Do you work out?

What exactly do you do?

How often do you do it?

Where do you do it?

Why do you do it?

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"?

I do, sometimes. I play football twice a week and go for an occasional run at night, but other than that I hardly ever do any "muscle work-out". I do sports for social reasons, for health reasons and because I like the feeling, but spending hours on trying to make my biceps grow would feel a bit pathetic to me. I'm skinny and I like women who want a skinny, flexible, elegant cat, rather than a fat, idiotic bull.

I jog every week...sometimes 5 times other times 2-3 times

play football once a week..sometimes twice

but man at 39...im fit till i stop doing shit for a week then im panting like an asthmatic dog!

my 5 a side a team was me and all 20 something lads...i forgot how unfit we are in out 20's(bearing in mind im a geordie living in NZ and weirdly all the lads in my team are from the NE! so they are too busy smoking tabs and dinking most nights!!) so it was quite weird being the fittest out of our shower of shite!

tho i have noticed a trend especially amongst my fat mates..getting fit but not knowing when to stop

i always maintain i run 4ks most days.thats it.sometimes i run up a wee mountain(mount maunganui where i live)

and thats it.thats as fit as i want to be!

i dont want to run marathons etc these ex fat lads..jeez they get carried away with it all.

nek minute.cardiac arrest!

i used to love indoor football but NZ is so sickeningly PC you HAVE TO have a lass in your team

incase"it gets too competitive"

i fucking hate shit like that. Mind i did always go looks over skill when i chose the team!

Dave1992 said:

Do you work out? Yes. Ever since I was a teenager. I used to play basketball, used to run regularly and lift weights. And I´ve always loved swimming.

What exactly do you do? Fitness, moderate bodybuilding, and sometimes I run a few miles or go for a swim, depending on the season and location. And I love cruising around on my super sexy bicycle. The sexiest bicycle I´ve ever owned. An Electra!

How often do you do it? I visit the gym at least two or three times a week, or more if my busy schedule allows me to do so. I use my bicyle to get there so I don´t spend too much time on treadmills. My workouts are pretty intense, tough and brief. I don´t need more than 45 minutes in the gym. Maybe a bit longer if I go to the sauna or steam room afterwards.

To quote Melle Mel: "Anyone who spends more than 45 minutes in the gym is bullshittin´, and I ain´t got no time for no bullshit."

Where do you do it? Mostly the gym. I do my running in the park, right along the river, and I ride around town on my supersexy bicycle. Sometimes I play basketball, too, but these days I really suck at it.

Why do you do it? Fitness training, bodybuilding in particular, has a lot of health benefits as long as you don´t overdo it. It increases bone density, cheers you up when you´re feeling down, makes you strong and athletic, makes you look and feel good and is good for your hormones. It keeps you young,too. And folks just don´t mess with you if you look like you could fuck them up. And it can help you prevent a bunch of health issues if you do it regularly and if you stay away from excess.

I see it as a lifestyle, a way of life. It´s not just going to the gym but also making the right diet choices, learning about nutrition, how your body works and it boosts your confidence and makes you more disciplined.

Swimming and running make you feel good, too, and are both very healthy activities as long as you know how much is good for you. There´s no use in running if you have problems with your discs, knees or joints. But , other than that, it is a great way to boost your hormones, lose bodyfat, and it is good for your heart, too.

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"?

Yes! Definitely time and money well spent. I feel bad when I don´t go to the gym regularly, and when I do, I know WHY I do it.

I do, sometimes. I play football twice a week and go for an occasional run at night, but other than that I hardly ever do any "muscle work-out". I do sports for social reasons, for health reasons and because I like the feeling, but spending hours on trying to make my biceps grow would feel a bit pathetic to me. I'm skinny and I like women who want a skinny, flexible, elegant cat, rather than a fat, idiotic bull.

I hate football and most other team sports. Despite working out a lot, I would not consider myself a "fat, idiotic bull" but I have the utmost respect for those hardcore bodybuilders who may or may not look like "fat, idiotic bulls" because it takes a lot of discipline, determination and drive to look like that, even if that is not the look that I´m going for. My aim is to look athletic, slim, muscular and strong but not too buff. It is quite important, in my opinion, to still be able to walk and move with a certain elegance and style, not like the Incredible Hulk but to each his own. Every individual has to find out what works for him or her.

