Hey everyone,
I know I can't be the only one here who frequents, the gym, since it seems to be a pretty major thing to most metalheads to be intimidating, and muscle usually does that pretty well. Here you can post about you experiences at the gym, your workout routines, regiments, favorite exercise for certain muscle groups, lifting tips, lifting supplements, methods for weight-loss, muscle building, the works.

On good week, I'm usually in the gym about 5 days a week, 6 on a GREAT week, and less than 4 on a shitty week. I started my regiment with 6 weeks of endurance training, followed by 6 weeks of strength training (which I am currently still doing) , and I’ll probably end up doing the same thing over again when this six weeks is over.
For those of you who don't know, endurance involves low weight, high repetitions: This increases stamina and muscle tone/definition. Strength training involves high weight with a low number of repetitions: this help to increase strength and muscle size. Size and definition are two very, very different things!
Also, people that have just begun to lift or are thinking about starting, ask and I'm sure we can provide you with whatever answers you need

I'm on wendler's 5/3/1 right now and so far its working great. I'm on the second week and I've already upped the reps I could do at 225 for bench. I used to be on some self made plan that got me my newbie gains, and I lost a considerable amount of fat, but it was just starting to burn me out. Now that my body is used to constant exercise I feel like I can't lose fat at the pace I'm used to, if at all. How do I maximize fat loss on a strength program like wendlers? I also run for atleast a half hour 4 days a week.

I love working out but I've been slacking recently and lost a lot of strength along with some weight.Good websites for training advice that helped me out when I was just starting are
www.t-nation.com
www.elitefts.com

Well it you are excersizing regualrly and running regualrly, which you are, that leaves one thing: What's your diet like? Too much soda is one of the fastest ways to take in calories and not notice it. Say one can of soda has 180 calroies in it, you drink 5 throught the day, that's 900 calroies, which is about 1/3 of an active person's daily alloted caloric intake. Plus, they're all BAD calories.

Keeping your heart rate up throught your workout helps too. When lifting, take few/shorter breaks between sets. Say if you do three sets of bench, don't hammer out all three sets at once, do something else. Finish one set of bench, quickly go do some chest flies or the like in between, that way you can work other muscles and still have enough of a rest period while still lifting and keeping your heart rate up. keeping your heart above resting bpm burns calories by itself.

if you use supliments, avoid high fat/calorie content. A lot of suppliments with high caloris are ment for people with not much body fat. You need to burn fat in order to gain muscle effectively, so look out for stuff like muscle milk or similar products, and avoid them. Check out this, this stuff does wonders for me
http://www.godietpills.com/abb-speed-stack-ef/

Sounds like you just need to get back into the swing of things! It also sonds like you need the most important thing anyone who frequents the gym (or even uses home weights)needs: A lifting partner. Even if you aren't doing heavy weight and don't need a spotter, ALWAYS lift with a buddy. If not just for safety, that person will pish you to do more, and vice versa. Somtimes all you need is to know that some's spotting you if you peak or get spent, and they may just even push you into attempting to do two or three more reps in a set. I know i'd be nowhere near where I am now if i didn't have my lifting parter there!

Ya man I feel you on the lifting partner advice it definetly helps a lot. When I'm in university I work out with my friend and it definetly increases the motivation and theres a sense of competition that gets us to really push it on certain exercises. Having someone there is also great to check each others form on the more challenging exercises (ie Squats and Deadlifts). You dont want to fuck around in the gym you could badly injure your back if you do an exercise like deadlifts improperly and thats no good.
Question for the board-what do you guys think of supplements, a waste of money or a good investment?

I'm not fond of the idea of going to the gym for all the lame reasons people come up with. I'd like to start swimming again once I lose some weight.

My aim next year is to lose weight and keep it off - with the latter being the most important part. I made a lot of mistakes first time round. I aimed to lose weight this year, which I did, but I didn't keep it off. I burned myself out. I made myself walk 10,000 steps every day for a period of 3 or 4 months whilst doing extra on top like weights, Wii exercise games, sports etc. I lost about 3 stone (42 pounds) in that time but, after the summer holidays, I became lazy and unmotivated again and put it all back on which is incredibly depressing.

