joweaver88

Wow... you guys are acting like I am ignoring you and not taking your advice. Thats not the case, I simply dont understand what it all is you are trying to say... just because you understand something doesn't mean I do. You guys are starting to sound like school yard bullies. And you keep telling me things are redundant but as soon as I agree to drop one exercise somebody comes along and says "oh now you are missing something". Like, you told me I needed another pull exercise like skull crushers so I put them back in (originally I had them out!) and now your saying its pointless. Then you said I needed squats and something like dead lifts, then you said drop the dead lifts... now you are saying keep the dead lifts and drop the squats, do GHRs. And then you say I need to focus on beginner exercises but then suggest hand stand push ups!?! And wtf is an assistance exercise!? omg I give up, I should have never made this thread. This will be the last post I make on nerdfitness... I will find people who value helping people understand things instead of bombarding them with information (conflicting info at that) and then chastising them when they dont understand. This is NOT a friendly place... I am out.

First of all on the cycling... I have been cycling for a long time and I am not quite getting the results I want, hence the desire to do something in addition to the cycling. And the only reason for the jumping jacks is to get my heart rate up during the lower body workout, I tend to huff and puff and can feel my chest pounding during upper body workouts... not so much with the lower body, so I wanted something thrown in there to get my heart rate up, jumping jacks seem to do a good job at that. You're right it is pointless from a strength perspective but remember losing fat and leaning out are also objectives. With that said are they still pointless? So with the lower body we are back where we were earlier... some of you guys are saying I need something in addition to squats or lunges if I want a complete leg workout... and some are saying its redundant. Can we reach a consensus on this? I want to reduce redundancy but not if the cost is reduced efficacy. It seems we have a consensus on the calf raises being pointless... but what about the others. So lets get to the heart of this. What leg exercises would you guys deem necessary and which ones are pointless?

Do you own a bicycle? If you do you can get whats called a "trainer" its basically just a roller that your back tire goes on and it has a dial to adjust resistance. It essentially turns your bicycle into a stationary bike... but then you just un-clamp it and take it outside if you want to actually ride. I dont have one because I ride my bike daily as it is, but I have some friends that have them, they are pretty cool. The nice thing about a bicycle would be that it would keep your head nice and level for TV watching And I apologize in advance but I am always trying to convert folks to cycling Link to a cheap trainer on amazon $55 http://www.amazon.com/Magnet-Bicycle-Indoor-Exercise-Trainer/dp/B004I576SM/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392032139&sr=8-3&keywords=cycle+trainer Link to a cheap road bike on amazon $200 (if you don't already have one) http://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Commuter-Shimano-Speed-Bicycle/dp/B008CE9K8E/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392032193&sr=8-3&keywords=road+bike Link to a cheap single speed bike on amazon $180 (again if you dont already have a bike and prefer a single speed) http://www.amazon.com/Takara-Kabuto-Single-Speed-Frame/dp/B004GWP6CK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392032269&sr=8-1&keywords=road+bike

Might be difficult to do dips... the only chairs I have in my house have wheels on them and my couch is one of those cheapo walmart assemble yourself things... it weighs like 10 pounds and would just flip over if I tried to do dips with it. I need to get a box or bucket or something for that and step ups (instead of calf raises). Skull crushers are still pretty hard for me anyway so I may have to build up to dips, I actually originally was doing behind the head tricep presses but I hurt my left shoulder so I switched to skull crushers. But this seemed to work really well for now, I will worry about progressing into more difficult exercises as time goes on... I am weak all over, still shaky 30 min later. I actually did split squats tonight while holding a dumbbell about belly button level... got pretty hard there at the end. But as was discussed above, apparently squats and dead lifts don't target the same muscles so eventually I will do both. I did make one mistake though... I ended up downing my entire water bottle in the 35 min span and now I feel like throwing up. So yea that was brilliant *shakes head*... you live you learn.

