tumbleweed

I have some of those hexagonal dumbbells at home. You know, the fixed weight, solid metal ones you can buy at most sporting goods store. Why do they feel heavier than ones of equal weight at the gym? I go to 24 hour fitness, and they have those nice black rubber-coated fixed weight dumbbells. The 30 and 40 pound dumbbells at the gym seem really light compared to my old steel ones at home. Also, I buy these big plastic buckets of cat litter at the store. The weight on the side of the bucket says 27 pounds. Well, when I pick up the bucket, it feels really heavy as I lift it into the cart. I'm thinking, at the gym I routinely grab 50 or 60 pound dumbbells, and they actually feel lighter. Does this have to do with the mass of the object? The bucket of sand, and my old steel dumbbells, are physically bigger than the dumbbells at the gym, so they feel heavier? Any students of Newton's laws want to answer this.

I am now a firm believer in full, ass-to-grass squats. I didn't used to be, believing they would make my knees hurt more than they do anyway. I would only go parallel, or do partials. My knees ached after every session. Then I read stumptuous.com. Something Krista wrote on this site made me really re-think it. Olympic lifters are going ass-to-grass on every lift - snatch and clean/jerk - with incredibly heavy weight. Yet they have no knee problems. I started doing full squats with just my body weight. Bingo. No knee pain. No back pain. After a few weeks of full squats, I now hold a 25 pound plate to my lower abs while I do full squats. Knees feel great. My legs definitely are feeling much stronger. I agree that not much weight is needed with a full squat. Trust me, a full squat with just body weight is tough. Doing them with an unweighted bar is tough. One of my older brothers does triathlons. He always has some knee pain near the end of the run portion. He started doing body-weight only full squats and his knee pain has gone away. It may be because doing a full squat forces my posture and form to be better. Whatever the reason, I'm sold.

I'm always on the lookout for good web sites that describe proper exercise technique and training tips. I ran across this site yesterday on doing full squats. http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/displayarticle.php?aid=52 I think this is one of the best and most comprehensive articles I've ever read about the benefits and techniques of full squats. I have some grinding, aching knees after leg workouts. After reading this, I think I may know why. This is a quote from the article. I've been doing parallel squats. Perhaps this is part of my problem. Okay, so now I'm going to drop the weight down a bit and learn to do full squats. I'll see how my knees do. While you're browsing this site, check out her other training ideas. Good stuff.

A lot of times when I'm at the gym I'll look around while catching my breath and see somebody doing a ridiculously hard exercise. I call these people the Mighty Mo's because they remind me of that old Popeye cartoon where he eats the spinach and his biceps turn into the Mighty Mo battleship. There's a woman I see around on Saturdays who is usually working hard on the stair climber. I've never seen her lift weights before. But this last Saturday, I saw her doing deadlifts with a 45 and a 10 pound plate on each side. She would lower the bar all the way to the floor, and then pick it up stiff-legged to her waist. She was doing sets of 10 to 12. Damn! That's 155 pounds. That doesn't seem like a lot of weight, but she probably doesn't weight 130 pounds herself. I was in awe. Today I was between sets of pull-ups and saw this guy doing front squats with 225 pounds. He was doing sets of 10 and going past 90 degrees. He did at least 5 sets that I saw. That's mighty! Mighty Mo's always make me feel like such a weakling. You ever see people that just freak you out with how strong they are?

liftandcode, Thank you for your comments. You are most gracious. I completely understand yours and others concerns about animal cruelty. Whether one becomes a vegan due to caring for animals or for health reasons, the benefits are the same; better health for us and less cruelty towards animals. It truly is a win/win and I wish more people saw that. I'm not conservative at all; I voted for Carter my first election. But I grew up in a very conservative family. Among my extended family, I could talk til I'm blue in the face about how being vegan helps animals, and they wouldn't listen. However, when they ask me why I quit eating meat and I say because of health reasons, their ears perk up. I talk about how being a vegan helps you keep a healthy weight, how it lowers your BP and cholesterol, and how the food recipes I cook are delicious. Now they're interested and want to learn more. Once I set the hook and they see where I"m coming from, then I throw in the part that it's also good for animals. Yeah, you too, man. Get huge!

Present! And it would be great to meet you all.

