There’s a lot of good advice here, especially from Brandon, but I’m sure its confusing. I am a scientist, and I have seen very few studies that I find convincing. IMHO, the most important thing is your goal: you want to transition to a lean body. Afterwards, you might set another goal like cardiovascular health, a hard body, etc. FWIW, I am primarily a runner, but I do triathlons, also. I’ve been lifting weights off and on for decades, but reasonably seriously for 5 years. Here are my observations.
I’ve been hearing the “you’ve got to lift weights” line for years. If that were all it took, the old Russian weightlifters would have been cut. They were not. In fact, I would say that all of the most powerful men I’ve known, from offensive lineman to average serious weightlifters, had some extra weight. They weren’t bad, but only body builders, who concentrate on hypertrophy, specialized diets, and peaking, become really lean from lifting weights. I’m not sure I’ve met one who started out fat, and got lean solely by lifting. (Actually, I lie. For a summer, I was friends with a man who was in the NFL’s strongest man competition. He was very lean when I met him. He had also become a runner, a very good runner.)
Every good runner is lean, as is every good cyclist. This has always been true. In part, because extra weight slows you down, but in part because cardio exercises also boost your metabolism. I’ve read studies showing that running or biking burns calories while you do it, and an extra equal amount more because your body is still working hard. Yes, Olympic marathoners look starved and weak, but short distance guys don’t, and bicyclists have rock hard legs. Many guys consider serious women cyclists to have too large legs. I gained five pounds of leg muscle when I became a runner. (I’m also 6’ 2".) But, running only works if you can reasonably quickly start to run. Those who trudge along walking on a treadmill never seem to lose weight or get leaner, either.
You say you have a high amount of body fat, so I assume you can’t run a mile, and won’t be able to in a week or two, here is what I would do. Start with lifting weights. Any number of sites give good exercises, and many exercises are listed above. This will give you some muscle mass. (Running or biking could too, but only if you can go hard enough, the equivalent of walking isn’t going to do it.) Since going outdoors doesn’t seem to be an option, then run, step, elliptical, stationary bike for 20 minutes or so. Do the equivalent of run until you can’t, then walk, until you can go 20 minutes. Yeah, this will prevent big muscles, but they aren’t your goal. On off days, walk.
Once you can run for twenty, lift 2-3 days a week and run (or the equivalent) 3-4 days a week. Extend the distances gradually (10% a week is a good rule of thumb). I know a 60+ year old who lifts three days a week, and roams from treadmill to stairstepper to elliptical on those days, and runs the other days a week. She has a six pack and looks great, as does her 47 year old workout partner.
I know anecdote isn’t science, but really, there isn’t much else out there for the average “Jane”.
Thanks for the effort(s) that have gone into the replies!
Cardio
I’m having a hard time understanding how lifting/cardio affects the calories in > calories out inequality. For calories in, there are plenty of resources that generally agree on what’s inside various foods — counting/logging is fairly straightforward. But what about calories out? There are lots of reasons this number is vague (e.g., different machines/charts give different numbers for the same activity), but germane to this thread is the premise that lean muscle will burn more calories at rest than fat (hence lifting heavy objects is better for weight loss).
I have no reason to doubt it, but have no idea how it’s quantified, which makes for easier fixation on cardio routines. That is, if one hour on a treadmill = 500 calories burned, then doing that four times a week means +/-2,000 additional calories expended per week. See? Easy math. How the heck does lifting heavy objects weigh in on that? Doesn’t it entirely depend on amount of muscle built? How about cumulative effects? Would there be minimal gain the first … week? Month? Six months? I assume there is a critical mass of muscle gain to achieve the same 2,000 calories at rest, but how the heck is it conceptualized?
Oh, and aside from weight loss, cardio’s marketing team has convinced me that it has a host of other benefits (e.g., stronger heart, cleaner arteries, less crust (ex smokers here) in our lungs). Do those still accrue with a weight-lifting based routine?
Division of activity
My earlier question about parsing out activities is something of an economics question. If we have about an hour to an hour a half a day to exercise, how much of that time should go to which activities? Thirty minutes on the treadmill; thirty lifting; and thirty stretching? Or 15-45-15…?