I enjoy walking most. It's simple, easy, I can listen to music whilst I do it, I don't feel self conscious or anything. I'm getting back into it once the new year begins and the snow/ice clear. I'm going to try to lose weight more slowly, restrict what I eat and how much I eat and try to start doing more exercise that I actually enjoy - like playing football or bike riding (though that's nowhere near as easy now as it was when I was a child).

I've got the motivation, now I just need the weather to ease up and allow me to go walking again.

I frequent the gym around 4-6 days a week. Not really heavily into lifting weights though I do that on half the days I do go. I mainly go for cardio as a warm up before I record. my main problem is that I get bored and can rarely stay over an hour there. my main thing is go in and hit cardio pretty hard for 30 mins and then depending on what else I have planned that day I'll go lift weights for a bit.

if I don't plan on going to record or write or anything afterwards i don't really have a problem staying longer.

I am an out of shape motherfucker, and I need a good system to start out on. I have never done any form of physical exercise outside of your standard jogging/pushups/chinups/situps kind of thing... Any suggestions as per weights, equipment, etc.?

Get a gym membership because it will be cheaper than buying the equipment yourself. If you have friends who work out ask if you can come along so they can give you an idea of proper form etc.. Otherwise check out the links I posted earlier read up on what has worked for other people and get in the gym!

Awesome, thanks for the advice.

I would rather have both testicles removed than visit a gym. My sole visit to one found the mirror posing, lycra outfits and general douchery more than a little disturbing.

Nowhere near as fit as I should be, particularly in regards to my cardio. Going to be working on my running while I'm on holidays - hoping to get my 2.4km run time down to about 9:30.

hmm...we must live in different parts of the country since the avg. MH around here is anything but intimidating...unless you are a pizza or beer.


never exercised before but want to start? skip to end.



3 sessions w/weights per week (currently finishing up my bulk phase) and 3 cardio sessions per week (currently hill training: 3.5 miles on a dirt trail w/ 700' elevation change; takes me 22 minutes-and-change to complete).

new year i will drop cardio for mma training. hope my hill training helps me go the distance for 3 rounds.

tips - training: confuse the body so it cant adapt. heavy weight 1 day, than heavy weight w/ back-to-back body parts (barbell curls then immediately into dum-curls w/ no rest...same for back...maybe even 3 sets...) another day. then low weight/ high reps. never in a consistant order. keep the body guessing.

same for cardio. hill training 1 day, then short (but balls-out) sprints another. then long distance/flat elevation the next.

feel free to substitute the word 'day' w/ 'week', etc. ...depends on your level of exp.

tips - supplements - general: if i could take only 1 sup. per day, it would be salmon oil. this is especially important for cardio, but almost as necessary when lifting. incredible stuff for keeping your joints happy and does wonders for general circulation. 7.5g daily is what i use, split in 3 doses.

tips - food: optimally each "meal" should be the size of your fist, consumed every 2-4 hrs (dependent on your training/goals). i wont go into what each "meal" should be, but w/ some research, you could figure it out.


******
end
******


think NEPA (non-exercise physical activity) - take the dog for a long walk, use the stairs instead of the elevator, wash your car by hand, grab some tunes and go for a long walk - simply put, do something more than your daily routine. we all start somewhere.

I'm not what I would consider fit. Here, as part of the school regiment from 10 onwards, everyone has to take a physical fitness test annually. If you fail, your physical education (PE) lessons are focused on getting fitter, and there are opportunities for a re-test. The five segments involve a 4X10 meter run, sit-ups, standing broad jump, sit and reach (completely irrelevant to fitness IMO), pull-ups and 2.4 kilometer (1.5 mile) run for 13 and above.

I passed my tests every year, but just barely ever since 15. My jumps lack technique I believe, but most others are above the limit or decent. I don't consider myself good at this though, my 2.4 km run clocks at 11:52, 5 pull-ups, 43 sit-ups in a minute.

I did try some rounds at the gym though, nothing spectacular. My benches were 35 kilograms (77 pounds) and I use 7.5 kg dumbbells for my right arm and 5 kg for my left.

I frequent the gym three times a week (except this week due to Christmas/NewYear/silly season), and I've got more muscles now than I've ever had, particularly in my legs. However, my diet is atrocious and that's what's keeping me from losing more weight.

