FormicaLinoleum

Oh, to clarify... at my last gym I was using the Smith for calf raises, and that was fine. But at my current gym they do not have a Smith machine. Just squat racks. So I was wondering if I should be worried about going from a Smith machine to a free barbell for the calf raises. And Daywalker, I will start doing deadlifts. I forgot to put that in. I also forgot to mention that I will be doing core work. Weighted crunches, back hypers, and cable side bends. I'll do those on the days I don't go the gym for the other stuff, which will work out to 4x a week. For these, I'll be doing more of a higher rep, lower weight thing.

Now that I got all that preliminary stuff over with, here are my actual workouts. I've provided the weight I'm currently at for the exercises I have actually done already. The ones with no weight are the ones that are new for me. Day One Squats (85 lbs) Calf Press (170 lbs on some stupid machine) Barbell Bench (70 lbs) Barbell Shoulder Press (50 lbs) Cable Row (85 lbs) Lat Pulldown (90 lbs) Day Two Squat Calf Press Chest Dips Upright Barbell Row Barbell Bent-Over Row Narrow-Grip Chinup Day Three Squats Calf Press Incline Dumbell Press Rear Delt Row One-Arm Dumbell Row Wide-grip Pullup One Q about the calf exercises. My current gym has just a seated calf press thingy. I have been thinking about doing calf raises with a barbell on my back, as for squatting, using the squat rack. At my last gym, I was doing this with a Smith machine (the only exercise I would use that for). But I was up to about 180 lbs, which is far more than I hold for any other exercise I do, and so I am a little afraid of trying to hold that weight without any support. Should I be worried about that, or do you all think I should be able to hold it okay? Oh, and some basic info about me. I am female, as I guess you all know already. I am 33 years old, 5'5" and 150 lbs. I would like to lose about 10 pounds, mostly because lighter is generally better for cycling. But I don't plan on reweighing myself again for a while.

I just started a training log, so you can see what I am up to there: http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=9514#9514

Okay, I am feeling pretty good about the routine I have just set up, so here is. I am going to do full-body workout three times a week. Single set, as heavy as I can manage. I'm a beginner, so my weights are pretty low still. Also, I have added a bunch of new exercises, so I'm gonna have to start at the beginning with low weights for them until I can figure out what I can handle. I also need to figure out exactly which days I am going to go. A friend of mine wants to work out with, which I am very excited about. She is trying to lose weight, and I convinced her to start lifting weights, so she is going to join me 2x a week. That will be Tues and Thurs evenings, so I guess my third day should be on the weekend, Sat or Sun. Other than weight lifting, I do mountain biking Mon and Wed, but that is going to end very soon when the time goes back and we won't have enough light in evenings to get in a ride. I'll then mtn bike just once a week, Sat or Sun. Very soon, I am going to have to start riding my road bike (mostly on my trainer over the winter months) every single day except the one day I mtn bike. If I'm going to be at the gym with my friend two evenings, I'm gonna have to figure out when to bike--maybe first thing in the morning on those days. Okay, so now my week will look something like this: Mon: mtn bike ride, evening Tues: day 1 workout at gym, evening Wed: mtn bike ride, evening Thurs: day 2 workout, evening Fri: rest Sat: road bike ride, morning Sun: day 3 workout Eventually, from sometime in Nov, it will look like: Mon: bike on trainer Tues: bike on trainer, morning; day 1 workout, evening Wed: bike on trainer Thurs: bike on trainer, morning; day 2 workout, evening Fri: bike on trainer Sat: mtn bike ride Sun: road bike ride, morning; day 3 workout, evening I might have to move my gym workouts to Mon, Wed, Fri evenings, because I don't think I can handle my big outdoors road ride (prob 2-3 hours) and a gym workout on one day (Sun). The weekday trainer rides will be more like 1 hour and easier, so I'd be more able to go the gym on those days.

Cool! I will make that my third exercise. Yup, always in the front! That's exactly the problem I was having. I thought that if my legs were stronger I'd be able to pull the weight up as I straightened my legs. But you think it's actually lower back weakness that leads to this form problem? For the core stuff, I do higher reps and lower weights, and I definitely don't go to failure. I'll be sure to make sure I don't overdo it. Just because I like squats so much more than deadlifts! But maybe I should learn to love DLs as well. Thanks so much for all the feedback and advice!

