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am I doing things right? help please.



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  #11  
Old 09-23-2007, 09:03 AM
k2_c k2_c is offline
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Thank you so much! I super appreciate all the help.

Okay, I’m pretty convinced. I’ll lessen my cardio and I’ll focus more on strength training and dieting. I’ll also try to have a more active lifestyle (taking the stairs instead of the elevator, etc.). I made a new schedule.

MONDAY and FRIDAY: full body strength training and stretching
TUESDAY and THURSDAY: cardio and stretching
WEDNESDAY, SATURDAY and SUNDAY: rest!

For strength training:
Chest: Dumbbell Bench Press, Straight Arm Dumbbell Pullover
Hamstrings: Dumbbell Lunges, Flutter Kicks
Lower Back: Superman, Stiff- Legged Deadlift
Middle Back: Bent-Over Two Dumbbell Row
Quadriceps: Iron Cross, Dumbbell Squat
Shoulders: Shoulder Press, Arm Circles
Traps: Standing Dumbbell Upright Row
Triceps: Bench Dips
Abs: Bicycle, Bent Knee Hip Raises, Side Bridge, Crunches, Stomach Vacuum
Biceps: Dumbbell Alternating Bicep Curl
Calves: Standing Dumbbell Calf Raise
Forearms: Seated Dumbbell Palms Up/Down Curl

Is this better? How long should my cardio sessions last? How would I know when it’s time for me to do more strength training and more/ less cardio? How would I know if what I’m doing is working or not?

Btw, I plan on starting to train for boxing again. Is that okay? I kind of miss it already. I used to practice 3 times a week but stopped about 3 months ago. That means I'll be doing cardio every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Eric: I read an article on cardio overtraining and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself because I feel/felt almost all of the symptoms which were mentioned there. I guess I was kind of obsessing about getting the body I want to have so I forced myself to do cardio every single day and kept on doing it even if I already felt uncomfortable. I’m such a loser! Haha! I just really have to accept that it takes more than just a few weeks to reach my goal. I guess it took Jessica Alba and other people as hot as she is several months or even years to get their bodies. I should’ve been more conscious about my body and health a long time ago!

IronKitten: Honestly, I’m still not sure if I’m eating right. She says I’m doing fine but sometimes I think I’m not doing so well. I love eating but I’m really not so relaxed when I eat. I’m scared that I might overeat or eat too little. It would help me a lot if she gave me an example of what and exactly how much I should eat the entire day. I’ll try to give her a call soon. Oh, and, is that you in your avatar? Wow.
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  #12  
Old 09-23-2007, 04:26 PM
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Pitysister Pitysister is offline
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yes that's her....hottie ain't she?
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  #13  
Old 09-24-2007, 06:23 AM
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hrdgain81 hrdgain81 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by k2_c View Post
IronKitten: Honestly, I’m still not sure if I’m eating right. She says I’m doing fine but sometimes I think I’m not doing so well. I love eating but I’m really not so relaxed when I eat. I’m scared that I might overeat or eat too little. It would help me a lot if she gave me an example of what and exactly how much I should eat the entire day. I’ll try to give her a call soon. Oh, and, is that you in your avatar? Wow.
I'll leave it to IK to help with your diet, since I dont have much experience with putting together female diets. but I wanted to agree with what she said here