Equipment
Getting a personal trainer or going to a gym is right out. We work from home, moved out to the sticks, and the resources ‘round these parts are fairly slim. But we do have the treadmill, and unless I hear absolute horror stories, are about to sink a few dollars into heavy objects and a platform. A few dollars. Not thousands. I see these metal contraptions running thousands of dollars (though I assume CraigsList is full of much cheaper ones), but they’re not for us at the moment.
What’s the difference between a several hundred dollar chrome-plated, cast iron, name-brand heavy object and a vinyl, sand-filled heavy object? Assuming they are not going to burst open over my head, and assuming that I don’t care if they’re off by an ounce or two here or there, so what?
And about benches … I’ve never been to a Wal-mart before, but I hear they have basic (hovering around decent) quality things. They have this bench that, for a couple hundred bucks, seems to have a lot going for it — it’s a bench, yes? Maybe not perfectly horizontal to a tenth of a degree, but it’s a bench all right. It’s got a couple attachments (leg, preacher curl, and lat tower) that many other manufacturers charge extra for, so there’s a lot that can be done with it. How complicated do these things need to be for a couple wimpy beginners? Are the more expensive benches’ pulleys that much smoother? Will I be laughed at for spending so little? Will the more expensive benches make our form better? I guess I’m trying to figure out why one inclined plane is so much better than another.
Resources
Ok, so in a few days we’ll have a nice, shiny bench (albeit very uncool) and a bunch of weights sitting on the floor. Where do we turn for absolute, very beginner, here-are-what-the-exercises-are-called-and-how-often-to-do-them guidance? Heck, we could even use advice on deciding how much to lift/curl/press/shimmy at first. Of course, keeping this thread alive for the next year could be fun, but what about fitness-specific sites? I’m glad for the earlier mention, but are there any others that are good/gender neutral? Don’t need the best sites out there, just those with a lower quack-to-information ratio.
Stumptuous.com would be my first stop. I’d then pick up “The New Rules of Lifting for Women.”
As an absolute beginner, a bench and some dumbells are a great place to start! Don’t think that you’re starting off at a loss because you don’t have a trainer/gym/fancy, expensive equipment. I WOULD recommend a cheap, full-length mirror on the wall near your bench. It’ll help your form if you can make sure you’re doing exactly what you see in the pictures. I’d also suggest you get a notebook to write down your sets/reps/weight. It helps.
And don’t be afraid of stepping up the weight if what you’re using seems too easy, or of trying lower weights if you really can’t make it through a set. There’s a certain amount of trial-and-error, because everyone is starting from a different place. You might feel VERY unsure of yourself for the first week or two, and that’s OK. You’ll learn from doing.
ETA: Just realized you wanted gender neutral info. Stumptuous’s info, while aimed at women, seems to be solid advice for men too. And I believe their links section will point you to some general weight lifting advice.
People differ and there are no absolutes. It is much easier to eat two hundred calories than burn it off, so diet is a lot more important than exercise. And many people who think they eat okay really don’t. Even if you eat well, small changes can add up. Don’t skip breakfast, try to eat your carbs and bigger meals early in the day, avoid junk food and sugared pop, get your vegetables, eat some protein with every meal, choose your snacks wisely, don’t keep unhealthy stuff in the house that you love unless you have the willpower only to eat very small amounts of it.
Cardio is okay for burning calories and a lot better than doing nothing. But many people who run on a treadmill don’t lose weight. Maybe they don’t run with enough intensity or for long enough periods, become frustrated or self-conscious at the gym (though everyone else there is thinking about themselves!), or they always do a similar routine – the body adapts to things like starvation and exercise routines, and this complicates the calories in/out calculations.
I still believe circuit training to be effective for weight loss. But cardio is useful, and has lots of health benefits in its own right – you want to become healthier not just thinner. The trendy thing these days is to point out that people who run short distances at high speeds (100m-800m runners) tend to be the skinny track and field athletes, and extrapolate this to say the best cardio workouts consist of doing intense, short bursts like running several 200m dashes, or alternating steady and more difficult (steeper, faster) rhythms. I think there is probably some truth to this.
Making simple changes such as taking the stairs, walking more, etc. also add up over time.
As a doctor it is sometimes hard to give advice about these issues. Some patients hate you for bringing up weight issues even if done diplomatically. It is not always easy to know what the patient has tried or how motivated someone is to make changes. Some doctors know little about exercise and nutrition. Most probably do a bad job discussing some lifestyle issues. National food guides, keeping a food log, substituting unhealthy portions and foods with more pragmatic choices, getting motivated to exercise at all, then increasing intensity of exercise… most patients already know these things the doctor says, so it can come of as condescending (and sometimes is, I guess)… but it is not so easy to put this advice into practice… you can know these things and not do them. Just as you can smoke and know this is harmful, or know there are more nutritious options than Cheetos.