I was pretty gung-ho about getting in shape this year. Hit the gym roughly 5 days a week from January to May, mostly doing a lot of running and weightlifting. I'm still pretty built from all that, but now I'm just focused on eating healthier and staying at a comfortable weight.

I try to go to the gym at least every other day.

The gym I go to is a recreation center, so there's a pool and other stuff, so it's not equipped as the bigger, chain gyms. For that reason, I keep on going to it. It's never incredibly busy, mostly middle aged folks or seniors frequent it, and virtually no bulky, juiced up meatheads ever go there. It's just a nice, quiet place to workout .

I pretty much always go alone, since none of my friends are really interested in working out . I do miss having a lifting partner/spotter because I end up playing it safe when I do bench presses and I hardly ever do squats anymore.

I kind of just do my own thing whenever I'm at the gym. I always start off with a 10 minute bike run to get the blood flowing, then stretches and ab work, then various machines, bench, and some free weights.

I don't really push myself to exhaustion most of the time, but I always try to get a really good workout so I can feel good about it afterward. I took weight training my junior and senior years of high school, and my wt coach would really push us a lot of the time, and I do miss that.

I run or swim most every day. I do weights just about every other day. Sometimes I play basketball, its fun and easy to pickup, compared to say, hockey. If I am too busy at work to go to the gym, I usually try to sneak in some pushups, pullups or something just to get my blood flowing.

My goal while living in Hawaii is to compete in the Iron Man... I better get going!

forget the ironman, smoke meth & surf pipe.

I'm a fatass but a pretty damn fit/strong fatass. I do a shitload of swimming/water activites and jog 3 or so times a week, depending on how much time I've spent in the water. A lot of weights, currently just doing toning shit as I'm big enough already and don't need to get more massive.. Just a lot of basic barbell work. Oughta do more cardio, I'm good at endurance shit but definitely need to brush up on more intense stuff. Eating a bit less would also help

I was never skinny, but about 2 years ago I was in kickass shape. I was weighng in at about 275 (at 6'5" though, that's perfectly acceptible, and had acheived some pretty decent reps/sets with a good weight. I was down to a 36 waist, could fit into a medium Large t-shirts, but then i shared a waterbottle with some woman and get mono. for 3 months. after that i just didn't have the motivation anym9ore, and had no one to lift with anyway. Needless to say i got out of shape reeaaal fast, don't really feel like stating my waist size NOW but i'm in a doublex tshirt. And shit, in these past 3 months i've made more progress than I even have, i got my max bench up almost 170%, curls have gone up by a lot, all this stuff i never thought i could have done, even back then, i can do no. Still have a lot of more weight to lose, but hell, i actualy consider myself to be strong now at least. Fuckit, i'm going runnning today. I gotta loose 20 more pounds, or I'll never be pretty!

That's the thing though, you gotta meep doing, man. Look at my post abouve and read about my case of Mono, and how much it sucks. Same thing happened to me, but i've gotten myself back into it! I recomend you tsart eating an unnatural amount of carrots. Seriousl, carrots are packed full of shit vitamins and all that other good crap. Carrots give you enery, and can actually fill you up if you eat enough of them. This energymakes you want to do stuff, like ron or pick something up, or throw (a baby) something.

Holiday times are the worst for trying to keep up with the gym, imo. I love going, and try to go at least 3 times a week for a couple of hours. I was really into it a few months back, but it's just too easy to make excuses not to go, especially around Christmas.

I generally do a 30 minute run at the start of every workout, and try to go 5 KM before starting my weights. I'm small and weak, so I avoid the freeweights atm. But I do make sure to do 3 sets for each machine that I use, and I do push myself to the point where I can feel it the next day!

^^I know exactly how you feel, especially about making excuses. But here is a tip for everyone: Definitely avoid machines, and stick to free weights. The reason is that when you use a machine, the weight is almost always guided, like it's on a set track, the weight doesn't move except for its destined path, and it's 100% stable. Freeweights are better IMO because they cause you to work more by keeping the wight stable, learning the proper lifting techniques, and building up small support muscles.
Keeping the weights steady forces you to lift right, or not get as many of the benefits and probably hurt yourself. In that respect freeweights are harder to use, but you get easily twicer the benefit. Plus it's better to start using them now, so when you get to the point (and you will) where you can max out all the machines, you don't wander over to the free wieghts section, pick up a 40lb dumbel and want to cry (this totally happened to me). Plus when you lift with Fw's, you being the main stablizer, your smaller muscles will begin to get stronger too. say for instance, when you flat bench, a dumbel in each hand, you ectend and hold, and you may notice your arms shaking. This is because the smaller muscles around the main group you are working on, aren't as strong as they should be. it takes a long time, but freewights will get those smaller muscles you didn't know you had worked out and stronger, which is, infact, the goal. onviously you can still use some machines, but try making the switch.

