We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Many people have time early on Saturdays to spend an hour and a half of self-directed calisthenics. It's a good plan, especially if you have early church on Sunday and thus take Sunday off from the gym. Maybe a hike or bike Sunday after church, but that's not "exertion" - that's fun.
God decreed one day of that sort of rest, so it must be right. He surely did not mean a day on the computer and the couch. Get some pleasant activity on Sunday and you're in a perfect position on Monday to do an hour of heavy weights.
For an example, here's my list of Saturday morning cali rotations at the moment:
Kettlebells add good variety to cardio and/or calisthenics workouts. There are plenty of ways to use them, but they seem most often used for swings. Swings are a total body exercise.
With lighter weights, swings are more cardio. Go with heavier weights for total body toughening. 30-60 seconds per set is good.
Most of us fitness buffs want all we can get of both. However, the training for each is different partly because muscle endurance/aerobic fitness is based on Type l muscle, and strength on Type ll - the power fibers.
High frequency, repetitive exertions train for endurance (eg jogging, biking, high-rep lighter weights, calisthenics), while heavy weights (things you can only do 4-8 times at most) train for strength.
If you won't do weight training or HIIT cardio, the least a person can do to maintain functional fitness, energy, balance, and general athleticism is daily calisthenics for 50 minutes.
It's the best way to start the day with a good state of mind. Classes might be best because of the group spirit and energy, but, if disciplined, alone can be good too. Part of that discipline is limiting the rests between sets to 6-10 seconds to make the most of the cardio component.
Are Burpees the best all-round calisthenic? Maybe, in the same way that the Deadlift is the best total-body weight exercise. The usefulness and "fun" of calisthenics, though, is variety. There is some fun in doing them in 3 sets of circuits of 3.
Readers know our list of common calisthenics: Burpees, Jumping Jacks, Side shuffles, Heavy Ball throws, Sandbag slams, Body-weight Squats and Wall Sits, Lunges, Jump Rope, Box Jumps, Step-ups, Rowers, Mountain Climbers, Dips, Pushups, Pullups, Inclined pullups, Leg Lifts, Sled pushes and pulls, planks, combat ropes, kettlebell swings, etc.
Mix and match for an hour early each morning and you will feel great. It's not strength, but it's fitness.
NB: I am well-aware that far more people choose to do cardio (especially long, relatively slow endurance "cardio" like jogging and swimming) than those who do calisthenics, HIIT, and weights workouts combined. That is certainly better than nothing, or walking, but our readers know what is optimal: 2 days of heavy weight training, 2 days of calisthenics, and 2 days of mixed HIIT and endurance cardio with a good heart rate stress.
Definitely, at least for me. It was instantly noticeable when I got back to the gym, even though my break had almost daily 3-hour hikes, water play, and other activty.
Most noticeable were my deadlifts and bench press. Just more evidence of "use it or lose it", especially over 40.
Just image the effect of years without workouts.
It's kinda depressing, but I got back to my daily routines.
Doctors, researchers, scientists--even ancient philosophers--have long claimed exercise works like a miracle drug. Now they have proof.
As I have said before, a rigorous exercise program might not extend your life. It will definitely enhance and extend your quality of life even if you begin it at any age. Everybody knows that they ought to do it, but it's hard and it hurts and we're lazy and "busy." Plus there is that terrible part: delayed gratification. Everybody hates that. As I say, "The flesh is willing but the spirit is weak."
Our quite well-informed recommendations for general fitness and conditioning for the ordinary person who wants to achieve or maintain maximal functionality for life:
1. Nutrition: Don't be visibly overweight - it's the worst thing you can do to yourself besides being an addict, and no exercise can help being fat. Does a demanding exercise program require a specific pattern of nutrition? Yes. We have discussed that in previous posts here. With a serious exercise program, you have to keep up with the protein and fats - approx. 70-90 gms of protein/day. 2. Weight training - as heavy as possible, approx 50 minutes twice a week 3. 1-2 hrs total of calisthenics/wk for mobility, balance, and athleticism 4. 2 or 3 twenty-min sessions of cardio intervals/wk (HIIT). (For HIIT, I do stairs once, elliptical once, rowing once. Occasionally sprints in the pool.) Can add an hour of endurance cardio.