Great thread so far. Off to work so I don’t have much time, but I felt obligated to post a few articles regarding cortisol and why it’s a bad decision to combine weight-lifting and cardio.
For the purposes of this discussion, can we agree that “cardio” means “moderate to low intensity, long-duration exercise”? That’s pretty much the accepted definition in the bodybuilding vernacular. The first article is probably more concrete if you can parse the information; intense strength training sharply increases concentrations of several hormones - testosterone, insulin, and cortisol are explicitly mentioned. The former two chemicals are anabolic in that their effect lends itself to the uptake of nutrients and cellular repair.
Cortisol, however, is catabolic and while it’s getting a lot of unfortunate attention (along with all the bullshit the fitness community brings) calling it “the stress hormone” isn’t too much of a misnomer. Cortisol seeks to increase blood sugar and use alternative fuels other than glucose. This means fat and amino acids get oxidized instead - sounds great until you remember that all those hard-earned gains in the gym just got exhaled out during minute twenty of your post-workout jog. Right after lifting, you want to shunt as much glucose into your muscles as possible, you want to spike yourself with protein to improve your nitrogen balance, you want to rest and repair. PWO cardio prevents all of this. At your level of fitness (and probably even mine,) the impact of the hormonal profile probably isn’t all that significant - but in all honesty, if you can run two miles after weight-training, you’re really not doing it properly.
For the sake of example, what I did yesterday was:
10 minute, low difficulty cardio (using an exercise bike)
Strength training (I did abs and thighs, meaning 2 sets of 8-12 on each of: hip adductor, hip abductor, torso rotation in both directions, and the abdominal machine)
5 minutes of cardio (elliptical).
The last 5 minutes were pretty hard. I felt like I had a bit left after the strength training so I tried it, but tired very easily. I think I was more exhausted than I realized.
So, to reduce cortisol levels, it would be best to avoid this entirely and, if I have energy for cardio, go on off days only, I take it?
Well, no offense, I hope, but the articles you linked to don’t establish very clearly that “It’s a bad decision to combine weight lifting and cardio”.
The first article covers subject who only did weight training.
So, apparently cortisol was elevated by strength training alone. This fits into what I have always heard, that weight training breaks down the muscles and they recover during rest to a point (hopefully) stronger than they were before.
The second article says
To be fair, it also says
And
The conclusion of the article is pretty clear -
I don’t think it has been established with any kind of clarity that aerobic exercise is a bad thing to combine with strength training for fat loss. This is especially so at the typical levels of exertion of the normal person.
Obviously if you go out and run a 10K after lifting, it will be harder to gain muscle mass. But that is a long way from saying “avoid cardio if you want to lose weight and improve your health”.
You might make slower muscle gains running after weightlifting, but this doesn’t mean you can’t mix cardio and weightlifting. You are giving cortisol too much credit, the physiology is a lot more complicated than a few hormones.
I also disagree being able to run two miles after weightlifting means you are not weightlifting properly.
But more generally I think many of your obervations are apt.
Excellently parsed, Shodan. I’ll admit that I didn’t read too much beyond the abstracts and conclusions. However, what isn’t disputed in those articles (I hope) is that intense lifting does, indeed raise cortisol which is, in itself, counterproductive to muscular gain. Consider my ignorance fought - I’d assumed the metabolic effects would have been more profound. Nonetheless, a catabolic, stressed state is hardly the ideal time to be doing your aerobics - better to swig whey and glucose as soon as possible.
Apparently, reasonably-timed cardio subsequent to it may not profoundly impact hypertrophy gains - and, on preview, fluiddruid’s short stints peri-lifting probably won’t change much one way or the other. Keep in mind, though, that the 15 minutes you spent on the bike and elliptical burn minuscule calories and the time would be better spent on the weights, instead.
To be honest it sounds like your weight-lifting sessions are drastically lacking in intensity. Musculature like your hip ad/bductors have very little potential for growth, are physically quite small, and consequently you should consider them ancillary to the major groups of your lower body. I’d seriously question whether you should train them at all. When people want nice “thighs” what they really mean is they’d like better glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings.
