Two-part post here today. No workout last night (Wednesday night is Gumdo night, and since I’m in the future, it was Wednesday last night) so I thought I’d suplement the blog with this:
Simple diet tips
As some of you may know, I’m currently eating according to the paleo diet. A few people (my girlfriend included) have made a few valid comments like “beef and chicken are domesticated food, you should eat monkeys” and “combining ingredients is very unpaleo” – I’m not belittleing those comments here, they are both excellent points, but it prompted a thought in my head, leading to the following vital tips when dieting:
- Above all else, a diet must be feasible.
- A diet should not place unreasonable expectations on someone. I don’t mean things like expecting somebody to eat bland or boring food – unfortunately a lot of nutritional food is bland and that’s just life – I mean expecting somebody to eat a monkey. Where do you get monkey meat from anyway? Another prime example is the banana diet – I like bananas, but who the hell wants to eat them all day every day?
- A diet should be sustainable. Any diet that can only last for a month or two (read: MOST modern ‘diets’) can only last that long for a reason. For example, the banana diet again. Sure, you can live on bananas – for now but they just don’t contain enough nutritional value to keep you running for an extended period, which makes the diet completely worthless.
- Don’t implement a dramatic diet change and expect to complete hard workouts at the same time.
- I don’t mean for ever, just for the first week or two. When you significantly change your bodies main fuel source, it takes a while to adapt. In the first week, you’ll probably feel tired, experience headaches and just be low on energy in general – this is not a good time to work out. Give it a week, two if needed, and you should feel up to the task.
There you go, two simple rules that occured to me. Maybe I’ll come up with some more at a later date 😀
Also, on the cow vs monkey thing – the sort of meat available would have depended on the physical location. Obviously a rainforest would be more densely populated with monkeys than it would be with cows, but you’d be unlikely to spot too many monkeys in mainland Europe. Cows, sheep and chickens on the other hand…
Resistance training (for weight loss)
Somebody asked yesterday where to start with weight lifting when losing weight. Weight lifting is excellent for weight loss – it has the potential to burn way more calories than traditional cardio.
Lets use running as an example: Say you run for 30 minutes on a treadmill. The machine says you burnt 400 calories. The problem is, as soon as you cool down from that run, your metabolism returns to normal, so you’ve literally burnt 400 calories.
Now consider resistance training. If you spend 30 minutes doing intense resistance training you will easily burn 400 calories on the spot, but once you stop your metabolism will continue to work hard for hours afterwards – your body has to repair the damage you just did to your muscles, and this takes energy (calories).
On top of this, there’s an added bonus. Resistance training builds muscle, and muscles need energy to work. The more muscles you have, the more energy you need to sustain them, which means you’ll burn more calories than you otherwise would.
“But Luke,” you say, “I don’t want to bulk up! I want to trim down!”
Fair point. Most people would now say “It’s ok, if you’re restricting calories its impossible to bulk up!” – in my experience this is not necessarily true. Personally, I find I can quite easily gain muscle mass with restricted calories, and I believe this depends entirely on a persons genes. Those that gain muscle easily, will probably find they can bulk up even with restricted calories.
But come on, seriously? Who doesn’t want to be muscular? And hey, if you don’t want a raging 6 pack, good news. People with 6 packs don’t have them rippling through their shirt when they’re just standing around – in most cases they aren’t visible at all unless they flex the abs, and this is true for most muscles. If you don’t want to look bulky, don’t walk around with your muscles tensed.
Alright, so how should you start?
Firstly, there are some guidelines to follow.
- Do only compound movements (using multiple muscle-groups). Isolation movements are for body sculpting and are a waste of time for weight loss. To burn maximum calories, you need to activate as many muscles as possible at one time.
- Don’t cop out and lift tiny handweights. I call these “house wife weights” because I always see stay-at-home mums at the gym using them. Anyone that tells you its ok to use a 1kg dumbell is either lying, or they’re an idiot. More weight = more effort = more calories.
