Azarok

haha, well that was a bust. For those wondering, i was shredded by an exam period. I did, however manage to start with a few of these. Intermittent fasting, exercise and cold exposure (at least during the winter months) as well as some nootropics. Since i finally have some time to spare, ill attempt to work on the others. The softdrink is easily the hardest thing to get rid of. :/

Heyas, i've been look around at meditations recently and am spoiled for choice. From my research i've found a few that are particularly interesting. These are mindfulness, qigong, nada yoga, loving kindness and zazen. I was wondering if it would be better to experiment, or just pick one and roll with it. Have any of you tried any of these styles? :]

Heyas, in the last few months i've looked through tonnes of blogs, studies and articles. Learning so many interesting things about health and nutrition, yet barely implementing anything i learned. Over the next few challenges i plan to change this. I will gradually add in interesting practices over time, instead of attempting everything the start. With the end goal of being the healthiest i can be, even if i only keep that up for a month. I'm going to attempt to enchance my nutrition, cognition and physical health as much as i can over that time period, im curious as to how i'll feel by the end. I'm making this post to help me commit to doing this. Between now and the start of the next challenge, i will work on losing an additional 4 kg of weight and restarting my excersise program. Which i stopped for two months after a wrist injury. My own personal challenges will look like this. Just a little warning, im not a doctor or nutritionist or anything like that. I feel confident enough that i can do these things without harm, but i'd imagine that some of these practices could be harmful to some people and i could always be wrong. I tried my best to be unspecific about some things, like the diet. Do your own research First six week challenge will be focused on the fundementals: Stick to diet, generally low-medium carb with an emphasis on whole food and individual nutrients, eating enough high quality carbs to sustain exersise. I made my own (as perfect as i could make it) diet plan, that i plan to stick to over the time period. It may sound boring, but it actually includes most of my favourite foods. I will also cook the meals differently every day, like curries, salads, stews and stir frys ect for variety. It generally includes fermented and properly prepared food, and i am attempting to eat food that is higher in rarer trace minerals. Such as silicia and boron, as well as vitamin k2 (among other things). So basically more plants like cucumber/avocado, quality pastured animal produce and perhaps natto(im undecided on soy, but i only plan to eat 10g four times a week).Reduce alcohol to once a fortnight and attempt to eliminate Softdrink entirelyStart meditation for five mins a day, working up to 30Stick to exersise program, generally strength training with hiit cardioFix up sleeping patterns, bed by 11pm, wake up by 7:30- 8:00amJoin yoga, preferably bikramTHe second set of six weeks will be focused on unnessessary things that may still offer benefits for me. My own intermittant fasting protocol.Cold exposure (already doing, but i figured id list it anyway.)Heat exposure (hence the bikram)Backwards/ barefeet walking, slowely working up to jogging. I figure it will work out different muscles.Exposure to nature.Experiment with suppliments. Not really things like vitamins or minerals, more like adaptogens or nootropics. With the goal of further improving cognitive performence or memory.I will update this when the next challenge comes along, good luck with your own challenges. :]

Right now im stuck between my current plan, 531, starting strength and stronglifts. I'm sure i will see decent results regardless of what i choose. Thanks for your help everyone :]

Very interesting jedrick. I may try one of these methods every six weeks. See which works best for me. The wendler 531 looks particularly interesting. im starting my program on friday so i'll think everything over before then. Thanks :]

Interesting, one of the main reasons i added t-bar rows was the focus on the middle back. the dumbbell rows are to get greater range of movement. Im doing box jumps for conditioning, I'll add the farmers walk as well because it seems like it would take less time to finish than the shrugs. :]

ah crap, i didnt post these in the right order xD. I meant to stick all of my compound exercises to the front, fixing now. Good point about the front squats and leg press, i thought that they would target slightly different muscles. I suppose i could take out the leg press and just do the back squats. As for arnold press and rear dumbbell raise, i just heard that it focuses on different parts of the shoulder. As you said though, it does not seem necessary, i suppose i could remove them for now :]. Also, ill switch out the close grip bench to a regular one. The rows are there for variance and to help with lat development as well. Although i will consider replacing them with a deadlift. Thanks for the help jendrik, thinned out my day considerably.