Fortunately, those muscles are positively humongous and consequently respond very quickly to training. I’d really suggest that you consider basing your weight-lifting workouts around The Big Three compound exercises; the squat, deadlift, and bench press. A set of squats will work just about every muscle between your knees and tits, and you’ll be able to track your progression much more accurately; without progressive overload your muscles will not grow. You should be continuously trying to add another pound, another rep, another set to your routine. Anything to do more work than you did the last time.
So, why do gyms have thirty treadmills, but only two squat racks? Frankly, because most people don’t like having to expend the effort needed to properly progress on compound lifts. Few things are as physically demanding (from a strength and endurance standpoint) as a set of high-weight squats, and that’s precisely why they work so well.
My gym is very small. I do those machines because they are available; there do not appear to be squat racks. For the time being, I’m going to use what I have available. I’m not comfortable doing squats without a cage or something.
Actually, you might find that you get good results from body-weight squats, or just using an unweighted bar at this point. I’d use your body weight for a couple of workouts, and see how you feel afterwards.
Sure, but cardiovascular capacity is a worthwhile fitness goal, too.
I certainly agree with this. I think it is way too early to be on a split routine, which it sounds like she is doing. Better to train the whole body, three days a week.
I think most of the reason that women (especially) train adductor/abductors is left over from the myth of spot reducing. There is still the persistent thought, somewhere in the back of the mind, that if I work that part, it will preferentially burn fat off that part, despite all the evidence that no such thing happens.
It’s somewhat like why people still do high-rep crunches and leg lifts - the old “thousand reps” routine the way Frank Zane used to do it.
Yes, yes, yes. I think, fluiddruid, that you are way over-complicating this. Three sets of eight, building up to three sets of twelve, then increase the weight. Basic exercises (see above) that work the big muscles. Do that for six months or a year, then switch to five sets of five and keep going.
Short, intense bouts of near-maximal exertion, interspersed with completely adequate rest periods.
Preach it, brotha. You sound like Peary Rader. And that’s a compliment - I grew up reading Iron Man magazine, and still have all my old copies.
It’s remarkable how fresh the advice is, and it was published back in the sixties.
Unless you work out at Curves, they have squat racks. It’s so fundamental that a gym would hardly be a gym without one.
Try starting out doing squats against a wall with a yoga ball - it’s the easiest way I know how - but don’t get stuck on it. Try to progress to bodyweight squats and then barbell squats as quickly as possible.
By the way - of the athletes whose workouts I’ve followed, Georges St. Pierre, Sean Sherk, BJ Penn, Andrei Arlovski, Rich Franklin, and many, many others all do cardio and weightlifting in the same day. And everyone I linked to is a current or former world title holder. Judge for yourself if it’s hurting them.
I’m the exception to the general rule, but man, I wish I could skip those damn exercises. I have extremely loose shoulder and hip sockets (and stretched out ligaments)* and so I have to spend time doing strength training that otherwise seems like it would be a waste of time so I can build up the muscle to help hold my joints as they should. Stupid joints!
My main piece of advice is to not forget about your own body as a weight! Things like lunges, squats, tricep dips, back extensions, etc. can really kick your butt and get you feeling stronger.
I can slide my hips/shoulders out of their sockets just by moving in the right way. I know I’m not supposed to do it, but it’s great for freaking people out!
When I say gyms, etc, I’m talking about Gold’s, Bally’s, 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, Pure Fitness, etc - all of which have squat racks. What are the health clubs and fitness clubs sans squats that are much more common than those?
fluiddruid, I’ll second a lot of what other people said. Fitness is an area where there are a lot of contradictory claims made and it’s very hard to filter out the facts from the noise. Part of the problem is that the studies themselves are sometimes showing contradictory findings. If you follow up on sources and read the actual science, you’ll find that it’s even more complicated than you think.
You don’t really have to worry much about it though, for now. Almost anything you can do at your starting level of fitness will have an effect. For best results in weightlifting, stick to multi-joint or compound movements like the deadlift, squat, clean, press, and pull ups (or some facsimile of a pull up). For cardio, anything that gets your heart rate up and keeps it there. Most studies agree that for best time spent vs. results, 20–30 minutes is the sweet spot. You should be doing it at high enough intensity to keep your rate at about 65–85% of your max. Or you could do scaled versions of CrossFit workouts, like the ones posted on the BrandX message board. Use those as guidelines to tailor your own scaling.
