Getting sick when you've been on a roll sucks. My friends and I had a bet to see who could put on the most weight over 3 months, I was well in the lead until I got a week long fever and didn't work out or eat
Wife and I are about to start BeachBody's Hard Core 22min workout on Monday. Anyone tried that one yet? In the past we've done Insanity, Insanity Max, and T25.
Never tried it. I'd imagine it will work if you follow it as prescribed. The thing I don't like about those type of programs is that they're not sustainable long term. Generally, even the people that see amazing results end up losing everything they gained from the program in the long run. It's just not realistic to maintain something like that. According to what I've read, there's a lot of evidence that the people that train the hardest initially end up sticking to it for the shortest period of time. If you go into it with a reasonable plan in place that you can stick to AFTER the program is complete then I guess it could make sense, but personally I'd recommend doing something that's less intense right from the beginning that you can commit to long term.
Its more a case you need to change your training. High intensity of anything can only be sustained for a short amount of time before physical and mental fatigue kicks in. If people are losing their amazing results from the program, thats down to them, not the program. Training should never stay the same. Beach body has enough varied content for people to try at all fitness levels to keep it fresh. On a side note, the Insanity max 30 is great for me to do twice a week on the mornings as fasted cardio.
Yeah, I realize that. The problem isn't with the program itself, but with the mindset of most of the people that gravitate towards this type of program. The vast majority of people go into it thinking one of the following: I'm going to bust my ass for a month or two and get into great shape. I'm superman and I can keep up this degree of workout intensity indefinitely. Starting with either of these mindsets is a recipe for disaster, and is the reason most people don't see long term positive results. If a person legitimately goes into it knowing that this is just one step of a process that's going to continue even after the program is 'done', then there's no problem with it at all. Of course, this is true of just about any training program.
I'm finally fully recovered from my cold. When I initially came back from my trip out of town, I did a series of high volume workouts to break out of the monotony a little bit. It wasn't anything outrageous like Doju's shock workouts, but it was a nice change-up, and left me feeling awfully sore for about a week. I'm back on my normal program again. Making decent progress on my core lifts. I started at 505lbs in the big 3 (Deadlift, Back Squat, Bench Press - I'm doing Incline Press instead) at the beginning of July. My first lifting goal was to hit 650lbs. My total at this very moment is 610. I expect my deadlift and squat to both jump by about 20lbs next time I recalculate. It's looking like incline press will probably stay about the same. That would put me at 300, 200, 150, for a total of 650. Assuming I hit that initial goal, my next goals for the individual lifts are 320 deadlift, 240 squat, and 170 incline press. I'm hoping to hit those goals by the end of the year, though the squats may take me a bit longer. That would be a 730 total, which I'd be pretty damn happy with as an old man with only about 7 months of training. Also, I'm doing this while still cutting weight (I'd like to drop another 10% body fat by the end of the year). I'm currently at about 164lbs and 25% body fat, and hoping to get down somewhere near 155 and 15% eventually. I'm probably being overly ambitious in how fast I want to hit all my goals, but whatever.
Whats the reasoning behind the incline press instead of regular? Some decent lifts for your size. My squat is alright, working on beating my PB by the end of the year), but I avoid deadlift due to lower back issues. Stiff legged deadlift will suffice.
The primary reason is because I felt like shoulders were a weak point, and I thought incline presses would work them a little bit more than a flat bench press. Now that I've been doing it for a while, I like it because the movement feels more natural to me. My elbows stay tucked in close to my body automatically, and my form overall is just much better than it is on the flat bench press. It's harder to mess up the movement path, and easier for me to isolate the correct muscles. At some point I'm definitely going to change to a regular bench press, but I'm enjoying the incline press right now, and still making good progress with it.
To be honest (not a fan normally of intervening in people's programs) id strongly reccomend adding an overhead press and a flat bench press, The overhead press is much better for shoulder and you over head strength, and the flat bench better for push strength. Most strong lift programs incorporate both as they use different enough muscles rather than using an incline bench.
Oh yeah, I never intended it to be the primary exercise for shoulders. I just saw it as a way of giving the shoulders a tiny bit of extra work, while also building chest strength. I'm already doing both standing BB OHP and seated DB military presses for shoulder work. I'm also doing a flat DB press and close grip BP for chest. I have somewhere around 20 lifts total, spread out through a 4 day span. I just figured it'd be overkill to talk about my progress on every single exercise, which is why that post was focusing only on the 'big 3'.
Ah ok, that makes more sense. To be picky, ditch the close grip BP for chest (its more for triceps) and replace with some kind of fly to work different parts of the pecs
That's actually why I have it in there (triceps), lol. I don't have any exercises in my routine that directly work biceps or triceps, so I'm relying on them to grow from the compound movements I'm doing (and they are). I'm happy with my chest strength at the moment, and I'm trying to get my weaker pressing muscles up to par (shoulders and triceps are the main focus). Typically, where I've struggled with pressing exercises is the last 1/2 to 1/3 of the movement, because my triceps have been lagging behind. The close grip bench press has helped out a lot with that. I only have 4 days left with my current lifts. I'm in the process of re-assessing where I'm at right now and selecting which lifts I'll be using for the next month. Incline Press and OHP are definitely staying in for now, but some of my other pressing exercises may change. Not sure yet.
Yes, aside from walking about 45 minutes daily. I'm lifting mainly because I just enjoy it more than any of the other things I could be doing.
On the real, it's been 4 months since I've started bulking and from 180 I'm 210 right now. Gonna get to 215 and maintain that weight while transitioning to lighter rep sets, sort of a body builder routine I guess. I just need to Jugo to post a shirtless picture so I can get inspired. I'm benching 325, squat 425, and deadlift at least 325 but idk because I never max deadlift.
I do incline dumbbells for my chest for the same reason... that, and flat bench ****s with my sternum. Just wrapped up my Pullup/Pushup superset pyramid. New personal record. Built up from 1 to 19, then back down to 1 for a whopping 380 total pullups. None y'all got **** on my pullup game.