Draken50

Seconding Gainsdolph

If you like swimming. Sure.

Yeah, dropping to the empty bar would just be a big waste of time. I'd check that your rest times are up to par. What lifts are stalling? When? There's a big difference between stopping on the 3 rep of the first set and having a hard time getting the last rep on the last set. Is it every exercise? How long are you resting between sets? Are you getting enough food and sleep?

Getting stronger is a way to do that. What your describing is basically lowering bodyfat %. This is really handled by diet more than excercise. One caveat, is that if you build muscle, it's easier to have a lower bodyfat% because... more of your body is muscle. Basically I've seen a 5'10" guy with no muscle definition at 115 lbs. He wasn't fat by any means, but he didn't look "toned" or "Defined" or any of the other terms marketers made up. Generally you can lose weight while gaining "strength" during the novice part of a strength progression if you have the bodyfat to lose. 115 lb. guy would only gain weight, and would need to eat more. I started at 235, I ate less calories and gained strength as my body made use of my fat to recover from what I was doing.

Exiles: The Ruins of Ambrai by Melanie Rawn. Read it when I was thirteen... decided I wanted to be like the male protagonist... Worked out pretty well, all told.

Re-Reading Storm of Swords and Dance of Dragons. Just ordered How to Fight Presidents. Should be here tomorrow. Also Tokyo Vice was quite good.

Use pictures and measurements to give you a more accurate viewpoint of what's going on. Find ways to measure your progress in your exercises as well. For instance, in weightlifting, if you're weights are going up, and your bodyweight is staying the same, you're building muscle and having less fat. Tracking progress in the different exercises also benefits motivation by having more metrics to see your improvement than just the scale. My wife for instance had a tendency to neglect that she had dropped two pant sizes after starting Olympic weightlifting because the scale stayed the same.

Provide yourself with alternatives. Often times people look at things as basically. I eat the cupcake, or I don't eat the cupcake. For me it's helpfull, to have, instead of the cupcake I'll pan fry some bananas with honey, or I'll eat this thing that isn't as bad, but is still good. Breaking binging and other bad food habits in my experience works best by weaning back into your healthier choices. If you're in a binge, try to taper by making better choices, but not by going all-or-nothing. I have to get my diet back under control after repeatedly trying whole-30. For me trying to do whole thirty mentally changed my 80-90% paleo eating into basically, if I'm not having whole thirty I may as well have fast food. So now after several months of not even making the attempt if I try to go back to what I was doing before I'll keep backsliding. So now it's back to one step at a time, though it does go better when you've done it before. The biggest thing is to really take an honest look at where you're at and what you need to do. It can be frustrating to not be at a standard you were able to hold yourself to. I did very well for a while, but it fell apart when I started a new job with idiot co-workers and got in the habit of going out for lunch just to get away from them with the cool coworker I knew. So now I need to get back in the habit of taking lunches and keeping the fridge stocked and making little grocery stops when I'm out and about. What you counted as little wins before, are counted again. Don't discount the work your doing just because you've done it before.

Getting stronger helps you at martial arts,sports,dancing, and running marathons. There are other methods, I agree. Not knowing anything else I tend to recommend barbell training. Bodyweight exercise are great... but sometimes incredibly difficult to do depending on where the person starts from. A 300 lb. person may not be able to do a push up, but I'd bet I could start them out on an empty bar for bench and press. By the same token I know of one poster on here from the other direction who has super low bodyweight and so could start with pistol squats, but needs to work to get to a standard pushup. Do something fun, if you don't know what you'd have fun doing, see if barbell training is fun. If not, do something else.

It's when you find how you can enjoy the lifestyle changes you're making. For me it involved eating ribeye... basically for every meal, and having found exercise I liked to do. I hated running but kept trying to do it. It's a heck of a lot more satisfying squatting and then overhead pressing my friend than it is to pretend I'm chasing an ice cream truck.

Agreed, the whole doing it all as one circuit thing is primarily to make it a quick single workout, and to have it be a little bit better for conditioning. Like he said, just make sure you're moving on to harder exercises to drive progress.

Weight training. You'll be able to increment the weight to small enough amounts that you'll be able to gradually work it up. Overhead press is your friend. Starting strength is your friend. Appearance as a consequence of fitness. If you want to look strong... get strong.

"You're going UP! MotherF*****! UP!"