Under age 35, it can take 12 months to be whipped into decent shape. Over 35-40, depending on your fitness starting point, 18-24 months. Intense sports like basketball can substitute for calisthenics. Yoga is excellent, but does not substitute for any of the above. Many men find Yoga to be quite challenging and helpful. Lots of pro football players do it. If your day job is physical, all of the above recommendations would differ.
It is well-known that vigorous exercise does not "work up an appetite." On the contrary, it tends to reduce hunger and appetite.
That might not apply to 8 hours on the Appalachian Trail or a day job as a lumberjack, but it is certainly true for me with my 1-hr daily exercises. The more consistently I exercise, the less interest I have in food and the smaller the portions I can handle. This effect is most pronounced with demanding cardio and calisthenic exercise, not with strength exercise or with sports. There is a theory that the effect has something to do with Peptide YY.
Nobody wants to eat anything after a hour of tough cardio exercise and that suppressive effect tends to last 24 hrs. at least.
Maybe it makes some genetic sense. If you need to move yourself vigorously and frequently, the less fat you have on you the better you can avoid becoming part of a Tiger Dinner Party. Hunger is an interesting instinct and only recently has it been studied biochemically. One thing we know for certain is that subjective hunger or attraction to food is not a signal for a need for nourishment for most adults in a food-rich environment.
Overweight people seem to have the strongest subjective hunger, and sedentary people tend to have stronger appetites. Cause or effect?
I have been switching my phrasing from "strength" to "sturdiness" lately because I think it's a better way of thinking about muscle fitness under the broader umbrella of General Fitness - what we call Fitness For Life.
For example, I'd like to deadlift 300 lbs, but it's not overly important to me. Doing 5 reps of 175-200 will be enough to indicate that I am not frail, not fragile.
The problem I'm sure our fitness readers have with strength training (resistance training, or sturdiness training) is time. If we aim for 6-7 hours weekly for fitness, with 2 of those HIIT and endurance cardio and 2 of them calisthenics, how can we fit in all of the strength building or strength maintenance?
Maybe by condensing resistance things and mixing them up. For example, there are several basic back exercises. Three of them are fundamental (ie, must be done at least once weekly): deadlifts (a total body exertion - The King of Exercises), rows, and pullups/chinups or pull-downs.
Each of those can take 15-20 minutes of your time with 6 sets, with 90-120 sec. rest between sets. So you can schedule, say, deads once weekly, pullups/chinups/pull-downs once weekly, and some type of row once or twice weekly (eg inverted row, seated row, dumbell bent-over row). Mix them up week to week). And because those make good arm demands too, there is less need for pure arm exercises.
Other than the deads, the key to back exertions is to clench your scapulae. Squeeze them. Make the back do them bulk of the work, not your arms. With chinups and pullups, you thrust your elbows down to power the movement.
Body-building is a somewhat common hobby for men and women. You can term it foolish, but most hobbies are sort of pointless but personally rewarding anyway.
I will join the Guardian in criticising steroid use by both men and women. It just sacrifices health for muscle bulk. The gyms I use have no real body-builders. Strength-builders, sure. General ftness-seekers, lots - but General Fitness includes strength.
On our website, we prefer to focus on "Fitness for Life", while bearing in mind that few women do not want to look "beach-ready" and few guys want to be, or to appear, physically weak or flabby. Some degree of narcissism is just a part of self-respect.
Photo:Jamie Eason is a lady body-builder, no steroids.
Sometimes it surprises me how many people are in bed at 5 or 6 am. What? That is plain un-American. At least, get up and milk the chickens and feed the cows.