I workout once in a while, I took shaolin kung fu for two years but stopped recently, and that was a crazy workout. Lately I haven't been doing much but somehow I'm getting stronger and losing some of my remaining fat... no clue why or how.

I finding it really hard to work out now that it's freaking cold.

This is gonna be left field, but having just had a inguinal hernia fixed up in late October, things are finally really back into shape and I'm kind of hoping to start up again maybe in January or a little after. Thing is I'm very cautious about this and I'm sure my weight lifting throughout this year was one of the results of the hernia (though I also did some random/awkward heavy lifting in my last two jobs, doctor said it could have been one I had since birth).

So yeah, guess I'll throw it out there... but would anyone have any suggestions on what kind of weight I should start off with? I'm about 150lbs and 5'7, was slightly in shape this year until the hernia hit and I've already seen the results fade away. That was my issue this year though, I got a little obsessed with seeing my body change as quickly as it did and probably went way too over the top with the lifting. So this time around I'm gonna be way more careful and just focus on getting in shape, endurance, etc, which is probably better in the long run anyways. On a lot of upper body machines I was usually doing 50-80lbs with 10-12 reps maybe 1-3x, so when I slowly get back into things and I mean slowly, I'll probably stick to 20-40 for awhile or something.

It's also going to be annoying, what are the best ways to get a mid torso fit? I've got a stomach going a little now and also have some fat on the sides of my stomach and under my chest area. Which seems a little hard to change, but I'm no expert or anything.

I had a six pack in high school, haven't seen it in years now... lol.

The key to getting rid of that fat is mostly diet but exercise is important too. I would try to limit processed carbs in my diet as well as upping my fiber intake. Fiberous foods (Beans, Vegetables, some whole wheat pastas) will fill you up without a lot of calories. Also try to avoid doing what a lot of people do which is not eating much in the day and then eating a lot before you go to sleep. This is a surefire way to keep those abs from showing and I certainly have been guilty of this in the past. Ab exercises will help but only when you have a low enough bodyfat percentage to see them.

That whole low reps are for size and strength and high reps are for muscle tone and definition is very old school thinking, and not really true.

2-4 reps = Very high intensity, neural drive, power
3-5 reps = High intensity, still very neural, strength and some power when lifts are attempted with fast tempo
6-8 reps = Moderate intensity, equal parts neural and muscular/cellular, strength and some hypertrophy (aka gaining size)
8-12 reps = Moderate intensity, muscular drive, your classic hypertrophy zone (mass and size)
12-20 reps = Low intensity, intensive endurance training
20+ reps = Very low intensity, extensive endurance training

For the first year of training or for teens, 8+ reps is fine to build proper movement patterns and learn the skill of correct form. After that, playing with sets and reps is fun and safe assuming one is healthy and has no history of injury. If one's goal is simply bodybuilding and looking good and having muscle definition, I wouldn't go higher than 12 reps (or really, one minute per set) as this will cause the body to use slow twitch muscle fibres for fuel, which don't work very well for gaining size, and this type of training encourages the release of glucocorticoids, which are antagonistic to strength and size gains and encourage the promotion of fat storage... which means there goes your definition.

If staying lean and defined is your goal, diet has so much more to do with it than training ever will. The common sense shit: lots of water, good sources of protein and fat, limiting refined carbs and sugar, lots of veggies, some fruits, etc. etc.

I really have to get back into weight lifting and exercise. I used to lift three times a week. Swim one time and run two times. Know I just lift one or two times and run once. I still have pretty good muscles but I could stand to lose 5 or 10 pounds. For that to happen I would have to eat a lot better.

I have to agree that free weights are better than the machines. The machines are much easier but the free weights will give you more results and build stabilizing muscles.

Also, I think boxing is a great way to stay in shape (and save your ass if someone tries to mug you.) It can get kind of expensive though.

