All right you guyz, I'm still alive

YES I have been horsing around this weekend! Actually since I have today off (yay!) I'm going back to the stables today. Yesterday Jim and I went on a drive. It has been gorgeous here in the Bay Area - we drove to Half Moon Bay and then took Highway 1 to Santa Cruz (really beautiful drive!), then Hwy 9 through Boulder Creek and back to San Mateo via Skyline Blvd. We used to do those kind of drives a lot so it was nice to get on the road again.

Y'all have been way busy! I slept in a bit today then did my leg workout...BTW here's my current split:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Killer legs workout + back + abs
Tuesday/Saturday: Upper bod (except back) + abs & cardio
Thursday/Sunday (optional): Just cardio and abs

Generally I like to hit my legs super hard - they can take a lot of punishment - but I don't have time to do cardio as well. However, I might head over to the gym again this afternoon for a quick 20 minutes or so on the treadmill.

Optional: Horseback riding on Saturdays and whenever else I can fit it in!!

Hm, as far as cleaning - I was trying to find a photo of Jane Curtin as Mrs. Conehead with that apron that says "I HATE HOUSEWORK". Actually I just cleaned the cat box. Unfortunately, Ms. Meg is not as nice and neat as our Sparky. He is always so careful to cover up his 'business' after he finishes, but she just leaves it on top. Eww.

I can see I have a ton of messages to read - I'll do that after I get back from Dee Dee's. Have a great day everyone!

Mrs. Jim - You make me homesick for beautiful scenery! I'm originally from Sonoma, and there are NO hills in Mississippi!

Adriana Have you always done that much cardio? WOW you have a ton of energy my friend! I know for other posts, that those who do extra cardio find they are not building muscle as fast and sometimes suffer from burnout faster. I'm really curious, and am just learning more about how the wonderful body works, so that's why I'm always full of questions. Do you have a lot of weight to lose, or are you already in great shape? Thanks in advance for your help.


I thought Karen might have been out horsing around this weekend! Good for you! Lady, you work hard!

To all of you 'Clean Freaks' out there - I'm one too! I love to clean. JC, I find it's like therapy too. I put on my Old Navy Dance tape (disco songs, OLD disco songs!) and clean away! My husband thinks I'm nuts.

Kinda tweaked my back this weekend.
Not sure how. I sure don't want an injury this new into my new workout. Shoot. Well, I shall rest and see what happens.

Gotta fly - off to the office. I wonder if they'll remember me!

just to stay current w/ the new thread and to say

sounds like a great weekend Karen and hope you are enjoying your week off mel

well....... at least here it's already evening.

Karen -- it's soooo good to see you!! i'm glad that you had such a great weekend. i've done that same drive many times in my life and i miss it!! so.... enjoy it double each time, once for me

Niffer - until september 2002 i just didn't move. that's how i got so heavy in the first place. well.... i was on the swim team when i was a kid but from age 11 or so till now i just didn't do any kind of exercise. i just slowly got into it over the past few months. i LOVE it now. i would not be able to go the gym without doing some form of cardio -- kind of sacreligious to me. i'm planning on working my way up to running one day..... whenever that day is.

all i know is that i'm building muscle faster than anyone i know because i work the weights with great intensity. i know for a fact that no one in our gym has the results that i have, but then i work really, really hard.

i do have a lot of weight to loose (another 70 or so), but then it's been coming off consistently for 18 weeks now. i'm down 26.4 pounds and i've lost more than 2 entire clothes sizes too. my leg muscles are rock solid now even though there is still fat on them. i never took pictures nor measured myself, but the changes are incredible nonetheless!!

i think it's a total falacy that it's harder to build muscle doing lots of cardio too. if you work the weighs the way they are suppose to be worked then the muscles will come (of course rest and recovery are just as important, as well as nutrition).

i feed myself SUPER well, always thinking of how i'm building muscle. i don't take *free days* or *free meals* because they just don't make sense to me...... i'm building my body, not just waiting to reward myself with a blow-out meal or blow-out day.

i hope this has answered some of your questions. i also love hearing about how people progress with weights, weight loss, cardio, etc. !!


Ledom -- your workouts look real good ( i read it in the closed thread). i'm sure that you'll make great progess with it and you'll be excited every time you workout. personally, right now i'm working on the pyramid set progression of BFL. i hadn't done this in a few months and it feels good to be back to basics. i'm doing 4 weeks of *by the book* bfl when it comes to amounts of exercises per body part, sets and reps. who knows what the next 4 weeks will bring


==================

well........ i had a great killer legs workout. i felt so solid and strong!! i did my entire workout without one interruption and that was nice. i also did some abs work. then i hit the treadmill for 60 minutes of incline intervals. the stretches at the end of all the abuse felt like a little bit of heaven

tomorrow is a rest day for me. we're going to tel aviv to do some errands. hopefully no one will blow up. we have a real false sense of security lately, especially in our little city. it's scary.

i hope you've all had a great monday so far.

take care and work hard !!

adriana

Adriana
YOu are workin it girl! I only did 10 minutes on cross trainer, today, but I did an awesome leg workout today. I can really feel the burn. I am on my last week of my first challenge. I can not see much of a difference, however, my friend is going to take my after photos on Saturday night, so we will see then.
I had a rough Xmas month and never really got fully back into after that. I am going to start on Monday with a brand new challenge and stick to it 100%. I want to see what BFL can really do for me. Well, off to take some glutamine, I am stiff and sore right now.
Take care everyone!
Virginia

Physioloigy lesson here:

Unless you are compensating with large amounts of clean food, it is impossible not to burn muscle doing cardio session of over 30 minutes. That's just how the biology works. Since staring to lift INTENSELY 2 years ago, the only times I have experienced muscle (and strength ) loss, has been doing Camp Pam Brown, which adds a lot of cardio, and training for the 1/2 marathon. I was lifting with max intensity during both those periods, but steadily losing muscle due to the horrific cardio loads.

