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[Thendash]

Also, if you have experience with it, are military drills the way to go, pushing yourself all day everyday until you're about to go crazy, or is that all just for getting used to being told what to do?

I'm an infantryman in the Canadian Forces so this comes from my own personal experience.
Working out everyday can work if you alternate muscle groups in order to give them time to rest and rebuild, but in my experience I've seen most muscle gain and improvment if I work out every other day like you do. For cardio it's pretty safe to do every day esspecially if it's low impact like swimming.

The military does that sort of to get you used to doing what you're told to, and also to break down a lot of barriers that people think they have. You'd be surprised how far you can march with a ruck on your back full of rocks when you have the motivation of an angry sargent following you.

As for caffiene, try drinking water instead. I keep 2 bottles of water in my fridge to cool and 1 by my side at all times. When I finish one I just fill it up and put it in the fridge and replace it with one that's already cold. I find a splash of cold water does wonders to wake me up. Plus by drinking a lot of water but spread out throughout the day ensures that I'm always hydrated for when I go to work out.

[smigenboger]

It's refreshing to know giving a muscle group a day off is more beneficial. I don't alternate, so I'm better off doing a day on and off. Lots of water, though caffeine is beginning to resurface, and I really cannot afford a relapse in the entire thing.
Update for me:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mixing work and exercise is difficult, as I work three 12 hour days in a row. I simply don't have the energy to do much more than sleep, then wake up to do it again, much less work out. The real issue is I've finally succumbed to drinking an energy drink about 6-8 hours in, or I feel really lethargic and depressed, but after the drink I feel like I can go on and that the horrible monotonous back-hurting work isn't as bad. Obviously, my anxiety goes up with the amount of caffeine I drink, but it's been better since I've been exercising. Oddly, my old six-pack narcissism is coming back even though I still have a jug. A motorcycle license update showed I went from 145 to 175, and I'm currently at 170, but after counting I've certainly changed since I was 16, I'd say I have about 10 more pounds of fat to lose and 5-10 pounds of muscle to still gain.

Very strong shoulder blade pains from work may interfere with my exercising. Its probably from having to work at a workspace that's better designed for someone who's four feet tall, so I need to hunch over some to do the work. Hopefully I can change positions sometime soon. In the meantime, I plan on getting a massage to see if that helps, never had a professional massage before.

I will keep at this, even with this recent 4 day break. No sculpture artist would leave his work half-chiseled and metaphorically covered in fat, and neither shall I!

[Emperor_Jonathan]

I've been sticking to my weights plan well, my cardio - not so much. I just finished my first week of my weights routine, I do them early in the morning, at about 5.30 - 6AM, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm planning on starting to swim in the afternoons too, but I'll have to see.

[Jimmy]

Anyone here have advice on balancing exercise with family obligations? Currently married with a 9-month old daughter, finding little motivation to exercise though I eat quite a healthy diet. My body is maintaining normal BMI but with little muscle mass or upper body strength.

[smigenboger]

If you have space or money, you could get an elliptical or a Bowflex-like machine, depending on what exercises you mean. That way, you won't have to leave the house.

Free-weights are slightly less than $1 a pound, or you can get one of those fancy ones with the multiple weight settings. Isometrics are free, you just need a doorway, or even without a doorway, you can play push-o-war with your hands to get a decent chest and arms workout that literally scales to your own strengh's resistance. Jogging around the block is free, and you can always go out and back in a quick time, if having a personal time crunch is what you mean by family obligations.

The standard push-ups and sit-ups routine will get you in shape quick, cheap, and easy too. I'd research isometrics on your own, I've done it a little bit, but I prefer my own workout, obviously

[piecewise]

Have you tired HIIT? Supposed to work real well if you do it right.

[smigenboger]

The Tabata method sounds encouraging. Personally I want to get as much cardio in first, and then focus on muscle mass, as this operation is a pre-requisite to some other awesome ones. For one of the mysterious operations, upper body strengh and improving my somewhat weak shoulders will be essential. First I need to find a way to relax those really tight shoulder and back muscles.

[Vector]

Hnurgh.  You got any advice on dealing with muscle pain/bruising/minor cuts/blisters?  I'm curious because last Tuesday's two-hour kendo practice yielded

• Two blisters
• Bruised knees, forearm, and knuckles
• Muscle pain to the point where I could barely move my legs two days afterwards (had to lift them manually to put them on stuff, etc.)
• Cut up and stiff fingers (couldn't really make a fist with my left hand for a few days)

My changed diet seems to have gotten me to the point where I can speed-heal the blisters and get right back to practicing the next day, and the bruises/cuts have also pretty much run their course.  Mostly, I'm wondering if you have any ideas for preventing muscle aches--other than stretching and chilling out.  We do stretches before every practice, and chilling out isn't an option.

For example, I hear that bananas are supposed to be good for muscle pain, so I've been eating one every day--but I'm wondering if there's some sort of ideal placement of high banana consumption.  The day before practice?  The day of practice?  The day after practice?  It's confusing.

[smigenboger]

I don't have enough experience in pain management to really help you with that. Just today I used a spa and steam room after work, and I feel drastically better than when I just go straight to sleep. Who knows what tomorrow will bring though.

The LA thread 'oh my aching...everything' thread may help you out, most people said getting a friend to give you a massage or using certain creams helped them out the best, though I only know of blistex and time to help with blisters.

My common sense tells me you shouldn't drastically alter your exercises until you have time to adjust, and you'll harden up to the bruising with enough time. My Kung Fu teacher said your forearms get tough after a while, but it still hurt like hell to block with them.

(Edit, update in a week or two, had to slow down due to schedule instability and exertion of varying body parts from work)

[Vector]

Yeah, the blisters/cuts/bruises don't worry me, though I was wondering if there was some sort of dietary something that was supposed to help out with healing those.  I guess you're just suggesting finding some hot water and sitting in it, then?  I think I can do that =)

[smigenboger]

Another common sense idea is making sure you aren't starving yourself of protein and some carbs, to help with muscle regrowth and healing. Anecdotally, a burn patient with severe burns to most of his body needed more than 8,000 calories a day to fuel such a reconstruction. Obviously, a few cuts and bruises wouldn't be that drastic

[piecewise]

You can use muscle relaxants, those are always fun.

Back when I broke my knee (and ended up walking nearly a mile on it before going to the hospital) they loaded me up with painkillers and muscle relaxants. It was funny because it was finals week too so I was loaded up on narcotics while taking important tests. But then again I don't bruise, I scar like crazy and pain killers have no effect on me, good or bad so maybe I'm just weird.

[Emperor_Jonathan]

Fallen behind, haven't been to gym all week. Going to start again Monday morning.

[joss]

Started dieting (well just a balanced diet, eating 6 times a day in smaller amounts, drinking lots of water), doing calisthenics(situps, pushups, squats etc) and cardio(elliptic+rowing) in march, but stopped in the beginning of april because of reasons not dependant of me. Hadn't done any real excercise before that (two years of not very intensive tennis playing). Going to start again this weekend and get in shape during summer. At 96kg/183cm atm, aiming for 83-5kg. Really tired of being overweight. I rarely eat junk food or drink sodas, just slower metabolism + no exercise when I was younger resulted in my current bodyshape, which I'm now trying going to change. THIS BODY NEEDS CHANGE.

[smigenboger]

Glad to have another sculpture artist among us