Rorschach's get your ass to the gym thread

[Rorschach]

So in another thread in the dating section I told hokie I hadn't been going to the gym as often as I should (read: haven't gone in over a month, almost two) and I had to get back into the habit, I told him I'd go today and post the results.

 

Figuring that the absolute best way to do something you don't want to do is to be put under peer pressure to perform (unintentional alliteration made me laugh) so I figured I'd start this thread where I'll post my intended gym schedule, and when I actually went. If it's a matter of public knowledge and people I know and respect are expecting me to go the gym then I feel worse about not going and therefor go more often.

 

I want to go on a monday, wednesday, friday, one weekend schedule. In the event my work prevents me from going on the correct day (I sometimes have to pull 16 hour days from 7 in the morning to 11 at night or other crazy schedules) I'll go the following day and then resume schedule as normal (so if I miss a wednesday I'll go thursday and friday then continue as normal)

 

I haven't thought much about what I want to work out on each day, I think I had a pretty good schedule before at my old planet fitness but since I've moved since that one and this new one, while bigger, is mostly unknown to me so I may have to go for a week or so before I can find all the machines/exercises I'm looking for.

 

What I did today:

 

15 minutes of high intensity stair master, I used to do 30 but after 15 my chest was very tight and my heart rate was about 180 so I figured it was wise to stop at 15 and slowly work back up to 30 full minutes (next time I go I'm turning the difficulty level down as well)

 

Did mostly back exercises today including the row, military presses, and 5 other exercises, 5 sets of 5 with as much weight as I could. I'll have a more definite idea of what I want to accomplish each day on each muscle group but today was more of a 'you have to go and do SOMETHING', I was going to do arms but all the freeweight stations were full (damn city living haha)

 

Because I only did 15 minutes on the stair master I did a full 30 on the treadmill after lifting weights, nothing high intensity, and I'm not a very good runner so just a very swift walk on an incline, fast enough to break into a good sweat but I didn't have any trouble finishing the 30 minutes.

[tman666]

I personally think that you should make it your goal to do something every day. Granted, you obviously won't have the work capacity to lift hard every day, but even on your days off from lifting, you should do something, even if it's short. Even if it's just a mile jog or 5 sprints or something.

 

All eyes on you now...

[Green]

I think when you first start going back to the gym you need to take it easy. Just have fun staring at the people and doing a light work out.

 

Do it daily, start enjoying it. after a month or two you will be able to push yourself harder and get into more of a routine

[Rorschach]

I personally think that you should make it your goal to do something every day. Granted, you obviously won't have the work capacity to lift hard every day, but even on your days off from lifting, you should do something, even if it's short. Even if it's just a mile jog or 5 sprints or something.

 

All eyes on you now...

 

I live a relatively active life outside of the gym (never one to shy away from exercise) and my job is good exercise as well, but i'll make it a point to do something anyhow.

[Ruby Slippers]

Go, Rorschach!

 

I'm turning my attention back to health and fitness, too. I've been working my butt off on my biz all year, my attention to health has faded, and these days I'm lucky if I exercise twice a week. My goal for the next week or two is to ease back into regular workouts.

 

The biggest challenge for me is just making time, given the intensity of time demands I've put on myself in running my biz. I love working out and feeling fit, but one can only have so many priorities.

 

Biz is still my top priority, but I want to kick health and fitness back up a few notches on the priority ladder.

 

We can do it!

[Rorschach]

Took Tman's advice and went for a run today, took 30 minutes, probably about 1.5 miles, ran for maybe 15-20 minutes, walked for 10-15. Which is alot better than I used to be able to do, without even getting any practice in just being 80 pounds lighter has made it alot easier to go jogging.

 

I'd also like to point out that I live in maine, this time of year 70 degrees is normal, right now it's 96 outside, the hottest it's been at this time of year in almost 40 years, and I went running anyway. So I had a great excuse to not go (IE: it's too hot, I guess i'll just stay home) but I went anyway.

 

Feels good man.

[just_some_guy]

Wow, 180 is a high heart rate, even for a young man.

 

I found my best advantage was to slow my pace down so that I was exercising in the bottom of my cardio range on the elliptical. Much easier, more relaxed, allowed me to read comfortably on the machine and the weight began to drop steadily.

 

On the regular gym visits, sign up for a class!

 

No need to sweat it out alone, make a commitment to be there for a class or a private lesson/trainer.

 

Also, I sought out a gym that had a wide variety of activities and locations. That way, if I get bored with something I can always change. I switched from cardio and weights in the gym to swimming lately. But they have all kinds of classes, tennis, basketball, racketball and other sports. They also have multiple locations I can use in case I need a change of scenery and I can use a gym close to work and another close to home.

 

Another trick I use is to immediately re-pack my gym bag and put it back in the car when I get home. That way, there's no excuse, it is always in the car, no "I forgot it".

[USMCHokie]

Wow, 180 is a high heart rate, even for a young man.

 

I found my best advantage was to slow my pace down so that I was exercising in the bottom of my cardio range on the elliptical. Much easier, more relaxed, allowed me to read comfortably on the machine and the weight began to drop steadily.

 

I will have to respectfully disagree with this statement...I'd much rather go hard for 15 minutes than go easy and relaxed for an hour...you should always be challenging your body and your mind when you train...

[Green]

I will have to respectfully disagree with this statement...I'd much rather go hard for 15 minutes than go easy and relaxed for an hour...you should always be challenging your body and your mind when you train...

