*blasts the dust off the thread*
It finally happened. I stopped being lazy and I dove in both feet. Consider this the average guy's story of finding Workout Jesus.
Some background.
I've always liked working out, I just never had the motivation to keep up with it.
I've always been skinny. Played a bit of soccer as a kid. Did weight training in high school. Loved it but didn't get much out of it. Did a home work out regime for a few months at home in my 20s.
Now I'm 35. I'm a smoker, and have lived pretty much as badly as you can let yourself short of being a drug addict or an alcoholic. Looooonnnnnngggg nights spent playing video games. Erratic, feast or famine sleep schedule. Feast or famine eating habits of nothing but straight restaurant, fast food and delivered food 24/7, for years.
To my genes' credit, I just had a belly going and love handles. I didn't have as far to go as many people do.
A few things happened in my life that started building up to me deciding to start training.
-A trip to Europe spending the summer on beaches, trying to keep up with physically active people, showed me how far I had slipped and how good I didn't look.
-My work put in a modest little gym.
-My mother has, due to her own personal habits, really started sliding physically the last couple years. Fast.
There was one other big reason though.....
I wanted a battle to fight.
I've always had intense energy for things I love and am motivated to do. The last ~8 or so years since graduating college though, I've felt directionless. I did the prescribed tasks: got through school, got a degree, got a stable job, got out on my own. After that though....? The whole "get married buy a house raise some kids" plan has never really been a goal of mine. Nice maybe, but not a real goal. So I just spent years becoming even more of a connoisseur of games instead.
And you can't play this many games about people being heroic and smacking each other around and not be inspired in some way....only to find all that energy and inspiration just kind of dissipates out in to the nothing. Maybe it makes you a better or smarter person in some way, inspires you creatively, you have some good stories to tell...but there's no real release for that physicality if you just sit in a chair 16 hours out of every day and watching someone or something else run, jump, climb, fight and struggle.
So I wanted something to exert myself against. Fight against. I wanted a mountain to climb and I didn't want to fuck around anymore. I didn't just want lose weight, I wanted to change. I've always had small, skinny arms. Small shoulders across a broad set of bones. I did develop something of a chest in my 20s but it had gone to fat and I was heading into moob territory.
So, there's my backstory.
What have I been doing then?
Straight resistance training. Lifting weights and calisthenics. The first few months I was only working out a half hour once a week. I hadn't yet found my true zeal for it, hadn't seen results and needed to acclimate my body to working out again and took my time.
But I was enjoying working out and started watching youtube fitness videos, started doing research first on exercises and techniques but eventually nutrition and body chemistry as well. I really found the Athlean-X channel incredibly informative. (Small plug for them: the dude is 41? and is straight shredded. Physical therapist, athlete trainer, former athlete. He does his research, he knows the science behind what he's talking about, and he's practiced it on his own body to great effect. Minimal sales pitch bullshit, supplement hyping, w/e. Just straight facts, informed opinions and he actually does the workouts himself. I credit this channel a lot to helping me figure out how to approach training.)
Now, I'm working out 3 to 4 times a week for intense 25 to 30 minute sessions. I've bought or acquired a couple pairs of dumb bells, a 35 pound kettle bell, red black and purple resistance bands, a doorway pull up bar (even though I can find a damn place to mount it in my apartment) and a couple other sundry bits. I work out two to three days at home and one day in the gym at work. Lately I'm becoming more and more of a fan of free weight exercises, bands and calisthenics than machines because I feel like I can get better full body workouts out of the former than the latter. But part of that though also is the gym at work is really limited in space and equipment. So I focus more on the stuff I can do at home. Yet I'm also limited by what I have at home, to the point I'm not really doing solid progression. But that's ok. The place I just moved to has a gym with bench press and a squat rack and all that good stuff work and my home lack, so I'm going to get in to that soon too and start doing max rep sets instead of essentially whatever I have on hand.
I don't do steady state cardio, because honestly I'm still smoking and it sort of feels like wasted effort. And if cardio is getting your heart rate up and getting you breathing hard, well, I'm getting that from my routine in several ways. Steady state cardio also tends to burn off muscle which I want to build. But I know I should be doing at least some of it for conditioning reasons and I'm definitely at the point where I'm starting to feel the limitations my habit puts on my workouts. To be honest, this is kind of like the first time I've ever felt like I had a legitimate reason to quit, as stupid as that sounds.
I don't have a lot of metrics even though I've been training for the last few months. Right now I don't really need them; I can see the results of my work right in front of me. I'm 5'10", and was 200 pounds which is the heaviest I've ever been in my life. (For the longest time I was 145 to 150.) I'm guessing I was around 22 to 24% body fat before I started working out.