I actually just did the above... took me about 35 min. I know its the middle of the night, but I am weird and I work for an israeli company (but I live in California) so I am usually up until 4-5am... so its normal for me haha (another reason for the home work out vs a gym). And I live in the apartment above the garage so no below neighbors to drive crazy with jumping jacks . Anyway here is a mini report, I wont say the reps or weight I did because it doesnt matter right now. But I am now completely exhausted, covered in sweat and shaking... it kicked my butt!! I did it as fast as I could while still focusing on trying to do proper form... almost no down time, just enough to get water a couple times. I like this much much better than the slow 2 hour work out I was doing before. I have a feeling I am going to be super sore in a day or two. You guys may have some more suggestions to dial this in more... but right now this worked really well so thank you so much for your advice and help! much appreciated

So using the information you guys have provided this is what the routine now looks like... First Circuit (3 rounds) squats (first body weight, then with weight)calf raisesside lunges jumping jackslying leg raisesdead lifts (once I can get a weight set) Second Circuit (3 rounds) skull crushersplankstandard push ups (progressing into decline push ups)side plank (each side)dumbbell rows (progressing into pull ups)back bridge Of course I will also progress some of the other exercises here... for instance switching from jumping jacks to burpees, adding rotations to the side planks, lying leg raises into flutter kicks... etc. So this is just the beginner one and a general idea of how it will progress. (I am also not including the intermediate steps, but I will be doing them just not writing them here... like diamond push ups for example). Does this all seem sound?

Yea I have been looking at craigslist... it might be awhile until the right thing comes across. In the mean time I may get one of those cheapo concrete sets but I am sure I will outgrow it rather quickly. But its better than nothing.

Ok I didn't know that about diamond push ups so that's good to know... so doing the two different types of push ups is redundant so I wont do that, I will just do the progression. I will start working on pull ups as soon as I can get a bar. And I do want to add dead lifts at some point but I need to get some more equipment first (it will take me awhile to save up for it, but its on my to do list). I guess I could get a gym membership but I hate gyms and probably would never go, so I want to stick with home work outs.

Alright so need squats and dead lifts, makes sense. And I gotcha with the whole planes of movement thing, now I can picture in my head what you're getting at. And yes I need to get a bar... gonna take care of that as soon as I can. I am looking into push up progressions now. Only a few sticky points remain... 1. If pull ups and skull crushers are both vertical moves and both target the shoulders aren't they mostly redundant? 2. By that same token since with the push up progression goes chest dominant > arm dominant > chest dominant, at some point I would still be missing out on a solid exercise that works the tricep correct? 3. If question 3 is yes, and keeping the planes of movement in mind and the desire to remove redundancy... what would be the best way to incorporate something that works the triceps? And thank you for being patient with me

Which is precisely why I am asking these questions... if you would take the time to understand where I am going with all of this you would get that its not a waste of time and there is a specific point to it. Yes I have a lot of questions because I also want to understand what it is I am doing. My previous work out routine was ridiculous because I didn't fully understand what each exercise was doing so I had too much redundancy and some gaps that needed filling. Its not just the experience that matters its understanding what you are doing. By your logic just lifting for a long time is all the qualification you would need to be a personal trainer, and we know thats not true. As we all probably know, there are people who have been lifting for years and are plenty experienced but still end up doing pointless things, or doing things wrong and hurting themselves because they never bothered to actually learn the right way. I don't want to just jump into this all willy nilly and get "experienced" in something thats wrong... then have to go back and unlearn a bunch of bad habits. I would much more prefer to go into this on a solid basis of knowledge and understanding so that I can train the right way (for me and my goals) from the very beginning. Now I will not attempt to justify my line of questioning any further... I have explained myself and you can either accept that or not.

gsethi you've given me more questions now haha so here we go in and ordered list First of all yes getting lean and increasing endurance are paramount but so is strength, but more functional strength. I could care less about what my maximum lift weights are or that kinda thing, I am not trying to body build or power lift. What I don't really care about is size (other than what I mentioned about my calves). And unfortunately I don't have a bar... but when I get paid at the end of the month I intend to order a doorway bar off amazon. In the mean time I will do the dumbbell rows. 1. Why squats *and dead lifts? Don't they pretty much work the same areas? I had already intended to progress into dead lifts at some point to *replace the squats and lunges. 2. In reference to push ups, if I progressed to diamond push ups wouldn't I then be ignoring the chest muscles? Wouldn't it still be better to do two different types of push ups, one type that targets the chest more and one that targets the arms more? 3. As far as skull crushers go, this is again the whole point behind the two different types of push ups... I need something that exercises the triceps. So I will either do two types of push ups, or one type of push up and skull crushers. Keeping this in mind, what other pull exercises do you suggest to balance this? 4. Since dumbbell rows progress to body weight rows which then progress to pull ups (DB rows > BW rows > pull ups)... these seem to be essentially just one pull exercise since one replaces the next and then gets replaced again. Going back to question 3 what is another pull exercise that is not redundant to dumbbell rows/body weight rows/pull ups?

