Man Cave - Any Guys on MFP?

benitocereno

I recently did a double-red blood cell donation that has completely kicked my *kitten* (about 1.5 weeks ago). The effects were evident in day-to-day activities the first few days, and now they only show themselves when I'm trying to get a nice hard workout in. Had to stop before my fifth set yesterday because I reached that "tunnel vision, oh **** you're gonna pass out!" happy place.

So, now I'm going to go on some iron supplements and casein powder - pretty sure I might be slightly anemic :grumble:. Guess that's the downside of living and eating most of my meals with a vegetarian! Fun fact that most mens' vitamins don't have any iron because people eat so much meat... so that hasn't helped any. Can't wait for the stuff to get here so I hopefully start feeling normal again soon, I miss the workout high!

kevbrinks

Hello. I'm a 25 year old male currently dealing with his quarter-life crisis. I sort of take this quote from Snow Crash to heart:

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest mother****er in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

I'm in the prime of my life, but in the worst shape of my life. I have a job that is not stimulating either emotionally, creatively, physically, or intellectually. It shows. 2011 is the year I'm turning it around. I am doing p90x (almost done with Week 2!), although I have lifted weights somewhat in the past. I also play piano and an obscene amount of video games. Otherwise I'm chilling with my fiance and probably watching Top Gear!

1) I am doing p90x right now, although once done I intend to do a mix of Starting Strength routines and Building the Gymnastic Body/Convict Conditioning exercises for a mostly body weight strength focus. I'd like to do Warrior Dashes and Tough Mudders in the future.

2) I eat whatever I want, whenever I want so long as I'm following the calorie and macronutrient budgets of the p90x diet plan. If I REALLY want a pizza, I plan out how much I'm going to eat, add it in to MFP in the morning, and budget my lunch/other meals around that. I find it is much less stressful thinking about dieting this way. I don't sweat "bad days" but I don't want them to happen more than once a month.

I make post-workout protein shakes in the morning and usually an after-dinner/before-bed shake too. I add about 2g of Creatine Monohydrate to the morning shake. During this season I go snowboarding a few times a month too, and hopefully when it gets warmer I'll have some outdoor/home projects to work on to stay active throughout the days.

rileysowner

This topic disappeared off of my topics and it took a Google search to find it. Man the search tool here are MFP really stinks. So now I post this to bump it back on my topics.

StuAblett

I'm bumping this too, I just found the thread! :bigsmile:

JohnnyNull

<snip>
Anyone else trying something different?

Well, I'm finishing up my last leg of my workout routine, and I'm spending far, far too long. Especially seeing as how I'm planning on starting Aikido soon. Can't spend hours and hours working out. So, I'm going to figure out how to trim the fat, and push myself harder in a smaller timespan. Also make time to run. I've done far too little this past year.

Also planning on putting together a sandbag of some sort. I think throwing around a hundred pounds or two in a field could be fun.

JohnnyNull

On the aforementioned topic of running, this being the Man Cave an' all, let me just put out there for the non-runners that are active in the bedroom:

Run.

Do it.

Not a marathon, per se. I like to hit six miles three to six times a week.

But run. Not jog. Not a boxer-run. Run.

Your partner will thank you.

And you'll thank me.

AmeMahoney

Oh THANK GOD, i mean i love ya ladies and all, but if i read or lay eyes on one more post about TOM, i will cave!

I dont know why all these girls are talking about TOM. Isnt he that guy with all those friends on MySpace!

hahah

He's my bodybuilding friend that I killed in a horror movie we did together. But he just moved to Florida. I miss him!
My husband laughed at me, because I had no idea what TOM was - he knew, and I didn't. How messed up is that?

Sorry, I was just poking my head into the man cave to pass out wings and beer. I'm leaving now.
Err...maybe not. Now they're all about birth control. I'll just back out of here r-e-a-l s-l-o-w.

grnyammer

I am doing the HMR meal replacement diet (lifestyle change). Also have my Daughter on it too. Seems to be going fairly well so far. This is our 7th week. I have only lost 12lbs. so far, but, I am not able to exercise loke I need too. (bad back). Need to burrn atleast 2000 calories a day to really get the weight off. FYI - this goes against the grain if you have reached a plateau and dont seem to be losing any more weight, try having a real meal. I know, I know crazy but it works. I beleive your body gets use to a certian (caloric intake, fat burning routine, or weight regimine) and neeeds a kick start to get everything back to where it needs to be. Just like you have to vary your work-outs to acheive the desired results. Sorry bout the spelling - -ain't me strong suit. Max

Caerphilly75

now we're talking - good thread.

- i think my approach is a little different that MFP advocates, i'm trying to bring in some tips/tricks used by bodybuilders. The main difference is doubleing up the protein and trading carbs. Also, i lift weights 3-4 times a week and only do cardio 2 times. The reason for this is cutting weight by cutting calories can cause you to lose muscle you have (even if you weren't "muscular" you probably have more just from carrying around a heavier body) and by upping the protein and reducing carbs, your body will tend to preserve muscle and burn fat for energy rather than burning fat AND muscle. I've just started (jan 11) on MFP, but prior to joining lost about 10 lbs first, so i'm down about 14 total.

My weightlifting consists of the basic compound movements all done with an inexpensive bench and dumbbell freeweights.

Chest - 4 sets incline dumbbell, 3 sets pushups
Back - 4 sets wide grip pullups (i am not light/strong enough yet to do these without assistance, so i use a stool and assist a little bit with my legs), 3 sets bent dumbbell rows
Shoulders - 4 sets seated dumbbell press, 2 sets lateral raises, 3 sets shrugs
Legs - 4 sets dumbell squats, 3 sets dumbbell deadlifts
Arms - 3 sets dumbell curl, 3 sets reverse dips (using the side of the bench)

Adding muscle and dropping the LBs at the same time is rewarding - i've already noticed a huge difference in my arms and shoulders, and the added lean muscle mass helps you burn more calories everyday!