I've been working on a list of possible exercises, by body part. I've been trying to select only compound exercises. I would do squat or deadlift and calf raises every day for my legs. Probably squat 2x a week and deadlift once. Here's my list so far for the rest. Chest: Barbell bench press (flat), chest dips. Fly is a possibility, but it was listed as an isolated exercise. What about incline and decline presses--are those really any different from flat ones? Shoulders: Barbell shoulder press, upright row, rear delt row. Back: Cable row, barbell bent-over row. Lats (which was classified as back, but I've separated it): Lat pulldown, wide grip pullup, narrow grip chin up. Other good exercises? Any of those in my list bad ones?

I have. I order nearly all my shoes online because there aren't many place for me to go nearby to get good selection of non-leather shoes. My favorite online shoe store is Moo Shoes. I have never had to return anything to them, but my girlfriend has and the return process is very easy in case fit is not quite right. They are in Manhattan, though, so you could perhaps just go to their store. They seem to have a decent selection of men's dress shoes. Then there is the mainstream Zappos. They have a vegetarian shoes selection. I have had good experiences with them as well.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad to know that I am on the right track. Now I am doing squats, calf raises, barbell bench press, barbell shoulder press, cable row, lat pulldown, dips (assisted), and pullups(assisted). Core exercises (weighted crunches, back hyper, weighted side bend) I do separately in my apt building and do as many time a week as I can. I have been doing lat pulldowns and pullups on the same day, but I will separate those; I don't think I get much out the pullups because I have always done the lats and am tired. I am going to add deadlifts, but I want to work up in weight on my squats first because I had trouble with the form for deadlifts when I was doing them before and not squatting at all. I think if I strengthen my legs through squats that will help me use them more in deadlifting. My main question would be what are other good exercises I can use to build up my other routines? As you can tell, I do basic compound stuff generally, not any bicep isolation or anything like that. I guess the major areas I am hitting are legs, calves, chest, shoulders, back, lats. Then separately, abs, lower back, and obliques.

Hi everyone! I would like a little advice on my workout routine--just the weights portion of it. A little background: I started with weights in the beginning of June this year, but I changed gyms three times, and as a result of different equipment in each have had to change my routine. I'm finally settling down at one gym and would like to settle down my routine as well, at least for a little bit. Right now I am doing a full-body routine twice a week. I am also doing a single heavy set of each exercise. I like this approach. I find the idea of multiple sets pretty off-putting, so I would like to stick with single sets until I feel I really can't progress any more with them. I am a beginner, so I think I can still make progress with them for a while. But is there any really strong reason to abandon single sets? Oh, for my sets, I am aiming to do about 12 reps. But whenever I increase the weight (when 12 is easy-ish) then my reps are more like 8 and I increase reps each time until I can increase weight again. I don't go to muscle failure, but I do go to the point at which I don't feel I could do more while maintaining good form. I'd eventually like to do a full-body routine 3 times a week, but with different exercises for each body part on different days--in other words, I'd like to develop 3 different full-body routines to use. Does that make sense to do? It seems it would give me more variety and more well-roundedness than doing the same routine every day. On each day, should I do more than one exercise per body part? Or is one enough? Ooops, I have to go meet my mom at the train station now. Any other advice you can give would be appreciated!

I don't know much about preventing yeast infections--I've never had one myself--but I have heard other people talk about yogurt as prevention. If she wants to keep eating yogurt every day, she could just switch to a vegan soy yogurt. It has the same cultures. I eat Whole Soy and Co. brand and think it's very yummy. (I always put wheat germ in mine as well--something I did as a child--makes it even better.)

I started a weightlifting group on vegspace, too! So join it--you can get to it from my profile. And anyone on here, feel free to add me as a friend.

It's MySpace just for veg*ns. http://www.vegspace.com My profile is http://www.vegspace.com/formicalinoleum, but I haven't done anything with it yet.

