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[Ken]

This thread was split from here.

You quit smoking?  Good on you, Miz!  As for the physical training, from your post I take it you're just looking to build back up to a solid level of general fitness.  That is as opposed to training for an event like a marathon or for a specific weightlifting benchmark.  It's a good place to start, but finding a clear and measurable goal you can train toward will help with motivation along the way (which you probably know, I just offer it as general advice to the group).

It's interesting that you don't like working out alone.  At least for running, I prefer it and I know a few buddies with big families who really savor it.  A long run is a rare opportunity to be alone for some folks.  Besides running/jogging on the road or a treadmill, an indoor rowing machine is a great cardio alternative.  What's nice is that you'll notice running speed and endurance improvements using the rower even though you aren't running.  They can be a bit expensive for home use (~1000 USD/unit for the kind we keep at work), but any gym should have some available.

From the OP, I take it that a subjective assessment of muscle failure ("until I just can't do any more") seems to be your max reps/weight standard and your strength training is all body weight resistance.  That's ok, but to build back some of that strength from your Army days faster, you may want to consider weights.  Back squats, dead lifts, overhead press, and bench press will get more of those muscle fibers firing and will bring you more "whole body" strength than will plain old push-ups and pull-ups.  Even if you're starting out with just the bar as resistance, these are great exercises.  With good form, 3 sets of each at low reps (4-6) and ~90% max weight, and continuously rising weight (1-2 kg more on the bar every workout--assuming you keep on schedule!) you'll build real strength in your upper body, core, and legs.

You may also see better results (and less boredom!) by staggering workouts (as in, a cardio-heavy day followed by a strength-heavy day followed by an agility day then back to cardio-heavy) rather than just a routine of daily running and muscle failure "ups".

[Misan]

Endorsing the above post. Though I will say that pull-ups/chin-ups are hugely useful for "proper" strength gains. The trick is if you can do more than 8 at body weight (full range of motion of course) you start adding weights to them and dropping the reps down to 3-4 per set. A weight belt with plates works well. I've personally used a small backpack with dumbells with good results. Worst case with lighter weights you can hold a dumbell between your feet safely.

Oh also, you don't really "need" any kind of specific core work if you are doing heavy sets of squats and deadlifts.

[Mithfindel]

I assume you're still in somewhat okay-ish shape (paramedic, right? that kind of guarantees some base level of fitness). As for gaming, could get you a Fitocracy invite (kind of social network / browser-MMO, you gain exp by exercising).

A piece of friendly advice: Don't start by killing yourself. When you do new things, it takes a week or two before your neural system gets wrapped around the fact that you are doing new things. After that, you can increase load and see muscle growth etc. Also, if you're training daily (one or two days of rest per week), start easy. You need enough stimulus for your body, but leave some room, because you will need to increase (or at least change, but removing rest / increasing speed / increasing time taken are the "easiest" changes) load every week, or your body will get used to the stimulus given by the exercise and your progress will stagnate. And oh, on endurance sports (such as running), when doing endurance (low intensity, long duration) you should do sprints (=less than ten seconds all-out) after warming up. Using both fast twitch and low twitch muscle fibers will increase the total gain from the exercise.

[spoiler]On Fitocracy invites: The following links likely work to get an invite from a group (which may or may not make you a member of that group):
The symbolic 100 invite group: http://ftcy.co/u7J8V0
Europeans: http://ftcy.co/v1YxgN
Gamers toying with the idea of fitness: http://ftcy.co/uo1mR2
Geeks getting off the coach: http://ftcy.co/vr14Vx
Roleplaying gamers: http://ftcy.co/tdOW9q
Giant in the Playground (Order of the Stick) fan group: http://ftcy.co/uc7jIy
Girl Genius fan group: http://ftcy.co/sakbVc
Minecraft fan group: http://ftcy.co/ttOdkJ
My Little Pony fan group: http://ftcy.co/rABZWu
TMNT fan group: http://ftcy.co/vN7eop
xkcd fan group: http://ftcy.co/rLc01G
Groups with over five members with level average of 7+ get 100 invites. There's an EVE group, but it's having just one member (not me, in case someone's interested). All users get also 20 invites.[/spoiler]

[Ken]

Endorsing the above post. Though I will say that pull-ups/chin-ups are hugely useful for proper strength gains. The trick is if you can do more than 8 at body weight (full range of motion of course) you start adding weights to them and dropping the reps down to 3-4 per set. A weight belt with plates works well. I've personally used a small backpack with dumbells with good results.

