Intermittent Fasting Support Group?

Body weight stuff is just fine for it. I have weights, but prefer body weight work as it gives me just as good a workout and the movements are often more functional. Stuff like leg extensions and other isolation movements are not that natural, and while there is a place for them their use is limited. I would suggest not discounting body weight exercises as not strength training. They can be very good for strength training as long as you know how to increase the difficulty. For example a push-up. To make it easier people can either do it from their knees or place their hands on a raised surface. To make them more difficult keep your hands on the ground and put your feet on an elevated surface like a step or bench. To make them even more difficult put your feet on a stability ball and you have even more of your core engaged. Or when you can do them with your feet elevated, bring your feet down and do them one armed. To top it all off go to the planche push-up.

Most body weight exercises can be made more difficult either by changing how they are done, or by pre-exhausting helper muscles. Again using the push-up as an example. If you pre-exhaust the triceps it forces the chest muscles to work more.

Great places for body weight workout info are www.bodyweightculture.com (free) www.bodyweightcoach.com (pay although they have a free program you can sign up for) marklauren.com (free stuff but he has an excellent book on body weight training)

Some BS hard stuff here!
http://www.beastskills.com/tutorials

I love it. Can't wait to be not injured so I can get into more of this stuff.

Pork_belly: are you male or female? And I assume you mean 10% body fat not BMI?

Thanks for the info. I will have to check it out. I guess the reason I never considered it strength training is that I like to hit the "irons" for their weight albeit low reps. I can do my bodyweight easily and end up having to do higher reps to push myself. I do decline push ups and vary the weight and angle of my arms depending on when I want to hit my chest, different parts of the chest, or my triceps.

Another Bodyweight Culture article, this one courtesy Cheesedog at:

http://www.bodyweightculture.com/forum/showthread.php?11058-Bodyweight-Strength-Training

Bodyweight Strength Training

People are always asking about strength training using only bodyweight. This is nothing new or revolutionary. I am borrowing HEAVILY from Rippatoe, Bill Starr, and lots of other great authors and trainers. This is your basic 5 x 5 template. (To clarify, 5x5 is 5 reps x 5 sets. The idea is to work at a difficulty level where you could only do maybe 7-8 reps on the first set, and are struggling to finish 5 reps on the last set). You would do strength training 3 times a week, say Monday-Wednesday-Friday with the weekends off. These are done "lazy circuits" style, with about 1 minute rest between each set.

Workout A
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Horizontal push - 5 x 5
1C. Horizontal pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - flexion - 3 x 5
2B. Ab - static 3 x 30 seconds

Workout B
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Vertical push - 5 x 5
1C. Hip dominant - 5 x 5
1D. Vertical pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - rotation - 3 x 5
2B. Grip and neck training - 3 x varies

Exercise Progressions - with regular weight training you can just add weight to the bar. With bodyweight progression is mostly about changing your leverage. These are just a few examples, I'm sure we could come up with dozens more if needed. You can always add resistance in the form of a weighted vest or backpack or resistance bands.

1. Knee Dominant -- squats, lunges, step-ups, bulgarian split squats, unilateral bent leg deadlift, partial one leg squat, one leg squat, box or stair pistols, full pistols.
2. Horizontal Push -- pushups, decline pushups, resistance pushups, side to side pushups, stair one arm pushups, negative one arm pushups, full one arm pushups.
3. Horizontal Pull -- body row, resistance body row, negative one hand row, incline one hand row, full one hand row.
4. Ab - flexion -- crunches, situps, resistance or incline situps, reverse situp, resistance or incline reverse situps, hanging knee or leg raise, hanging pikes, rollout from knees, rollout from feet, dragon flag. Also included are oblique moves like side lying crunches with or without resistance and side lying two leg raise.
5. Abs- static -- 4 point prone bridge, 3 point prone bridge, 2 point prone bridge, 4 point supine bridge, 3 point supine bridge.
6. Vertical Push -- pike pushup, hindu pushup, divebomber pushup, decline pike pushup, decline hindu pushup, decline divebomber pushup, one arm pike pushup, negative handstand pushup, handstand pushup with head touching floor, full handstand pushup.
7. Hip Dominant -- supine hip extension, good morning, one leg stiff leg deadlift, split one leg good morning, one leg supine hip extension, hyperextension, one leg hyperextension, natural glute-ham raise.
8. Vertical Pull -- jumping or assisted pullups, pullups, resistance pullups, side to side pullups, negative one hand pullups, one hand pullups. All these can refer to chinups or neutral grip pullups as well.
9. Ab - rotation -- twist crunches or situps, resistance or incline twist crunches or situps, russian twists, lying windshield wipers, standing rope rotations, hanging windshield wipers.
10. Grip and Neck Training -- for grip you can use handgrippers, deadhangs from a pullup bar (especially a fatbar or gripping a towel). For neck nothing beats wrestlers bridges. If you are involved in a striking martial art or sport, finger and fist pushups are very important also.

None of these lists have to end here. If you get strong enough you can always add resistance to your full range of motion one limb exercise. Or if you can do more than 5 one hand pushups do decline one hand pushups, or start working on one hand hindu and then eventually one hand dive bombers, and so on.

The nice thing about this routine is it scales dramatically depending on your fitness level. If you can't do even ONE regular pull up, you can scale it down and do assisted pull ups (legs on a chair), or ballistic pullups (where you jump to provide the initial momentum). It's actually easier to do properly when you're very unfit...because once you're healthy and strong...you're going to be searching for challenging enough exercises to only allow you 5 reps max by the finish of the 5 sets

all part of the "journey" mate Stick with it and you'll be down to 15% in no time.

BTW awesome progress already!!!

Yeah, I suppose IF can seem a bit extreme to some but you just need to have a bit of will power and self control really. I'm also a big advocate of full body resistance training at least until a solid base of strength is achieved.

Although, in saying that I still do like my cardio. I love to have fitness for mma, burpees, mass pullups etc. Not really interested in long distance running anymore but I can see why some people like it.

Do body weight complexes. Pick about 5-10 exercises, preferably not isolation type exercises and don't do exercises that use the same muscle groups back to back. Do 10 reps of each exercise as fast as you can with good form, immediately go to the next exercise with no rest between them. Go though all the exercises this way which is one set. Rest 60 seconds to 90 seconds and repeat 2-3 more times. This really gets the heart rate up if done correctly.

Or you could do something similar but do the exercises based on time instead. Say 30 seconds or 60 seconds each doing as many repetitions as you can then immediately going to the next exercise through the whole list. Rest 60-90 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.

Of course there is always the Tabata protocol of doing an exercise for 20 seconds with only 10 seconds rest for 8 intervals. It will build up fitness really well.

I've only read a little bit about IF but I really enjoy the no eating after 9 or before 1...16 hour fast? I don't do it every day but I am trying really hard to get into that habit. I also enjoy 20 hr fast and sometimes 24 hrs but I do it for stomach issues as i'm not looking to lose much weight. ... so I don't do it often. It does feel good though. I like to be able to go out to eat with friends on "off" days and not feel bad about it that's the best.