Because every tried an tested one I have found so far is either for attaining a different set of goals, or requires equipment I don't have, or suggests exercises I am not capable of yet, or skips something I want to target. Is there something wrong with asking questions in an effort to hammer out something that I feel comfortable doing week in and week out? Also can you suggest other pull exercises? Everyone keeps telling me to add in more but the only one that has been suggested is pull ups which I am incapable of and I don't have a pull up bar anyway. And I don't even know what a plyo exercise is... care to elaborate on why doing jumping jacks during each workout is bad? Keep in mind I intend to do the exact same workout all of the 3 work out days in a week in order to keep it simple... so I am either doing jumping jacks all 3 days or I am never doing them. And to throw a question back at you: Why do you feel the need to judge my questions instead of helping me answer them?

scratch that... answered my own question on split squats, and pistol squats are out of my league at the moment. Ok so how does the following look for a beginner? two circuits of 5 exercises each (huge reduction from what I was doing before). The only questions I see now are related to the calf raises and the narrow push ups. Considering my above statements on the matter are they worth doing? Or can these be accomplished in some other combo exercises? Lower Body Circuit (3 rounds) 12 split squats12 calf raises6 side lunges (each leg)16 jumping jacks15 sec lying leg raise Upper Body Circuit (3 rounds) 8 narrow push ups30 sec plank8 standard push ups20 sec side plank (each side)8 dumbbell rows (each arm)

Yea I decided to continue doing rows until I am strong enough to do pull ups. As far as the push ups, the only reason for the narrow push ups is to target my triceps more because they are weak and pathetically tiny (I am doubtful they even exist haha) the idea was to eventually be able to do diamond push ups but I am too weak for them right now. Can you suggest a better way of doing that? I have been doing skull crushers which seem to work well but I am trying to swap in more combo exercises. I am open to suggestions on a better way to approach it. Ok with the legs, I will look up split squats and pistol squats. I am open to anything to increase the difficulty and effectiveness on that because I am already at the point where I can do squats and lunges ad infinitum. In your opinion with the limited equipment I have (two adjustable dumbbells up to 20 lbs each) what would be good for the calf? I really want well defined calves... right now my legs are kinda the same size all the way to the ankle and there is very little fat on my legs, so it looks like the calf is under developed even though I don't seem to have a problem with lack of strength. So really the calf thing is purely aesthetic.

High five dude! welcome to the club

I am a cyclist... I want my legs to get stronger slightly more so than my upper body. Of course both are important, but to me lower body strength is *slightly more important.

All very good advice! let me get back to you guys when I have had a chance to digest it all... tonight is work out night so whatever I decide on starts tonight. Also keep in mind I am working out at home guys so I have very limited equipment right now... I have a set of single hand dumbbells (adjustable up to 20Lbs on each side) and thats it. So although I would love to replace the squats and lunges with say dead lifts... I dont have the equipment for it.

Yea thats the principle... I dont want to just add reps like I have been doing. I want to increase the difficulty but keep the length of the work out approximately the same going forward. I have been doing rows actually but I left them out in this incarnation because I didn't want dumbbell lifting in it. I cant do pull ups yet, I am not strong enough to do even one... but would a pull up be a good replacement for rows? If so I can just continue doing rows until I can do a pull up and then switch to them. Also I looked at the angry birds workout, I like the idea of simply swapping out exercises for a more difficult version as you get better, makes sense to me.

I have a pair of NB minimus Hi-rez that I love... it feels like wearing socks but protects the bottom of your feet and gives you grip, perfect. But they are pricey. The other 3 less expensive options I would recommend for a flat light shoe would be, Fei Yue kung fu shoes ($15 on amazon), converse jack purcells, and converse chuck taylors and in that order. I have all three of these and they are awesome... my day to day shoes are actually clipless cycling shoes because I cycle everywhere, but when I am not wearing those I generally wear my jack purcells, I love them.

HOT SAUCE!! So many different kinds too... I almost don't even care which one because they are all good! Tabasco, franks red hot, cholula, schiracha, heck even pure wasabi... its all awesome.

