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.
Crossfit programs are for any level of conditioning because you do the things at your own ability and pace. Their sessions include heavy weights, cardio, and calisthenics.
Believe what you want to believe, but results are what matters. All of these exertions are great for general fitness, but if you want to eliminate fat, structure a nutritional plan to live by. As I have said many times, do not look to exercise for fat loss. If you can do it, fine. Few can. Good for you lucky few.
If too skinny, eat a lot of everything, and lift weights.
Experts usually discuss "recovery" in relation to heavy lifting. There is good reason for that. An hour of heavy weights (powerlifts) with up to 80% of max gives your body a beating. That is the purpose. Even the youth should not do that daily, but dedicated lifters and body-builders know what they can do and they are not my audience.
We have to bear in mind that Powerlifts/Compound exertions stress most of the body. For example, Deadlifts are not just legs. They engage everything from your neck to the ankles. It can make sense to divide up heavy days into Legs, Upper Body, and Core - but none of those are singular.
So let's go through various things that regular people do to stay fit and functional, and recovery,
- Long walks, hill and mountain hiking (eg 10 miles, more or less). Assuming decent fitness, the only recovery such recreational activities require is cold beer, a good meal, and a good sleep. Such things can be daily, if you have the time (which is usually on trips).
- Jogging: No recovery needed. Same for swimming laps and biking. Re distance (5++ mile) road running: It's a bad idea unless it is once in a while. Not good, long-term, for joints. However, orthopedic surgeons need their vacations and cars...
- Calisthenics. We Maggie's people are big believers in calisthenics (same as the military) and have posted endlessly about their role in fitness and general athleticism. In fact, I have offered the view that 50-60 minutes daily of calisthenics is great for maintaining conditioning and general fitness without anything else other than recreational activity. Done with intensity, it covers HIIT Cardio and makes every muscle work. "Toning", but no real strength-building in 1 hr/day. Calisthenics should require no more recovery than at the above paragraphs unless in poor condition.
- Powerlifts and accessory difficult muscle exercises. These are designed for strength-building, which means some longer fatigue and some muscle damage. It is the repair of the minor muscle injury that builds strength. Without some extreme muscle stress it is just maintenance. Nothing wrong with maintenance though, especially for the over 65- 80 crowd, but most people seek improvement. For regular people, two days away from heavy makes sense. That does not mean 2 days of inactivity, just 2 days without heavy. Cardio or calis can count as good "active recovery."
"Trauma" is used in all sorts of ways these days. Let's just say that intense resistance exercise is as good for the head as it is for the body: The Healing Power of Strength Training
Do not compare yourself to others, or to what others do.
I admit that it is impossible not to notice others but, like golf, your important comparison is to what your performance and condition were a month or two ago. I know - you start with one chin-up while some 60 year-old lady is doing 10 or 12. Admire what she does if you must, but aim for 1 1/2 or two for next month.
As I mentioned, Mrs BD and I are in "training" for an 7-day hiking trip, 12 miles/day (with a side visit to Edinburgh). It's remarkable to me how endurance can advance by training for it. For serious hikers, our challenge is no big deal even with 50 lb. packs. Not me - I am fine with 12 miles once, but I don't know about daily.
Addendum: I heard on the radio this morning that Edinburgh is the #1 tourist destination in the Western world this year. I've been there. I don't really see the attraction... the appeal of Scotland is the grey dreariness as a contrast to the warm and sunny summers in the US.
Endurance is a different category from the general fitness things we usually post about. While all exercises assist endurance, the best way is to do things that take time to train your body to endure.
Who has time to hike 10-12 miles over hill and dale, with a pack, without either a vacation or a dedicated Saturday?
From the Harvard Med. School Letter: Age and muscle loss
As the years pass, muscle mass in the body generally shrinks, and strength and power decline. The process begins earlier than you might think. Sarcopenia—defined as age-related muscle loss—can begin at around age 35 and occurs at a rate of 1-2 percent a year for the typical person. After age 60, it can accelerate to 3 percent a year. The loss may be mild, moderate, or severe—or muscles can remain in the normal range...