 

Going relaxed and just moving around is good enough for a lot of people. Really you should push yourself hard for atleast 30-40 minutes if you wants some good effects.

[USMCHokie]

Going relaxed and just moving around is good enough for a lot of people. Really you should push yourself hard for atleast 30-40 minutes if you wants some good effects.

 

I agree, just moving around is better than what a lot of people would otherwise do...but the length of your workout will depend on how hard you're pushing...if you're going at your hardest and can last 30-40 minutes, then you're not pushing hard enough...

[Rorschach]

I will have to respectfully disagree with this statement...I'd much rather go hard for 15 minutes than go easy and relaxed for an hour...you should always be challenging your body and your mind when you train...

 

This.

 

On the stair master at the gym is the time for me to push my body to the limit, it's a hard machine that gets you breathing hard and heavy pretty quickly. Yeah 180 is high and I was not going to be able to go the whole 30 minutes, but chances are I did more good in that 15 minutes than I would have on an elliptical/treadmill for a full hour on easy mode.

 

When I went running today I spent the first 15 minutes or so jogging at a good pace (about the fastest I go unless I'm all out sprinting) and I don't stop unless A. I need to find another good song on my ipod (takes 15-30 seconds) B. I've been going for awhile and physically CANNOT run any longer, thats when I start walking and jog whenever I have the strength but mostly walk.

 

Ideally each day that I go out I'd be able to go all out for longer and longer until i can do the full 1.5 miles without stopping, thats when I'd have to find a 3 mile loop hah.

[Rorschach]

Got called in to work today, I've already put in my 40 hours this week and they just called to tell me that today and tomorrow (the days I thought I had off) were not going to be quite as planned, I have to work 3pm-11pm tonight then 7am-7pm tomorrow. This they told me at 11:30am, so calling and saying 'hey in about 3 hours you're going to be working, after that you get to go directly to bed so you can wake up on time to come back and work for 12 hours'.

 

Then they gave me the schedule for next week, and they only scheduled me for TWO days. Sometimes I hate my job So I had every reason not to go to the gym, I had only 3 hours of free time (I only woke up at 11 since I normally work nights), and the gym was going to eat up at least half of that. So of course I just went anyway.

 

Managed 25 minutes on the stairmaster at the same difficulty as wednesday, went all out for 15 minutes, got really tired and just powered through another 10 minutes, not at top speed but as fast as I could go with the fatigue.

 

Then did 40 minutes of arms/chest free weights, maybe 8 different exercises including bench press, the fly, and concentration curls.

 

Now I need to take a shower and rest for an hour before work

[just_some_guy]

I will have to respectfully disagree with this statement...I'd much rather go hard for 15 minutes than go easy and relaxed for an hour...you should always be challenging your body and your mind when you train...

 

Well, Hokie, I don't disagree with you. But from your pictures, you appear to be in very good health, with high muscle mass and very low body fat and probably a lot younger than I am.

 

I think it entirely possible that people in different condition/age/BMI might benefit from different exercise regimes. My personal trainer recommended along the lines you did, but it didn't really work all that well for me. Slowing and reducing the effort level improved things for. Empirically, all I can say is that I enjoyed the work out more and the weight has been steadily dropping, the BP is in excellent shape and my stamina and cardio function have also steadily improved. Even better, the weight has been dropping without a lot of attention to diet at all.

 

My workouts consisted of about 40 minutes (inclusive of warm-up cool-down) of elliptical at a steady, heart-rate driven effort level (set the machine to adjust resistance to maintain heart rate). Over time, the resistance required has steadily increased a lot too. Then I would do core work (crunches, etc), then about 40 minutes of weightlifting. Altogether it worked very well.

 

I've switched to swimming lately, which seems to be working well in other ways.

[Rorschach]

I drove down to the gym after work only to find out that it closes early on weekends, so I drove home and went for a run instead.

 

Tried doing sprints today, running as hard as I could all out for as long as I could, then walking for as long as I needed before going all out again. I did a little jogging but I tried to sprint as much as possible. The first sprint lasted about 3-5 minutes which I was personally impressed with, although probably not good by most people standards I liked it.

 

Funny story, when I run/workout I wear these old beater shirts, many of which are tie-dye (I just like tie-dye haha, balancing out all those 'black is the only color I wear' people), so I was wearing tie-dye and up ahead of me I see a black guy wearing some 'gangsta' clothes.

 

He heard me running up behind him and he quickly pulled out a flashlight, turned around and shined it on me. So I waved to him, smiled and kept on running past him and he waved to me as I went bye. Only after did it occur to me how funny it was that a 'gansta' black guy was scared of a tie-dye wearing white guy coming up behind him at night.

 

Rorschach, jogger, loser of weight and destroyer of stereotypes

[Rorschach]

Went to the gym this morning, did my standard stairmaster routine and then did a legs/core weight session.

 

Tman and hokie would be proud of me as I did some good squats and deadlifts, course after all the running/stairmaster I've been doing I think the squats have killed my legs. I live on the third floor, getting up here was not easy today

 

I'm no longer going to be updating this topic, instead choosing to update my signature as I successfully complete each day as I don't want this thread to just end up with me posting again and again with nobody else coming in. Tony would close it anyway, so I'll be updating my sig from now on.

 

I think I'm in the swing of it now anyway.