zune) and risking dropping it or losing it is just an unnecessary risk for limited benefit. What I do notice is that people tend to listen to very uptempo songs in the gym (acoustic Eric Clapton just doesn't inspire people to push as hard I guess) and when they breath to rhythm of faster songs they tend to breath faster and shallower, which means oxygen is not getting into their system and bloodstream as much as it should. Just because you're out of breath doesn't mean you're running too hard, it's quite possible that you're breathing "wrong" and you have to retrain that part of your routine. I'm no coach or trainer, but plenty of people have asked for my help and that's one thing I notice a lot of people do poorly and I see a significant increase in energy (in the weight room and in cardio) when they retrain their breathing habits.

You've definitely got the right idea with rhythmic breathing, but try to breath in 3-4 steps and breath out 3-4 steps and try to focus on breathing in through your nose as much as possible to enforce that rhythm (as well as other benefits). This will control your heart rate as well, ensuring that your heart rate is increasing because of the exercise and not oxygen deprivation.

Ankle surgery/injuries are pretty touchy since people have a tendency to push themselves too hard, too soon. I have a severe ankle sprain right now from basketball (two weeks and two x-rays later and the swelling is finally starting to go down). Give yourself adequate time to heal before you push it, otherwise you'll be increasing your recovery time exponentially. In another week or so, if I'm up to it, I'll probably start with light plyometrics to rebuild ankle strength to replace my cardio days for another month or so. Since you actually had surgery, you might be out of it for a while longer. Even the bike and elliptical are going to put significant strain on your ankle; maybe not as bad as pounding pavement, but the main benefit to using an elliptical or bike over running (for me) is less stress in my knees and not ankles (but that might just be me.)

The best tip I can give you, while you're letting the ankle heal, is to eat smart (weight is 90% diet) and hit the weight room and, since you're trying to lose weight, focus on compound movements like bench presses, squats and pull ups. Weight lifting is pretty key to losing weight and a lot of people miss out on that by focusing too hard on the treadmill. I was in the weight room a minimum of 3 days a week and "only" doing 2 days of cardio when I lost most of my weight (~85lbs over 6 months). Not to be mean, but the people who criticized my routine the most, and encouraged me to do more cardio and less weights were typically obese people who still haven't seen much in terms of results over a year later. Even the people who were in "good" shape saying that then haven't seen significant gains and lots of those folks have been coming to me and asking for tips now.

Hit the weights then, when you're ready to start running again, your legs will have less weight to carry around and it will feel easier anyways!

Don't use an online body fat calculator, go get it measured at a gym or doctors office... or you can buy a body fat measuring scale, the online calculators don't work for anyone I know (according to every single one of them I'm at 0% body fat... which obviously isn't the case).

Also, could you post an example of your daily diet, including all your beverages and snacks? That'd help to see what's going on...

We've got an interesting thread going on about personal trainers that might be an interesting read, but I would imagine that your body fat % is probably pretty low if you say your "fat" isn't "squishy" but you should probably get your body fat measured just to be sure.

As far as your size and weight, regardless of what any trainer will tell you, that has more to do with your diet (calories and balance) than your exercise regime, so it might be helpful for you to give up a little info about what you're eating and how much, although I don't know many vegans that are eating the excessive amounts of food required to put on bulk.

Don't worry about "new moves and exercises" though, if you aren't lifting a lot of weights (which it doesn't sound like you are) then all you need are basic compound movements to work your muscles and your body sufficiently...

Great article Rachael, only point I disagree with is time between sets; if your goal is muscle overload/tears (which it should be if you're lifting weights) then taking 2-3 minutes between sets is probably ideal as it allows for the energy recovery to push the muscles hard in the next set. The only reason you'd go sooner is to get your heart rate up, and why are you doing that with weights?

Frances post actually reminded me of something, I have a friend who used to be a trainer at a high-end gym near me and he finally quit and thought about branching out on his own because the gym mandated certain "programs" that he was supposed to push on his clients. These programs weren't BAD, but they weren't designed for results... they were designed to keep people coming back to the gym and the rationale, that we assumed, was that people who get results they want are less likely to stay on.

Just food for thought; not saying all gyms and trainers are like that, but there certainly are.

Haha, Bour summed up a lot of my opinion on MOST trainers right there.