Strolling is recreational, like walking miles around Siena to see the sights with stops for coffee or beer, or to check out the truffle shop. However, in my view the goals of fitness are to be good with recreational and general functionality.
When does walking become a form of endurance (light-moderate "cardio") exercise? That depends on speed and incline. However challenging hiking might be (hills, rocks, etc.) it is still mostly a recreational and visual experience. Even for mountain hiking, most of us need to slow down.
As a rule of thumb, walking is not exercise unless there is sweat and a little shortness of breath. Some people say that if you can have a conversation, it is not exercise. Makes sense.
While doing cardio intervals at my gym I was amused to see an ad for weight-gain products (probably quackery) on the TV. Amused, because we are so accustomed to seeing ads for weight-loss quackery.
Weight-gain is important for scrawny or physically-undeveloped people who are looking to gain muscle and physical power. The classic 150-lb weakling male who wants to develop might need to gain 10 lbs with a balanced exercise program including weights and a robust diet. Same goes for a weakling stringbean gal.
Whether part of a fitness goal is weight gain or weight loss, a nutritional diary, I believe, is the essential, basic aid. If you record everything you put in your oatmeal-hole, including portion size, while weighing yourself every month, you will get a good idea of how you're moving towards your goals.
For weight gain goals with a 5-6-day per week exercise program including weights, I'd like to see about a 1 lb gain per month for a while. Unless you want to gain fat, a pound/month is plenty. If you can't do that, you need to up your intake. That can be difficult for some people who have to force themselves to eat more than they really want.
For getting rid of excess fat, a reasonable goal is 2 lbs/month with or without exercise. I can't tell you what percentage of American medical problems are related to being overweight, but it could be half of it, from arthritis to breast cancer. Hard exercise doesn't do much for weight loss but it's a good thing for life anyway.
In either case, a detailed diary can help you navigate towards your goal. People are often surprised by how much, or how little, they consume in a day.
This is not a recommendation for an obsessive lifetime plan, just to try for a few months.
"Metcon" workouts (metabolic conditioning) are not about strength-building or weight loss. They are about building vigor and endurance. A combination of HIIT Cardio and calisthenics, usually.
They are far better, and more fun, done in a group in a gym. Not 20 minutes, more like an hour with a 5-minute warm-up and 5 minutes stretching at the end.
There are sort-of 2 things that people term "cardio" exercise. One is about endurance (eg swimming laps, mountain hiking, treadmill jogs, etc). Maintaining endurance is good, but it has little to do with heart fitness unless one has cardiovascular disease or some other form of heart ailment.
It requires intensity to properly stress the heart muscle. Like weight-lifting, the intensity is what demands muscle strengthening and improved vasculature. This does not take much time out of your workout schedule. Heart rate is a good measure of exercise intensity. Here's how to know your cardio stress level. (It might not exactly apply if you are taking blood pressure meds that limit heart rate.) Or you can go by how you feel - if you are winded by a one-minute sprint and need 30-60 seconds to catch your breath, you probably got your heart rate up.
Here's a good 10-minute cardio workout, with jump rope. He calls it Beginner but it is pretty good:
At Maggie's Farm, perhaps we discuss weight training more than the other aspects of fitness. That might be because weight training requires more technique to get it right.
However, it seems to me that daily Calisthenics would be the thing to do if you had to pick one thing. Why is that?
A cali routine puts every muscle to work. It doesn't build big strength much, but that's another topic. A cali routine involves lots of HIIT cardio. A calis routine works on balance, and general athleticism. And, unlike heavy weights, an hour of calis does not require any special recovery time so it can be done daily.
It is more fun to do these in groups or couples, and it is more fun to rotate from one thing to another. It doesn't matter what level you work as long as you push it. One hour goes by fast.
Here are some of the things we do:
Warm-up (5-7 minutes): Jumping jacks, jump rope, high-knee running in place, etc.