You don´t have to spend many hours a week to increase the size of your biceps. In fact, the biceps is a relatively small muscle and should NOT be the main focus of your workout sessions. Working the latissimus, the pecs, the deltoids, the trapecius and the abs and lower back is just as important, if not more important. And it´s the triceps that makes your arms look bigger, not just the biceps. The biceps is a cliché muscle, a stereotypical muscle that beginners work on excessively in order to develop big guns.

My reply didn´t come out the way I intended it to do. The bold stuff is what I wrote, including the bolded blue parts.

[Edited 5/28/12 15:36pm]

Let Arnold explain the secrets of the "pump" to you around the 0.32 mins. mark:

I used the biceps as an example because it is the "stereotypical muscle".

You see, I'm thinking this way... I'll work out and have a super hot body, all the ladies will admire my looks, my drive and my life-style, they'll fall in love with me and I will realise that I'm not happy PLUS having lost all this time in the gym (which, I will find, I probably could not even have spent on more fulfilling things, so fuck all) and then I'll kill myself.

Horrible!

Dave1992 said:

I used the biceps as an example because it is the "stereotypical muscle".

You see, I'm thinking this way... I'll work out and have a super hot body, all the ladies will admire my looks, my drive and my life-style, they'll fall in love with me and I will realise that I'm not happy PLUS having lost all this time in the gym (which, I will find, I probably could not even have spent on more fulfilling things, so fuck all) and then I'll kill myself.

Horrible!

hahah yes quite!

Yep, I work out four days a week. My routine is based on noted weight-lifter & nutritionist Dr. Layne Norton's.

Monday - upper body power

Tuesday - lower body power

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - chest & arms light

Friday - legs, back & shoulders light

weekends - rest

My gym is New York Sports Clubs - most of the time I'm at 36th & Madison branch. IMO, weight-training combined with cardio is the best way to keep in shape. At 51, I'm stronger and look better than dudes half my age.

[Edited 5/28/12 16:14pm]

uPtoWnNY said:

Yep, I work out four days a week. My routine is based on noted weight-lifter & nutritionist Dr. Layne Norton's.

Monday - upper body power

Tuesday - lower body power

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - chest & arms light

Friday - legs, back & shoulders light

weekends - rest

most american "drs" never turn out to doctors do they!

Dave1992 said:

I used the biceps as an example because it is the "stereotypical muscle".

You see, I'm thinking this way... I'll work out and have a super hot body, all the ladies will admire my looks, my drive and my life-style, they'll fall in love with me and I will realise that I'm not happy PLUS having lost all this time in the gym (which, I will find, I probably could not even have spent on more fulfilling things, so fuck all) and then I'll kill myself.

Horrible!

Like I said, the gym is not a place where you´re supposed to spend hours, unless you´re doing something wrong.

And...honestly, especially in the past couple of sunny days, I´ve seen more unathletic, unkempt and unaesthetic men strolling around in the parks with hot girls than bodybuilders or football players, or runners.

Attracting women is, in my opinion, the least important factor. And nobody´s forcing people to go to the gym, just like nobody´s forcing people to play football or basketball. I used to play basketball when I was a skinny teenager up until my skinny mid 20s...I liked the social aspect of it, meeting friends at the court, listening to music, impressing the girls. But these days the gym gives me much more satisfaction.

You make it sound more horrible than it actually is.

I find the thought of not doing ANYTHING physical, whether it´s football or fitness training, much more horrible.

People waste lots of time in their lifetime anyway, on really stupid things, and I´m not excempt from that. But the gym is not to blame for wasting time. It should be fun.

uPtoWnNY said:

Yep, I work out four days a week. My routine is based on noted weight-lifter & nutritionist Dr. Layne Norton's.

Monday - upper body power

Tuesday - lower body power

Wednesday - rest

Thursday - chest & arms light

Friday - legs, back & shoulders light

weekends - rest

In a nutshell, what exactly is Dr. Norton´s method about?

And...do you train your arms on Monday, or does your upper body workout consist of back and pecs and core training?

If you don´t train your arms on Mondays....is one session a week enough?

My friends train their arms only once a week but I don´t have a special routine, it all depends on the intensity of my last workout but, as a rule of thumb, I never train the same muscle twice within 48 hours. Recovery should at least be 48 hours.

