One thing I miss about the other place was the Health & Fitness forum.
Not sure how many of you hung out there, but it was a very good source of fitness info and advice and has helped me a lot over the years.
In the hope that we can get something similar here going, I thought I might start a fitness thread.
Fitness Goals (long term)
manage my mental health
avoid a heart attack and diabetes
look better naked and in professional clothes
Short term goals.
podium finish at the upcoming Australian Indoor Rowing Championship in a week on Sunday
get stronger for the next (and possibly last) rugby season.
I’ve been doing a lot of rowing. Pretty sure I’m gonna get about 6:28 in my 2k row race. This will put me somewhere between 1st and 4th in the 30 to 39 age group.
This came from buying the rower to stay fit, and turned into a bit of an obsession.
My pre race rowing routing is all set. Looking at what I do next.
Probably going to be
Monday workout A
Tuesday 4 x 1500 m row
Wednesday workout B
Thursday 45 minutes slow and steady row
Friday workout A
Workout A
Super set x 3
Squat variation
Straight Overhead Press
Squats are one of
pistols
front squat
goblet squat
Power clean 5 x 3
Mixed circuit (4 exercises, on the minute, one minutes rest between sets)
Workout B as above with
replace press with a push-up progression
replace circuit with a core workout - mostly plank variations
This is designed around what I can do at home in my condo. I don’t have time in my life to go to the gym, and since I’ve started working out at home I’ve been the most consistent as I’ve ever been.
Plan is to do this for 4 months, with progress measured by how much I improve my clean and my overhead press.
Damn that seems like a crazy time to me. Do you happen to know what kind of times a 50 y/o would be pulling in this competition?
Right now my goal is a sub 8 minute 2k, but I’m just starting out and coming from 3 to 4 years of being mostly sedentary. If I can eventually pull 7:30 or better I would be thrilled.
50-54 category has top 4 in the 615 to 630 range. Which is actually a little faster than 30 to 39. I think my age group people tend to spend more time with family and kids.
What’s your weight and height? That makes a lot of difference. At 117kg and 6’4" I have a big advantage.
If you’ve just started as well. Your time will come down fast. Anything below 7k is considered a serious time, so i would work towards that long term
I’m 5’11" and 225 pounds this morning. Was 258 pounds last March and plan to be 175 pounds by next March/April. (I’ve lost most of that weight starting about mid July.)
My first try at 2k was something horrible like 10:58 and I’ve got that down to 8:41 in about 2 months, and I think I’ll probably be able to chop 20 more seconds off that next time I try a max effort.
I’m doing the Pete’s Plan beginner program and just started doing all 5 weekly sessions (3 required and 2 optional) before moving to the next week. I expect this will sometimes take a little longer than a week to complete each “weeks” sessions due to my schedule. I’m starting week 7 right now out of 24 weeks.
Nice! Whatever you are doing is definitely working. Keep it up.
I post on the Concept2 training forum as JimS. They are a pretty good crowd with lots of good advice.
The Pete plan is popular and gets results. Don’t be afraid of pushing yourself hard starting out though. All the caution about over training, fatigue etc isnt so relevent for beginners.
Rather than dragging out the Week on PP, make sure you finish the intervals and hard rows each week. The slower stuff is good, but should be second priority to the hard stuff if you have to choose.
Reasonably happy with that, but probably could have squeezed out another second faster.
My Olympic bar and weights arrived yesterday. Will be setting up my gym this afternoon ready for 4 months of cleans and overhead press. Sorry downstairs neighbour!
Anyone have any experience with Planet Fitness? They’re a chain but idk how many states they’re in, lots of them here in FL. Anyway I’ve been thinking about joining a gym and they have what sounds like an incredible deal right now, 20 cents down and ten bucks a month with no commitment. What’s the catch? I’d rather not go there and sit through some meathead’s spiel to find out its some kind of scam
Don’t underestimate the number of busto meatheads roaming around at Planet Fitness. If you can’t get jacked af at PF that’s your fault not the lack of squat racks or ability to deadlift. I did Smith Machine deadlifts there for like 4 months, not ideal ofc but it is 10 dollars a month lol.
I’d evaluate the individual facility and account for the fact that it can get very crowded between 5-7.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re looking to do standard lifts, PF obviously won’t do. But you can sort of squat and deadlift on a smith machine, or get creative and work on different exercises that strengthen you up for when you join a real gym. I started doing lower weight front squats there for example, it’s really not that bad.
I agree lack of heavy dumbbells is annoying, my strongest ego lifts back in the day were incline presses with those fancy triple digit ones.
I feel like there is a really opportunity for someone to become the Jared Fogle of planet fitness.
Steps:
Start out obese
come up with some program where you workout only at planet fitness and get jacked (not that easy, but by no means impossible).
Video log your progress/results and present to planet fitness execs
Profit
If you want to cheat, just have some free weights at home but make sure you’re seen at planet fitness several times a week (if not every day). Not sure that’s necessary. I’m sure even with the limitations of what is there, you could get a good result with smart programming, creativity, dedication, and proper diet.