<p>I went to the gym this afternoon. There I ran 3 plus miles on the treadmill, slowly, but surely–watching the food network on the little tv. I forgot my HR monitor. S2 thought this was a good thing because I wouldn’t give myself any breaks. He’s probably right. Maybe if felt better not having the chest strap on too.</p>
<p>S2 told me today that he’s soon going to try bulking on food. What? He wants to eat a lot to gain extra weight (while working out hard) which will supposedly allow him to build more muscle. He then will lose the weight but supposedly have the benefit of the extra muscle. I told him that sounded like an eating disorder, and not a very healthy way to get this added muscle. Oh, and I mentioned that losing weight after “bulking” might not be as easy as he thinks it will be. Stupid, but I’m just old mom.</p>
<p>Hope the toe is better for your workouts, Bromfield. I broke a toe years ago when I walked into a dumbbell in a dark closet. I was out of commission forever, it seemed.</p>
<p>Now I know why idad loves the box fan so much with the airdyne. I usually have the fan running with the AlterG but it wasn’t working today. BIG DIFFERENCE. Easy day today along with some core/stretch.</p>
<p>Any points of view on whether it matters to do weights before or after cardio? In my case, the cardio is treadmill running or sometime elliptical, and the weights are more arms / upper body. (Aiming for Michelle Obama arms one day)</p>
<p>Ok I bit the bullet today and did 45 mins of yoga. Hate it! I was sweating like a madman. Someone please remind me of its benefits? I will continue to do it as my routine calls for it during the “recovery” week.</p>
<p>Bodybuilder bro’ science. Bulk up and then starve down to get lean before the competition. It is true, obviously, that to add muscle (or fat), you have to be eating more than you burn. For anyone but a newbie, it’s almost impossible to add significant muscle without adding some fat (you can’t just make your body add 100% muscle and 0% fat when eating in surplus!</p>
<p>The reason I have no use at all for bodybuilder fitness and nutrition advice is that they are all juiced up on steroids.</p>
<p>However, even without the steroids, your son’s plan will probably work. Eat a lot of decent food and do a lot of strength training and he’ll get bigger and more muscular. The key, i think, is to scale back the eating once body fat starts to increase even a little bit.</p>
<p>I think doing strength training after cardio means that the strength training is always going to get short-shrift. Same thing with doing core exercises at the end of the workout rather than the beginning.</p>
It seems that whatever comes second will always get short shrift, then. I want to try to do both well. Would it be best to alternate? Or just listen to my body and do it whichever way feels right in the moment? Because sometimes I feel like I want to do cardio first and sometimes I feel I want to do weights first.
<p>Well, in that case, based on what iDad wrote, if I were going to be doing speed work such as intervals, I’d do the treadmill first because I don’t want to discover midway I’m too fatigued and fly off the back of the thing. If on the other hand the plan is for an easy run and lifting heavy weights overhead as the main challenge maybe I’d want to do the barbell first so I don’t wrench my back or clobber myself (not that I’ve ever used a barbell, lol).</p>
<p>In a mixed workout, I would do cardio/conditioning at the end. It typically doesn’t require much attention to technique, so if you are tired, it really doesn’t matter that much – you’ll just go slower.</p>
<p>Strength training should be physically very demanding with the last rep of each set being at or near the point where you can no longer maintain form.</p>
<p>I almost always have my main workouts printed out on a piece of paper ahead of time, so I just move down the list of exercises. I do warm up > core > power > strength. I do conditioning type stuff on alternate days.</p>
It’s no fun falling down on the treadmill, and it would really be no fun going down fast. I would say form does matter. I’m definitely not an expert on what should be done in what order, but I’d do whatever I felt wasn’t going to get me hurt. Bear in mind I also have <em>never</em> lifted heavy weights. I sure wouldn’t want to be doing that feeling woozy.
<p>Does anyone here do indoor rock climbing? I have watched my son, who does it 4-5 times a week, go from being extremely thin to being rather muscular and bulked up. In about a month and a half…he looks like a model for Eddie Bauer. Seeing such progress in such an incredibly short time, with absolutely no weight lifting, I’m wondering if I should do it. Though I’m such a wimp, I can probably climb about one foot off the ground. It is going to be hard.</p>
<p>Ha ha, Deborah. I was beat by an eight year old, I think. That really annoys me!</p>
<p>So if rock climbing is lifting your own body weight, maybe those extra pounds I’m packing on lately will help me bulk up in a hurry. I guess I never really thought of it that way, I don’t know if I can lift 130 pounds very easily. Not like these 10 lb barbells.</p>
<p>Yep. The movements would be very similar to single leg squats and pull ups, both of which are fantastic muscle building exercises. I suspect it’s a pretty good core challenge as well. </p>
<p>I bet that it would crank my heart rate pretty quickly. Large muscles, moving my entire bodyweight vertically. That’s pretty challenging exercise.</p>
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<p>When I was starting out exercising, bodyweight stength training was a big challenge and I think that is very common. In fact. many exercises require tricks to reduce the effective load of bodyweight (incline pushups, hanging onto a TRX for squats, etc.)</p>
<p>I was thinking about it today when I went from body weight to bodyweight + 40 lbs on the split squat. I was only increasing from 160 to 200 pounds. The added weight is a pretty small factor and not much harder than bodyweight alone.</p>
<p>Apparently the good thing about rock climbing is that you aren’t thinking about doing a specific number of reps, etc. You are just trying to make it to the top, it’s kind of like a puzzle, and you are concentrating on the challenge and not the boredom. I really detest lifting weights, never minded pushups, but caused too much injury that way. My son does it for about an hour, and it’s not for the exercise, but because he loves it. I would really like to find something that is so enjoyable that I do it because it’s fun.</p>
<p>Of course, the flip side of that is that if you can’t do another rep, you fall off the wall instead of just putting the dumbbell down! :)</p>
<p>From the little bit I’ve read about rock climbing (looking for tips on some of the rock scrambling I have do on hikes), the “secret” seems to be to use your legs and not try to rely on hands and arms to pull you up.</p>