Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 January 2016

#Fitness - The Stair Machine #CardioMode

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Whats this new fancy thing





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    Stair Machine

    My work recently added this new fancy stair machine to our work gym.  It has directly influenced and changed the way I proceed about my gym life and activities.  Before I avoided the dreaded word Cardio, but now I am more focused on it than ever.  With the stair machine I find I get an amazing workout before I even get to my weight training.

    How Long

    I focus on doing the maximum amount of time the machine lets me go for, it does 30 minutes before entering into the 5 minute cooldown phase.  This has been an amazing choice as my warm up before I get into the core part of my workout, which is the weight training.

    Intensity

    The intensity I use (or speed) for the stair climbing is incremental.  Every minute that goes by I increase the level by 1 until it gets too fast for me, this usually happens around the 11-12 minute mark. Then I start lowering the intensity down but on the way down I never go below 5 and from there I will go up and down in intensity until my 35 minutes is done.

    Cardio it up

    For those whom know my mantra of the gym its that Cardio Sucks and Kills my Gains.  And anyone reading this can call me on it, but for me if I train straight cardio I find that my muscles get wrecked by it quickly.  I would rather work with the weights than ever touch cardio.  But this machine is changing my view on that.  The benefits of the stair machine is great and whatever musclemass I would lose from cardio I know I'll gain back or prevent loss of during my next phase of my normal gym routine, which is my weight training.

    Killing it

    Lately since this machine entered my life I have been killing it, the cardio that is. Which I never do, I gave up running a while back because of the pain in my knee's it caused. I find the stair machine quite a different entity, my knee's don't hurt from doing it, so I am encouraged by that to keep at it. And as a result I'm burning a lot of calories and enjoying every minute I get on that machine.


    What about the Weights

    Well if you know me, or read my blog you know that I ain't giving up the weights, I love lifting, pulling, dragging, curling and pretty much anything else that has todo with weight training, they ain't leaving my life anytime soon. In fact I May just kick it up a notch now especially if this cardio helps me lose some fat, which I am still struggling with, but thats another story for another blog post.

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    Sunday, 20 December 2015

    #Fitness - The joys of #LegDay in the #Gym

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    Probably one of the best days in the world, is Leg Day.




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      The Change

      I make no bones about it, Leg Day is probably one of my favourite days if not my favourite day in the gym.  I always feel great after Leg Day, sore, exhausted, yet energised, it gives me a sense of well being.  I don't know why but it really does change my mood, of all the days to train, whenever I train legs I find myself in almost a state of euphoria even though the metal plate in my ankle aches with each rep of each set, its almost as if it is a challenge to push harder and since I love a good challenge, I always do.

      Today I challenged myself in a good way, I kept my squats to a lower weight then usual and focused more on form then on weight.  5 sets of 10 reps, all good and healthy, not really a challenge for my weight, but the challenge was keeping proper form.  Helping to avoid injury with my lower back and knee's by performing each squat carefully and ensuring my posture and form were correct.  That has been my goal.

      Like the squats I continued to pursue better form for all my Leg Day exercises, thus avoiding injury.  Hamstring Curls, Leg Extensions, Leg Press, all of them were better than normal.  Maintaining proper body position on the equipment helps keep my joints safe or so I am told and that is my new goal.  To keep myself healthy and improve my overall lifestyle.

      In the past I've been reckless with my exercises and lately I've been focusing more and more on avoiding injury because I just had a feeling it was coming if I kept training the way I did.  So I am quite glad I made this decision to improve my training methods by avoiding exercising in ways that could lead to injury.  So lowering the weight and performing my exercises under better control and with proper posture and form I feel has ultimately helped me avoid injury but in the long run will help me be able to go heavier and keep myself healthier.


      The Result

      The result of the changes above are quite simple, less injury, longer training times, slower improvements, but again, less injury, or chance of injury.  By removing or lowering the chance of injury I feel that I am actually making it easier and faster to train, because if I injure myself I won't be able to train, and if I can't train I won't be able to improve.  So its a better scenario, a winning scenario I feel.

      I cannot fathom why it took me so long to adjust to this safer style of training, maybe it was because I was in a hurry to lose weight, or maybe its because I was simply ill informed of what could happen, but the more I look into my health and fitness.

      The more I read about training habits and appropriate ways to train and how to train, the more I realize I have been putting myself in a lot of danger and risk of injury.  So after today's exercise being the first with this new training methodology I have to say I will adopt this into the rest of my training.  

      I feel better, but I know it will be the right way.  I will continue to research and train based on what I've read and keeping myself healthy first, focused on prevention of injury followed by loss of weight, and third building a nice body and form.  I've got a lifetime to train, so I am going to train properly and take my time and stop rushing for gains and success. I'll get where I want to be!.



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      Friday, 18 December 2015

      #Fitness - 5 hundred rep #ArmDay!

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      One thing my trainer and friend Mic and I enjoy doing at the gym are 5 hunnits (or 500 rep exercise).  The goal is to do 5 different exercises, but each exercise at medium weight and 100 reps per exercise.  You can do them in sets, or all at once, although if you can do them all at once (all 100 in a single set) then your simply not using enough weight.  But if you want to push through the burning, do it!

      I enjoy this exercise and I haven't done it in a while, that is, I hadn't done it in awhile, then yesterday happened.  I successfully completed a round of 5 hunnits at for Arm Day.  Or Armpocalypse as it should be known.  Today I can barely lift my arms and it feels great.  My muscles are sore and well, bigger.  Its why I love this. 

      The swelling won't last long, but my arms will be slightly bigger even once the swelling goes down.  Thats truly the pump for you.  It was glorious!

      I finished off with an off arms exercise, 100 cable crunches to work on my abs. So really I did 600 reps, but thats just between you and me, 500 arms, 100 abs.  I had time for more exercises too, but unfortunately my arms had enough so I didn't want to risk injury so I bailed on weight training and did 15 on the elliptical before hitting the shower.  It was a solid day for training.

      Tonight is Leg Day for me, and since I gym while at work (my work provides time to gym) I am going to make sure I can barely walk by the time the gym time is over.  I'm not sure what I am going to do, but I know this, my legs will be sore tomorrow!
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