Definitely.  At the other end of the spectrum, it may also be worth noting that if you can't complete a set of ~8 pull-ups at body weight, using a band or assisted pull-up machine can help get you there.

[Kybernetes Moros]

I've been meaning to experiment with resistance work for quite a while now, but the main difficulty that I've found has been to actually find resistance bands with a high enough tension; the only ones I have thus far found have been so low resistance that they weren't, for me, worth the money. I've only once suffered a "serious" injury with weights but it's less that and more the different style of working out that appeals to me; I see myself returning to weights over resistance band work, but to have a bit of a mixture of the two appeals to me.

[Saxon Hawke]

As a former smoker (2 packs a day at my peak) I can say that alone will do wonders for you. I can't tell you how much better I felt about a month out from my last cigarette.

I have an addictive type personality and know that I could go back to smoking any day, so I wish you lots of luck in kicking the habit. For me at least, its a daily battle, but so worth it.

[Zuzanna Alondra]

Should we have a separate thread for people wanting to track here so we have one thread that is discussing exercise and one that is tracking?

As mentioned before - I don't just exercise.  If you exercise for 30 minutes (jogging:150 Calories) then treat yourself to a soda for a job well done (Coke is my poison of choice: 243 for the bottle sold at gas stations) - you haven't done a lick of good.

I thank my dad all the time for quitting smoking.  He is so much healthier, happier and more enjoyable to be around.

[Misan]

I know it looks dumb, but it works real good, I swear:

http://www.trxtraining.com/learn/

TRX is a interesting system because of the ability to leverage body weight for both progression and regression. It is a bit overpriced though, considering you can pretty much make the TRX system if you buy some climbing webbing and some hand grips (oversimplifying a bit, but you get the idea).

I like using resistance bands mostly for prehab/rehab work on different joints and muscle groups personally. Had an FMS (http://www.functionalmovement.com/) screening a little while back that pointed to some mobility problems in shoulders, so I've been working on scapular mobilization stretches a bit. Added some of the band work for mobilization/stabilization just now for the Floreio practice and it seems to be helping. Will have to see how the shoulders feel in a couple weeks.

If you have trouble finding good resistance bands you might look into kettlebells Kyber. A lot more interesting, and if you get good enough you can just start using people instead. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fb_2Hzv4ABw Turkish get-ups are amazing, nuff said. Lots of opportunities for more power oriented work like snatches and cleans too. Decent alternative to barbells that take up much less space, and some gyms carry them (the non-shit kind).

Personally I find I get much more motivation from trying to acquire new skills than from pushing more weight. But my route into fitness was through martial arts and later via Parkour. So I pretty much ever set foot into a gym until when I started working at one, and even then I still find myself training outside even with the opportunity to work on heavy barbell lifting present.

Vaguely on topic: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/daniel_wolpert_the_real_reason_for_brains.html

Thread split nao. Talk freely. \o/

[Kybernetes Moros]

Kettlebells are something I should look into, yeah; should be easier to find ones capable of.putting sufficient strain on my muscles.

I'm a little different as regards skills: I'm motivated equally by improvements in strength, appearance and general fitness. That said, I jump at chances to develop that kind of physical skill, especially since with work and other committments they're few and far between except during the six week summer holiday. Was tempting to go into fitness as a profession, honestly, but alas physics called louder. :p

[Misan]

Just going to dump some of the better info sources for things here. It'll save me from having to go all :words: about them later.

