your body your health

[gawkrodger]

Here's a quick workout for everyone using a Concept 2 rowing machine (I imagine it'll work with any rowing machine but the Concept 2 is the most well known, at least this side of the Atlantic, and has an interval setting). It will get you very fit, quickly, and does not take up much time in your day

Set the rower for interval training.Set the distance to 250 metres and the rest period for 30 seconds.This is a 100% anaerobic recovery workout,and that means you have to go 100% like someone is holding a gun to your head.Any effort less than that is not worth doing.You sprint for 250 metres at 100% effort (yes i keep saying 100% to make a point).You will achieve that in around 45-50 seconds.The machine then gives you a 30 second rest period,then you sprint again.You continue doing sets like this until your set is not within 10% of set number 1.A fit person will be able to do 6 sets. A very fit person will be able to do 8 sets. Anything above that is amazing and if you get above 10 sets you are abnormally fit

[MoFiya]

Sounds like HIIT to me.

[Faust]

yeh, really comes down to what you want to do. You want to become better at yoga? Do more yoga! Are there fitness goals? aesthetic goals? performance/athletic goals? What do you want to get out of any other conditioning?

If you want any kettlebell or bodyweight pointers/suggestions don't hesitate to ask

At the end of the day I just want to keep lean. But, also, the yoga that I am doing is not training all groups of muscles adequately (biceps, for example) and other exercises might help me do yoga better. For example, since I have started doing crunches every morning, my boat pose has improved significantly.

I think you might be right that body weight exercises are the way to go.

[gawkrodger]

Well yeh, it is, just one particular exercise which is quick and damn good

[gawkrodger]

@ Faust

Yeh, I think bodyweight with some kettlebells thrown in would work nicely.

Have a gander at Steve Maxwell on youtube for kettlebell stuff.

I enjoy bar/pull up exercises and these seem to be popular with the lads I know who consistently do a fair amount of yoga

[lionlimb]

re: eat me: Female bodies actually do have non-aesthetic functions.

t-bone & cowsareforeating, thanks! I started really hitting the nuts (COCONUT EVERYTHING) and changed my schedule around so there was time for an hour+ of yoga and weights and a major eggs / homemade sausage / cocoa / protein supplement breakfast every day.

Then, I got a nasty case of the flu. And yeah, I lost a few pounds but it was so much less drastic than usual, and I was back on my feet in record time. So I think that means I've actually managed to pack a little muscle on.
So exciting. Thanks thanks thanks.

Oh, and I have abs now. So that's fun.

[interest1]

re: eat me: Female bodies actually do have non-aesthetic functions.

t-bone & cowsareforeating, thanks! I started really hitting the nuts (COCONUT EVERYTHING) and changed my schedule around so there was time for an hour+ of yoga and weights and a major eggs / homemade sausage / cocoa / protein supplement breakfast every day.

Then, I got a nasty case of the flu. And yeah, I lost a few pounds but it was so much less drastic than usual, and I was back on my feet in record time. So I think that means I've actually managed to pack a little muscle on.
So exciting. Thanks thanks thanks.

Oh, and I have abs now. So that's fun.

You do realize you are talking to a predominately male audience, right?

[lionlimb]

Cranky feminist moment freudian slip?

[eat me]

re: eat me: Female bodies actually do have non-aesthetic functions.

Your post was about getting your fat % up. Beyond necessary amount fat has no functional qualities (or should I say fitness-assistive qualities, everyone's aware that we need fat for energy, vitamin absorption, insulation, etc etc), so I assumed you wanted to do it for aesthetic purposes.

[eat me]

Faust, try Kettlebell Meltdown 300 to compliment your yoga. It's quite basic and a good start for an all-round fitness.

Most popular variation looks like that - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRpbM9nzDcM.

I did it myself, it's fun.