The fact is that there's no money in a cure, there's money in treatment and there are two kinds of people who get into the "business": people who want to help people and people who want to prey on the insecurities and laziness of others. Unfortunately, my experience has shown me that if there's money to be made, you'll draw enough of the latter to eclipse the former.

You don't pay a trainer for results, as much as they want you to think you do, you pay them for time, so the quicker you get to where you want to go the less money you put in their pockets. Most trainers think that way, at least at a subconscious level. You couple that with the incredible amount of misinformation out there and the fact that something like 80% of Americans want to do something about their weight and/or health and you've got a cash cow you can milk for a very comfortable living.

That's not to say that there aren't good ones out there, there certainly are. Hell, I've had offers to train people (for real money too!) and I'm even starting to consider it a little bit, but I wouldn't quit my day job so money and/or greed wouldn't be a motivating factor to me, but you can't pretend that there aren't folks who want to rob you blind out there.

As far as the common reasons for hiring a trainer I can't say that I'm a fan. Knowledge is out there and the information wants to be free man! You can Live Search (yes, I said Live Search) anything and if you do your homework there's plenty of good information out there waiting for you so there's really nothing you should NEED a trainer to tell you. If you learn it yourself you'll understand why you're doing certain things and it'll stick better too. If you really just want someone to hand you a crib sheet with all the answers to the pop quiz, just strike up a conversation with people in the gym and ask questions, just take their answers with a grain of salt.

If you just need someone to hold you accountable and motivate you, I hate to say it, but you're not going to find it in ANYONE else. If YOU cannot make YOURSELF want it, no amount of goading, reinforcement or encouragement will get you to the gym every day or make you pass on a second plate of buffalo wings (first plates are always OK!) Your trainer will work with you for at most an hour a day, a few days a week. You'll spend the vast majority of your time away from him or her, and if you're leaning on them to motivate you or hold you accountable, it won't last. The truest test of strength, character and perseverance is how well you pick yourself up when no one is there to help you out. Once you get to a place where you don't NEED anyone for that, you won't mind it, but you'll be in a better place overall.

That being said, if you find someone that you can work with and trust and have some pennies burning holes in your pockets that you don't want to spend elsewhere, by all means it can be a very beneficial investment, but I'm not sure there's enough value there for my dollar that I can't find on my own for free.

Haha, after I go to Hawaii next month I'll take some pictures with the legs, I'm pretty sure the combination of ultra-reflective white skin and a flash would burn into my camera now.

Don't worry Bour, I do squats every week, I'm not one of those big guys with skinny legs

Oh I definitely look at changing it up, and I've been peeking at the GVT stuff since Bour started posting about it a looooooooong time ago. I find that I don't physically plateau as quickly as I mentally tire of routines, so I change up the routines, exercises and even focus of my workouts probably every other month. The sample workout I posted is what I started with and what I consider a "beginner" routine (which was a big part of why there's a focus on compound movements). I do default to a similar routine occasionally if I don't have a plan for the next "session" at the gym which is rare, I'm a planner.

As far as light weights for high reps as a warmup I don't have thoughts about it one way or another: the purpose of a warmup for me is to get the blood pumping through the muscles, the muscle tearing isn't a consideration for that phase for ME, but everyone is different. Lately I've been warming up running short drills on the basketball court and doing a set of burpees, regardless of what I'm working that day.

As far as part of a workout, I'll just reiterate what works for me: when I'm working out I focus on the task at hand. Anything you do is going to cause the muscles in your core to work, especially things like squats, but that's just a side "perk" to my workouts, I work my core separately, just like I work my cardiovascular separately. Circuit training and high rep/low weight exercises certainly do push your CV more than just lifting heavy with low reps, but my focus on the weight room is purely muscle development. Running and basketball are what I do for cardio.

While you might not ever be lying flat on your back pushing a weight in real life, the muscles you work are used in pushing motions which are much more common than pulling motions that would hit the biceps

I may have worded the bit about isolation exercises a bit strongly, I actually do use some, but one of the biggest tendencies I see in the gym from guy who lift a lot is an overemphasis on them, especially curls. My personal belief, and what's worked the best for me, is a workout that is heavily focused on compound movements, with occasional isolation movements for shits and giggles (to keep things interesting).

Just another update, surprised I hadn't already posted it here, but December 26th marked one year into rediscovering my "healthy" self, so I took a shot and made a note on Facebook about it... guess I just forgot to upload it here...