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html
http://www.leangains.com/2010/07/truth-about-alcohol-fat-loss-and-muscle.html
http://www.leangains.com/2011/06/is-late-night-eating-better-for-fat.html

This next thing is a series of posts and pretty lengthy at that, but it brings together points from tons of other sources:
http://www.gnolls.org/2304/why-are-we-hungry-part-1-what-is-hunger-liking-vs-wanting-satiation-vs-satiety/
http://www.gnolls.org/2074/why-snack-food-is-addictive-the-grand-unified-theory-of-snack-appeal/
http://www.gnolls.org/1141/eat-like-a-predator-not-like-prey-paleo-in-six-easy-steps-a-motivational-guide/
http://www.drgangemi.com/2011/08/fodmaps/

http://cliftonharski.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/im-not-gonna/ (links to a bunch of good articles on that subject)

I'll leave it at that for now, as apparently my bookmarks are (unsurprisingly) unorganized as hell.

[Mithfindel]

I know pretty much nothing about losing weight, but simply put, your body produces energy the following ways (ordered approximately in the order of energy produced over time, i.e. potential for work):

• ATP and CP (adenosine triphosphate and creatine phosphate): Internal energy stores directly used by muscles. ~8 second buffer for ATP and a few more seconds of CP in an all-out exercise (alactic and anaerobic)
• Glycogen (sugar) via anaerobic processes (glycolysis), producing waste products (pyruvate, which gets processed into lactic acid). Assuming your body is conditioned to produce lactic acid, typical buffer size before levels of pyruvate get high enough to shut down this process is about one minute of all-out exercise (lactic anaerobic).
• Glycogen (sugar) via aerobic processes, the inverse of photosynthesis: Sugar is "burned" with oxygen to produce energy and CO2. Pyruvate and lactic acid can be processed in a similar way. Good for roughly one hour of "all out" (a relative term, as this process is very much slower than glycolysis - less energy produced, less work done). Depends, of course, on how large glycogen reserves you have.
• Converting fat into energy. Good for approximately one day of "all out" (most people are not crazy enough to continue after glycogen reserves are out, since it does feel quite bad, all out is a questionable term here).
• Breaking muscles apart. Again assuming our crazy guy starting going as fast as he can, as long as he can, we'd (assuming all other nutrients and water would be supplied) expect him to "go on" for from a few days to a week, assuming staying conscious (I was a sprinter in the old days, emptying the glycogen reserves did hurt, apparently emptying fat reserves hurts a great deal more).

Uh, so how do we know what our body is using for energy? Look up from the chart? Not really. Body uses all of these energy sources all the time, though there is emphasis - as in, when the body demands more energy, it gets provided in any way possible (assuming your body is capable of producing and using those amounts of energy). This leads to the traditional wisdom of keeping to low-strain endurance exercises to burn fat (working out slow enough that your body can be fuelled from fat reserves). Some people support the alternative way of working out hard and then trusting that by eating less than the energy used, the body will need to use fat reserves for recovery. I don't have enough information to suggest either if you want to lose weight, so pick the way that you like.

Muscle loss, exercise and eating: If you gain less energy by eating than you use by working, you will, according to traditional understanding, also lose muscle - assuming there is not enough stimulus for your muscles to keep recovering. What doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, the recovery afterwards does. The first few weeks after starting exercising will likely show some power gain due to increased neural activation in the muscle, after that there will also be muscle growth (hypertrophy) assuming that there's sufficient water, sufficient protein/amino acids and, most importantly, sufficient stimulus to the muscle. Muscles are expensive (require a lot of energy), the body doesn't like to keep them around if they're not used regularly. As such, after a few weeks you might trust that a balanced exercise program to counter the effects of muscle loss due to the body's perceived lack of energy.

...and that's what I can still remember, slightly applied, from the theory from my coaching courses.

Edit: On alcohol: I assume I don't need to tell anyone that it isn't actually healthy, but "you can drink in moderation". I don't really see what is the fuss about it - except that it's funny that people on "low-carb" diet, which appears to be very fashionable right now, avoid even a loaf of bread but don't mind drinking beer (which can have around 1/3 of its energy content come from sugar on top of alcohol). Large amounts of alcohol (=getting drunk) has been shown to effect performance up to a week later, so it does make exercising (feel) harder. Additionally, alcohol in the evening/night (the traditional timing) makes you sleep worse - and during sleep is when your body recovers best - so alcohol is slowing down your recovery, further harming your exercise. This, of course, assume exercising actively and doing things that take you to the limit of your abilities.