Remember Taimak from The Last Dragon? He thinks overtraining is a myth but I beg to differ.

Right now my "workouts" are activities I enjoy, mostly bicycling to work and around and hiking on the weekends with my bf. I'm planning to start yoga again soon, and that practice for me is as much about the mental work as it is the body work.

I have trained specifically for running and I've done specific workouts at the gym as well. I go through phases of what interests me.

I don't care for team sports at all.

As long as you stay active and work your body regularly, a bit of cardio, a bit of muscle work, that's all that really matters.

^^ Kool, I think I answered your questions in one of our old fitness threads. Is there any way to bring those up?

Anyway, I hit each body part twice a week, heavy & light. Monday I do heavy sets of bent-over or t-bar rows, weighted dips, weighted rack chins, flat dumbell or barbell bench press, weighted dips, dumbell shoulder press, cambered bar bicep curls & skull crushers. Now when I hit chest & arms again on Thursday, I do more detailed exercises with light weight(between 60-70% of my max). It's a great routine - do it right, and you'll see results in @ 5 weeks.

uPtoWnNY said:

^^ Kool, I think I answered your questions in one of our old fitness threads. Is there any way to bring those up?

Anyway, I hit each body part twice a week, heavy & light. Monday I do heavy sets of bent-over or t-bar rows, weighted dips, weighted rack chins, flat dumbell or barbell bench press, weighted dips, dumbell shoulder press, cambered bar bicep curls & skull crushers. Now when I hit chest & arms again on Thursday, I do more detailed exercises with light weight(between 60-70% of my max). It's a great routine - do it right, and you'll see results in @ 5 weeks.

Ok, I just googled for them and found them ( and some REALLY old fitness threads on the org).

I need to work on proper form as far as dips and chin ups are concerned so I don´t use extra weights yet but hopefully I´ll be able to do more dips and chin ups soon and then I´ll add some extra weights ( I can only do 11-15 dips, and maybe 10 chin ups, I used to be able to do at least 20 but that was when I was 25 pounds lighter).

And I need to work a bit on my diet...I simply can´t eat huge amounts of protein rich food.

Kool, I know I posted Dr. Norton's link in one of those threads.

On weighted dips & chins, I do between 6-8 reps. I achieved my goal of 100 lb. weighted dips, 8x. I'm sore as a mfer, but I feel great.

I'm trying to do it if not every day, every other day. Most of the times now I walk down my yard every 15 times to burn calories/weight. Other times I do 10 pushups and situps (or if I'm lucky 20 pushups and situps). Better doing something than sitting around thinking it could disappear. Least I try lol

I work out.

I do several reps, lifting soda cans to my mouth, per day.

I do lots of bends...usually reaching for pizza.

I work out but no where near the amount of time I used to before becoming a parent. 2001-2002 I was the most fit. A typical 3-day workout was weights, then running, then swimming, then jeet kune do. Then my sinus and allergy problems brought all of that to a screeching halt. In 2003 was getting back to form and then reinjured my back which still bothers me to this day. Throw 2 young kids in the mix since then my workouts have been inconsistent ever since.

By no means am I making excuses though. Just 2 years ago I shed 30lbs and got my definition back. I'm just having to do what I consider wimpy workouts. They are effective, obviously, but I like and want to go hard like in the "old" days.

Dave1992 said:

Do you work out?

YES

What exactly do you do?

Push ups (30+30), sit ups (200), lift ups (100 reps for each arm, 20x5, 30 pounds), 15 pull ups (and improving), beach running (non-stop 35-40 minutes, including an area of stair climbing, yeah I know, that's something you would see in a Rocky movie, lol), and aerobic sometimes, at home (30 minutes)

How often do you do it?

running; 2 days a week, normally in wednesday and sunday

lift ups and push ups: everyday

rest of the exercises, like 3 days a week, if I have the time

Where do you do it?

home/gym/street/beach, always during the evening

Why do you do it?

because it's healthy and the way humans are supposed to be: healthy, strong and slender; the decadence of the human body started during the 18-19th centuries...and don't get me started with the 20th Century : the golden era of coach potatoes; ok, that sounded like nazi propaganda, but you know what I meant, lol

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"?