My gym has been meddling with their early morning workout classes (calisthenics and HIIT mostly), partly because of staff turnover and partly just for variety. Maybe Russia was involved in the meddling, cuz we do have a Russian gal trainer there. Probably a spy...
Finally found a good one, a new one, for me this morning. Fast-paced, challenging, exhausting, heavy sweat and heavy breathing but without much shoulder stress. Yes, some burpees which I do not do. I do pushups instead. Modify whenever needed. I am often the oldest person but I don't care because I am in half-decent fitness for my age. At first, I could not keep up. Now I can. A body is a miracle of adaptation.
I recommend finding one or two of those that work for you, as a good complement to weight work and boring "cardio". The classes can look intimidating, but you go at your own pace and do what you can. Improvement ensues, fairly quickly.
Have any of y'all tried them? They can become addictive.
If you don't care, good for you. If maintaining energy, vitality, and functionality matters to you, then it's worth thinking about.
While we recommend low-carb or even keto diets for weight loss programs (and even say skip the exercising - it doesn't help with that goal very much), the simplest and easiest body fat fitness plan is volume control.
That means volume of beer, soda pop, meals, and snacks. We've all noticed how avidly overweight people eat with no awareness of satiety - only of "fullness" (or of when all the food is gone). Portion control takes a little thought and planning.
My experience is that restaurants in the US and Europe (except for the fanciest ones) tend to serve the equivalent of two or three meals for a fit healthy person. However, there is no law that we must clean our plates. The Great Depression is long gone.
I've posted in the past, literally ad nauseum, about "false hunger," and ritual or recreational eating.
For devoted weight trainers, heavy-lifters, it is more complicated for any age.
The gym on the Titanic. Might have been useful to have a rower...
In my experience, all modern ships have excellent gyms with ocean views. All modern or modernized hotels have good gyms. Luckily for me, because my day can not begin without 2 coffees and an hour workout of some sort.
When the temperature outdoors is over 80, I advise no running. It can be damaging to most parts of your body. Treadmill in the gym with a/c is fine.
Admittedly, I am not a fan of road running anyway. Trail running is fine for a cardio day, but 2 days of cardio is enough for those who are already in decent shape. As we say, once you are in decent shape, 2 hrs cardio, 2+ hrs of weights, 2 hrs calisthenics.
Reminder: "Jogging" - like 4-5 mph - is slow running. It does little to nothing for cardio fitness, but it is good for maintaining endurance. We are fans of HIIT for heart fitness.
Readers know I consider the Mighty Mighty Deadlift as the core of creating/maintaining a sturdy body - followed by the other powerlifts of course.
Deads are a total body exertion. I only do them once weekly (I do barbell squats on Mon, Deads on Thurs, high-rep leg press on Sat - and still have skinny runner's legs).
To mix it up and to keep things interesting, about every 6 weeks I switch Squat and Dead from higher reps (ie 8 reps for 6 sets) to 5 sets of descending reps, increasing wt by 10 lbs for each set (6,5, 4, 3, 2 reps/set). The final two get me within sight of my one-rep max. Gets heavy, and grip gets iffy.
Someday, I will get my one-rep max into the 2 rep range.
Keeps things interesting, and keeps your body off balance by changing routine.
2-3 minute rest between sets for heavy lifts, please. What is "heavy"? It's all relative to the individual. You know what you can't move, and back down from there.
1. As reader says, put that fork down on the table. It's a tough exercise to drop a fork. Best to begin just once daily, and work up. 2. Start up the car and drive to the gym. Difficult exertion to turn that key or to press that Start button, bit it gets easier with routine.
It looks to me as if lots of people do weights and cardio on the same days. I never do that, unless you count a little jump rope between lifts to loosen up.
My reasoning is that a weights day calls for at least one (or two days for those over 40) of active muscle recovery, by which I mean just calisthenics or "cardio." That's why I have weights days, "cardio" days, and calisthenics days.