[Misan]

Uh, so how do we know what our body is using for energy? Look up from the chart? Not really. Body uses all of these energy sources all the time, though there is emphasis - as in, when the body demands more energy, it gets provided in any way possible (assuming your body is capable of producing and using those amounts of energy). This leads to the traditional wisdom of keeping to low-strain endurance exercises to burn fat (working out slow enough that your body can be fuelled from fat reserves). Some people support the alternative way of working out hard and then trusting that by eating less than the energy used, the body will need to use fat reserves for recovery. I don't have enough information to suggest either if you want to lose weight, so pick the way that you like.

Muscle loss, exercise and eating: If you gain less energy by eating than you use by working, you will, according to traditional understanding, also lose muscle - assuming there is not enough stimulus for your muscles to keep recovering. What doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, the recovery afterwards does. The first few weeks after starting exercising will likely show some power gain due to increased neural activation in the muscle, after that there will also be muscle growth (hypertrophy) assuming that there's sufficient water, sufficient protein/amino acids and, most importantly, sufficient stimulus to the muscle. Muscles are expensive (require a lot of energy), the body doesn't like to keep them around if they're not used regularly. As such, after a few weeks you might trust that a balanced exercise program to counter the effects of muscle loss due to the body's perceived lack of energy.

Good overview of the energy systems. That stuff is important and good to know when thinking about exercise in general, but yeah, it taken alone won't tell you much about how to affect weight. The whole idea of "calories in calories out" thing (or the second law of thermodynamics) is largely accurate for determining weight. The idea of staying below the anaerobic threshold (running slower) to "burn fat" isn't bad per se, but it has some big limitations for actually getting any progress. These boil down to the problem of adjusting intensity and volume -- intensity can't be be increased much otherwise it passes the threshold, and the only other remaining variable to change is duration...and I doubt most people want to run for hours (or have time to). It works well to build up a good aerobic base of fitness to be able to handle higher intensity things, but should not be the only mode of exercise. The other big negative of just using this modality (steady-state cardio [SSC]) is that in a caloric deficit you will lose muscle mass over time, which ends up decreasing total energy expenditure and hurting long-run results. The idea of interval (especially high-intensity interval training [HIIT]) training has become increasingly popular and well supported by research as superior to steady-state cardio for increasing performance and improving health. The big advantage HIIT has over SSC is that it actually preserves muscle mass while in a caloric deficit (note: not necessarily building, but avoiding loss). It also takes much less time and creates improvements in both aerobic and anaerobic work capacity. It can increase the anaerobic threshold I talked about earlier to keep burning fat as a primary fuel for longer too. There are some differences in how each kind of training impacts both short-term and full day energy expenditure, but I'd have to dig up some references to be able to describe the differences accurately.

"Fat reserves for recovery" is a bit of an inaccurate way to describe how things work. Recovery from exercise (replenishment of depleted glycogen and repair of muscle and other tissues) is mediated far more by adequate amounts of protein and some carbohydrates than fat. Fat comes into play because if you are in a caloric deficit (and don't have a totally fucked energy metabolism) then the body will naturally draw from fat stores to make up for the missing energy from food. I keep talking about caloric deficits, so I hope it is becoming obvious that when looking to lose weight diet has a much greater impact. Which isn't to say you shouldn't move more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aUaInS6HIGo .

Complex subject, there ultimately isn't one "right way" to achieve goals. I prefer to suggest that people find a kind of movement (dance, sports, rock climbing, walking, etc.) they enjoy and practice that regularly instead of going to the gym. There are some definite benefits to improving strength, especially through resistance training but even those don't require going to a gym to achieve. Hell, I can say that 95% of my progress in terms of strength has come without ever stepping foot inside a gym.