I'm eager to find a scale soon. Maybe even go get a physical and see what's up with my blood pressure and all that jazz. Because I can see the results and it's just motivating me to train harder. I've dropped probably 5% body fat already I'd guess, once I really started ramping up my training. I'm toning out and getting a little bit of growth in all the areas I'm hitting. Shoulders, chest, arms, abs, quads, hamstrings, glutes, lats, I'm trying to do it all because it's all gotten weak over the years. I've got specific areas I want to work on but nothing gets skipped the deeper and deeper I get in to it. And not after I squatted way more than I should have one time and damn near couldn't walk for 4 days because my quads were so tight. Don't skip leg day!
Alright, there's one thing I am actually avoiding and that's pushups. I just can't do them anymore. When I was 20 I could do 20, 25 pushups at my peak. But that was at 150 pounds. At 200 pounds, my muscles are no where near strong enough anymore to do more than 10 and even that with questionable form. It's the one exercise I find demoralizing even though I used to be able to bang them out. I know that's the reason I should be doing one of the grand daddy chest exercises, and one of my work out resolutions is to get more (any) pushups in.
If there's a few things I'd credit my ongoing success to, it's three things:
#1 NUTRITION. I know, no one actually wants to hear about nutrition. No one really wants to think about it, either. But it's so goddamn important. You will not lose weight if you don't check your nutrition. You will not build muscle if you're not feeding your body a lot of what it's calling for. It gets said 1,000,000,000 times a year but until you actually feel the impact of eating better it's hard to take it seriously. For myself, I wasn't a huge consumer of snacks. I tended to go for big meals and eating nothing to very little in the hours between. I was drinking about 2, sometimes 3 sodas a day. I'd have some candy before bedtime often. My diet basically consisted of: coffee, half-and-half, white sugar, pizza, cheese steak hoagies, wings, cheese sticks, roast beef sandwiches and soda. Or basically sugar, salt, bread, cheese, chicken and beef. 99.9% of it prepared by someone else.
I should also mention at this point: I hardly ever drink. So while I may be a smoker and all that, the belly fat I have to work off is far less than someone who has been drinking beers every day for the last 20 years.
My diet isn't perfect now. And it never will be, because I don't do diets and neither should you. Just find a healthy eating pattern and stay with it. I'm down to maybe 1 or 2 sodas a week. They're really my cheat thing, my reward for cutting out pretty much all the junk meals and what few junk snacks I ate. I'm trying to cook at home more, big things I can eat on for a week like stews. I still eat out probably 5 times a week due to work but I try to make better choices about where, what and how much. (Turns out my Tuesday Taco lunch ritual with my friend, my plate came out to about 1600+ calories....for lunch.) I'm now actually reading nutrition facts about the food I eat and caring what the results mean. I'm not calorie counting per se, but right now I really care about how much protein I can get out of what I eat, and how much sugar is in it. Because I'm still not to my ideal flat stomach and sugar is kind of the enemy of that goal, and I want as much protein as possible to build muscle while I'm at it. I suppose I am doing a bit of calorie counting (or at least calculating) so I can come in under 2000 calories a day as well. It's hard to drop weight if you don't go hypocaloric. But I'm getting enough good fuel from my other sources that I'm not taking much of a hit in my energy levels. I am hungry more often, but that's because my body is working over time right now and screaming for as many nutrients as I would give it. It would be easy to start eating like Goku and really bulk up....but I'm resisting the urge in favor of trimming down....then maybe bulking up at a reasonable pace. I haven't started using any supplements yet but I'm starting to strongly consider it. Since I'm not blowing ~$30 a day on food maybe I can blow it on enormous jugs of protein powder instead.
Either way, pass the protein please.
#2 INTENSITY. There's a reason I only work out for 30 minutes tops: I'm completely spent by the end of it. I've always brought the intensity to the gym, ever since I can remember. I can't abide sitting around for more than a minute in the gym. If I bothered to spend the time to go there, I'm there to work damn it! I go through my sets with minimal rest in between. Between 30 and 60 seconds depending on how wrecked I am, but no more. I burn at the end of every work out, I'm sweating, I'm panting and it feels. Fucking. Amazing. The burn the day or two days afterward feels amazing. It's this intensity that is helping me burn fat and build muscle at the same time. My body is burning fat hours after my workouts because I hit it as hard as I can every time I go. Or try to. Sometimes my energy isn't quite there and I lag and don't do quality, maximal reps. And I'm not always super happy with all my sets even when I am going at full steam. I often crap out after 2 when I should be getting in the last, the true ass kicker. It's probably why I don't have more gains. But yeah, even if your nutrition isn't truly in check, if you bring the passion and the intensity to your workouts and do quality reps (flex and engage the muscles you're trying to work, hold the rep at the point of contraction, then slowly control the eccentric portion of the movement if it has one), your work out doesn't need to be long and you can lose weight while doing it instead of being bored on a treadmill or bike. They may be agonizing to get through sometimes but if you can make a friend of pain you can learn to love it and push yourself even harder. If it's one thing this brief experience has taught me is that there are many kinds of pain and several of them aren't bad and can even feel good in some ways.
