Some tips and things...

[Mulls]

Several people have pm'd me asking questions about fitness, working out, dieting, etc. If you ever need any help with these things, always pm me and I always type up several paragraphs with explanations and suggestions, but there are a few things that I tell everybody, and so instead of typing it up to those who inquire, I figured it'd be better to let everyone know this.

Number one:
If you're trying to lose weight, cardio is supplemental. I know it seems like it's the thing that burns all your calories, but it's not. Losing weight starts with nutrition, and carries over into strength training. If you're trying to cut down weight, you may do MORE cardio, but I know of people who desperately try to lose 50 pounds just by running every day. Here's the equation I give everyone.
1 hour of INTENSE cardio (keeping your heart rate high, sweating, panting, shouldn't be able to continue for much longer than 30 minutes) can burn 500 calories if you have a HIGH metabolism. That's the best possible scenario (which people losing weight aren't going to have, and they're not going to be able to continue intense cardio for an hour usually either, but bear with me). A pound of fat has about 3500 calories. This means that 7 hours of INTENSE cardio, provided you take in 0 calories afterwards, will burn one pound of fat. How long does it take you to do 7 hours of cardio...most people do 3 half hour sessions in a week. And that's one pound! What if you're trying to lose, as i said before, 50? That's 350 hours of cardio, and that's if you were taking in 0 calories every day. It's just not going to happen.
Find a good strength training routine. The more muscle you have, the more calories you're burning. You'll also burn a good deal of calories if you make your strength training short and intense - shorter breaks between sets, longer and slower sets, more compound exercises - this makes your strength training routine have some cardio in it too!
PM me for a good split routine at the gym, i have all the exercises typed up, and otherwise, I give this routine to people all the time...it's called 'The Marine Workout', but don't be fooled - it's not corny, and it's no joke. This will have you dying.
http://www DOT military DOT com/military-fitness/marine-corps-workouts/marine-workout (website blocks out URLs, im assuming you'll know how to fix this)

Number two:
Diet. What workout can i do to get a six pack? How many repetitions in a set will help me cut?
You get a six pack or just 'cut' by pretty much eliminating fats from your diet. Don't listen to people who talk about rep ranges, it's bs.
If you're trying to lose OR gain weight, you should be eating 4-6 meals a day. If you're tryin to lose weight, cut out fats and carbs and make the meals small, like some veggies and a handful of nuts as a snack. If you're trying to gain it, eat pasta all damn day. You can keep track of your calories if you want, and there are calorie calculators for weight gain, loss, and maintenance all over the internet.
I tell everyone this: protein + fruit before noon, protein + veggies afterwards. Get protein every 3 hours. Avoid eating crappy food...all that high fructose corn syrup and additives will keep you full for an unnaturally long period of time. I eat oatmeal and a banana and a protein shake every morning and 2 hours later i'm hungry.

Number three:
Preventing injuries. Don't be the guy at the gym who has too much weight. You look like so much more of a jackass than the skinny guy who can control it. Do your exercises SLOWLY. Remember, the negative (a positive is where the muscle is contracting to LIFT the weight, and a negative is where it lengthens to LOWER the weight) is actually proven to be more effective than the positive! You might not be able to do pull ups forever, but you can certainly jump up, grab the bar, and let yourself down once you can't do any pull ups. The body can handle more weight with a negative, and you're actually involving some of the opposing muscles when you're letting yourself down (back and bis keep you up, but you have to let yourself down using a bit of your chest and tris too). That being said, don't be letting the bench press bar bounce off your chest...let it down slowly, PAUSE, and explode up.
For ANY upper body exercise, warm up your shoulders with 5 pound weights and arm circles. Do some military presses with the weights, some front raises - just work your shoulders with LIGHT weights until you feel a little burn and then give it a rest.
WARM UP - 5-10 minutes of fairly intense cardio before a lifting session!
Jumping weights - I see people start off with 135 on squats, then go to 225, then to 315...take it easy with how you jump the weights...135, 155, 185, and 225 would be better.
DONT WORK THROUGH PAIN! People tell you to 'suck it up'? They're retarded. Muscle pain, like a BURN, is fine, and you should be burning if you want results. But you know, your BODY knows, when something is wrong. Ever tweaked your lower back, or your neck? You know. And joint pain is NEVER good. If you have real joint pain, don't pm me or google it, go to a professional who can see you face to face and figure out what's up. A rotator cuff injury is all it takes to ruin your shoulder for EVER.


You don't have to read all of this, I would hope people would though. None of this information is going to hurt you, only help you, and I don't need to be training people to give them information that will prevent them from being injured or from lagging in their goals. Everyone here is trying to do the same thing I am, and I always like to see people succeed. Give me a PM any time, unless it involves life in the Marines, in which case - you know where to post it.

[BrianW]

It makes sense that the people that just do cardio barely lose weight, good info

[sbombard15]

Good post mulls.

[FastEddie4004]

Good Post..

See you at MCRDPI Mulls,

[spartan0509]

nice post, Mulls, especially injury prevention!
Two things I think differently about, from my own experience:
Diet: do not completely cut fats out. There are good fats, and bad fats. McDonald's=bad fat; salmon=good fat. Your body needs small amounts of good fats. A better idea is to cut out sugar. The reason I say cut sugar before fat is that sugar is an immediate energy source, and if it's not used immediately, it's converted to and stored as fat.

Cardio: It has an important place in a weight loss plan. I lost fifteen pounds without a dot of strength training (well, I did wall pushups). Combined with eating less, I ran it off. Of course, I didn't double my hang time with running. Weight training gets important once you get the first pounds off with diet and removal of rear from couch and you start needing strong and/instead of skinny.

[Mledford]

Good post!

[USMC Sokol]

Good information Mulls.

I've noticed that a lot of people overlook those who are underweight and trying to GAIN WEIGHT. lol

[Mulls]

nice post, Mulls, especially injury prevention!
Two things I think differently about, from my own experience:
Diet: do not completely cut fats out. There are good fats, and bad fats. McDonald's=bad fat; salmon=good fat. Your body needs small amounts of good fats. A better idea is to cut out sugar. The reason I say cut sugar before fat is that sugar is an immediate energy source, and if it's not used immediately, it's converted to and stored as fat.

Cardio: It has an important place in a weight loss plan. I lost fifteen pounds without a dot of strength training (well, I did wall pushups). Combined with eating less, I ran it off. Of course, I didn't double my hang time with running. Weight training gets important once you get the first pounds off with diet and removal of rear from couch and you start needing strong and/instead of skinny.

you're right, but if you read my post, i said if you want a SIX PACK, or you want to get CUT, which is what most people ask personal trainers, THEN you're pretty much cutting fats out...a six pack is very hard to get otherwise unless you have great genetics for it. but yeah, i could have made that more obvious. get your fish oil, folks.

and also, i said, cardio should be done MORE if you want to be losing weight, but it shouldn't take over your exercise plan.