I've tried to really cut out the booze, they are a killer for mainting a caloric deficit. Anyone else trying to work in weights instead of cardio? results and other ideas?

I took this approach and have been very happy with it, I just finished a year long program from a book called 'the new rules of lifting'.


I do strength training 3 days a week and cardio 2 or 3 times, but always leaving 1 rest day.

Down 60+ so far, i've 3 5k's this year and plan on a triathlon in the near future, I feel like I went the right direction.

rileysowner

There is some wisdom in what the Bodybuilder's do, but having done that in my youth I know it is not what I want to do now. I do use some of the stuff I learned back then since it simply works.

chrisdavey

I prefer the powerlifting type training rather than body building. BB's routines quite often seem to have a lot of isolation exercises and I much prefer the big compounds. A lot more efficient. Also, want to go and see a proper olympic lifting coach next week to get my olympic lifting technique checked out. Good explosive movements!

Teemo

I never do cardio while bulking. Light cardio while maintaining. HIIT + higher volume dumbbell workouts when cutting.

I've been curious about cross-fit / plyometric workouts but I don't think that's really my thing.

rileysowner

Bump

rileysowner

I prefer the powerlifting type training rather than body building. BB's routines quite often seem to have a lot of isolation exercises and I much prefer the big compounds. A lot more efficient. Also, want to go and see a proper olympic lifting coach next week to get my olympic lifting technique checked out. Good explosive movements!

Agreed. I have not read the recent BB stuff, but when I did it back in the 80's the stuff most recommended for putting on muscle was compound moves like Squats, not the isolation stuff. However, most of the routines they published in the magazines were of guys who bulked up long before and were the top of the heap in competition, thus they focused on isolation exercises. I fell into the trap of doing that and thinking it would put on lots of muscle, then I smartened up. Hey I was a teenager-twenty something at the time. Now I want to minimize my workout time, and I am not looking to get huge I just want more muscle than I have. I have seriously considered getting the Adonis Index stuff, but at this point I will stick to what I am doing as it seems to work. My primary goal is to lose the fat, when that is where I want it, and I bring my calories up more, then I will put a lot more effort into building muscle. I know exactly what to do, but it will take more food than I am currently eating to do it. Another 2-4 months and then I can focus on muscle building.

mrjason

New guy checking in! Grunt!

JohnnyNull

I regret all the hours and hours I put into foolish BB routines. I say foolish because it's not really my goal, so it's not really my tool. And the BB stuff is mostly what gets slung around all over the place. Especially when I was in HS and college. I'll do a little here and there to mix things up, but it's very much the least important thing I do.

When it comes to Olympic lifts, I'm on the fence. I've read Bompa say that they just don't activate enough musculature or nerves or whatever the hell it is.

For explosive things, I'm much happier lifting weights with explosive speed, and doing some plyometrics. Sometimes with weights, sometimes without.

Bompa talked about something he called Maxex training, I think it was. I'm sure there's been dozens of people with dozens of names for it since. But it's essentially a blend of weighted plyo's and where you lift a reasonably heavy weight, then do explosive movements of the same primary mover. So, bench, then drop and do a series of explosive push-ups. Or squat, then do some type of leaping/bounding. That kind of thing. Pretty *kitten*-kicking, overall.

@Teemo: Yeah, I looked into Crossfit a bit last year. Very silly, overall. Also, telling that the lead instructor dude I saw looked to be about 350#, and as wide as he is tall.

dengarrett

Yo! I wondered if and where the guys were.

For work outs - my staples are Wii Active Sports, Active Sports Plus, and sometimes the plain old Wii Fit games. I tend to have trouble with knees, so I steer clear of the routines that stress the joints. I sometimes will use a balance ball. For strength, I bought exercise tubes and follow the Active Sports routines. For about $25 you can get a full set of tubes that will give you all the strength workouts you need for any muscle group. I also spend a lot of time on my recumbant bike. I will typically do 20-30 minutes strength and arobics with Wii, and then 30-60 minutes on the bike. Total calories burned about 700 or so with max efforts. And I am something of a geek so I use a heart heart rate and a body bug to try to make sure my calories burned are accurate.

For meals - honestly I eat whatever I want, but I plan ahead on the calories. If we are planning a high calorie meal for dinner then I will plan exercise and meals ahead of time to make sure I am covered. But I do have some staples - salads for lunch and some homemade breakfast bars my wife makes and a banana or two for breakfast through the week.

Also - several things are coming together at once for us. We decided my wife would stay home to help take care of my grandson (so we know he is well taken care of). This led us to reassess our finances. We have cut $400 from our monthly grocery budget! A lot of the way we did it was cut out processed foods. My wife makes homemad breakfast bars instead of the Quaker chewy kind at half the cost. Same for bread - we already had a bread maker and can make a loaf for half the cost of store bought. Even the dog treats - the Blue Dog Bakery treats are great, but quite expensive. She now makes em.

We are also signing up for a CSA this growing season for the first time and planning to do some freezing and canning.

rileysowner

bump

chrisdavey

just finished first cycle of 5/3/1 on bench and SOHP. Made PB's for both Can't squat or DL at the moment because of injury

Still doing mma 2-3 times a week.

Doing lean gains style intermittent fasting for the last 3 weeks and has been working well.

Umm... also just started an additional volume workout. PLP pushup, lunge, pullup. Start at 10 each on day 1, add 1 extra of each every day for 2 months. Doing squats instead of lunges because of injury.

rileysowner

I thought of trying the lean gains approach to intermittent fasting, but Eat Stop Eat seems to work ok for me at this point. Maybe in the future.