I do CrossFit and have gotten better results than I did with conventional weight lifting and cardio. I lost a bunch of weight from a conventional program a few years back, had life interfere and became detrained, gained back most of what I’d lost, and then started up with CrossFit. I’ve been doing it for about the same amount of time that I spent on losing weight the first time, and I’m lifting literally twice as much as I ever did when I was doing regular weight lifting, and I haven’t stalled like I did back then. I got stuck at the same weight on most exercises for a couple of months and never consistently got past that point. That hasn’t been a factor on CrossFit. I can run faster and farther than I ever achieved with standard cardio, and I’m leaner than I’ve been in a decade.
Someone earlier said that CrossFit seems gimmicky, but I think that’s absolutely not true. They’re giving away the information that’s posted on their site. They make their money from training seminars and licensing, supplemented with some publications. I’ve never set foot in a CrossFit gym or bought anything beyond a subscription to the informational newsletter, but I’m benefitting from the information they’ve gathered and the program they laid out. I’m not unique in that respect either.
Posters on the message board and the comments section for the workout of the day are free to argue with the head coaches, and often do. If anyone presents good new empirical evidence for another approach, they’re happy to hear about it and see if it’s something good to incorporate into the program.
The focus of CrossFit is — and you’ll hear this phrasing a lot from them — to provide a broad inclusive level of fitness. The training is meant to provide a base that specific training can use to build on. If you’re a power lifter, CrossFit workouts along with more focused lifting workouts will keep you leaner and give you more endurance than the average person who just does power lifting. You’ll probably even get some strength gains along with a lower rate of injury and faster recovery. If you’re a runner, then CrossFit will make you vastly more capable in strength and power than the average runner. The workout of the day is not the only thing you should be doing if you’re an actual athlete with high-end performance needs, but by doing it you’re building or maintaining fitness in domains that are usually neglected in sport-specific training. If you’re not already an advanced or elite athlete, basic CrossFit workouts will easily address practically any standard of fitness you might want to achieve.
The controversy with Makimba (PDF) was due to his contracting rhabdomyolysis (PDF) allegedly from doing the workout in the second link: Three rounds, one each of 15-10-5 reps, for time, of; dumbbell thrusters (front squat to a push press) with 10 lbs., air (unweighted) squats, and burpees. Rhabdo is explained in the second link, but basically it’s a serious and relatively rare medical condition that results from the rapid breakdown of muscle. It can be brought on by intense exercise and it usually happens to people who are already in decent shape, since untrained athletes usually can’t exercise hard enough to cause that kind of damage.
For the record, CrossFit linked to a video of one of their little kids classes doing that exact workout, including poundage. I’m inclined to think Makimba’s case was either a freak occurrence or resulting from a pre-existing condition. From what I’ve read, there are few cases related to CrossFit specifically. This guy was in the military and the track record for conventional military training isn’t as good, safety wise, as CrossFit’s. The military probably even has more cases of rhabdo from PT or boot camp than CrossFit. Even though it is a very rare condition, CrossFit does warn people about it and have probably done as much to promote knowledge about it in the exercise community as some of the academic fitness organizations out there.
Anyway, you are in charge of you. If you think the exercise is too much, scale it down. I usually scale the recommended loads to between 80 and 85% (which is a vast improvement over the 50 to 60% I used to have to do) and sometimes decrease the reps on high-volume days. I’ve done a few workouts completely unscaled, but I still can’t handle some of the heavier loads at the rep ranges specified. I go as hard as I can, but if I’m really hurting I’ll take some time to get myself back together. There have even been a few days where I quit early because I was a little too ambitious starting out.
One thing that CrossFit has done is keep me from quitting entirely. The variation and challenge has kept me from ever getting bored or wanting to skip a type of exercise I don’t like for one that’s more “fun.” That was a bit of a factor in my earlier layoff. It’s also inspired me to push myself. I didn’t think I could run a 5 k before it came up in the schedule, but the first time I ran one I though, “Hey, that really wasn’t that bad.” My time (about 23 minutes) was even decent, especially since I hadn’t run that far in about 15 years.