Quote:
IMO, your dietician isn't doing anything for you in terms of what a true dietician does (please don't take that the wrong way). A dietician should be writing your nutritional programs for you, in specifics, not prescribing cardio sessions and just telling you to eat a lot.
There shouldnt be any guess work here, if your paying her to be your dietician, you shouldnt have to wonder if you eating the right things when you sit down to a meal. it should all be explained and laid out for you.
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  #14  
Old 09-24-2007, 01:23 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Quote:
For strength training:
Chest: Dumbbell Bench Press, Straight Arm Dumbbell Pullover
Hamstrings: Dumbbell Lunges, Flutter Kicks
Lower Back: Superman, Stiff- Legged Deadlift
Middle Back: Bent-Over Two Dumbbell Row
Quadriceps: Iron Cross, Dumbbell Squat
Shoulders: Shoulder Press, Arm Circles
Traps: Standing Dumbbell Upright Row
Triceps: Bench Dips
Abs: Bicycle, Bent Knee Hip Raises, Side Bridge, Crunches, Stomach Vacuum
Biceps: Dumbbell Alternating Bicep Curl
Calves: Standing Dumbbell Calf Raise
Forearms: Seated Dumbbell Palms Up/Down Curl
You won't need so many different exercises right now. You don't need a different exercise for "hams" and "quads" for instance. If you wanted to do lunges and squats that would certainly be fine. But lunges are not just going to work your hams and squats are not just going to work you quads. With lunges it depends on stride length. The longer the stride the more ham and glute emphasis and the shorter the stride the more quad emphasis.

For squats the deeper you go the more glute and ham involvement. You have to go at least a little below parallel for that. Higher squats will be more quad emphasis.

But what you won't to do is to pick one or two good movements and concentrate on progressing in strength on those movements.

Iron Cross, unless it's the only thing you're doing, I consider more a stabibility movement (core and shoulders). The weight is too light compared to squats and lunges to call it a "quad" movement. If anything it will help your legs recover in certain instances. I'd put ythat under your "ab" stuff, not forgetting that it involves the shoulders so that should be considered before adding other shoulder stuff besides the shoulder presses.

Bench press is fine but you may want to start out with pushups. How many can you do? Keep in mind that bench press will work your triceps so dips are optional. Also pullovers work the triceps to some extent.

For deads do regular db deads or Romanian (a better option that stiff legged deads). No reason not to do regular deads though.

Another really cool idea to think about is to do a metabolic circuit in place of one of your cardio days. Like anything else you would build on it slowly. So that would be something where you did a circuit of weight exercises going from one to the other very quickly with a minumum of rest in between (15 to 20 seconds) with higher reps than on your regular strength work...maybe up to 15. That would fit in with your needs to a T, imo. because it would both burn fat, be intense enough to raise post exercise OC, AND still build muslce and strength. Plus it would be more fun.

You could use those exercise varieties that you don't put into your regular fullbody strength sessions which would be very simple and short.

On the boxing that may be enough cardio just in itself.
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.
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  #15  
Old 09-24-2007, 02:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by k2_c View Post
IronKitten: Honestly, I’m still not sure if I’m eating right. She says I’m doing fine but sometimes I think I’m not doing so well. I love eating but I’m really not so relaxed when I eat. I’m scared that I might overeat or eat too little. It would help me a lot if she gave me an example of what and exactly how much I should eat the entire day. I’ll try to give her a call soon. Oh, and, is that you in your avatar? Wow.
First, are you paying her for being your dietician? Or is she just more of a friend trying to help you out?

A lot of people loosely throw around the terms "dietician" and "nutritionist." The two are very similar in terms of what they do, but the catch here in your situation is, you're not even getting a diet program. Dieticians and nutritionists specialize in writing meal plans and educating their clients in how to properly eat to attain their goals the healthiest way. So, to be quite blunt, if you're paying this woman for guidance, you're sorely being ripped off since she hasn't even gone over the basics or what your macros counts should be.

Now, if you're not paying her, and she's just someone that's supposed to be helping you out, I'd advise that you do some more research on your own, or perhaps enlist the help of someone more knowledgeable/willing to actually write you a program. Right now, you have no structure to your diet, no guidelines to follow. And that's a key point that you need to pay attention to in this kind of endeavor.