Heh, man the worst part about this whole experience? The changes aren't as outwardly significant anymore! I think that's a good problem I can learn to live with though

This might seem arrogant and odd, but I've actually gotten quite a few requests to write up my health, "diet" and exercise regime in addition to folks just asking me randomly, so I figured I'd write up my thoughts and experiences in a forum.

The first thing to do if you want to be successful in your quest for a healthier life is to forget everything you think you know about exercise, dieting and living in general. That's not to say that there's no value or benefit or truth in what you already know, but there is so much misinformation and so many assumptions that are made in the name of fitness that no one has all the right answers and no one knows the best way to do things. The simple truth is that our bodies are incredibly adaptive and, historically, that is what has made mankind a successful species. We can do the wrong thing for a long time and get the right results. Does that mean the wrong way is actually "right"? Absolutely not, injuries in the gym are common place and results typically come much slower if you don't understand how your body works. The problem is that so many things have just been accepted for so long that people continue to pass that knowledge on, perpetuating a cycle of ignorance.

It takes time to learn what works for your body in terms of diet and exercise. People might drop fancy terms or show you before and after pictures of their clients to convince you of their authenticity, but ultimately it's up to you to figure out what works for you and, more importantly, what DOESN'T. There are no magic bullets and no shortcuts so anyone promising you anything that sounds too good to be true is wasting your time.

Now that I've told you not to believe anything I say, here's my tips!

You are what you eat
Your weight and body composition are based heavily on your intake. What you eat and how much of it has more to do with how much you weigh, how "big" you get and how much fat you carry around than anything else. If you want to lose weight and look "good", you HAVE to watch what you eat and how much of it. Now what your muscles LOOK like... that's got more to do with the time you put in at the gym.

Stop focusing on your weight
Weight is a very important number to track, but it's not the be-all-end-all of being in shape. It's truly sad how much focus weight gets and how people define their progress in the realm of fitness by just that one number when, more often than not, it's more misleading than helpful.

Your body composition (body fat % vs lean muscle mass) is far more important, and when people focus too hard on just their weight they sacrifice too many calories and dietary needs such as protein, fat and carbs (yes carbs). Losing weight is fine, as long as that weight you're losing is fat and not muscle, which is why your body composition is infinitely more important. Hell, ideally you'd want to lose fat AND gain muscle (yes, even you ladies), which could mean the scale doesn't tip at all or goes UP, but you'll still look and feel better about yourself.

Forget about Atkins, stop counting calories and just eat healthy
Again, calories are good to have a general idea of, but remember that a healthy diet is almost an even split between protein, fats and carbs because your body NEEDS all three. Cutting anything out will work in the short term if all you want to do is lose weight, but that's about it... just the short term. I could put you on a diet with foods that start with the letter "p" and you'd lose 5lbs in the first week, but then it'd slow down then you'd indulge in all the "c" foods you were missing for so long. Focusing too hard on calories is dangerous because the tendency is to simply cut back on those, and your body has a base metabolic need every day, cut too far below that and your body will sacrifice muscle for energy while storing fat, so you may feel and look worse after a restrictive, "fad" diet.

Stop thinking about calories in context of your workouts too. The most common (and potentially most derailing) thing I hear people say is anything relating to calories during a workout. "To lose weight you need to burn more calories in a day than you consume." "I need to run for 15 more minutes to burn off that cake at lunch." There is some truth to those statements, which is what makes them so believable, but that's not really how the body works and it's focusing on the wrong things.

Cheat, at least once a week
No one is perfect and forcing yourself to never indulge is going to either drive you crazy or break your routine. At least once a week you should allow yourself to eat whatever it is you're craving, whether it's buffalo wings, pizza or buffalo wings (I like wings, ok?) One meal or even a whole day of indulgences will not ruin your diet or your figure... that takes time!

No shortcuts
It takes blood, sweat and time to lose weight. It doesn't happen overnight and most of us start this journey when we needed results yesterday, but you can't give up because of how long it takes. The longer you take to start the further behind you fall and the longer it takes to catch up. Once you commit to how hard it will be and how long it will take, it magically doesn't feel that hard or long anymore.

