Random Fitness Questions

MacDanger

Tricep chair dips maybe a good place to start?

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753195#Comment_121753195

If you want to do a crab, I suggest taking up yoga. It’s as much about flexibility as it is about strength

Bawnmore

I'd say a bridge progression would be a good way to go.

I only started adding in some training for mobility/flexibility recently and I can definitely hold an ugly position 4 for 10 seconds. Surely adding a few little steps to that is enough to win your bet 😅

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753118#Comment_121753118

I’d expect most reasonably fit adults could do a crab.

It’s a function of strength and mobility. I think most people would include both as aspects of fitness.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757312#Comment_121757312

I expect most reasonably fit adults can do it. But I also suspect most adults aren’t reasonably fit. So it’ll take a bit of work for most. I’m going to give it a go tomorrow morning with the kids and report back

Black Sheep

Not too au fait, but is the difference between crab and what people would call tabletop position the fact that the shoulders are outwardly rotated (hands pointing sideways or towards behind even) verus inwardly rotated / neutral (hands pointing forwards).

I can see shoulder mobility and strength being a factor, and then the ability to actually raise the hips in front and maintain that - in the untrained population.

To me a bridge progression, as above, would be a more advanced progression again, requiring a fair bit of back mobility just to get as far as the fourth picture.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121758671#Comment_121758671

If I get to picture 4 I’ll claim to have completed the crab

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757975#Comment_121757975

Yeah of course. Same way that most adult men can bench BW, but I’d expect most fit men to be able to.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121758671#Comment_121758671

The difference is shoulder position. In Table top they are by your sides. In crab (aka back bridge) they are extended overhead. In both fingers point to toes.

A back bridge/crab requires good shoulder strength and mobility. And good T-spine mobility.

Picture 4 counts as a crab. 6/7 is where it gets “good”.

Bawnmore

I tried it in the gym this morning and I'm a definite picture 4 - minimum viable crab.

Separately - how much water do you drink per day? I was looking it up today and more answers than I expected (places like here) were in the 1-3 gallon range - Americans, but that equates to about 3.7 litres up to over 11 litres. Is it just me or is that an insane amount of water?

callaway92

Hi folks

In terms of Dioralyte, at a high performance sports level, would it be a good/any benefit to have at half-time in a match? (Generally 10-15 mins break). I'm asking this in comparison to juse water for example.

Thanks

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121763041#Comment_121763041

4 litres is around the typical target, 6 max. 11L is ridiculous and definitely risky. Water intoxication is a risk around ~10L, but there has been deaths from drink 6-8L.

People often mistakenly think only plain water counts. It's total water. So a cup of tea counts, as does a glass of milk, juice or even a Coke.

Cill94

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121763041#Comment_121763041

I just drink when I feel like it. Our bodies are much better at regulating hydration than Lucozade marketing would have us believe.

Quiet Achiever

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121781739#Comment_121781739

I heard Sonia O'Sullivan saying the same. She's a medal winning Olympian who trained professionally for years - said she never carried a bottle of water and no one else did. They went to the drinking fountain when thirsty, just listened to their bodies.

Black Sheep

I do agree with tenor of the last few posts, in terms of not being overly regimented about hitting a particular intake.

However, I also will go off and have a couple glasses of water if my urine is on the darker side, what's the harm.

dinneenp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121763126#Comment_121763126

Banana or jaffa cakes would give you more of an energy burst. Just drink water as normal during a match...

callaway92

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121820214#Comment_121820214

Thank you!

Black Sheep

A treat of mine, lately, is to mix protein powder with greek yoghurt, and chuck in the freezer for 5 minutes. It comes out as a sort of cheesecake consistency. Per4rm whey is my current favourite whey, I feel like in taste terms its head and shoulders above the bulk whey / MyProtein, having used those for years.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121824740#Comment_121824740

A scoop of protein, lots of ice, a splash of milk, and a teaspoon of guar gum.

Stick it in a bullet blender. Comes out sort of like a soft serve ice cream.

chrissb8

Please someone help me with weight lifting programming. I want to start a hypertrophy training programme, I currently do CrossFit which has weightlifting/powerlifting elements in it but I want to grow muscle.

