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Phils Introduction to Fitness!


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First some background information on me.

 

 

I started out in the world of fitness at age 5 when i started doing soccer and cross country training. My uncle, whom i lived with growing up, was a fitness fanatic so i worked very hard, that coupled with country food made me a decently athletic kid. Around the age of 10 i moved back in with my father who was very sedentry and whose only claim to cooking fame was his ability to make a mean hotdog to go along with the frittos and pepsi. Things were similar for a long time except that i expanded my food intake and did not excersize gaining a massive amount of weight and loosing muscle in the process. I went to college very early at the age of 15 so i was away from home and it was here that i started making changed. I was almost 17 years old and I was to go to the colleges winter formal, naturally i needed to clothes shop. When i went into town there were no pants that would fit me correctly so i bought a slightly smaller pair and shoehorned myself into them. This depressed me so much, especially because my two best friends were super athletes that i endevored to change things. I stopped drinking soda, replacing it with either water or juice and went on a very restrictive calorie diet. This eventually allowed me to drop 50lbs or so. I had not thought to factor in excercise at any point during this time. I left college when i was 18 and came home trying to find work, i partied for a couple of years going to various raves dancing until dawn. During that time i droped around 15 more lbs or so It was when i turned 21 years old that i went vegetarian for a month and then switched to veganism. But since i did not have the nutritional background that i needed I became a junkfood vegan for a few years. I walked alot and still went out to dance a decent amount. About two years ago, depressed about my life and my poor body image i became anorexic and surivived for three months on less than a 1000 calories a day walking 6 miles total too and from work. It was when i reached 145lbs that i realized that no matter how thin i was i would never be thin enough. So i started eating again learning about nutrition and cooking for myself. I started doing pushups and situps but i never really got into it. For the last year and a half i have been doing home pilates off and on flirting with bodyweight workouts, which brings me to now.

 

I fear that i am not strong enough to do weight lifting and it is something while appealing for me does not seem to be made for me. While i wouldnt mind increasing my size something about lifting weights is sending panic signals to my brain so im going to start a bodyweight workout and gain strength and stamina.

 

 

 

 

6 feet tall

weight: 161lbs

measurements to come

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I have two exercise groups i do on alternative days:

 

Group A:

 

Donkey Kick

Dive-bomber(Hindu pushup)

Dirty Dog

Lunge

Side Straddle hop(jumping jacks)

Back Extension

Wide Pushup

Side Crunch

Crunch

 

Group B:

Pushup

Crunch

Lunge

Steam engine(kind of like a stand cross crunch)

elbow-to-knee crunch(diagonal)

prone flutter kick

hip adduction

side leg raise

diamond pushup

 

The break down is this.

 

For the first two routines I did one set of 5 for each

For the second week I am doing one set of 10 for each

This will continue for two weeks.

 

Then I will be doing 1 set of 20 for each for two weeks-4 weeks.

 

Once completed i will use these exercises and a few others to make a 3X15 routine incorporating some more advanced moved.

 

Also i have taken to walking three times a week for one hour at a time.

Edited by phillipeb
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Week One:

 

The exercises left me a bit winded, but i muscled through and i feel great. I can already feel a firming up of my muscles that have been out of work for some time. I have slight soreness in my glutes and my legs, which is good. I have been craving fats and eating more. I also have taken to drinking a glass of soymilk after i work out for more muscle growing benefits. I fell stronger for it.

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Week Two: (in progress)

 

I feel a lot stronger, as well as more lean. Today is workout 3 of the week in my 1X10 routine. I am not looking forward to it as the other workout was very difficult but ultimately satisfying.

 

I will post before and after pictures this weekend.

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Week 3: (in progress)

 

On tuesdays workout i did the excersizes fairly quickly without stop. I am still having trouble double 10 diamond pushups as well as the 10 regular pushups in a row. This for me is a serious blow as i was able to surpass ten the last time i was working out.

 

Thursday:

 

I felt really weak today and i am unsure as to why. I ate some flat bread before i worked out and perhaps this did it but i feel as though my arms are getting smaller. I could barely get to 5 pushups today and I had to finish the rest of the 10 in series of two pushups. I think because i feel like i cheated the pushup aspects of my exercise plan that i will do 10 more pushups and diamond pushups after work.

 

 

I am thinking about starting to perhaps regress to three sets of 5 for a week or two to see if it would make it easier to get up to 10 or three sets of 10. Usually i feel like I am not doing much the day of the workout and feel disheartened but the next days i feel pumped and energized and stronger, so we shall see.

