Coming into warmer weather I'd liek to hear some suggestions for a fitness circuit (outdoors).
So far I've thought up:
cycling
running/jogging - sprints and distance
pushups/chin ups/sit ups
swimming as an easier day
Any advice on how best to structure these activities to get optimal results would be appreciated. I have up to 2 hours due to light constraints atm on weeknights but could get up at 6am for light exercise. (At least one rest day)
Advice on structure and repetitions greatly appreciated

Cycling and jogging are aerobic excersies and off the top of my head, work to rest ratio is 1:1 3 . it is recommended 20 minutes with at least 3 times a week.
sprinting it really depends on your distances and what you want to achieve.
this is year 12 PE stuff which i learnt last year.

Well a couple of training techniques come into play here. Always ensure that you do not overtrain as it causes more damage than it does improvement. Minimum of 3 times a week for all exercises is recommended to see any improvement. Significant improvements will begin about 6 weeks into training regime.
When you say pushups/chin ups/sit ups, i cannot simply tell you how many sets of how many reps you can do because im not sure of your strengths and capabilities. It also depends on what you want to achieve i.e. physical strength, power, muscular endurance, muscular hypertrophy etc. There are different recommended sets and reps for these but if you said you were doing weights, then there are recommended percentages around i.e. 75% of the max weight you can lift in one rep etc if you want to train anaerobic power etc.
When working out, never overstress muscle groups. for example, dont go for a 60km bike ride and come back for a sprint. Seperate these activites over the week. However, it is ok to do sprints and situps for example taking into consideration your muscular fatigue.

Physical training is something I know a little about having trained for various reasons since I was very little. I played rep rugby, was a state level swimmer, water polo player and have done various drills for surfing amongst other things. The last few years I have spent a great deal of time in the gym and over that period have learnt more about muscles and what thehyr espond to than ever before. I thing golfpunk alluded to the fact that you really need to work out what your goals are before anyone can really advise you as to what your training should incorporate.

The biggest thing that most ppl do not give adequate attention and importance to in both planning and practice is DIET! Diet is the key factor no matter what you are trying to do be it lose weight or gain muscle. I could really go on about diet but will keep it simple for now. Basically if you want to lose weight, you consume less calories than you will expend each day. If you want to gain weight, consume more calories than you will expend that day. The type of calories consumed will to some degree dictate what it is you lose or gain. For example, protein is the building block for muscle, it is used to create more muscle and to repair your existing muscle after exercise. Carbohydrates are what your body uses for energy, generally speaking if your not getting enough complex carbs you might find your underperforming both physically and mentally. Fat is also used as an energy source and is a required part of your diet, healthy fats help with maintaining healthy cardiovascular systems and can even help you lose weight.

Meal size and timing is also important, ever heard the expression, breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper? This still holds true for most people, there is not point going to bed with an enormous dinner under your belt, your about to go into a state of very low metabolism so all that unused food energy is converted to fat. Fat is the bodies way of storing excess energy to be used up at a time when calories are hard to come by, eg: when your stuck in a survivor situation. For most ppl this never happens so they get fatter and fatter.

I'm guessing that you like a lot of people are probably trying to lose a bit of weight right? If this is the case your going to want to make sure your consuming less than your expending. You might be able to do this just by increasing your energy expenditure through training or you may need to cut back on your meals a little as well. Either way I reckon you probably need to up your protein intake, most peoples is woefully low and the majority of their calories are made of carbs, generally crap ones at that. Your body finds it far easier to breakdown muscle to use for fuel when there is lower calorie intake than it does to convert fat so making sure your body is full of protein is a benefit, you don't want to lose any muscle you may already have, you want to lose fat right? Unless your trying to make weight as jockey or something you shoudl care about what your losing, muscle or fat. Suffecient protein helps with teh preservation of muscle when your training.

Many people make the mistake of starving themselves when trying to lose weight, bad idea, when your body recognises this happening it slows down your metabolic rate so you lose less weight. generally I think ppl can maintain the same calories they are currently consuming but swap them to primarily protein and healthy carbs and they will start to lose fat. As far as timing is concerned, for fat loss you don't want to be consuming carbs after around 4pm, there are some exceptions but I don't want to confuse the issue right now. For dinner, protein and vegetables are good, cut out the rice and pastas, bad idea at this time.