You’re welcome. I try my best to help (for whatever it is worth) those who are helping themselves. It is simple and it isn’t, as the responses in this thread show you. I think you should look into the history of nutrition, fitness, and well-being in this country since you are an intelligent and curious person, it’s fascinating how we have ended up so ignorant as a whole. I found that understanding the context of why society has gotten into it’s current shape really helped me to turn a critical eye on my own lifestyle and what needed to be changed. Look at the USDA Food Pyramid and how misleading it is, but it was taught as gospel for so long. Still is for that matter.
The problem with advice is the person giving it is really speaking to their own experience, doubly so if they have never struggled with being unhealthy and the way it encompasses all facets of life. That advice you received, for the most part, is the essence of losing weight; but it doesn’t explain the “why” or “how” which is what needs to be taught. Fitness is not self-evident for most people, regardless of whether they are fat or skinny; and it is easy to get discouraged when you can tell the person telling you the advice is simply going through the motions and couldn’t care less so long as they get your co-pay. Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.” I feel that is applicable to our nation’s continuing fitness decline, we are missing the human aspect behind it all.
You could’ve gotten a good workout slapping them around. That would have burned a few calories, but noooo fatties always choose the easy way out; whether it’s taking the elevator or not assaulting the nutritionist. If you are a vegetarian, I would recommend the protein shakes. Do you have a better understanding of nutrients now? And why you need certain ones?
I could understand why they would want to do bloodwork, but if you could prove that you have already been tested it’s just another case of the health system looking to over-medicate.
It absolutely is frustrating. It’s good to vent about this stuff and, in my non-professional opinion, if you use this mind state to fuel yourself forward you can make great strides towards improving yourself. Nutritionists suffer from some of the same problems as personal trainers in my book. The good ones are often forced into telling clients what they want to hear (perpetuating myths) and they eventually get discouraged and find a new line of work. The bad ones coast through some certification and look to play the soccer moms of Suburbia. General practitioners often struggle when it comes to helping patients with weight loss. If the person is not showing immediate health concerns from their fat there is no good way to broach the subject, and a lot of them wouldn’t know how to even if they wanted (no fault on them, they have to know a lot of stuff and it is hard to stay current on everything). There is also the growing trend towards a reliance on doctors who write prescriptions for everything. It also has to be discouraging from their perspective to watch so many patients choose to be unhealthy over and over. On a side note, I have a small desire to write a book eventually (once I learn more) that systematically addresses subjects such as these and explains what people can do to help themselves. Basically, give people knowledge that is relevant and teach them how to learn to improve themselves.
By the way that ExRx.net website is a great resource. I use it myself.
The problem is determining what try harder even means. From your post I take it that you thought the doc meant “reduce calories even more”, which may have been faulty, yet fundamentally correct, advice. If you tried reducing your calories in the wrong way it would end with bodily cravings and an eventual crash when you overcompensate and splurge on calories that should have been accommodated in your diet to begin with. Also the idea that dieting is an action taken for a certain amount of time needs to die. When people fail diets (and many studies show the vast majority of them not only fail, but gain weight in the long term) many become discouraged and completely give up on the idea of ever becoming healthy. Congratulations on your progress already. Your story shows the overall mindset that needs to be changed in order to get in better shape. For you, and many others, gradual change works best; for many others instantaneous shaking of their lifestyle foundations is what’s needed. This is the variant aspect that so many posters have addressed very well in their posts.
It does depend on muscle built, the more stuff your body has on it the more calories it is burning to keep everything functioning. Muscles are more dense and require more energy (calories) to maintain than fat. Additionally, when you are weight lifting you are constantly “tearing down” your muscles, it takes a lot of calories (and your metabolism stays elevated) to build them bad boys back up. The repairing of your muscle, the maintenance, and the act of weight lifting itself all combine to affect the amount of calories being utilized.
Also, the one hour on a treadmill = certain amount of calories is the wrong way to quantify things. Things like incline and distance affect calories burned far more then time spent on it. For that matter, I believe jogging for one mile in 10 minutes doesn’t burn a substantial more amount of calories than walking it in 30 minutes. It may burn more (depending on various factors like how much you “bounce” and steps taken), but not to the extent that many believe. It requires about the same amount of energy to move a body a certain distance, the speed is largely irrelevant. Think of it in terms of driving your car, if you go a mile continuously at 30 mph you will use basically the same amount of fuel as driving that same mile at 40 mph. This is good news for those who are extremely out of shape and are not in any condition to jog, go ahead and walk that mile in 30 minutes and burn some calories. Now in a 30 minute time frame, you can cover more ground jogging than walking; therefore jogging burns more calories in a given time period.