Cardio: Intervals, Intervals, Intervals
Interval training is probably one of the most effective way to burn fat and get your body in shape quickly. Interval training does two things: it works your cardiovascular system but it also helps your body build muscle, which is a key part to burning off fat. Interval training (particularly when you go from high intensity or sprints, to low intensity or brisk walking speed) such as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) or wind sprints, is believed to be up to ten times more effective at burning fat than low intensity high duration cardio because of the afterburn, or the calories burned AFTER your workout from the muscle rebuilding process.

That's not to say that there's no benefit to long distance/duration running; if you're training for a marathon or some other endurance activity, then that's what you have to do, but it's simply not as effective if your goal is to look better in a swimsuit or lose inches off your waist. Both will work, but when you go running for an hour at a constant speed your body will pace itself, so it won't be working as hard, as opposed to what happens when you run intervals: your body never gets to adjust. Another great benefit to interval training? It's quick. A typical HIIT session only lasts around fifteen minutes and a "standard" interval run lasts maybe 30. That might sound short, considering that people are programmed to believe that running for hours on end is the fastest way to lose weight is the only way to go (more misinformation!) but you'll find that you are able to push yourself harder at higher intensity and you'll be MUCH more tired and probably sweating a lot harder after an interval run and, more importantly, you'll see much faster results.

If you don't believe me just try this: run for 30 minutes at a constant 6mph. Now the next time you run, program the treadmill (if you can) to go at 3mph for 1 minute, then 9mph for 1 minute for 30 minutes. Both will average out to the same speed, 6mph, and distance, 3 miles, but at the end of the interval run you should be sweating much harder and feeling much more tired. Personally, my 'rest' intervals are always 3mph, but I push the "sprint" speed up.

There is no such thing as a "toning" exercise
http://www.answerfitness.com/181/body-toning-myth-fitness-tips-answer-fitness/

Everyone "knows" that if you want to "tone" you do light weights with high reps right? Wrong. This is an excellent example of the wrong information being accepted as "truth". There's a lot of reasons behind this, and if you do your homework (use Live search instead of Google!) then you can find plenty of good information, but the way I think about it is simple, the act of exercising, specifically strength training, creates microscopic tears in your muscles. The best workout you can do is one that creates the maximum number of tears in the muscles you're working with the energy you have when you get to the gym. I refer to this as "muscle overload" which is what you NEED to happen to get stronger and look better.

Once those tears are there it doesn't matter how they got there because your body will repair them either way, but when you lift light a few things happen: namely you burn through your energy stores, fatigue, before you've overloaded your muscles, so while you are making some progress, you're not getting the most bang for your buck with each trip to the gym. Another thing that high reps causes is the invasion of lactic acid into the muscles which actually can inhibit muscle growth and is a warning sign from your body to stop what it's doing. The goal of any workout should be to push your body as far as it can go, and when lactic acid and fatigue enter the equation you're just never doing that.

Lift heavy, every time
Unless you're doing specific endurance training (marathons/iron mans) most likely you're in the gym to improve how you look, and if you subscribe to western standards of beauty, you're probably not trying to look like a marathon runner but more like a sprinter. Heavy is the key to that. People always say that "if you lift heavy you get big" and women especially, but some men too, always say that they don't want that. First off, going back to the "you are what you eat" bit, you have to eat a LOT to get BIG, and you need to eat a LOT of protein. Most people would have trouble ingesting the amount of food and protein they need to get really big, but women especially have a hard time getting big because testosterone is a key ingredient to size and a woman's body, without steroids, simply does not generate enough.

Most of my workouts consist of very few actual reps, I aim for 4-6 reps with a weight that is heavy enough that I absolutely cannot do more than 6 reps of. If I can do more than 6 the weight is too light, if I can't do 4 then the weight is too heavy. At the end of these workouts my muscles have been pushed just about as hard as they could have been but I still have energy and that's a good thing, when I want to work on my cardiovascular system I'll do cardio. By focusing on fewer reps I'm able to keep my energy and, more importantly, my intensity levels HIGH during a workout. Hell, you should feel physically weak but have a ton of energy after every lifting session.

Focus!
In everything you do you should always be focused on the task at hand and it's easier to keep your focus and intensity up when it's a smaller task. The most successful problem solvers in the world break large problems down into smaller ones that are easier to handle for that exact reason. Don't be that guy that's looking around the gym in the middle of a set. Don't bring a book to the treadmill. If you have time to look around you aren't pushing yourself hard enough.