Here's how it works for me if I lay off paleo and then get back on. I'm hungry, so I end up eating more, then as my body adjusts I eat less. If I eat a steak with some eggs and tomatos I've still managed to consume half the calories of what I would get a burger king. The more unhealthy you were eating before the more noticeable this is. As you're body adjusts to you eating better food, it'll tell you it's hungry less than when you eat food that's less nutritious. Calorie counting and paleo don't seem to combine well, though maybe others have success with it. If you're eating paleo just eat, and if you're hungry. Staying Paleo is easier if you don't let yourself stay hungry.

Water, salt, and you'll get acclimated after you've done it a while.

Get the book Starting Strength from Mark Rippetoe. Get strong, and then whatever you decide to do, muscule ups, pistol squats, hockey, competitive napping. It all becomes easier.

Honestly and easier way is just to put weight on the bar.Start with a bodyweight squat, and focus on keeping your weight in your heels. Knees out is a great cue, but it doesn't do anything if your pushing them forward at the start of the decent. Get your ass back. Try thinking hips first.

Knees are way to forward Get your hips back first. You're going way below parallel. While you're learning I tend to recommend starting at parallel. You're dropping really fast, part of it is that is the light weight. You can easily get away with it. You're going to end up wanting to tighten up and stay engaged on your decent, this will slow it down and increase stability.

4-5 days is a lot of days to go to the gym if you're just starting out. 2-3 tends to be better and more successful, especially if you're adding dietary changes as well. If you're already accustomed to going, then never mind The main thing is that going from nothing to that much makes it harder to go at all, and generally if someone has decided to go four times a week, and can't do it, then they just don't go at all. It's better to succeed at going 2-3 days a week than it is to fail at going 4-5. For weight loss, from my experience and many others, it's all about diet. Again, remember gradual improvements last. While trying to push to much tends to cause backslides. This is also from experience. 80-90% paleo I could do after working up to it. Whole 30.. I ended up eating fast food... a lot. Because it ends up being all or nothing.

Some of these you may already be doing. but here's my checklist. 1. Heels shoulder width apart. 2. Toes pointed outward. 3. Inhale down into your abdomen (Belly breathing). Hold breath. 4. Tighten Abs. (Suck in stomach like you're trying to be skinny) 5. Hips go back. 6. Knees out Knees out Knees out. 7. Hit depth. Push out. 8. Knees out knees out knees out. 9. Lock legs and glutes at the top and breath out. 10. Repeat. Try to keep your weight in your heels. A non-compressible soled shoe helps with this a lot. Use a regular barbell, an EZ-Curl Bar is not ideal for squats. The weight should be on your back, not your hands and arms. Don't worry about embarrassing yourself. I have never personally seen anyone embarrassing themselves in a gym. Including people who were really worried about embarrassing themselves. Do 3 sets of 5 reps, and increase the weight by 5 lbs. every time you do the exercise. For a great resource get the Starting Strength book. It's like 30 bucks. You can learn to lift decently from it, especially when posting form checks like you just did. . Stronglifts is free, but not as awesome or as detailed. Good luck! You'll kick butt.

I don't even do curls, and the term curlbro is starting to annoy the hell out of me. How about instead of saying curlbro, you say "Guy I think I'm better than," the honesty would be refreshing, like a cool mountain breeze. I've yet to see one story where someone asked to use a rack or cage for squats when someone else was doing something that didn't need it and it turned into a huge thing, but these threads show up all the time. Maybe we should have a sticky just for: If you want to use a piece of equipment that someone else is already using here's a guide. 1. Are they doing the same exercise or working from a similar rack position? --IF so. Ask to work in. 2. If not, Does the exercise in question need to be done using the piece of equipment? --If Yes, politely wait until they are done. --If No, politely ask to use equipment for exercise that requires it.

I wouldn't use the smith machine, just learn to do the form correctly. Smith machine won't help with that. If you can already do 3 pullups. Just do pullups. Honestly though, if you want to build strength. Do Starting Strength. It works really well.

You're doing good. Switch to 3x5 and you should be able to keep progressing. You'll want to hit fractional for press and bench once they're stalling a lot and increase by 2.5, and Deadlift can be lowered to to 5 lb. increases. Working deadlifts helps avoid the chest coming down during squats. At least in my experience.

I've never had any particular issue with soft styles. It just bugs the hell out of me when people don't know what the movements they're doing are for. For some arts, the exploration of Bunkai(practical application) of forms are a big part of growth, but I've never liked the.. "move like this, and I'll tell you what it's for later... much later," methodology some arts have.

Standing.