The Fitness Thread

[Reshiram]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Down to 174, 16% body fat and back in the green light of BMI!

Life is good.

[Poison-]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Biked 11.2km yesterday and today, legs are feeling like jelly, but I like it. Amazing back and bicep workout yesterday, and a nice chest and triceps workout today.

Life really is good.

[Ohaider]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Lost 5 lbs since start of this thread haha
Need to eat moar wasn't planning on losing just staying steady and building muscle

[SCWolf]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Today I ate my first meal at 5PM and it made me sick to my stomach. I then went to the gym, and am currently ingesting 2000 calories worth of potatoes, steak, brown rice, broccoli and weight gainer. My stomach is going to shit its pants.

[TheSaxRunner05]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Just ran 12 miles in two hours for the longest run of my life. Still feel a little sick but definitely worth it.

[Emanresu13]

Re: The Fitness Thread

13.1 ;p

nice one though. i've never gone more than five or seven or whatevs

[infinity.]

Re: The Fitness Thread

to stay relevant:

i qualified for boston marathon about 4 months ago
since then i've been running varied distances every day, usually not less than 3 miles

i ran about 3.5 today
tomorrow is distance aka ~15miles hrrrrrnnnnnng

[Reach]

Re: The Fitness Thread

I hate long distance running.

There are a couple reasons why, but most importantly is that it's antithetical maintaining lean body mass and is largely inefficient compared to HIIT (High intensity interval training).

HIIT can give a more effective workout in less than 10 minutes. I define more effective as vastly increased fat burning and increased muscle preservation or hypertrophy per unit time. This has been supported by a number of scientific studies.

It's so simple. You can just go outside or stay in if you have an elliptical with resistance settings. What you do is run or pedal at your absolute maximum capacity for 20-30 seconds, stop for 1-2 minutes, and then repeat 3-4 times.


The reason this is far more efficient is essentially this: the net effect of long distance running is actually catabolism. After muscular adaptation to your current running pace happens, microtrauma to the muscle actually stops and the only thing that running long distances does to your muscles is burn fuel. This type of training has a net catabolic effect because smaller muscles are more energy efficient, and with no demand for level of intensity, a smaller muscle is desirable. That's why marathon runners look like they're from Ethiopia.

Contrast with HIIT. Performing at maximum intensity over short intervals has a net anabolic effect. The muscle becomes more efficient by increasing the maximum intensity of performance, which equates to muscular hypertrophy and increased lean body mass to fat ratio. It also tends to produce all of the other benefits of long distance running too, such as increased VO2 max, decreased resting heart rate etc. That's also (part of) the reason why sprinters look like they're from swoletown.


I guess in the end it depends on what you're looking for, but I much prefer HIIT. The ONLY downside to HIIT IMO is increased recovery time. Because HIIT is basically the same as weight training, it needs to be followed by a sufficiently large recovery period. So, I only do it every 10-14 days or so.

But yeah:

[Emanresu13]

Re: The Fitness Thread

you left out that it can be very boring


lol pic of "runner"

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Fitness Thread

lmao@picture

If I wanted to do HIIT, is replacing normal cardio with it fine (Tues/Thurs) for 10m a pop? Or am I probably better off just doing 20-30m steady-state cardio?

[Reach]

Re: The Fitness Thread

lmao@picture

If I wanted to do HIIT, is replacing normal cardio with it fine (Tues/Thurs) for 10m a pop? Or am I probably better off just doing 20-30m steady-state cardio?

Up to you really. You could do both. In your situation, you're mostly concerned about weight loss, so low intensity cardio is certainly an option since it's basically just a calorie burn.

You can easily burn more calories doing HIIT for 10 minutes though vs 30 minutes walking. You could give it a try and see how you feel. The first time you do it, it will probably destroy you though lmao, so make sure you rest for 3-4 days before attempting it again and switch back to low intensity for those in between days. Eventually once you get used to it you can do it every second day.

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Maybe for now I'll just do HIIT Tues. and steady-state Thurs. or something.

Is it just alternating the intensity (on say, an elliptical)? Crank up the resistance, go as hard as you can for a minute, turn down the resistance and steady-state for a minute, repeat, etc?

[Reach]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Maybe for now I'll just do HIIT Tues. and steady-state Thurs. or something.

Is it just alternating the intensity (on say, an elliptical)? Crank up the resistance, go as hard as you can for a minute, turn down the resistance and steady-state for a minute, repeat, etc?

Yeah sure, don't be afraid to alternate between HIIT on some days and steady state on others, especially since you're just trying to lose weight. Calories are calories. There are all kinds of ways to burn them, and mixing it up will keep things interesting.

I wouldn't really worry about favoring one type of cardio over another until you're a lot learner and decide on the type of body you want to have, and figure out the easiest way to incorporate cardio into your daily life. If you want to train for endurance, just know that your body will reflect that, or vise versa if you train for explosiveness.


I get a kick out of reality tv shows or game shows where they have endurance competitions, like hang onto something for x amount of time. There's always one or two guys that are completely yoked and they always fall off first and everyone is always like :O

And the skinniest person wins every time.

[8 Hour Whore]

Re: The Fitness Thread

2 miles in under 10 min is a workout ^.^
But not for losing weight just for smaller muscle builders and endurance. I do this every couple days to keep myself in shape. 2 miles is no marathon and you can keep most of it at a steady sprint.

[Reincarnate]

Re: The Fitness Thread

Most of the top DDR/ITG players are skinny as hell, as well XD