However, if you do cardio and some heavy weights on the same day, do the weights first. If you do them the other way around, you may not have the oomph to move the amount of weight you need to.
Yes it is. Your waist size is not your belt size or jeans size though, especially if you wear them on your hips which most people do these days. Your waist is above your belly button, the potentially narrow space below your rib cage.
How to Measure Your Waist
How do you measure your waist? Sounds simple enough, but it’s not always obvious where your waist is. Posture and other variables can affect the reading, so here are some basic guidelines to follow:
Position a tape measure at the narrowest point between your lower rib and the top of your hip bone, or at the midpoint in between. It should be snug but not compress the skin. If you can’t find the narrowest point (it may be difficult if you’re very overweight), measure just above your belly button.
Stand straight and breathe out normally; don’t suck in your belly.
Measure your waist first thing in the morning, before breakfast.
Though there’s no magic cutoff point, values over 37 inches for men and 32 inches for women indicate increased health risks, according to the World Health Organization; values over 40 for men and 35 for women represent substantially increased risk.
Readers know that we recommend scheduling two hours of calisthenics/week as part of a balanced fitness program (ie resistance, cardio, and calisthenics).
Calisthenics are for athleticism, generally addressing a mix of cardio, balance, agility, speed, endurance, without much focus on strength. While playing basketball or doing martial arts count as calisthenics, most of us do calisthenics routines in the gym, preferably in fitness classes, or on our own. The classes are more intense, thus better, I feel.
Because my class sched changed, here's what I did on my own this morning as an example:
- 10-minute elliptical warm-up - 30-sec sprints, and 60-sec recoveries. Sweat. - 1st rotation of 3 rounds: Pushups, pullups, Roman Chair leg lifts, elbow planks, jump rope, squat and holds - 2nd rotation of 3 rounds: Kettlebell swings, heavy ball squat and throws, "bicycles", rower - 60-sec sprints
I have another rotation list with which I alternate the above list when needed, just keeping the pushups, jump rope, and pullups. (List #2 includes other things like lunges, farmer walks, step ups, box jumps, mountain climbers, inclined pulls, etc). These things are good and semi-fun complements to my other things.
Do our readers incorporate calisthenics in their fitness routines and, if so, what do you do?
We're talking about general fitness and energy for life during the years of sarcopenia, arthritis, and other various age and accident-related things. Younger people can take on tougher programs but few of them do.
- 3 hrs of resistance exercises/wk: weights +/- machines. It's for muscle and bone.
- 2 hrs/wk of "cardio." Includes HIIT. Gotta challenge that heart muscle or it will give out on you. Even so, it might anyway unless some cancer kills ya.
- 2 hrs/wk of exercise class or your own calisthenics. Classes push you harder. These are for agility, athleticism, cardio, balance, endurance, etc. To make your body do what's it's meant to do.
That's a good program, because it permits space to miss a random day without losing a step. A 5-hour hill hike can be a sub for any day. What about sports, yard work, gardening, etc? Unless you are playing a few sets of tennis in the US Open, these sorts of things are why you work to stay fit. Doing ordinary life things are the rewards of fitness, but provide no fitness.
A reader asked for ideas about how to begin a fitness program after recovering from illness (with a Dr's ok, please). Same thing applies to anybody wanting to begin a fitness program. You start gradually to get your body geared up if it hasn't been used vigorously.
After a few weeks of these simple low-impact calisthenics/cardio daily, you can begin to advance, lengthen, and intensify your overall program. Ignore those calories - it's not true and it means nothing. Sure, it takes an hour to burn a donut or a bagel. So don't eat it.
These trainers talk kind of silly, but that's normal. The girl shows you how to modify if you can't keep up with the guy yet:
"Conditioning" is about speed, agility, HIIT cardio, endurance, explosiveness, and muscle use. Energy, stamina, and get-up-and-go. It is not about strength or strength-training, which is why lots of calisthenics are involved. In a tough conditioning hour, you can never catch your breath so it is intense cardio. Good stuff for life.