Push-ups (any sort) Kettlebell swings Box squats (with or without weight) Heavy rope slams Ladder drills Box steps or box jumps Planks Inclined TRX pulls Leg raises Heavy ball throws and chest passes Lunges Burpees Rower sprints Heavy rope slams or arm machine sprints Chin-ups (assisted) Hand-weight curls Superman Kettlebell Farmers Walks Sit-ups wall-to wall sprints Bear Crawl Wall sits
If not heavily sweating, nothing is happening. Add on a 10-minute treadmill walk to cool down. You do not want to put a horse up wet...
For regular "Fitness for Life" people, two days/week of heavy weights (powerlifts) is good. (That is part of the Maggie's Fitness for Life program - plus 2 days with HIIT Cardio and one or 2 days of calisthenics and endurance "cardio". 6 hours/week is not too much for anybody).
(A reminder about Powerlifts: These are mostly full-body, or multi-muscle group/compound exertions: Bench Press, Deadlifts, Barbell Squats, Rows (dumbell, TRX, seated, barbell - whatever), Military Press, and pull-ups or pulldowns.) Depending on general health and taking into account past injuries, these are sturdiness basics regardless of age or sex. Ordinary people should not push their powerlifts two or three days in a row because recovery is needed. For a good discussion about powerlifts.
So-called Accessory Weight Exercises are good time- fillers, and do not need the sorts of recovery that the powerlifts do. Here's a partial list:
Curls of any sort Tricep exertions of any sort (dips, push-downs, skull-crushers) Shoulder shrugs Leg machines (ham curls and quad lifts) Calf lifts
Do any of our readers do Accessory Weights and, if so, what?
My husband loaded trucks at a lumber yard for three years in his teens. Sports too, of course, but he is sure that that labor made him a sturdier adult. Hard manual labor is what growing boys are made for. This might not apply to women, though.
In adulthood, however, if women want to avoid osteopenia the simplest and most natural approach is to lift heavy. Cardio does nothing for bone maintenance.
I've only had it several times over the years, and I know why I have it right now in my calves and quads. It's because I requested 30 minutes of our hour for calisthenics from my trainer on Saturday morning, and he had me doing things I've rarely done. It was hard, but a great workout.
As an experiment, I tried stretching and walking it off for 50 minutes this morning. It didn't seem to do much, but better than sitting, maybe.
Our D-Day post yesterday described 8-hour/day calisthenics for Airborne training (including running). "I thought I was in good shape, but I wasn't." Good grief, that's always the case.
Leg Tucks with Pullups are full-body exertions. Calisthenics. Some people swear by calisthenics, some by weights, and even some by cardio. We believe in them all.
Readers know that we view deadlifts as the single best way to build or to maintain physical sturdiness.
In my current program, I only do deads once weekly and barbell squats once weekly. Plus all of the other strength stuff of course.
It's not advice, but for my deads I do a 15-rep warm-up and then 5 sets increasing weight and lowering reps to 4. It is feeling more to me like maintenance.
It is normal for guys to want to be strong and to look good (ie appealing to females or imposing to males). It is instinctual. Body-building is the extreme version, but is a harmless hobby for some men (and some women too).
Rippetoe speaks mainly to men, but I think his strength-training advice applies just as well to women. His focus on strong=big, however, is only for guys who want to get "big." Most guys who pursue general fitness have no major desire to look conspicuously jacked, and women can't do it if they try. When it comes to appearance alone, it seems to me as if men and women want to look athletic.
When it comes to general fitness for life, muscle hypertrophy is unimportant although some amount of muscle growth will occur with any balanced fitness program. (As our readers know, our recommendations are 1/3 HIIT cardio, 1/3 mixed calisthenics, and 1/3 stressful weights for strength. This is a recipe for looking, and being, in athletic shape.)
1-2 lbs/week is enough. Sustaining a 2 lb/week loss is difficult, might be too much. Furthermore, fat loss is never steady.
That loss is almost entirely about nutrition. The reason to include exercise, or fitness training, is to minimize muscle loss while getting rid of the fat burden.