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Hey. I'm not stalking you, man, but I was checking out everyone's training journals (for inspiration) and noticed something in your training that seems to happen to me a lot. It looks like you do fine for the first week, improve your numbers in the second week and end up hitting the wall in the third week. That is basically my training schedule for the past couple of years.

 

I've been messing around with Pavel's PTP for weight lifting, but I think you can apply it to bw stuff as well. The basic principle is that your body needs to learn an exercise by doing numerous "easy" sets. For pushups, let's say that your max is 10. A two week cycle would look like this:

 

Mon- 2 pushup

Tue- 3 pushups

Wed- 4

Thur-5

Fri-6

Sat-off

Sun-off

 

Mon- 7

Tue- 8

Wed- 9

Thur- 10

Fri- 11 (hooray, new max!!!)

Sat- off

Sun -off

 

The next cycle would start at 3 pushups and you would end up at 12 in two Fridays. This allows you to progress for two weeks, cut back before you hit a wall and then build up for another two-week cycle, ideally hitting new maxes every two weeks. I think it might be cool to take a couple days off, find your rep maxes for whichever exercises you want to do and write out cycles for each. You may want to take the best exercises from your two routines and combine them into one routine for this program, since the exercises don't change.

 

I hope it helps!

 

Mike

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Hey. I'm not stalking you, man, but I was checking out everyone's training journals (for inspiration) and noticed something in your training that seems to happen to me a lot. It looks like you do fine for the first week, improve your numbers in the second week and end up hitting the wall in the third week. That is basically my training schedule for the past couple of years.

 

I've been messing around with Pavel's PTP for weight lifting, but I think you can apply it to bw stuff as well. The basic principle is that your body needs to learn an exercise by doing numerous "easy" sets. For pushups, let's say that your max is 10. A two week cycle would look like this:

 

Mon- 2 pushup

Tue- 3 pushups

Wed- 4

Thur-5

Fri-6

Sat-off

Sun-off

 

Mon- 7

Tue- 8

Wed- 9

Thur- 10

Fri- 11 (hooray, new max!!!)

Sat- off

Sun -off

 

The next cycle would start at 3 pushups and you would end up at 12 in two Fridays. This allows you to progress for two weeks, cut back before you hit a wall and then build up for another two-week cycle, ideally hitting new maxes every two weeks. I think it might be cool to take a couple days off, find your rep maxes for whichever exercises you want to do and write out cycles for each. You may want to take the best exercises from your two routines and combine them into one routine for this program, since the exercises don't change.

 

I hope it helps!

 

Mike

 

 

This is an interesting proposition. What if you have at least 5 reps as your max to start off with on certain excercises like crunches? would you start your cycle at a higher point.

 

 

In other news interestingly enough I said i only wanted to gain 5lbs in a year but i gained 5 lbs in two weeks..... Holy crap.

 

 

Phil

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5 lbs in two weeks?!? Congrats!!!

 

With each cycle, you can use any number you want. Say you can do 50 crunches. You would want to do 51 in two fridays, so you count back:

 

Mon-42

Tue-43

Wed-44

Thur-45

Fri- 46

Sat- off

Sun- off

 

Mon- 47

Tue- 48

Wed- 49

Thur- 50

Fri- 51

Sat- off

Sun- off

 

The next cycle would start at 43 and end at 52. I suppose you could count by 5's too, starting at 10 and adding 5 every day until you hit 55 in two Fridays. Then, starting the next cycle at 15 and ending up at 60.

 

Mike

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5 lbs in two weeks?!? Congrats!!!

 

With each cycle, you can use any number you want. Say you can do 50 crunches. You would want to do 51 in two fridays, so you count back:

 

Mon-42

Tue-43

Wed-44

Thur-45

Fri- 46

Sat- off

Sun- off

 

Mon- 47

Tue- 48

Wed- 49

Thur- 50

Fri- 51

Sat- off

Sun- off

 

The next cycle would start at 43 and end at 52. I suppose you could count by 5's too, starting at 10 and adding 5 every day until you hit 55 in two Fridays. Then, starting the next cycle at 15 and ending up at 60.

 

Mike

 

I think that i might do this but first i want to see where the training excercise routine i developed will take me for a few more weeks.

 

Also i found out that I can trade labor for a free rock climbimg membership at this bad ass gym, that has pilates, weights, and rock climbing. Needless to say i am on this!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I missed a week somewhere.

 

Anywho I think this is week 4.

 

I only worked out once this week and plan on doing so today as well. I was working out every other day but i think I feel stronger at only three times a week.