I have an idea of a split in mind, with 3 days CrossFit and 3 days of weightlifting in the gym. The thing is I don't know how many sets/reps I should be doing of a given exercise.

Let's say dumbbell curls, which I've been doing at home. I've been using 10kg weights which feel too light and can crank out a set of 15 reps with them. Then another set of 15 at 10kg and then another set of 8-10 reps with 15kg.

What in that case is best? sets with less reps and higher weight or the inverse? and is 3 sets even enough currently? should it be 3 sets of the heaviest weight I can do?

Then also what rest between sets to get the required intensity needed?

Sorry, a lot of questions I just don't want to start this seriously and end up messing around and getting no real results.

Cill94

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948073#Comment_121948073

If your main goal is to build muscle, then I wouldn't be trying to juggle 3 days of crossfit workouts on top of that. That's likely to have you chasing two rabbits and catching neither. You will have to temporarily lose some of your crossfit fitness in order to make large strides in muscle, it's just the way it goes.

1 or 2 days a week would be enough to maintain most of your conditioning.

As to your question about which set and rep approach is best, the answer is really neither. You can and should do both, and really the main thing will be progressing whatever you're doing over time while eating enough.

Mr. CooL ICE

Hard one to answer considering you're also doing crossfit and you haven't detailed how much you do in your current 3 days.

Also consider that if you want to grow, you'd probably need to be in a calorie surplus too.

Black Sheep

I am CrossFit certified (Level 1, and a few of the speciality certs), although I'm assuming it's all lapsed long ago now... It was 12+ years ago.

If you just want a little more of a hypertrophy focus, but want to stay in that CrossFit style training world, I would suggest you look at the wide variety of online programmes out there who try to offer this:-

Dave Lipson, Power Athlete, Mayhem Athlete Bodybuilding, Marcus Filly Functional Bodybuilding, Ryan Fischer... Lots of them offer free trials.

There's a lot of people who have moved from CrossFit more into a hypertrophy space, just as there are spin-offs with strength focus, or Olympic weightlifting focus, etc.

That being said, I do agree with the guys' comments above: If you want an optimal approach to hypertrophy, then retaining several days a week CrossFit doesn't square with that, it just doesn't. It's just not a training modality that sits well with optimising muscle growth. Too demanding from a recovery perspective, has implications for calorie intake and recovery, and a lot of the movements and protocols used are just not that well geared towards hypertrophy.

Black Sheep

I'll answer this separately, as my main answer is what is above.

Let's say dumbbell curls, which I've been doing at home. I've been using 10kg weights which feel too light and can crank out a set of 15 reps with them. Then another set of 15 at 10kg and then another set of 8-10 reps with 15kg.

What in that case is best? sets with less reps and higher weight or the inverse? and is 3 sets even enough currently? should it be 3 sets of the heaviest weight I can do?

Then also what rest between sets to get the required intensity needed?"

Over the years there have been differing views about what drives hypertrophy. In the past people linked the feeling of "the pump" to muscle growth, or put forward ideas about time under tension, volume and muscle damage and regrowth.

The science will maybe always be shifting, but these days it's generally thought that if your work set demonstrates that the muscles are experiencing high mechanical tension, and you sustain that and add weight or reps the next time around, in following workouts, then it's likely that - provided you are in a calorific surplus - you will grow.

What that means in practice is that if you were doing your set of curls with 10s, and they feel light, you would need to do a set where the last several reps slowed down, and you came to failure, or within a rep or two of it.

After that, it becomes a question of how many sets you would do, which remains hotly debated. There are those who would argue that only a handful of genuine sets, per week, for a body part, are enough to grow it. I think a more sensible approach might be to do something like 3 sets, particularly if you're a novice or beginner, and give yourself a greater chance of ensuring that you've performed enough productive sets.

If you did 15, 15, 8-10 with your 10s on DB curl, that would be fine... Then when repeating that workout you might shoot for 15, 15, 12-14, then 15, 15, 15 ... And then go up to 12.5kg DBs and begin again. Or you could add reps, and go for 15-20, if the 12.5kg was too much of a jump.