#3 CONSISTENCY. I've been working out long enough now that my body and mind are now both craving it. I don't feel right when I miss workouts. I had to travel the other week and ended up with a head cold after it. Between travel and being ill I missed a couple workouts and did a half-assed one and I was actually kind of depressed because of it. (Don't try to workout when you're sick, it's just a bad idea. You'll perform like shit, you'll feel like shit and you'll stress your already stressed body. Just recover.) I'm enjoying it so much that I look forward to my workouts. That's why I haven't missed any and I've stayed consistent. If you can find the joy of hard work long enough to start seeing results, in terms of motivation, the rest is downhill from there. You get results so you want to see more results and you can't honestly wait for your next workout.
Like I said I don't have as far to go as some people do, to get fit levels of body fat. Someone would not look at me and go "well that's a transformation!" But still, I'm so pumped! I can see my abs now! I don't have to flex or suck in my gut anymore, it just fucking sits like that on its own! My chest just kind of flexes and twitches on its own a lot of the time. I've slipped one notch on my belt and could slip another if I really had to. Clothes I was wearing when I was 17 fit again. I just got my first "I can see the results and you look good, keep it up" comment from someone other than a close friend / workout buddy.
And it's just amazing how good I feel compared to how I used to. You slide in to feeling certain ways over time and get numb to your state of being. You know you could be different and could feel different but you tell yourself that the goal isn't worth the effort. But then you start toward it for one reason or another and you start to see results and it all starts to crystallize for you. Things you thought you'd never change because it would be too hard or obnoxious suddenly just stop being as important, as difficult or as tedious. I feel better, all the time. I have more energy despite feeling like chewed up beef half the day. I get more shit done around the house, have more inclination to get stupid rink a dink stuff like errands done. I get out more. I sleep better, I breathe better, I poop better, I don't have as many random inexplicable pains in my body. My posture is better. I'm no longer so tense in my shoulders and lats that a reasonable massage is agony. I'm in a better mood more often. I'm more positive, more patient (to an extent.) My outlook on things is brighter.
My only regret is that it took me this long to get serious about it.
My routine kind of goes like this:
Monday: Bicep Shoulder and Ab day.
2x10 Standing bicep dumbbell curl
2x10 Standing dumbbell shoulder press
2x10 Standing dumbbell side lateral raises
2x10 Bent over dumbbell raise
2 minutes of elevated planks
1x10/20 some other varied ab exercise
Wednesday: Chest Bicep Shoulder Ab Day
10 burpees to start
1 minute of elevated plank
2x10 (each side) hanging knee raises with a twist
2x10 Standing Bicep Dumbbell curl
2x10 Standing Side Lateral Raises
2x10 Seated Dumbbell incline press
2x10 usually one of either the chest machine (basically a seated bench press), 2x10 lat pull downs or 2x10 chest abduction machine
Friday: Leg and Ab Day
2 minutes of elevated planks
1x10 of some other varied ab exercise
2x20 Kettle Bell Swings
2x10 Gobblet Squats
2x10 Weighted Lunges or Reverse Lunges
(And just to get some MOAR chest in there)
2x10 Resistance Band Standing Arm Abduction
Sunday: Resistance Band Day!
-Kind of a new thing I'm trying out. Most Sundays I'm still sore from Friday (and groggy from staying up way too late gaming) but I want to do something. I feel like I could work out but not sure I want to go crazy. Resistance bands aren't easy but they can be a little less intense than weights, and you can kind of ease into exercises with them. So I do a variety of ab, chest, lat, hip and so forth exercises to get a little squeeze in before Monday's workout.
Notice a theme? Abs with every workout. I know the two set max on most other things is why I don't have greater gains by far. Mostly though it's just because I don't have the muscle endurance to finish the sets, or in some cases start them. And that's probably due to the lack of cardio and the smoking and my muscles not getting the oxygen they need. And going to three on every exercise cuts in to my energy for other exercises I haven't gotten to yet. But that's kind of my next goal is to push out 3 sets on everything and at least go to failure in the last set, however many reps that is, or how bad it hurts or how long it makes my workout go.
If you've stayed and read all the way to this point, thanks. I've been kind of bursting to talk to my experience but I don't want to overwhelm people in real life with my zeal. I feel changed and it's making me think about a lot of other shit I've never considered trying or being that suddenly seem so much easier to grasp. I don't really know where any of this is going on or where it stops, whether I'll be able to keep up the zeal for it and the lifestyle changes I just arbitrarily took up. I imagine after a year or two of this, I'll no longer be a newbie and getting newbie gains and the real commitment to growth begins. Honestly I can't wait to see where I'm at after 2 years of this, but I'm more than happy to do the work to get there.
If you're considering starting to work out, do it and go all the way, as hard as you can and you will be rewarded in ways you can't even yet conceive of. Make a friend of pain and you will never be lonely.
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Topic: I'm Training Like A Masochist (And You're Invited!) (Read 16887 times)