Quick note on the low-carb comment: Bread is avoided specifically more for other problematic characteristics besides just having lots of carbs. Alcohol is one of those weird things that people will make odd exceptions for, personally I just stick to wine and certain liquors. Good article on grains is here: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/#axzz1iVTkbA6N -- there are a bunch more but I cba to dig through Robb Wolf's blog right now to find them.

[Mithfindel]

From the point of view of sports science, doing just aerobic exercises doesn't really make sense.

[spoiler]I would assume that just doing aerobic exercises are somewhat slow, and if load isn't gradually increased, the body gets used to the stimulus given and does not develop any more, from the point of view of conditioning and sports. I would assume this also would have an effect on the energy cost of that exercise, and especially recovery. There's three ways of making pure aerobic exercises more "efficient": Increase distance, increase speed and decrease breaks. Naturally, you can do aerobic intervals, as well, and vary the composition of the exercise. And then the important one would be adding some alactic anaerobics (sprints) there.

To keep things simple, as a major division, the fibers in the muscles you can control are divided into two broad categories: Fast twitch fibers and slow twitch fibers. Aerobic exercise, typically, mainly uses slow twitch fibers. Adding short (non-lactic acid producing) sprints (under ten seconds) allows the body to use the fast twitch fibers, as well, while producing minimal amounts of (performance-degrading) pyruvate. This increases the amount of energy your muscles can use (mitochondrial growth) faster than just using one muscle type. Naturally, if the subject of the exercise has never done any fast exercises, the "fast" cells will be somewhat underdeveloped in the muscle tissue. I don't have any specific solutions to that except for "keep trying" - they will develop later in age, too, though the preferred solution is "do your sprints before your puberty is over". Considering EVE's demographics, it's likely pretty late for that solution to be practical.[/spoiler]

Naturally, for sports, there's a whole world on what you can do with intervals. On a whole lot of things, the high intensity intervals (actual effect depending on how the exercise matches your strength, repeats, weights/zone, etc.) may not be ideal either. (An increase in anaerobic power has the tendency to decrease both anaerobic and aerobic capacity, i.e. endurance and lactic acid tolerance.) This, of course, assumes again regular training (>3 exercise units per week).

[BloodBird]

I'd like to thank Mizhara for the idea and original drive in making it a new-year resolution to get in better shape, and everyone else here who has offered advice and in-sight. While my new year started off horribly by being sick from the cold for 2 weeks and slow-starting my work again in the following days, I'd like to stick with my own drive to improve myself.

But to that end I'd ask some more advice here; I've a bit of a problem - it's often very cold and slippery outside here during winter and the weather don't help inspire me to jog or get more active like that. (During winter) While I've a few ideas, I'll need methods that don't require to much space (I have little) and can be done indoors for the winter. Simple exercises that can be done after some warm-up every day or every other day, and hopefully don't end with me tripping down my stairs or knocking my stuff over repeatedly.
 
Another thing - the muscles in my legs - especially the left one - is strained and... 'bundled' in a way. Just stretching out to far or for to long can send sharp spikes of pain up my legs. I will have to work this problem out before I'll ever hope to get into predictable activity again. Any ideas or advice on this from anyone?

[Myrhial Arkenath]

I've started on bodyweight exercises because I don't want to buy a gym membership atm. Plus I like to just break out exercise when I feel like it. With job search, I also don't know what my schedule is going to be like, so I rather don't go and commit.

I kept putting it off because I would need to set up my own tracking system (numbers motivate me), until I noticed people were giving out Fitocracy invites left and right. Gamification is something I know works well for me, so I dived in, and decided I like it. I've been exercising and ramping up on what I do each day since I started a few days ago. It's fun and even a little addictive, and if that is what is needed to turn exercise into a habit, well, why not

I've got invites left for other EVE players that want them, just PM me with an email address. For those already on there, feel free to follow 'Myrhial'. Yeah I am super original with names, lol. There is also an EVE Online group, so feel free to locate yourselves into there. Not run by me, but well, it is a social platform so why not connect with some groups that suit you huh? Plus we get to show these other MMO's who has the fittest player base~