On that note, your workouts should be structured such that you can focus on very specific tasks. Trainers will tell you that standing on a medicine ball while doing your military press and reciting the national anthem for Paraguay will work your core while you lift, but if you step back and think about it... can you really focus on any of those things? You're probably not lifting enough weight to actually work your muscles, you're not really doing a ton with your core, you don't know the "Paraguayos, Républica o muerte!" and, worse yet, you're putting undue strain on your ankles which are not made to move that way or take that much stress for that long a period of time, but because you're concentrating so hard on other things, you might not realize how much damage you've done to your ankle until you're done with the exercise.

If you're going to work your arms, work your arms. Hit your core another day. You'll get a much better workout for both muscle groups in those two days than doing that medicine ball crap every day for a month and it's far less dangerous. On that note, I'm not a huge fan of circuit training, where the goal is to keep your heart rate up while you lift. Again, I'm not in the weight room to do cardio and work my heart, and I don't want to be tired before my muscles are done working, so I do my cardio as a separate workout, usually on a separate day. My "circuit" days typically just mean I'm working more than one major muscle group, but I still take enough time between exercises and "circuits" to allow my body to replenish energy to really push for the next exercise.

Compound movements FTW!
Tiring out your muscles before you tire out is a tricky balance, but one of the best ways to achieve that is to do compound motions, or movements that incorporate more than one muscle or RELATED muscle groups. For example, a bench press is a great compound motion as it works your chest, your shoulders and several muscles throughout your arm, as opposed to the medicine ball example from the previous section. Isolation exercises are great, but the main reason I would do any isolations is if i was getting ready for a trip to Hawaii to oil up spend time on the beach (hell yes I would!) or a fitness competition. For general health and appearances, compound exercises are your best friend.

For the most part, compound motions are natural movements too. Bench press, squats, deadlifts, pullups... those are all motions that give you practical strength while working muscles that you probably want to work for appearances as well. Most isolation exercises are motions that you would almost never do in a real-world scenario that doesn't require a ton of imagination to come up with.

Compound exercises are great because one of my main focuses in the weight room is to do as much "damage" as possible to my body before I run out of energy so I typically do very few sets of exercises compared to other folks who are "traditional" in their exercise routines, yet I've seen the most results and get asked for advice by them pretty often. A typical weight training session takes me just over 30 minutes not counting warm up and cool down time, and consists of ~10 total sets of exercises (3 different exercises for 3 sets). In other words, I'm getting more and better results in a lot less time than other people spend in the gym and there's nothing that makes me special (sad, winky frownie face) but this is the key: in the same time, for basically the same amount of energy, I work multiple muscle groups by doing compound exercises, which is where I focus probably 90% of my time in the gym.

Sample workout schedule
So what does my workout week typically look like?

Monday - Triceps/Back: Weighted pullups (3x6), weighted dips (3x6), bodyweight rows (3x6).
Tuesday - Legs: Either a plyometric workout or squats (3x8), deadlifts (3x8), lunges (3x8).
Wednesday - Core: weighted leg lifts, weighted crunches, rotation movements to hit the obliques, etc.
Thursday - Cardio (Intervals)/Basketball
Friday - Chest: flat bench press (3x6), incline bench press (3x6), butterflies (3x6)
Saturday* - Cardio (Intervals)/Basketball

Three exercises per day, typically three sets per exercise, 2-3 minutes between sets. I typically follow a routine for about 4-8 weeks, then take a week off, depending how my body feels, then for the next 4-8 weeks I'll do full body "circuits" before taking a week off to reset. The "circuit" weeks look like:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
One exercise from each group:

• Big Pull: Pull Ups, Rows


• Big Leg: Squats, Deadlifts, Lunges, Box Jumps


• Big Push: Bench Press, Military Press, Incline Press, Dips

Big Pull set, followed by a Big Leg set, followed by a Big Push set, spaced out by 2-3 minutes between each set.

Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday*:
Core/Cardio/Basketball

* Saturdays are swing days, depending how my body feels I may skip a Saturday here and there.