I am in the sorry 10% who routinely flunk our Sat. AM calisthenics ("Athletic Conditioning") class. By flunking, I mean being unable to complete the trainer's expectations on at least half of the exercises in the time allowed. I hate failure, so I give it my all and come up short. We are calling ourselves the "Masters Class" and we are all age 45 or more. However, several 50+ and 60+ do make the passing grade. Bravo for them because this sort of thing is great to prevent physical deterioration.
If it were high school or college, we would ask for extra time due to disability but, instead, we do our best and accept the fail. Reality is a bitch. Do better next week, or just give up and rightly despise yourself forever for being a loser.
We've written about this topic in the past, but it's worth reviewing the misconceptions about cardio fitness and cardio exercise. (Remember, in our view, "cardio" should be only 1/3 of your exercise program beacuse it does little for muscle and bone strength, and little for athleticism.)
Any exercise, from walking to weight-lifting, makes more demand on heart function than sitting or lying down. So cardio exercise has a spectrum from very light to maximum intensity. Simply put, the core purpose of "cardio" exercise is to maintain or upgrade heart function (cardiac condition is measured by things like a Cardiac Stress Test with Echo, Stroke Volume, Cardiac Output, cardiac vasculature, and left ventricle size to some extent). Like weight-lifting for skeletal muscle, it requires stress, relative to your conditioning and medical condition.
With lighter stresses (eg non-sprint, endurance-oriented swimming laps, jogging, rowing, stair machine, elliptical, etc) we are putting our hearts to some use, but we are working more on general time endurance than cardio. (Lots of people do those things thinking that they involve fat-burning, but don't count on that to work if you do 1 hour/day.) For people who are not training for specific goals, building endurance is great for life. Nobody wants to slow down or feel tired during ordinary recreational activities like sports or hiking. These non-sprint exercises aim for around 70% of one's max heart rate to make it worth your precious time.
The higher the physical demand - the intensity of an exertion for your level of fitness - the more you are training your heart rather than just using it. The highest levels of exertion (say, with sets of deadlifts near 80% of your max, or with 30-second sprints) are anaerobic and can push your heart rate to 90% of your max. That heart-pounding rest time or slow time is to catch up on oxygen.
For endurance, an hour of lap swimming, cycling, jogging, elliptical, stair machine, ski machine, rower, etc at around 70% of your max heart rate is where you ought to be, if in decent health. Over time, you will need to raise the speed to get to those heart rates. These exercises do nothing much to build muscle or bone strength.
For maximum cardiac fitness (with bonus endurance benefits as well), mixing in sprints which get your HR to 80-90% of your max should be included. Bursts of intensity. In the Maggie's Fitness for Life program, the other good sources of intense cardiac stress are the powerlifts and calisthenics. Ideally, some of all of those because there is more to fitness than cardiac fitness. Fitness is a package deal.
An interesting detail is that to up your game in any area of exertion, it's always a good idea to do what you do not usually do. Explosive linebackers get better with distance running, distance runners get better with weights and sprints, heavy lifters get better with calisthenics. Balance.
Body-building is a somewhat common hobby for men and women. You can term it foolish, but most hobbies are sort of pointless but personally rewarding anyway.
When the temperature outdoors is over 80, I advise no running. It can be damaging to most parts of your body. Treadmill in the gym with a/c is fine.
Readers know I consider the Mighty Mighty Deadlift as the core of creating/maintaining a sturdy body - followed by the other powerlifts of course.
How to Measure Your Waist
Readers know that we recommend scheduling two hours of calisthenics/week as part of a balanced fitness program (ie resistance, cardio, and calisthenics).
We've written about this topic in the past, but it's worth reviewing the misconceptions about cardio fitness and cardio exercise. (Remember, in our view, "cardio" should be only 1/3 of your exercise program beacuse it does little for muscle and bone strength, and little for athleticism.)