And yes, that's me in the avi
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  #16  
Old 09-25-2007, 03:48 AM
k2_c k2_c is offline
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pitysister: yes. very

about my dietician: yes, i paid her for the 2 sessions that I had with her. I'm actually not sure if I still am going to see her because the last time I saw her, she told me that I was doing okay and that there was no need for me to see her. She told me that I should only set an appointment with her when I needed more help. Then again, I obviously need help right now so I'll give her a call (I'll try to accomplish it this week) to clear up things. Hopefully, I'll get the information that I need & maybe she can give me a program I can follow.

I never really counted how many pushups I can do but I think I can barely do 4...or 3. If I try doing that instead of the bench press, would that be enough? Pushups also work the triceps, right? So if I do that, I don't have to dips anymore? I tried it and I can only complete 7 dips. I'll consider all of the things you've told me and change my workout plan.

How many reps/ sets must I do? I read several articles about it but the authors suggested different numbers of reps and sets. Also, how heavy should the weights be? Can you suggest a weight for the different exercises which I can start with?

I'l try the circuit thing some time. Is it okay to do that a day after my strength training?
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  #17  
Old 09-25-2007, 11:57 AM
EricT EricT is offline
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Quote:
I never really counted how many pushups I can do but I think I can barely do 4...or 3. If I try doing that instead of the bench press, would that be enough?
Well, it depends if you can only do 3 or 4 total or if you can do 2 or 3 sets of 3 or 4 and build on it. Most should be able to build on pushups pretty easily and for a little while, yes, it will be enough. And they of course work the triceps. Also you would probably be doing overhead presses with db's so that works triceps, etc. But since you can do SOME pushups it makes sense to master that a little more rather than going straight to weights...plus they are better for your shoulders. You can raise the challenge of pushups as you go along but the idea I was getting at was simply building up to perhaps 3 sets of 8 before you go to bench press.

ON the triceps, biceps or any other individual muscle questions you will not need to worry about all your "parts" being worked. The heavy compound exercises will hit everything and anything isolations you do will just be icing on the cake.

Also do you have a way to do pullups and if so, how are you on those. That is a WAY important exercise that will reap big rewards.

For sets and reps I would suggest starting with 2 sets of 8 for your big compounds. And for any isolations use higher reps.

You will hear about using lower reps for strength but at this point most of your responses will be non-specific. That really means that there is no combination that you "must" do but there are logical things to consider. You will basically grow and get stronger with pretty much anything you do at first. For the weight just pick a comfortable light weight. You don't need a formula, really.

The idea is you start with a fairly light weight and do the 2x8 sets and you focus on adding a little weight on it every workout. It may start out light but it will get challenging quickly, so don't worry about that. The reason I suggest only 2 sets is because that is enough for a beginner to progress on but is gives you more "practice"...and you know what practice makes plus it give your more ways to easily progress. So when it gets to where you have trouble adding weight you can add a set to the same weight...boom you've progressed another way. The thread I gave you before would suggest a logical base workout.

The circuit would be done of a separate day in place of a cardio session not after a strength workout.

I hope this answers your questions for now
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  #18  
Old 09-30-2007, 07:04 PM
k2_c k2_c is offline
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sorry it took me days to reply..

i don't do pullups. I really don't have a bar which I can use for that. Doing pushups is hard. I tried it again and I was only Able to do jUst 1!
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  #19  
Old 10-02-2007, 02:59 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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See if you can do something about a way to do pullups. You know they have doorway pullup bars....

What you can do to basically decrease the weight on the puhsups is to get the front of the body higher than the feet. Get the hands up on something ever how high you need in order to get a couple sets done...say at least 5. Then work on increasing the reps until you can do 10 or 12. Then you can get the front of the body lower and go again. That is a basic way to progress.

But I would recommend that you start out the sessions by doing ever how many regular pushups you can...even if it's just one. Then some rest and the other sets. I'm not just preaching on pushups from a strength standpoint. There are very beneficial things about them which include enhancing shoulder stabibility. Plus mastering you own bodyweight is a fundamental part of strength training, imo.

You could do pusups on one of your days and bench press on another if you wanted. But I recommend overhead press over bench press.
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