Hey kidney, i did do full body workouts for about 6-7 months. I also forgot to mention the idea was to do my plan 5-6 days a week, Like this Push, Leg, Pull, Break, Push, Leg, Pull, break. I didn't bring it up in my original post because i was asking about the structure of the program, not the intensity. :]

ah gotcha, thanks. :]

hmmm, i'll think this over. Also the 55kg bench was back when i was doing 10 reps. Absolutely no idea what i current 1 rep max is, might as well find that out later today. Thanks for the info guys but i do have a question. Why is it recommended to take a premade plan, is my plan simply too much training for someone with my experience? Because i seem to be having pretty good improvements with my current upper/lower split. I just don't understand why a plan like this wouldn't be effective for me simply because im still having newbie gains. It seems to me like it should accelerate my progress instead of stunt it. :]

Sorry for the late reply. My current program is a 5x5 program i made with an upper/lower body day split. I was focusing more on my nutrition plan and made the swap from full body workouts to upper/lower workouts. I've learned a lot about workout planning in the last month and wanted to make a better, more time efficient plan that targets everything. The main issue was trying to effectively train every muscle group in a lower/upper day split. My previous upper body days took around two hours and i also switched focus between the triceps and shoulders every second workout. I also switched out the bench press for pushups and svend press to change things up, which was a mistake im pretty sure. As for my current lifts, i've only recently started doing dead-lifts and weighted squats so i am going up slowly at around 5kg a week, so i can get the form down. I likely wont reach what i can actually lift with these for a few more weeks. My bench is close to 55kg. I want to focus almost entirely on strength and power, get as strong as i can before i reach freakish muscle territory. I also plan to join muay thai(or wing chun) and do parkour.

Heyas, im trying to make my own workout program, mainly focuses on strength. I'm relatively new, 8 months into training and im attempting to fix the issues i ran into with my last few plans. If you have any advice or exercise suggestions, tell me. :] 4 sets of 5-7 reps. 2 min breaks. Leg day Barbell Squat Deadlift box jumps (3 sets of 20, 45 sec breaks) Tabata cardio 4 min push day Military Press Bench press+Incline Dumbbell Press (3 sets of each) Dumbbell Overhead Triceps Press Lying Face Down Plate Neck Resistance (3 sets of 7) pull day pullups barbell row Hammer curl +alternating dumbbell curl Overhead Slam (2 sets of 20, 30 second break) Farmers walk ab exercises every second day Landmine 180's Cable Crunch

thanks for the help guys :]

Heyas, im attempting to build my own workout plan to improve my existing one. The thing is though, in wondering if my varied exercises will make me better balanced or hurt my progress. Generally i spend one of each of my three exercise days a week with a completely different goal in mind. For instance, Sunday focuses on a reverse pyramid set, Tuesday is a heavy lifting straight set and Thursday is light, endurance weights. The exercises i use are generally the same every day, but with variations and switching up the order. An example is weighted squats on Sunday, box jumps on Tuesday and body weight squats on Thursday. I also do two sessions of hiit cardio a week. Will this much variation help or hurt my workout because of the contrasting variety? I want power, strength and reasonable endurance. Size isn't my main priority.

bugger, last day and not too much goal progress. At the very least i lost 5kg and can do a pullup up to my mouth

Thanks for the input guys. I may as well try something i usually don't like occasionally to see if my taste-buds have changed i suppose. Generally, i'm going to be making chicken or beef stews, salads, soups or alternating the way i cook them. The main focus of my diet is to eat absolutely no crap for 13 and a half weeks and eat everything on this list every day at a minimum. I have nothing against piling another 150 calories or so of ingredients, as long as they are healthy. :] Also, i forgot to stick the dark chocolate in there. Buts its basically a square of an 85% dark chocolate block.

hey risen, i was recently on a 1700 carlorie diet. This is higher then normal for me and its mainly due to me adding hiit cardio. Its an approximately 850 calorie deficit, but im including the calories i expect to burn through exercise into the deficit :] Additionally, i'm pretty picky with healthy foods. If i like something im chucking it in, but theres a hell of a lot of things i dont like. I also picked up a cookbook with 400 ways to cook chicken, so that could certainly help spice things up xD

im considering adding a cup of kale and a carrot. As for the lemon, its for mixing with water to drink. xD Generally im heavy with the spices :]

haha, i lasted 6 weeks on my last diet without getting sick of anything. And i love all those foods. Fibre is around 20g. May eat some carrots and the like. :]

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haha, yeah around halfway there for the weight loss. I've been crushed by assignments in the last 2 weeks though so i didnt feel like updating till today

Alright, getting back into the ocarina pretty well, i need to play the guitar more though. I've been drawing more often and plan on doing some hiit cardio tommorow morning. Getting up to my eyes with the pullup.

thanks for the help :]

Eh, im really looking for whichever will give me the most flexibility, strength on the side is a bonus. :]

haha, will do. yoga seems more interesting but research never hurt