It's absolutely necessary and rewarding. I wouldn't trust the judgment of someone who said "bah, it's not worth it". I can tolerate/understand laziness/lack of time, but I don't respect the "anti-exercise" folks, those who say it's not worth it, a waste of time, pure arrogance/narcissim, a way of dealing with image/personal issues and blah blah blah similar bullshit.

[Edited 5/28/12 19:24pm]

I play alot of Dance Dance Revolution when i get the chance for a hour or two.

JoeTyler said:

Dave1992 said:

What exactly do you do?

Push ups (30+30), sit ups (200), lift ups (100 reps for each arm, 20x5, 30 pounds), 15 pull ups (and improving), beach running (non-stop 35-40 minutes, including an area of stair climbing, yeah I know, that's something you would see in a Rocky movie, lol), and aerobic sometimes, at home (30 minutes)

[Edited 5/28/12 19:24pm]

I don't understand this reps / sets business. Do you just stop to catch a breath? Switch arms? What is 30 plus 30 pushups, bookending the workout?

Do you work out? Yes

What exactly do you do? Mostly weight training and cycling

How often do you do it? 3 - 4 times a week

Where do you do it? The gym and cycling outdoors

Why do you do it? To stay fit and because I enjoy being active

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"? Time well spent. My overall health is very good and staying active will only contribute to that.

Do you work out?

Yup. For the last 6 weeks, very aggressively with a change to my overall diet.

What exactly do you do?

3 days on / 1 day off

Day 1: Chest & Triceps

Day 2: Back & Biceps

Day 3: Legs & Shoulders

Day 4: Rest (day off)

I also job 1 to 2 miles (will try to get up to 4-5 in a few weeks)

each of my "on" days.

How often do you do it?

See above

Where do you do it?

The gym near where I live.

Why do you do it?

Vanity. Fear dying like my asshole father did.

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"?

Yes. I do.

People who tell you that working out too much is bad for you and causes lactid acid buildup, etc. etc. are usually fat. I've struggled with weight now for almost 7 years, and it's always because I eat like a hog and pamper myself like a diva. Fuck that shit. Time to punish myself.

No...

I break into a sweat having a shit

I used to be into Cross country running and Football (that's soccer to some of you )

Dave1992 said:

Do you work out? yes

What exactly do you do? jog / walk and i carry those lill girly weights to tone my arms

How often do you do it? 2 times a week - but it should b more

Where do you do it? park, streets, tread mill at home

Why do you do it? fitness and meditation ~ it's actually relaxing

Do you think it is time well spent/invested or do you often wonder whether it's "worth it"? Yes of course it is, esp when u see the results

[Edited 5/29/12 13:39pm]

Cinny said:

JoeTyler said:

[Edited 5/28/12 19:24pm]

I don't understand this reps / sets business. Do you just stop to catch a breath? Switch arms? What is 30 plus 30 pushups, bookending the workout?

lol! of course I stop to catch a breath, it's 30 + pause + the other 30

and of course I switch arms: 20 right arm + switch + 20 left arm, etc; 20 x 5

I like that method because it gives you a tangible objective, and it also allows you to upgrade the level if necessary, I mean, when you realize you can do 20 x 5 lift ups very easily, then it's time to add more weight or whatever...

imago said:

Do you work out?

Yup. For the last 6 weeks, very aggressively with a change to my overall diet.

What exactly do you do?

3 days on / 1 day off

Day 1: Chest & Triceps

Day 2: Back & Biceps

Day 3: Legs & Shoulders

Day 4: Rest (day off)

I also job 1 to 2 miles (will try to get up to 4-5 in a few weeks)

each of my "on" days.

pics?

I haven't set foot in the gym for nearly a MONTH now.

PurpleJedi said:

I haven't set foot in the gym for nearly a MONTH now.

No time for baclsliding!

uPtoWnNY said:

PurpleJedi said:

I haven't set foot in the gym for nearly a MONTH now.

No time for baclsliding!

Dude, I spent 2 weeks with my nose to the grindstone at work, putting in all types of crazy hours.

THEN, I caught whatever nasty bug was floating around the office, so the next 2 weeks I was all hacking and miserable.

YESTERDAY I was supposed to start up again.

...but my friends invited me to a BBQ...it was sunny and the beer was cold...didn't get home 'til almost midnight.

I plan on going tonight (after I have dinner with the kids)...probably gonna need to start off light & easy since I've probably lost whatever gains I'd previously made.