- Don’t use machines. The machines discorouge muscle co-ordination by removing the need for stabilization muscles to work hard. If you do a chest press with a barbell, you’re engaging the legs, glutes, abs, back, shoulder and arms to hold they weight up – if you do a chest press at a machine you’re engaging the shoulders and arms. See the difference?
- Be safe. If you can’t safely do a lift, or can’t lift the weight you’re trying to pick up, don’t. You’re going to hurt yourself, somebody else or damage the weights. Be sure to look after your back, knees and other joints. Do not ever throw a weight to the ground once you’re done with it. A lift is not complete until the weight is sitting on the floor, or back in the rack. If you drop it accidentally, or to avoid hurting yourself, well fair enough…
Secondly, what exercises should we do?
- Deadlift. This exercise rocks and I love it, despite it being really damned painful.
- Overhead squat. Like a squat, but better. Holding weight(s) over the head is way harder than a regular squat and much more fun.
- Front squat. Like an overhead squat, only sissier.
- High pull. I really enjoy this exercise!
- Press. Nothing is more satisfying than getting a heavy weight up over your head! Combine with the clean for more fun.
- Clean. Learn to pick stuff up safely.
- Ball slam.
- Pullups. Come on, you know how to do these. Assisted pullups are acceptable if you can’t do them un-assisted.
- Pushups. Remember to keep the bum down and the stomach up!
- Box jumps. These suckers will tire you out much faster than you think…
The above exercises should be more than enough to keep you busy, but you should also know how to put them together to create a solid workout.
Here you’ve got several options. The first option is to do x sets for y reps of one exercise, then move on to the next exercise, and so on until you’ve finished.
The second option is super-sets. Do one activity for x reps, then do another activity for x reps immediately after, then repeat for y sets.
The third option is stations. Do each activity for x reps with little to no rest inbetween, then rest at the end, then repeat for y sets.
Personally I feel that cycling between all 3 is best. It stops your body from adapting to a single workout too quickly.
Next, you need to choose your exercise. Anything over 6 lifts is probably a bit excessive. You should try and split them evenly between push/pull exercises for example follow a high pull (pull exericse, obviously) with a military press, or a pullup with a ball slam.
Example program
I realise all the information above might be a bit confusing, so here is a sample workout using a circuit format.
- Deadlift – 10 reps
- Pullups – 10 reps
- Front squat – 10 reps
- Military press – 10 reps
- Rest 2 minutes
- Repeat 4 to 6 times (depending on level of exhaustedness)
As you can see, the above exercises are well distributed between upper and lower body, providing a rest between each, and use exercises that engage as many muscle groups as possible.
Here’s another example, using super-sets:
- Set 1 – repeat 3 times:
- Set 2 – repeat 3 times:
- Set 3 – repeat 3 times:
- 5 Overhead squats
- 10 box jumps
The above workout is split between push/pull. This will give you a nice even level of rooted-ness by the end of the workout.
How heavy?
It will take a few workouts for you to get a grasp on what size weights you can handle, but a general rule that I work by is if I feel like I can complete another full set at the weight I used, I need to go heavier. For example, if I finished the overhead squats in the above workout at 50KG, and I could still manage another 5, I should have moved up to 55KG (or higher, depending on how fresh I was afterwards).
This will ensure not only that you continue to gain strength, but also that your system is still strained, burning maximum calories.
How often?
If you’re doing resistance training properly, you shouldn’t even be able to think about doing it more often than every other day. On top of that, you should have at least one 2-day break, so 3 times a week is about right.
What about my abs?!
If you’re asking this question, you obviously haven’t done any of the exercises yet. Firstly, the abdominals are not actually intended for crunching motions. Secondly, most of the exercises above will use the abs for their intended purpose – holding you upright while you lift up some heavy s*@t.
So please – forget about situps and never do them again. Except when you need to sit up – then they are invaluable.
But what about…
This is absolutely not the be-all end-all of resistance training. I could go on for hours, and I am not a strength coach. If you have a suggestion, question, what ever please do comment!
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