[theetruscan]

Still your characterization of > 20% bodyfat on a female was wildly inaccurate. Also, it's not really clear yet where there are the best health effects yet between a very lean and a little bit "round" (which is well above 20% on a girl).

[lionlimb]

WARNING: MILDLY BITCHY TL;DR BUNNY TRAIL BELOW, FEEL FREE TO SKIP.

[Caveat:
I've hesitated to respond because I loathe loathe loathe fighting on the internet. Usually it's just folks beating each others' dead horses with their twisted panties, y'know, and nobody ever learns anything because we only read the other person's response to come up with our own comeback. So I'm really not just trying to win a fight here, I just think this stuff kind of matters and I have permanent rose colored glasses about people's ability to learn to see life from new perspectives because otherwise ugh let's just all die.]

Your post was about getting your fat % up. Beyond necessary amount fat has no functional qualities (or should I say fitness-assistive qualities, everyone's aware that we need fat for energy, vitamin absorption, insulation, etc etc), so I assumed you wanted to do it for aesthetic purposes.

I do get how that confusion could happen. But, let's be honest, I didn't say or imply anything about aesthetics. I did, however, very specifically, clearly, and repeatedly, talk about my health. I asked specific questions about strength building workouts, proteins supplementing, and (at the very end) how to keep my body fat from dropping. Also, I am playing on a very fine line when it comes to "necessary amount".

To clarify:

I have no problem with visible muscle, and my question was not aesthetically based. I've been casually lifting on and off for like 8 years, tend towards low reps / high weight when I'm not megafrail, and don't have some weird fear of bulking.

For women, fat does play some pretty important roles in health (thus why the minimal fat percentages are SO different in men and women) and if you drop too low major health crap can ensue. I knew I already had a fat % in the teens (which is literally the lowest you can go in the female body fat percentage limbo) and wasn't restricting in any way, and was about to start increasing my exercise. The goal was to build muscle, but if I dropped any fat (which would be the typical outcome of increased exercise with no other change), I'd be getting into major danger territory. So, in order to increase my exercise and MAINTAIN (not even necessarily increase, even though my current fat levels are borderline dangerous and I'd be happy to increase a little) my body fat, I'd need to increase either the volume or the efficacy of my fat consumption. I wanted advice on how to do that. I got some that was really good, and I really appreciate that!

However, you didn't actually respond to anything I wrote in my post, you responded to an imaginary, cosmo-mag swilling stereotype that wants to tone up but, like, doesn't want to look like a man and is really scared of losing her tits. That's… miles and miles away from anything I actually asked.

And really, even with the health vs. aesthetics miscommunication / misunderstanding factored in, there's a problem in that I asked for input on how to achieve a specific goal, and instead of helping me with that, you just jumped in and said my goal was wrong, and started telling me what you thought I should do instead. Even if my goal had been to just grow a big ol' slab of flab on my belly, what so wrong with that? This thread is full of folks asking for advice on wildly different body goals. In this hypothetical aesthetic-driven belly flab desiring post, I was asking for advice on how to do that, not your opinion on whether or not I should.

I asked a specific nutrition question and your response was "ARE YOU A GIRL? YES? THEN DON'T GET FAT". When I read your post I was running on a BMI of 15.3 and so flab was laughably not the issue, and if you had actually read anything I said or had knowledge to back up your advice, you would have known that. And you didn't, and you still thought you should tell me what to do.

And thus the dramatic frustration emojis.

And I promise you I get that you were not trying to be an asshole, that you were just trying to help, and it probably really sucks that now somebody is freaking out on you. I am only writing out this whole long thing so maybe you can question why it made sense to you to react the way you did and what that means about life and how we interact with other humans.

And I'm going to give up on trying to make this less rambly and ranty because I have an eBay auction on Yohji ending in like 37 seconds.

[t-bone]

Where's the *MIC DROP* emoji???

[viv1984viv]

^^best post I've seen for sometime. thanks lionlimb.

[sajsami]

I love the Internet