As far as your training is concerned, for snowboarding purposes I think mainly bodyweight exercises in the beginning would be fine, lunges, squats, calf raises, push ups, situps and other abdominal work, chin ups and variations of the above are good starting points. Try some circuit work eg:

Bodyweight squats
Push ups
Lunges
Situps
calf raises
chin ups

do these directly one after the other with no rest, reps will be somewhere inbetween 10-15 for each. REst for 2 mins and do it agin, if you can pump out 4 circuits your doing ok. try that 3-4 times a week with some low impact (walking) for 30-40 mins 4-5 mornings a week before breakfast and the fat should start to shift. theres a lot more to it but this might get you started.

Thanks, is cycling considered low impact?

Yes mate, cycling is low impact generally speaking.

nthnbeachesguy - 25 August 2009 09:42 AM

I played rep rugby, was a state level swimmer, water polo player and have done various drills for surfing amongst other things.

I can only imagine you kind of looking like this:

Ha ha thats Greg Valentino, one of the least respected guys in bodybuilding, a huge abuser of synthol, a site injection oil used to make your muscles look bigger, guess where he injects himself.........

I'm a bit of a chameleon when it comes to my body, kinda change it depending on what I'm trying to do at the time, the pic below is me at 78kgs in Hawaii after training my butt off for about 3 months prior to going. This was after getting a little ambitious at Rockpiles and reasonable size day. These days I usually float around 105kgs, been training with weights for hypertrophy for a few years now.

Didnt his biceps explode soon after?
theres a video of his flaccid bicep on youtube. quite disgusting really.
Im so skinny you can see a 6-pack on me all the time even though i never work on them....
I'd probably start working on my fitness during the summer break.

Everyone has a 6 pack, some are there for everyone to see but most are covered by varying layers of fat.

I know that. Its just that while a few people i know work really hard witht eh situps and whatnot to get their 6 packs showing, mine is really clear even though i dont work on it because im that skinny

Wow, that guy with those biceps just looks stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ZUZOvoe_g
Heres the vid. You should be able to catch a glimpse of his floppy biceps because they exploded.

nic - 23 August 2009 09:46 AM

Coming into warmer weather I'd liek to hear some suggestions for a fitness circuit (outdoors).
So far I've thought up:
cycling
running/jogging - sprints and distance
pushups/chin ups/sit ups
swimming as an easier day
Any advice on how best to structure these activities to get optimal results would be appreciated. I have up to 2 hours due to light constraints atm on weeknights but could get up at 6am for light exercise. (At least one rest day)
Advice on structure and repetitions greatly appreciated

Hi Nic,

To be honest, I have not read the responses in relation to your question, so Im sorry if there is any overlap in the advice I give..
You need to work out what your goals of training are eg Improve fitness, increase strength etc

If I were you, I would break up my exercise regime into aerobic and strength. That means from the exercises you mentioned, I would run and cycle in the same circut and do pushups/chin ups on another day. You can add other strengthening exercises with free weights if you wish. Cardio is ok to do everyday, however, I would allow one days rest in between 'strength' days- to allow your mucsles to repair.

If you want to see improvements in your cardiovascular fitness you need to work at an intensity of at least 60% of your maximum heart rate (MHR = 220- your age). I would recommend at least 40 minutes per workout. Obviously, if you have more time, thats great. Im not sure how much exercise you were doing previously, so if you are not a regular exerciser, listen to your body. Start easy and build up. On the otherhand, if you are already somewhat fit, challange yourself weekly, and progress one of either variables- the intensity, amount of exercise time, or weight per week.

Having said all of that, some people prefer to do strength and cardio training in the same session eg 20 min run 20 mins strength (or vise versa) = 40 minute session.

Days per week? At least 3 days. 5 days ideal. As mentioned above: A suggestion is Day 1, 3, 5- cardio. Days 2, 4- strength/other.

Sets/reps for strength? 10-12 reps, 3 sets!..generally speaking!

If you need more example of more exercises, let me know.

Hope that helps,

Becky.

Hey Nic & all, I have been meaning to post a reply for a few days now, but haven't had the time to be able to put a response down without feeling like I missed stuff out, but now I have a few hours...so here goes

Before I start, Becky & NB, I hope it doesn't seem like I am trying to debunk anything you say, but if it does I am sorry, I am basically just tapping into what we have been taught throughout our course, which is generally what is accepted at the moment, but doesn't really get fed through to the public until it has been made obsolete by another study etc...but enough of that, I will get to it...

As said earlier, depending on your goal, there are different types and styles of training that are better suited to the different goals you may have.