 

I have started increasing my reps to

 

3x7 next week will be 3x10 or so. I gained about 4 lbs from beer on my vacation, unless it was muscle which would be cool but i doubt it.

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ah sometimes you gotta let lose be it beer, food, resting, what have you. Don't stress. The 5lbs from before is still all there and i'm glad you gained way more than expected in lbm. It's always that way when you start out. First month always has BIG BIG gains.

 

Hope you got that email I sent to you about the routine. I tried my best to give constructive advice.

 

Where was the vaca? Shall I see you in july for VV??

 

Hope all is well, keep up with the training!

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hey L&G,

 

Thanks for the encouraging words. I recieved your email and started to reply to it only it became busy at work, needless to say i completely forgot about the email. lol. Ill respond tomorrow at work to it.

 

The vacation was in northern california. My sister was released from prison after being there for two years so I thought i would come down and see her to help her re-acclimate to life outside the confines of a jail cell. I had a blast though. I was suprisingly active. I jumped on trampolines played 4 swuare for hours at a time went on a bike ride.

 

As far as the training is going its weird but the less i work out the better i feel my gains are. I worked out only twice this week and today i still feel that right after work flex you get, where im more tight and prone to feel my muscles as i move. I think im going to pair it down to 3 times a week and take the weekends of perhaps ill do some rock climbing or biking then. I quite doing any form of cardio as i have had to work during my lunch to make up for the vacation time. I have an hour so its a perfect time to take a nice brisk walk.

 

I started volunteering for the rock climbing wall one hour a week in exchange for a free membership.

 

It includes weights pilates yoga and cardio equipment. I am uncertain though how rock climbing should be taken in the confines of a work out plan should it count as one of the days i work out per week or just one of those icing of the exercise cake?

 

Thanks for all the advice l&g i wish that more people from the board lived here so i had a knowledgeable workout partner, there is only so much you can glean from books.

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As an update i weight 168lbs currently I am pretty sure at least one lb is fat but thats good since a month ago i weight 161lbs. I will be reintroducing cardio at the end of month two so that the result of three months will be more noticeable. Then i think i may hit the weights.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I ended up only working out once last week. I started smoking again when i visited california but quite on sunday again. During that time i was not motivated to work out and i ate way below my daily caloric intake to even stay at my normal weight. as a result im back down to 163 lbs. I had a stellar workout on monday in which today i still feel tight and strong like i just worked out. I also realized i did the same workout twice in a row but its a good one so i cant complain. I must say though as far as only working out once per week the last two weeks i feel stronger and more noticably muscular. perhaps i should do a two times a week deal and then rock climb one day. We shall see how i feel this week, in which i am going to do the standard 3 workouts.

 

 

Ill have updated pictures soon as my fitness challange with my friends ends the 1st.

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As i said before. I am tradeing an hour a weeks work at the rock climbing gym for a free membership. The great thing is they have weights, which as of yet i am not comfortable with:

 

http://www.frontslc.com/images/standard/weights-IMG_1089-wweb.jpg

 

 

That being said the weights you see here are kinda limited but since i am limited in strength no biggie. i wanted to come up with a good balanced plan so that when i start working out it is an easy concept to get my head around.

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Week 5:

 

I worked out twice last week. I still felt pumped and my strength seems to increase the most the less i work out. I am going to work out three times this week and compare to the week before in order to see which one my body responds too as far as how often i should work.

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Week 6: (in progress)

 

I worked out Monday i did my reps slow and i felt very strong. I was able to do all 7 of the diamond pushups in my first set then 4 then 5. which is really good for me.

 

Tuesday: I am checking out the rock climbing gym today I want a chance to evaluate the weights in person and cardio so when i make my plan to start using them it will be real and with concrete knowledge as to what they have for me to use.

 

I do know that i need to do some sort of pulling movement and i do a lot of push movements. I am buying a chin up bar this next paycheck.

 

Updated Tuesday: I went for their basic bouldering class but it was canceled. I tried climbing for 10 minutes and felt intimidated so i left. Then i felt stupid and angry at myself for leaving so i went back and climbed for about 30 minutes until my forearms locked up and i could no longer trace a route. I really enjoyed myself. I like the idea that you see the object as a problem that has to be worked out. I think it will have far reaching effects in my life. That being said in the day that i did the rockclimbing i made the excuse for why i could not trace a complicated route was hindered because of me having adhd. For me this is a classic stress model and im glad that i can realize this and stop it. So yeah good day yesterday.

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  • 2 weeks later...

uh...week 8

 

so for the last two weeks i have worked out once a week. A sort of transition period into my current phase:

 

Weights.