In theory, to your point about whether a heavier weight, performed for less reps, would be better than a lighter weight for more reps... My understanding of the thinking now is that if you're getting that high mechanical tension and training as outlined above, it doesn't matter. There are proponents for both approaches. A middle ground can usually be found, of course... Instead of 3-6 reps, or 12+ reps, you might do 6-12, for example. You'll get that mechanical tension more quickly, with a heavier weight, but some people find it easier to train smaller muscles like the rear and side delts in a higher rep range, and also safer.

As for rest, can't really go wrong with 1.5-2 minutes, as a novice or general trainee.

If I was squatting or deadlifting I might rest 3 minutes, and there are people who promote this across the board for optimal recovery and growth, but I feel like I cool down a lot, and I also don't want to spend all day in the gym. Over 6 exercises, 3 sets apiece, that extra minute's rest for each adds up.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948073#Comment_121948073

What height and weight are you currently? What's your current diet like?

As a general rule of thumb, if some is doing crossfit and isn't gaining enough muscle I'd automatically form the opinion that their diet is the reason why, and not because their muscles arent geting damaged. If your diet isn't good enough under a crossfit programme, it won't be good enough under a body building one either.

If you haven't been tracking your calorie intake, I would recommend doing that for a few months while aiming for a specific calorie surplus target and see how you get on.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948073#Comment_121948073

I’ll make it very simple. Which most people won’t do.

2 full body days a week. All exercises 2 warm up sets and then 3x10 with a weight you struggle to do 10 with. When you can do 3x10 comfortably add weight next time.

Day 1: Squat, bench, pull ups, curls and tricep push downs.

Day 2: deadlift, rows, military press, curls and tricep push downs.

Simples.

chrissb8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121955493#Comment_121955493

Thank your for the reply, I've been a calorie deficit for over a year which ended last month because I hit the weight I wanted, losing over 10kg. I'm 170cm (5ft 7) and 70-71kg. I try operating on a high protein diet 80% of the week but most likely will need to up that along with my calories. I currently roughly try hit 110g of protein a day.

chrissb8

(can't delete comment)

chrissb8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121949868#Comment_121949868

This is brilliant, and exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. I would be happier to go with a lighter weight and more volume as I feel the building tension in the muscles a bit more and when I get to that last rep for failure I can push that bit harder, as opposed to a heavier weight when it's just a case of I end up just not being able to lift at all for that last rep for failure.

But thanks again it makes it much more clear how to plan out now around sets/reps/rest.

chrissb8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121948989#Comment_121948989

Thanks for the reply, yeah I'm coming to that conclusion slowly as well about Crossfit. While it's been great for general fitness and overall conditioning it does come at the price of lengthy sapping cardio based esque workouts.

I think I'll keep the split up this month and if I find it's too much I'll just commit to the weight lifting for the foreseeable. Thanks again for the reply.

Black Sheep

When I look back at the early CrossFit, that I was involved with, it got a lot right:-

1. Online daily blog for the 'workout of the day': Huge element of surprise and fun to finding out what your workout was going to be, and there was a surprisingly tight community "in the comments".
2. Although WODs were varied, there was reasonable balance to the programming in the early days, if you zoomed out. A mixture of squats, deadlifts, Olympic lifts and the rest was a mixture of long and short conditioning workouts.
3. Diet advice, when it was paleo and zone focused, wasn't dreadful, and the immersive community aspect of CF tended to help people with adherence and figuring that stuff out, as they often ended up hanging around with this new group of friends who were following the same approach.
4. Huge social aspect to it, as a community (Met my wife at CrossFit, I know of 4-5 others from the same era, and that was just the space of a few years).

Because of a lot of people were coming in without any strength training background, people reached some reasonable beginner/intermediate strength standards, and obviously their general fitness improved.

After a couple of years, progression became an issue. People were hitting it hard, and recovery was a challenge unless their diet and sleep were on point. I remember one of the main CF coaches giving a talk on this at a cert. They had basically diagnosed that there was this risk of "failure to thrive", and yeah, having the right diet was more or less an essential at that point, if you weren't going to get chewed up and spat out by some of the programming.