xlucasx

Yes, next to the fat question, there was one thing that was occupying my mind that I'd like some opinions on. That is, the routine of things. Now I keep a good routine, in that I do excercies 5 x a week and target one different muscle group each of those days (ofcourse some overlapping is bound to occur, but I try and keep it separated). No excuses. That's not the problem of routine I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is the circumstantial routine. Dietarily (?!) speaking, except for the principle of veganism, my diet is anarchy. I eat what comes up and when it does. Ranging from tofu to chocolate and from fresh fruit to coca cola. Some days go by without any consumption at all, some other days I eat wayyyyy too much. I don't have fixed times on which I eat either, or a fixed number of meals that I consume. In the mix of things though I do eat a lot of rice, pasta, grains, beans, nuts, fruits, vegetables and soyproducts, just not structured by any governing philosophy. Then in sleep too. That's pretty much a mess. Sometimes I stay in bed for over twelve hours, some times I don't get sleep at all. Again the governing law of anarchy seems to be at work. When I go to bed can range from ten in the evening to four in the morning. Same goes for getting up. Since, as I posted before, I do my excercises usually before I go to bed, sometimes I end up doing them post-midnight. So in terms of eat & sleep I have no governing principle. As to why or if that's a good thing, lets not bother with that, but my question is: what is the effect on the progress your body can make? Does it set any boundaries? I do notice that an excercise that I could do without too much difficulty the one week, can seem painsteaking the next. Is that because the circumstances are so radically different? Since my eating habits are non existent, the time I wait before I do my excercises varies strongly too. Is all this related to this lack of structure or is it just normal to go through better and worse moments as a curve in progress? An upward spyral so to speak?

At the other end of this story is where I am, where excercises are the very last thing I do before I go to bed. An empty stomach wouldn't be my problem, but I do my excercises after midnight sometimes. Can that be harmful or does it really not matter?

Alright, I might be going against the grain here, but out on a limb. When I started training I wanted to gain muscleweight but also I wanted to fill out my body and gain some weight altogether. Now, I've been at it for a good few months and I must say, in terms of muscle results are starting to show, I'm very glad about that. However, I went from skin 'n bones to skin, bones and muscle. I haven't increased in bodyweight (strictly speaking I was underweight and still am, however, I have been for as long as I can remember, be it in my days of omnivore, vegetarian or vegan). My metabolism works with the speed of light, I know, and also, it might be the curse of veganism preventing you from taking in fat a whole lot. But, as opposed to everyone trying to work out to lose weight, I would like to gain some. I don't know if that's possible? Or actually a healthy goal? I'd like to have just enough fat for the space created between my growing muscles to be filled up nicely. Right now actually the increase in muscle makes you look even more thin because the muscle makes the lack of fat stand out more. So the question is: how do I gain weight? As a vegan, how can you make sure you do get at least some fat? Chips and chocolate? Advocado's and coconutmilk? Nuts and tofu? Is this a silly question? Or is fat just underrated? PS: Although I wouldn't mind changing my eating habits around a little within the realm of veganism (shift the focus from apples to coconutmilk, whatever), I wouldn't like to get into stuff that slows the metabolism down artificially... I've heard rumors.

Whaha I hope my nickname won't get to be '4kg' Yeah push ups and crunches, indeed because of the fact that I am blessed with a floor haha, I do too. Perhaps I should look into getting a barbell and adjustable dumbbells... but, as you already guessed, that does involve some $$$ unfortunately. Oh well, I suppose some investment is required if I really want to take it seriously, even if it be a financial one. Plus, next to free is my other good friend: the second hand store! Those leg excersises seem good for now. Let's just hope that by the time I get beyond the limits of the domestic my bankaccount will have some more zeroes to show for (with a '1' at least in front of them ofcourse).

Good work men! http://www.infinitehealth.biz/images/people/thumbs-up.jpg

I'm glad to see I'm not the only broke ass one around here and I ran into some tips on how to do excercises around the house using everyday items, I liked that a lot. Using a door to do chin up excersises was a good one, I don't know why I didn't think of that one (although I do fear for my door's hinges). I wonder what a good round-the-house way would be to invert the focus of some dumbbell excercises, pushing the weight down in stead of bringing it up. In a Side Lateral Raise or with a Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl. In the last excercise for example, I figure the focus will be on the triceps rather than the biceps when you invert the gravitational pull. I guess I should tie a rope around my dumbbell on the one hand side, hang the rope from the ceiling or around something standing up, and then pull the weight down on the other end of the rope in any way that would benefit the targeted muscle group. The question is: how. My ceiling isn't that great and I don't have a barbell suspended anywhere. I was thinking my hatstand maybe haha. As long as it wouldn't tumble over. The other one is a bench. For the purpose of Dumbbell Bench Press for instance. All my chairs are useless because I can't really lay down on them and my bed isn't much either because you can't reach beyond 90 degrees. Tables I did considder but most of them are too big in width. Plus I would like to confine my excersises to my room so draggin a hatstand in and out of there is acceptable maybe but a whole damn wooden table, that's just too much. Any idea's? Any other ways to emulate otherwise expensive equipment?

Hello, My question is how much weight I should use when performing certain excersises, especially dumbbell and barbell excercises. There are a lot of helpful starters guides as to what to do, why to do it and how many times it should be done and in how many series. So far so good, but, they don't really indicate the ammount of weight you should use for the excersises. Take an excercise like the Flat Bench Dumbbell Press, mentioned in the article Beginning Bodybuilding. Note that it doesn't include any weight suggestions. I'm limited to my 2 x 4 kgs (hence my previous topic hehe) dumbbells I still have, but I don't know if that will cut it. Plus, some excercises take me forever when I feel I could get the same (or even a better) result with more weight and less repetitions. That's also a sidenote on my question here: What is the difference in result in doing a series of say 20 repitions with 4 kgs or a series of 10 reps with 8 kgs? How do repetition and the weight which you repeat with relate to one and other? My personal goal is increase of musclemass and perhaps weight gain, so which aproach would best suit that? If there is not a solid theory behind the ammount of weight one should use, let me ask: how much weight did you start out with yourself?

Hello everybody, I live in Europe and we use a different unit for weight, kilograms (kg), which leaves me puzzled how to interpret the lbs mentioned in the various threads I encounter on this forum. How exactly should I convert these units properly to and fro? Bye, Luke