As far as weight loss (fat loss) goes, probably the biggest factor (apart from diet - which has been mentioned but I will get to that) is the intenisty in which you train at. Because our bodies are just dandy, it takes a lot more time and effort to metabolise fat for energy (as opposed to carbohydrates - CHO), and as such the higher an intensity you train at, the greater preference the muscles have to use CHO as a fuel source, rather than fat, which you are looking to 'burn'. As such, to train for fat loss, you need to be training at not too much over 70% of your max HR (220-age is the simplistic equation, which is fine for now, but there are other equations which predict it better), or else your muscles will be requiring fuel too fast for fat to completely keep up with, so CHO will be used instead.

HOWEVER, if you are training to increase your strength/power or just general fitness, you need to be training at between 70-85% intensity (for aerobic fitness), or 85-100% for strength or power (strength/power intensity is usually measured in the % of your 1 Rep Max, or the maximum amount you can lift in one maximal effort). Again the type of training (intensity, reps etc) will depend on what your goals are - for example, in a weight training program:

- For increases in strength, you should be looking at <10 rep sets, at >85% 1RM, and 1-3 sets on each muscle group
- For purely muscular hypertrophy (and not as big an increase in strength), 6-20 rep sets @ 70-85% 1RM, 2-3 sets, and
- For muscular endurance >20 rep sets @ <70% 1RM, and around 3 sets.

This is just an example to show the differences in just one type of training, and when you combine this with cardio work, flexibility and power training, and the different types of those, it is easy to see why there is a lot of confusion, and also why a lot of people are discouraged and drop out of fitness programs, simply because their program might not be the right fit for them.

Another problem with a lot of gym-based fitness programs, as well as those at a lot of sporting clubs, is one simple thing, which is that there is generally no consideration for the "drop" part of, for example, a bench press. This portion is called an eccentric contraction, with the "up" part called a concentric contraction. In simple terms, if the muscle is only made to work in the "up" portion of a bench press, and on the way down it is simply left to gravity, there will only be a certain amount of gain in strength and hypertrophy, however if work is done on the way down (ie bringing the bar down slower than gravity), there will be a greater increase in strength as a result, mainly because it is working the muscle in a different way, and as such working it harder...

I have gone waaay off track here, so sorry, I will try and get back on...

As far as diet goes, the 3 factors are CHO, Fat and Protein

CHO - is the fuel for muscular activity - you MUST have adequate stores and intake of this, or else you will get that 'tired and lethargic' feeling, and will be unable to exercise above a certain intensity due to not having CHO available. Now having said what I said before, with fat being the main source of energy under 70% HR max, you would think that if you didn't consume adequate CHO (ie low carb diets) the body would just use fat instead for lower intensity exercise. WRONG! As NBG said earlier, if you have an inadequate CHO intake, the body will lock away fat stores and use protein as a fuel source instead, and slow the body's metabolic rate down, therefore losing muscle, and increasing fat stores due to any fat ingested being stored for "famine usage"

So basically, you should have about 55-70% of the energy you intake from food as CHO, which is normally about 5-7g of CHO/kg of body weight/day. ie, for an 80kg person, you should be aiming to consume between 400-550g of CHO/day - which means nothing at this point, however look at it this way - 50g of CHO is equivalent to either of:

4 slices of bread
2 crumpets
1 1/2 cups of cooked rice
600mL of Orange Juice
3 Large apples
2 tbsp of honey/jam
2 cups of coco pops

So, an example day - for breakfast if you have 2 slices of toast with jam, a bowl of coco pops, 600mL of OJ, for lunch you have a couple of sandwiches with honey, and for tea you have a main dish with rice on the side, there is already about 325g of CHO, without including snacks during the day...and once again I am off track...bugger...

Basically the gist is:

- You need enough CHO intake to supply the energy you are outputting each day,
- You should aim to limit fat intake to under 30% of your total daily energy, and try to aim for unsaturated fats as opposed to saturated
- And, protein intake should be about 0.8-1g/kg of body weight per day, and in training this should increase to around 1-1.4g/kg to ensure there is enough protein to allow for muscle to build and repair) - 500mL of skim milk is around 16g of protein, and 2 egg whites is around 12g, just as a couple of examples...

So far off track - read the next response for the ACTUAL training advice...sorry :S

Well thats pretty much a whole textbook :O
great stuff bangabain.
Also part of dieting is recovery and high GI foods immediately or as soon after training as possible will help.
Recovery is important so that you are able to carry out your next training session more efficiently and get more out of it.