After years of weight training and basically working out with weights I can only recommend to you youngsters out there that you ditch the weights and go for bodyweight training. I've been doing nothing but bodyweight training(pushup variations, pull up variations, etc) for 2 years and I'm in the best shape of my life. Right now I have a physique similar to Bruce Lee, slim but ripped as fuck.

I was actually doing a lot of body pull ups with one of those door things a few months ago and yeah, that stuff changed my upper body/arms more than anything I've seen before. But it was in my closet door, I just had carpet under me, etc. Basically because of my recent injury I just know it's going to be something in the back of my head when I get back into things... so I'll be worried about trying to keep good form and all above everything else. I'm not sure if pull ups would be safe to jump into for awhile?

Fulci420: Thanks for the tips. I have had a horrible diet for the most part but got away with things because of fast metabolism, but I can tell my health just isn't what it used to be several years ago and I'm sure diet has a lot to do with things. This year I have been really good about drinking lots of water though, and have been taking in a lot more fiber over the months, among some other minor changes. Nothing dramatic, but I'm on my way to hopefully eating healthier.

My personal problem is that I think I might have stomach ulcers again, bringing out a slew of other issues. I say "again" since I was diagnosed with acid reflex back in Jr. High. It was nothing to do with my heart for me, but my stomach was all messed up, gassy, etc. Brought on because of my poor diet... so I hope to get checked out again and be more careful from here on if it's happened a second time. Just might have a weak digestive system myself or something.

Bodyweight training is definitively better than machine training. The best thing about it is that the results are actually permanent, or at least last a lot longer than muscle building and defining through machines. I have not worked out at all in about six months, and yet my arms, back and chest are still relatively ripped and don't feel weak (after eight months of exclusively bodyweight training); with machine training, after two months of complete inactivity the muscles weaken and diminish quite quickly.

This. No matter how much I go to the gym, junk food is soooo awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mALKhxdSenI

Has anyone tried the above workout, I can suggest it to anyone, after 5 years of Football, and 6 years of track/powerlifting, I had never had another workout kick my ass as much as this one. As someone with 6 percent body fat who can do this workout twice a week and keep my figure perfect I can't hype this enough.

My main reasons for the going to the gym have always been strength training for competitive powerlifting and MMA/grappling.

I most recently did the Sheiko powerlifting program which is absolutely killer with an insane amount of volume on the 3 big lifts (especially the bench and squat). The volume helped me put on a lot of muscle and my squat numbers went through the roof. Recommended for experienced lifters looking for something a bit different.

Now though I want to compete a lot in amateur MMA/BJJ next year and I need to drop a lot of weight (10-12 kilos) so I'm currently doing a lot of barbell complexes and tabata intervals and dropped back the strength training to high weight/low rep (mainly working up to singles on the main lifts) to try to maintain strength as I drop weight without putting on muscle.

I have some free weights in my basement. I squat, bench press, deadlift, and power clean. I'm currently using the Texas Method in an attempt to achieve massive levels of strength.

I just run, and every night before I go to bed I drink a day glass of water and eat some prunes. It keeps the metabolism going, and it's also good for your skin. Since it's winter now I've cut down on the running and replaced it with a little weight lifting plus some basic anaerobic crap like pushups and situps, so I'm a little bulkier this time of year. I'm only doing 135 to 125 most of the time, no biggie. It doesn't make me "ripped" but it keeps me in a defined shape and it's good enough for me. I can't think of much I should be doing differently, aside from indulging in deserts on the holidays, which I guess a lot of us are guilty of

I've really let myself go in the past 4-5 months. I started college so I've been eating a shitload of junk and didn't workout either. Before that I used to do weight training about 3-4 times a week and was seeing some decent gains in muscle mass. My fat, however has always been on the higher side. I'm gonna start working out again next semester and use the treadmill more from now on. I can still do 45-50 pushups though

I've been working out for awhile now, my biggest gains were when I was in Iraq in '09 where i was working out 7 days a week. My "off" day was a slow, long distance, endurance run so i was always busy. I got pretty damn big, but now, my workout is more varied, mixing alot of cardio (swimming, running and rucking), heavy lifting and body weight. I usually work out twice a day if i can help it. I'm 5'9" and went from 200 pounds, jacked, in Iraq to now, more well rounded fit at 180.