Random Fitness Questions

Mellor wrote: »

Overtraining is much more rare than the internet would have you believe.
If you’re training casually, a few times a week, rather than hitting semi-professional amounts of training. Then it’s unlikely to happen.
All imo of course

I'd agree. It's more relevant to athletes etc that are putting their body through more of a workload than the general population.

I don't see a 'Rate my Squats bro' thread - okay to put up two videos of my Squat technique for review here?

silverharp wrote: »

so just look after the weeks and let the months look after themselves?

Look after your training and recovery and the rest will look after itself.

If you do find your fatigue increasing and results plateauing/decreasing, it's not because you didn't take a week off but that your training needs an overhaul

Apologies for the poor angle for both videos, rare occasion where I wasn't training on my own and had a friend video me doing squats at 30KG & 60KG. Most recent trip to the gym I was back doing 80KG and was very much feeling it in my quads/glutes so reckon I'm doing them right but would appreciate any feedback. If you need different angles then I can try to sort that too:

What Alf said.

Repping 70% of your 1RM and up should be a high enough intensity to notice form breakdown. If you don't know what your 1RM would be, then perhaps pick a weight you feel you can only do 5 reps with, and record yourself doing 3 reps at that weight.

Thanks all, will try get a video of a weight closer to my 1RM

To be honest, since posting that and taking onboard the advice, I've started doing chest twice a week, and I've seen significant improvements, both in terms of size and strength. My workout may still be somewhat random, but generally look like;

Mon
Barbell chest press
Barbell incline chest press
Barbell decline chest press
High/middle/low cable flys
100 pushups (in 4 sets)

Thur
Dumbbell chest press
Dumbbell incline chest press
An Athlean-X kneeling press using 2 cables
Single-arm machine press
Machine flys

All the above are 4 sets, so when I posted the question, for the dumbbell bench it was 34/36/38/40KG, but I couldn't complete 40, usually only getting about 6 in the last set (and being stuck on that for ages). Now, I've gone beyond 40 and am failing just before finishing 42, which is great. For the incline, I've gone up by 4KG in each dumbbell for each set.

For the barbell, I was struggling to clear 85KG, now I'm clearing 6 reps on 90KG and hoping to move up to 95KG soon. The other thing I'm doing is changing the order of the exercises. I always started with the flat bench, but have now started with flys, or decline bench, just to mix it up a bit.

So in short quite a lot of change - I must measure my chest to see, but visually it looks fuller, which is great.

Minime2.5 wrote: »

I have my own opinion about this myself but is the following movements enough for cutting

Squat
Dead Lift
Chest press movement (Shoulders & Triceps are getting some work)
Shoulder press movement(Triceps getting some work)
Back Pull ups(Biceps getting some work)

Why would that be specifically for cutting?

Minime2.5 wrote: »

Because I would have thought for muscle building you'd need

1. More volume
2. More exercise variety
3. Target specific muscles more directly

There's no mention of volume. Or frequency.
Mode variety than what?
What specific muscles?

Nothing wrong with squat deadlift and pressing but it needs more pulling.

beertons wrote: »

What would be a decent click on the stairs climber? I was only on the way out today, and hopped on. Level 7, 5 mins, 20 floors.

Can vary from machine to machine in my experience.

Also, what would be a good effort for me on any machine like that would be a warm up for someone else and possibly too much for someone else. It's all relative really.

Establish what's challenging and then aim to make it feel less challenging.

Anyone recommend a dumbell/bodyweight program?

Most of the popular ones are barbell, and finding it hard to get to the gym with a new baby

Reps4jesus wrote: »

Yeah i have been doing a decent bit of mobility work on my hips the last 6 months as they have always been fairly creaky but still not doing as much as i should

Work on ankles as well, if you're not. But does sound like mobility. Anytime I've had something like that or a bit of a shift to one side (well until the last year), it was fixed through a bit more mobility work.

If someone with alot of weight to lose loses it how much of that weight is Water? For example.Just say a 6ft man thats 20 stone gets down to 14 stone. That 6 stone loss is not all fat, what % would make up water

How much benefit is there in adding low weights to cardio? I’m a skater and use a lateral slide board as an at home alternative when I can’t get out for a long fast skate. The slide board is great for keeping my legs strong and it’s an excellent cardio workout but I don’t find it benefits my upper body much above the core. Skating is actually surprisingly excellent for the arms but the type of balancing I do on the board just doesn’t engage my upper body very much. I was thinking that holding small weights as I slide and pump my arms would help.

I’ve started cross country skating which is done with poles, so that will be great for the upper body. But again I want to be able to maintain the strength benefits during times that I can’t get out.