Yeah, I was a vegetarian for 11 years, and I fell into that category. In nearly all the time I was vegetarian, I can't recall ever meeting a vegan or being exposed to information about the egg and dairy industry. Once I was, I pretty quickly concluded that going vegan was the only right thing to do. However, even once I made that decision, it was a bit of long process to actually go completely vegan, mainly because of willpower problems and not preparing myself properly for certain situations. I'm not at all proud of that period of time when my actions did not coincide with my conscience, and I wish I could have been stronger.

I got my shirt today. It looks great! I'll take some pictures when I get the chance, but I'm off to my parents' in NY for a bit.

I'm in Baltimore, Maryland and it's actually not too bad here. There is an all-vegan place within walking distance of me (I'm about to head there as soon as I finish this post). Just a few blocks away is a an omni restaurant that has labeled vegetarian and vegan dishes (and vegan desserts, which is great--had a lemon ginger parfait there last night). Not much further is a nearly all veggie place with labeled vegan dishes. There's an all veggie food co-op. These are all in my neighborhood or very close.

Thanks! Good to know there weren't actually any cats used. The article I read definitely said they were, but I guess they got their info from that incorrect original article.

I agree Nobbi--there are many reasons that people get into accidents. Many involve negligence, and sometimes they really are just accidents. One thing that drives me crazy is that I believe that when people are in their cars they see other cars and forget all about the humans inside. They forget about how their actions could affect other people. It's one reason I like to confront people when I feel they have endangered me through their actions. One morning on a commute, a guy in an SUV roared around me on the shoulder and cut in front of me. I was moving over to a lane on the right and almost didn't see him; I didn't check over there because it was the shoulder and I didn't expect anyone to be merging into that lane from the shoulder. Interestingly enough, we both then went into the same coffee place! So I went up to him and told him that was a stupid move he made. I kept giving him a hard time until he ran back into his SUV! Then I was a little bit embarrassed, but too much. I hope that I at least impressed on him that when he makes stupid decisions like that he's affecting other humans. Similarly, I saw a situation in which a car tried to move over into another lane and nearly ran into a car that was already there. They both stopped at a light (I was right behind the two of them) and the woman who was driving the car that was almost hit got out and started yelling at the other driver. I didn't catch it all, but I did hear her say something about her baby being in the back seat, and she said "I will fuck you up!". Haha! When people try to cut into a lane when they don't really have the room, do they think about how they could end up hurting or killing someone's baby? They need to be reminded. Someone could do to another person what happened to Jacqueline by driving recklessly and making poor decisions in their driving, while totally sober. Of course, I am completely against drinking and driving, but I'm against all forms of stupidity while beind the wheel of a car.

Germany, I believe. I read something about this, though the article just said that he made gas from the bodies of cats and some other ingredients; it conveniently omitted that he had killed the cats for this purpose. I had imagined he had been getting the already dead cats from somewhere (like a pound?). Are there no laws in Germany against killing cats?

You can mark Baltimore, Maryland now! I just ordered the white and black women's sleeveless shirt.

Yeah, a no-gas day won't really do anything. Snopes has an explanation: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/nogas.asp Oh, I just noticed that this one was for Australia. I got one for one in the US (on 1 Sept), which prompted me to look it up. Snopes rocks, btw. The vast majorities of the e-mail forwards I get can be found on there.

I have my septum pierced. I generally wear a retainer, but now and then I put in a ring when the mood strikes. http://mywebpage.netscape.com/FormicaL/Nose+Ring+2.jpg I used to have 2 nostril rings and a labret piercing, but I let them go a while back for work. I have a tattoo on my back, between my shoulder blades. I would like to get another one, but I don't yet know what it would be.

To answer the original question, my dad is black and American (grew up in NY City and surrounding areas) and my mom is white and English (grew up in Bolton in NW England). I was raised in America, in New York State, aside from one year in living in Bolton when I was a teen.

Here's my page: http://www.myspace.com/formical Feel free to add me as a friend!

How about raw (aka turbinado) sugar?

Hey, Happy Birthday! I'll be 33 in a couple of months. The 30s are just fine!