For people just getting started, or with fewer days a week to dedicate (remember, 6 days a week is easy for me, but I have no social life), I'd recommend focusing on the full body days initially. Your body will be sore the next day, but probably not as sore as if you'd just focused one muscle group the previous day, plus you'll be prepping your whole body for the WEIGHT ROOM MAYHEM that's sure to ensue once you get back into the swing of things. I think a nice 3-day a week starter routine could look like:

M - Full-Body Circuits
W - Cardio (Intervals)
F - Full-Body Circuits

Anyways, that's my novel, I'm sure very few people will actually get this far down

Muscle-ups suck.

Seriously.

Pull-ups: easy; dips: easy. That 3 inches of rotation to go from a pullup to a dip? Eff that!



Really though, Crossfit training is awesome, I've tried to incorporate some exercises I've blatantly stolen from those sites you listed into my regular routines, but I'm not sure I'll be going whole hog into Crossfit yet but I'd definitely be interested in following a thread about the various EotDs :)

No online website is going to be able to accurately measure your body fat ... at best it'll be a close guess. According to that website I have 0% body fat. If you want to measure it daily your best bet is to buy a pair of calipers or some other monitor, many scales have body fat monitors built in. Keep in mind those are also not as accurate as actually having it professionally measured but it will give you a better idea of where you are and, more importantly, your trend.

The Diet tab/tool doesn't seem to be taking the custom caloric goal for me anymore, as of December 30th. My calories/quality are comparable for every day, yet the overall value looks to have shifted down about 1.5 points since then. Not a big deal, but it seems inconsistent.

Rachael's issue sounds like a javascript issue; I'm guessing she's either got javascript disabled or traineo is an "untrusted" site or whatever the Firefox equivalent is.

Quick, someone test the site in Chrome, Opera and Safari for both OS's!

Isn't developing for the web fun?

I'm all for user configuration; so my inclination is to go with having it be a profile setting, especially since it's pretty evident that we all use the graphs differently.

I never had any of those issues around being logged out issues I hear other folks talking about though... so stability-wise I'm not seeing a significant change... just some perf stuff that I assume is either related to my proxy or will be resolved over time...

Also note some interesting formatting bugs in the previous post. The first two paragraphs following my "list items" and there are some weird line breaks around the (!) and (me). Left the breaks, but it seems to be related to using list/list item tags.

Let me start by saying that I'm happy with this refresh: the new layout definitely feels good and there are a lot of nice new touches, so I'll start with the positives that I noticed at a glance:

Showing todays date = awesome since I log stuff around midnight and I never knew what the ambiguous "today" meant.

Entering activities does not appear to be limited to just 3 a day anymore

General layout refresh is... refreshing while staying true to the original

Search in the forums

(!) - I haven't tested this at all yet, but it's reassuring to see it there.

Forums text editor and visual refresh. It feels smoother and easier to use. Also: bulleted lists in the editor!

Now on to some of the... other thoughts I've had:

The "zoom" feature of the graphs has always been nice, but starting with a default of "forever ever" is less useful for members who have been around and active for a long period of time

(me). I think showing one or two weeks by default, or making it configurable somewhere (couldn't find it) would probably be a better user experience. Personally, with the graphs, I'm more concerned with the delta from the past week, showing everything over the past two years makes the graph pretty much boring to me, not to mention potential load from loading and processing all that data. Sure, pulling the data isn't expensive server side, but processing it, even if you are doing it on the client, feels pretty unnecessary.

Speaking of client side cost, is it really necessary to use a modal popover for entering activities? The control is pretty slim and could probably be fit into the existing UI (ie. the way it was before) and that eliminates a click. I know, I know, AJAX is the new hotness, but with so many sites already overusing it... Oddly enough, the one place that it would have made the most sense to do a modal would have been inserting links and images in these posts, but that's still using the old JS dialog, heh.

The [list] tag doesn't seem to work as expected. The tags just render as text with no formatting done to any text in between. That or I'm an idiot and have no idea how to properly use it (I'd be willing to accept that).

Either way, looking great so far. Glad to see the continued effort going into the site!

Sounds tasty but way too much effort to make!



j/k



I'll probably give this a try tonight if I make it to the grocery store; got most of the ingredients as is...

Congratulations on that Rach: the form is the hard part; the strength comes quickly once you're doing them right. You'll be squatting more than Bour in no time now.



You hear that Bour? She said she's gonna outlift you!

Wait, you're saying you don't beat your chest and howl at the moon?



Bour... here I was hoping we could be friends.