You still get some benefits. Weight lifting strengthens your cardiovascular system, raises heart rate, improves endurance, etc. Obviously the way in which you do cardio will affect the benefits, and to what extent (if any) those benefits are better than the ones gained weightlifting. Swimming will benefit the respiratory system more than weightlifting, for example. For that reason, weightlifting and cardio go hand-in-hand in my opinion. Anecdote, cardio helped my lungs (which were in bad shape due to some of my past choices) markedly, so I think you ex-smokers shouldn’t discount it.
Again, it depends on your goals and the plan you are on. If you are under time constraints look into HIIT for your cardio needs, and maybe once a week mix it up with more conventional stuff (low speed long distance). Thirty spent stretching might be too much for you, I would only recommend that if flexibility was high on your list of concerns. Try to stagger stuff with your wife if you can, i.e. she rests while you’re doing a set. I used to spend 30 minutes or more stretching, but I was a hockey goalie. On that note, if you are working out with your wife there are some partner stretches that promote “contact” in unique ways that you may want to look into. If you’d like I’ll see if I can drag up the ones I used to use.
Definitely check Craigslist. I noted that in my post in Justin Credible’s thread. You may have to drive some when you’re out in the sticks, but you can find absolute steals. Try to do it before the New Year’s crowd is competing with you. Stay away from Bowflex and machines.
It comes down to quality and outgrowing the equipment. The sand filled ones will degrade and crack if you accidentally drop em. If you get something too small you may find yourself out lifting the set, if weightlifting is something you want to stick with you may want to drop the cash to have something that will last your lifetime. Additionally, the cheapie sets that are normally built for highschoolers are not size regulated. The bar may be a weird circumference and only weigh 10 lbs, whereas an Olympic barbell always has the same size (7.22 ft and 44.1 lbs) and will always be compatible with Olympic weights. No guarantee that you will be able to find weights that fit a cheapie set down the line. I say go for the Olympic set always, but if you are willing to accept all the downfalls of something else that is up to you.
Level of incline helps with form, targets other muscles then flat, allows for different exercises, and some people have said that training on an incline helped them bust through a plateau on the flat. You should be able to buy adjustable benches that allow for both flat and inclines. Actually, now that I look at your link it says that it is adjustable, ask Walmart to be certain if you’d like though. Complicated isn’t always better, in fact most of the time complicated = marketing. Can’t speak to the smoothness of the pulley since I’ve never worked out on it. The thing about being a wimpy beginner is that you won’t always be a wimpy beginner (don’t know if the lb capacity on your linked bench is something for you to be concerned about). Anyone that laughs at you without offering anything constructive is someone not worth listening to anyways. No bench is going to make your form better (unless it’s built in such a way as to make your form worse), at most it will not impede in you making your own form perfect. It’s hard to see in the image, but it doesn’t like you will be doing squats completely free so that may be something to note.
Several of the ones linked here are good (ExRx is good for form, especially since you will have no one watching you). ValerieBlaise’s suggestion of a mirror and notebook is a good one (that goes for everyone! log your lifts), but I will tack on that you should start with only the bar until your form is down. Additionally, have your wife videotape you so you can watch yourself or upload it for someone else to see. If you want a starting weight lifting plan for you and the missus PM me and I’ll see what I can get for ya.
My pleasure.
Yup, trial-and-error is the key; but don’t push yourself if you feel something is going wrong. Take a step back and re-asses everything. Lots of advanced lifters often use the bar or a small weight (even going as far as to use nothing or just a broomstick) as a warmup just to reinforce their motions. Like Val alluded to, the first couple of weeks will be about getting comfortable and learning form, don’t concern yourself about how much you are lifting. At a certain point, though, you will have to bust out of that comfort zone and try for gains. It will be harder going for 1RM (one rep maximum) or making big jumps up with what you are considering buying, but I don’t know if that bothers you.
You can take information from Stumptuous even if you’re not of the fairer sex, just be cognizant that it is written for women. I just linked one of their articles to Justin Credible’s thread.
I’m sorry, but did you detail your plan somewhere else in this thread and I missed it? I’d have to get a look at what your overall scheme is, but just looking at that; your approach seems haphazard and sporadic as if you just hopped on machines that were open.