You are amazing! Way to go on the transformation. Your butt looks great, so don't worry about it.

Welcome. I just joined recently myself. I'm also former Navy: 1984 - 1990. You are hard-core. I consider running far harder than lifting weights. My knees and hips rebel every time I do any running. I used to play soccer a lot and do a lot of running. But the older I get (46 now), the tougher running is. My hat is off to you, friend. Seriously, I admire a guy who can run like you do. I used to work-out at the Hollywood 24 when they first built the new one. I started at the old gym there when I moved to Portland. Now I'm out in Aloha, so I go to either the Murray Hills gym or the Beaverton Central gym. Occasionally I hit the downtown 24 Hour Fitness on lunch hours.

I love convenience foods sometimes. Okay, actually . . . a lot! I've been hunting down the best frozen vegan burger. I really, really like Amy's Quarter Pound Veggie burger. With Veganaise, Ketchup, pickles, Soy cheese substitute, jalapenos, on a whole wheat bun. With frozen french fries I bake in the oven. Followed by this soy ice cream (vegan) that I buy at Trader Joe's. Vanilla/Mango. This is my favorite Friday-night-after-work junk food.

This is so true. I know this guy who is a marathon runner. He runs so much he even runs to and from work: 9 miles each way. We'd always chat it up in the gym on days he was working with weights. He did lots of chest work with weights, but his chest and arms remained really skinny and bony looking. He told me this was a problem with guys who really run a lot. Later, I read an article which talked about this situation. Guys who do an extreme amount of cardio lose muscle mass in their upper body because their body use it for fuel. These guys don't have much excess body fat to draw energy from for long runs, so their bodies get it from muscles that aren't being used; their chest and arms. So I started noticing distance runners more; almost none of these guys have big upper bodies. That being said, the guy I knew was most definitely ripped looking because he didn't have a shred of body fat. And he told me his resting heart rate was 38. Amazing fit, for sure. But a different kind of fitness than body building, for sure.

I agree with everything VeganEssentials said. You're on the right track, Mikee. One other suggestion I have is to make sure you keep a training log book. Writing down your food, your exercise, and your daily weight is important. This will keep you from guessing whether a specific diet/exercise combination is working. You'll know just by reviewing your own data and adjusting where necessary. You don't really need a big gym setup to do some really good work outs. Years ago I bought an exercise ball and some used dumbbells at a "Play It Again Sports" place. Used sporting goods places are great for finding weight equipment on the cheap. You can use the exercise ball as a bench. Have fun.

It might not be a problem with lack of muscle mass, but rather a problem with just too much subcutaneous fat (fat beneath the skin). I don't know how old you are, but I can tell you from experience that reducing this type of fat is the toughest. The older you get, the more stubborn it is. In my opinion, no amount of lifting is going to get rid of this. It all comes down to burning it off with cardio training and diet. Eating vegan is great; however, you still need to watch your calorie load. My advice is to drop your calorie load a bit. From your post, you are doing lots of cardio already. So maybe trimming that extra body fat just comes down to how much food you're eating. I was reading an article one time by a guy who is an underwear model, of all things. Needless to say, this guy has an awesome physique. He made a statement that "Six pack abs start in the kitchen". I agree. Thoughts? Tumbleweed

Thank you all for the responses. I can already tell I'm going to have a lot of fun talking with you. I'll have to take some photos of myself and get them posted. I usually avoid taking my shirt off in public because I tend to blind people with my whiteness. My wife has to wear sunglasses when I take my shirt off on a sunny day. Maybe I need a tanning booth. . .