 

I am doing a very basic workout for three months to gain some strength and muscle then i will re-assess where i am at:

 

here is the three day split: the book recomends picking a weight you can do no more than 6 reps with then when you can do 10 reps you move up ten percent. it asks for a really light warm up set and then your 6 rep max set. only the one set needed. I like this method as i found just working with the barbell was close to heavy enough.

 

The plan switches every week so that you are not doing any repeat excercises for the three months. I will take pictures this weekend. This week is all about just doing light weight with the barbell to get the feeling of the movement because i want to do technique right. so it feels like a warm up week is the start of my full try my hardest with the max 6 weight. wish me luck guys this is my first time.

 

A:

overhead press with barbell

upright row

side deltoid raise

lying triceps

barbell curl

forearm curl

reverse forearm

 

B:

lateral lunge with barbell

hack squat

leg curl with ankle weights(not sure how i am going to do this)

leg extension with anke weights(same as above)

heel raise with dumbells

ankle flexion with weight plate

stationary lunge with dumbells

 

C:

bench press

dumbell fly

wide-grip row

dumbell swing

dumbell trunk twist

oblique trunk rotation with weight plate

leg raise with ankle weights

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first day of weights went really light. second day went medium. today is the third day. Im gonna hit this program hard.

 

I think the added bonus of this short workout is that it gives me another half an hour of rock climbing. i think that helps get my muscles close to failure.

 

not to self do not bike ride on legs day

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I worked out three times this week my work out week is Sat-thursday.(sat, tuesday, thursday being the days i workout)

 

Last night i realized that i have bad form. Alot of the excercises like the upright row called for a straight back and mine is sorta curved. I could tell that i didnt do the bench press right because i felt it in my forearms instead of my chest.

 

This may have been due to my rockclimbing before hand. Also there was an oblique twist with plate that i could feel in my back but not my abs. I really wish i had a workout partner as this is confusing. But i press on. I have decided to search for videos of all the exercises before i go work out that way i can have a mental visual guide instad of the two dimentional pictures in the book im using.

 

p.s.

I feel fat.

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I worked out three times this week my work out week is Sat-thursday.(sat, tuesday, thursday being the days i workout)

 

Last night i realized that i have bad form. Alot of the excercises like the upright row called for a straight back and mine is sorta curved. I could tell that i didnt do the bench press right because i felt it in my forearms instead of my chest.

 

This may have been due to my rockclimbing before hand. Also there was an oblique twist with plate that i could feel in my back but not my abs. I really wish i had a workout partner as this is confusing. But i press on. I have decided to search for videos of all the exercises before i go work out that way i can have a mental visual guide instad of the two dimentional pictures in the book im using.

 

p.s.

I feel fat.

 

 

Hey yo. Im looking for a gym buddy. How much does the gym cost if you dont trade for work? Although Im not as big as the guys on these boards, I can show you proper technique on lifts and shit.

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I worked out three times this week my work out week is Sat-thursday.(sat, tuesday, thursday being the days i workout)

 

Last night i realized that i have bad form. Alot of the excercises like the upright row called for a straight back and mine is sorta curved. I could tell that i didnt do the bench press right because i felt it in my forearms instead of my chest.

 

This may have been due to my rockclimbing before hand. Also there was an oblique twist with plate that i could feel in my back but not my abs. I really wish i had a workout partner as this is confusing. But i press on. I have decided to search for videos of all the exercises before i go work out that way i can have a mental visual guide instad of the two dimentional pictures in the book im using.

 

p.s.

I feel fat.

 

 

Hey yo. Im looking for a gym buddy. How much does the gym cost if you dont trade for work? Although Im not as big as the guys on these boards, I can show you proper technique on lifts and shit.

 

No worries about being big. While i respect their dedication being huge isnt inline with my goals and motivational factors. Im working towards health and life long fitness. I want to use my body instead of just inhabiting it. I wouldn't mind looking good either but thats secondary to bettering my health first.

 

Its rather expensive. Its like 50 bucks a month man.

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week two:

 

A:

Dumbell Military press

Dumbell Raise

front deltoid

lying cross shoulder tricepts extension

reverse grip barbell curl

wrist roller

 

B:

Hack squat

leg extension with ankle weights

front squat

seated heel raise with barbell

ankle flexion with weight plate

duck squat with dumbell

bench lateral stepup wth dumbells

 

C:

Incline bench

dumbell fly

One-Arm Dumbell row

T-bar row wit barbell

dumbell side bend

curl-up with weight plate.

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