Part of getting fitter is doing what isn’t comfortable to you. Think of it like this, you’ve been sticking with what is comfortable your whole life; where has it gotten you? If there are no squat racks some changes need to be made somewhere. Ask your gym management what their policy on squats and deadlifts are. If they have no answer ask if you can use the barbells off the bench. If they allow that practice your form without the bar, then use something like a broomstick, then upgrade to the bar. Do you have a spotter/gym buddy? If they get uppity then you are going to have to do some modified lifts while you look for a new gym.
Anything she does will have good results, she’s a beginner. They are going to see initial spikes in what their body is capable of. For now she can try body weight, along with pistol squats (assisted if necessary), and wall sits. There are also modified dumbbell squats. If she wants maximum results, she is going to need to plan for doing real squats in the very near future.
It’s shocking the type of crap that goes on in some gyms, especially if they are organization/independent gyms or the like. I’ve seen many places that have only 1 or 2 squat cages, and they are only ever used for curls; meanwhile there is an entire row of new treadmills. fluiddruid, maybe they have a squat rack instead of a cage and it’s just tucked in a corner somewhere since no one ever uses it.
It is complicated. For example, the theory that fat people’s bodies, not the people themselves, fight weight loss continually. Or the debate between science/willpower/genetics/laziness. The question of whether carbs/cholesterol/sodium is good or bad. It’s truly amazing and I recommend that fluiddruid, and everyone with a passing interest for that matter, reads up on them. The problem is in reading all this information people can become easily discouraged or obstinate and use it to rationalize their own unhealthiness. Regardless of the information and how they correlate with people in the grand scheme, on an individual level you have to make eating better and exercising a part of your life to become healthy. The rest of it doesn’t matter to you right now, and if you are likely to get lost in the minutiae of the data then I recommend you ignore it entirely until you gain control over the grander things.
And in the very next paragraph I exemplify the disagreement that is prevalent in the fitness world. The three weight lifting exercises that every routine should have are the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift. For cardio I still say that HIIT offers the best time vs result ratio, assuming that you can do it. For that matter, HIIT may offer benefits that traditional cardio doesn’t.
I think CrossFit is good, and I hope to try it sometime, but I think that is beyond fluiddruid right now. In the same vein, HITT is likely beyond her level. These are both good things to re-assess and consider down the line though.
Very interesting stuff. Thanks for the additional information.
Congratulations. One thing CrossFit does seem to do is keep your body guessing, which somebody (I think Cisco) touched upon up-thread. That is very important. In my opinion, traditional cardio is less effective for that very reason. Human bodies are remarkably good at adapting to what you throw at them. If you keep doing jogging for your cardio, your body will acclimate to it to the point of giving minimal returns.
Standard disclaimer applies to the above two posts. You listen to me at your own risk.
Actually, I’d agree with you that high intensity interval training is probably better than the traditional aerobics sweet spot. In fact, I’ve linked to this study in explaining the benefits of intensity in training on this board before. That paragraph was just to include a very brief set of recommendations for a pure beginner. While the core weightlifting exercises will never be outgrown, I expect that in a few months she’ll be fit enough to move into HIIT or at least incorporate sprint days. Not right at the start though. Probably should have included that point in my original post.
Oh, fluiddruid, one more comment on priorities in working out; doing both weightlifting or resistance exercises, and aerobic exercise are helpful. Even if you really want to be an aerobic queen, your limiting factor for quite a long time is going to be both muscle fatigue and overall strength. Untrained athletes typically get stopped by muscle fatigue long before they tap their full aerobic capacity.
And believe me, weight lifting helps a whole lot in losing fat. When I first started being able to go heavy there was an immediate and dramatic change in body fat. I could damn near see my gut shrink week-to-week. Women are sometimes worried about “getting too big” or “looking too masculine.” I know you haven’t expressed those concerns, but I’ll reassure you that that’s a non-issue for most women. Without doing steroids, even heavy weight lifting won’t get you more than moderately muscular. Case in point, this chick can do 40 pull ups in a row, and has a max deadlift of 260 lbs. Those are action poses where she’s obviously under load, and yet she still looks only lightly muscled.
I have extremely loose shoulder and hip sockets (and stretched out ligaments)* and so I have to spend time doing strength training that otherwise seems like it would be a waste of time so I can build up the muscle to help hold my joints as they should. Stupid joints!
If you are a vegetarian, I would recommend the protein shakes. Do you have a better understanding of nutrients now? And why you need certain ones?