About Me I've been into fitness and lifting weights for many years now. There have been times when I've burned out and quit lifting or doing much of anything, but I always come back. Time and wisdom have shown me that lifting weights and getting some exercise isn't all about physical health, it's about being healthy mentally. If I go more than a couple of days without doing anything, I start to get irritable, listless, and don't sleep well. For me, it's a requirement. I'm one of those nuts who goes to the gym at 4:30 am on work days. While you're still sleeping, I'm at the gym. I don't like working out in the evening after work. When I get home, I'm mentally tired and just don't want to do anything else but eat and relax. Besides, my best energy is in the morning after a good night's sleep. The other benefit is that only the hard-core go to the gym at 4:30. You don't have to worry about getting on the equipment that you need. Trust me, it ain't social hour at the gym real early in the morning. Believe it or not, there are usually about 20 people there that early. I used to be into this thing of lifting weights to get huge. Now it's just more to stay trimmed down and lean. After years of killing myself with super heavy sets, it dawned on me that the older I get, the more brutal it is on my joints. Sorry, but I can't see a good reason to bench 225 anymore or squat over 300 (I know, to some of you that's weakling weight anyway). It doesn't make sense to me now. My goal now is to have a good shaped body, be strong and wiry as hell, and do more weight training for real-world applications. I'd rather have a gymnast's body than Arnold's now. Although, I have to admit that sometimes, it'd be cool to be 250 pounds of hulking muscle at 10% or less body fat. However, with my frame, it isn't gonna happen without juice. In my opinion, though, the guys that have the best bodies are most of the UFC fighters. Now those guys are ripped and strong. FYI, I'm 46 years old, 5'10", 178 pounds. Why I went vegan All of the major news outlets are trumpeting the results of a new study that compared three diets; low fat, Mediterranean, and high-protein/low carb (Atkins). The study finds that people on low fat diets lost the least amount of weight, with the people on the Atkins diet losing the most weight. There are quite a few reasons why I think this study can't possibly be accurate, one of which is that the Atkins foundation funded a big part of the study. Other reasons are listed in this article from Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/id/146641 However, most of the people out there looking for a quick fix to their weight problem will look no deeper into the study. They'll watch CNN, get the 1 minute blurb, and decide to jump on the Atkins bandwagon. This is just a recipe for disaster. With apologies to the animal rights people, my personal decision to go Vegan had nothing to do with saving animals. It had to do with saving myself. My older brother, who was a meat-eating, milk-drinking, football-playing kind of guy, told me he went vegan after reading the book "The China Study". He told me this the day of our father's funeral. Our father died of heart-related disease. Heart disease has killed most of the men in my family at a relatively early age. I was pretty shocked that my brother went vegan. He's about the most politically conservative, evangelical Christian, hippie-hating kind of guy you've ever met. He has always taken care of himself and has never been out of shape a day in his life. That this one book could have changed my brother's outlook was enough for me to read it and investigate. He told me about an NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs who had gone vegan after reading The China Study. He urged me to read The China Study and take the 30 day challenge. Go vegan for 30 days and see how I feel. My brother said he felt completely awesome, he had not lost any strength in his workouts, and had plenty of energy. I read The China Study. I loved this book for a number of reasons and won't go into a full-blown review. However, I will say that what impressed me most is that the research Dr Campbell did was extensive and unparalleled in the depth in which it was performed. He lists all of things you should eat on a single page. How simple, how elegant. I took the 30 day challenge. That was back in February 2008. In late April, I had my annual physical. My cholesterol levels are rock bottom. They're almost off the chart on the low end. My HDL and LDL are perfect. I've dropped about 5 pounds without worrying about calorie loads. My workouts have not suffered. If anything, I look leaner, and a bit more cut. I still need to drop that extra 5 to 10 to be completely ripped, but I'm working on that. My wife and I have no plans on returning to meat. We're vegan all the way. I'm quite sure that I'll never see a major news report on CNN about the benefits of going vegan. The beef and dairy industries are just too powerful in this country and would fight tooth and nail against anybody who recommends a vegan diet. People have been taught for generations that the way to be healthy and strong is to eat tons of meat, drink gallons of milk, and take drugs and have surgery for their diet-induced heart and weight problems. Sadly, most people won't move beyond their prejudices because they think that vegans are all just a bunch of counter-culture kooks. Veganism has this counter-culture aura about it, and that's what kind of turned me away from it for years. For me, it took the example of my athletic older brother to inspire me. The story of a vegan NFL player inspired my brother. We need to be ambassadors of good health and clean living to spread the word about the benefits of being vegan. The people on this site are all perfect examples of the athletic vegan and can inspire others. When you're talking about your diet and the other person says something like, "There's no way I could give up meat, dude.", ask them to take the 30 day challenge. They'll be surprised at how easy it is. The more people we can convince to take the challenge, the better. As we continue to inspire one person at a time, someday we may get CNN to do a story on the benefits of being a vegan. Now quit reading this and go lift some weights!