Ok so in another thread I explained how my workout was stupidly complex and I didn't like it... so I have been doing some research today and some thinking on the subject and I wanted to run a modified workout routine past you guys. Any suggestions for changing exercises out for more effective exercises or combination exercises which will do more for me are greatly appreciated. Also as far as weights go, right now for most things body weight is fine. The only two exercises I will use weight with right now are squats and calf raises (I have some dumbbells I can use). However as I get stronger I will need more resistance so I may purchase a weight vest to add resistance (opinions on that too please). My goal is to do a high resistance, high intensity, but low reps workout to maximize strength but using body weight style exercises instead of barbell and dumbbell lifting. Here is my proposed workout plan mark III, both circuits will be done on the same day, 3 times per week. Lower Body Circuit (3 rounds) 12 squats12 lunges12 calf raises12 side lunges (each side)15 jumping jacks Upper Body Circuit (3 rounds) 8 narrow push ups30 sec plank8 wide push ups20 sec side plank (each side)15 sec lying leg raise Opinions please

Actually scratch both of these entirely... I am way over thinking all of this, I have a different far simpler way of going about this.

Btw any combination exercises you can recommend to replace any of the above exercise would be great... right now I want to keep targeting the full body but also streamline everything down into as simple a plan as possible. The simpler and more straight forward it is, the more likely I am to stick with it. But at the same time it needs to be highly effective, I don't want to be wasting my time either. And keep in mine that I do not have a gym membership, all exercises will be done in my living room... So keep that into consideration. All I will have are basic free weights.

This looks long but it is mostly bullet points so please read! So I am still a major noob to all this so I am still absorbing information in an effort to really lay down a routine that works for me. I have only been working out for a few weeks and I am getting results but I don't think I am being efficient about it. Stats: 25 year old woman 5'11" 195 Lbs BMI 27% (I would think that my actual body fat percentage is much higher than that, probably 30%+) Goals: Increased strength Increased endurance Lowered body fat percentage Current workout plan: Working out every other day Warm up based off the one on the main site 3 "circuits" of the following - 25 body weight squats - 20 "girl" push ups (knees down) - 20 body weight lunges - 15 barbell rows (each arm) - 15 bicep curls (each arm) - 15 skull crushers - 15 second lateral barbell hold - 15 sec forward barbell hold - 30 body weight calf raises - 30 sec plank - 20 sec side plank (each side) - 10 flutter kicks - 30 jumping jacks Then once all 3 "circuits" are complete, I stretch So here are the things I like and the things I think it fails at... I like that it targets the entire body and that the exercises are fairly simple ones that don't need much equipment. What I don't like is that it is incredibly time consuming and daunting... this workout takes me over 2 hours to complete, there is too much to do quickly hence the circuits in quotes because I am not doing this quickly. It is a slow, long, grueling, miserable work out. I also have to stop frequently to switch out the plates on my barbells for different exercises... I swear I swap them a million times during each workout. Sure I feel accomplished at the end, but 48 hours later I know I have to do it again and its killing my motivation. That itself is enough to warrant some adjustments. So here is my proposed new work out strategy... this is the one I want you to compare and make your suggestion on. It will require me to purchase a two hand bar and some extra weight plates but that's not that expensive. Proposed work out plan: Notes: 1. 3 days a week instead of every other day (4 days) 2. Same warm up and stretching routines (no issues there) 3. All weighted exercises done at ~75% of my one rep max weight 4. high intensity, go from exercise to exercise5. less than 1 min rest between rounds6. less than 5 min rest between circuits (long enough to adjust my weights and drink some water)7. complete all 3 circuits on same day (I want to keep the full body workout) Leg Circuit (3+ rounds) 12 weighted squats12 weighted calf raises12 weighted lunges20 jumping jacks Arms & Shoulders Circuit (3+ rounds) 8 bicep curls (each arm)8 skull crushers10 sec lateral barbell hold10 sec forward barbell hold Chest & Core Circuit (3+ rounds) 30 sec+ plank20 sec+ side plank (each side)10 flutter kicks8 barbell rows (each arm)12 military style push ups Also on the off days I want to add in some cycle sprints... I ride a bike as my primary form of transportation but I normally ride at a steady pace. I want to start doing ten 10 second "sprints" while cycling too and fro on my off days. And yes I know the names of the circuits are not accurate, there is crossover but I had to name each one something! lol So the differences are as follows:1. Much higher resistance2. Lower reps3. Broken into manageable chunks4. Reduces weight plate swapping5. More intensity and speed6. 1 less day per week What do you guys think?

Watch this and take a look at the exercises section... I have clicking and popping in my left shoulder with no pain or loss of range though, but my doctor still sent me this link to go over. http://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/ncal/mdo/presentation/common/healthToolPage.jsp?path=healthtool_555568.xml