When actually doing cardio, you burn no fat- once the glucose and glycogen stored in your liver are depleted, your body turns to muscle for it's fuel. That is why BFL is based on a 20 minute cardio session: during those 20 minutes, you are using glucose and glycogen for energy- it's called a glycolitic process- beyond that, it is a "catabolic" process (muscle burning). After long aerobic exercise, your muscles will eventually repair themselves if they have sufficient amino acid pools (food and stored fat) from which to pull nutrients.

Overweight beginning weighlifters can get away with excess cardio, tho it's not going to help you, unless it just plain makes you feel better. For about the first 4-5 months you have a golden window for developing muscle, despite too much cardio. However, your muscle gains would be greater if you keep your cardio in the less than 1/2 hour range. This only applies to intense cardio- HIIT or all-out sessions. Taking a walk- even a 5-7 km one or a bike ride, is healthy entertainment.

As your body fat get lower, unless you are doing real exact nutritional analysis and eating buckets of the right foods (like Robb or Rich at L&S), you'll finding it increasingly difficult to build muscle mass or even maintain it if you do excess cardio. Also, metabolisms adjust to a level of exertion, and the more cardio you do, the more you need to add to maintain or lose.

There is one other aspect to consider, tho. That's what do you want to look like? Not everyone (in fact a lot of my friends have pronounced her comp pictures "disgusting") don't want to look like Pam Brown. Given that the long, lean look is genetically impossible for me, I'm going for the muscular.

Well enough of that. This is all based on clinical studies which I can point you to if anyone is interested, and my own recent experience.

Adriana- I sure hope nobody blows up, too! I read the paper each morning with new trepidation now that I have a new friend in Israel. My cousins returned to the US about a year ago, so I no longer had such a personal connection.

Ledom- I second the motion that your workouts look real good! Have fun.

Karen- Sounds like you had a super weekend! It's been too cold here to think of doing anything. Even getting in the car seems like being under seige.

Lana- How are you? Must be pretty cold up there too! Dh did 2 co-op terms in Ottawa when he was at university (Waterloo) and tells me stories not condusive to visiting there in the winter

OK- gotta go help with homework. I took a 6th grade take home math quiz this morning and got 1 wrong.

mel

I just did my back and bis and was wondering the whole time what the heck I was doing. Back I did three dif. exercises 3 set/10 reps. For bis I reverted to the bfl technique 12,10,8,6,12,12 because I felt like I knew that would be correct.

If I am only working each part once a week then I am not working out as hard unless I increase the amount of exercise I do for each part, am I? I need to learn some bodybuilding terms besides set and rep as I don't think I am getting my questions across.

Mel: thanks for that - I was about to post it myself. The only point I would add is that - that is why the post workout meal is so important. You need the protein to provide the amino acids so that your body doesn't catabolise your muscle and a form of energy, normally carbs to replenish your glycogen stores so that your body doesn't catabolise your muscle even more.

Ledom: I emailed you - we can work it out.

Karen: glad to see you had a great weekend mate.

Virginia: stick with BFL for as long as it works for you... trust me you don't want to change to early.

Niffer: my husband thinks I am crazy as well. Last night I went to the gym and did legs then a bit of cardio (8 mins) to get the lactic acid out of my legs. When I got home he was gardening so I jumped in and helped him (after a protein shake of course) for an hour of so and he was like 'It's good enough' and I was like no it has to be finished and neat and clean (damn weeds)! So I kept going until it was finished. It's just satisfying to finish the housework and for everything to be neat and tidy!

Adriana: I have 2 dogs as well. Beagles - what about you?

JC

<sorta delurking>

I totally agree with Mel; it certainly isn't a "fallacy" that too much cardio burns muscle, and it doesn't matter how hard you work out at lifting. I would bet Mel's squats (and probably most other lifts) against most of us here

As a matter of fact, when I did do cardio I had very little success, with either fat loss or muscle gain. I suspect that most of my problem was undereating (palm/fist is inadequate for me) but the cardio sure didn't help matters.

So without cardio I went from 125 @~23% BF to 112@12%. My lean mass went up about 9 pounds (over 10%). I've maintained that level since October, though I'm flirting with the idea of a bulk lately.

This is BodyRX btw, I know some were wondering about it recently. I cannot say enough good things about this program, or how happy I am to be eating so well and so much.

Laura

Look what the cat dragged in! (or the cardio-hehe).

Just finished a quickie re-read of the BodyRx book. Still put off by the lifting. NO SQUATS!!! Still mystified by the eating. Or rather, how to track it all other than just wolfing down 2 bowls of Fiber 1 a day.

mel

LOL!

Most of us just ignore that "no squats" thing; we don't know what Dr.C was thinking! I did these evil wide squats on Friday and am still crippled.

Meant to say earlier: I also agree with JEC about the importance of PW meals. BodyRX doesn't endorse this either, but I started using one mid-cycle 2 and I believe I owe a lot of muscle to that.

As with all things, sometimes it's a matter of finding what works for you .

Laura

well well well look who 'popped in' hey Laura!!

I did sumo squats last night and my butt is still reminding me today. Big kisses!!

JC

I LOST 3 SIZES!!!!

yep it's true I finally got around to getting all of my rings adjusted on Sunday and my ring size has dropped from an 'N' to a 'K'. The jeweller couldn't believe that I had lost that many sizes.

So I am 'unmarried' at the moment!

JC

hope you're all well today.

Mel, and everyone else -- there is still no reasonable explanation then for my great results in the past (almost) five months if i am completely wrong. i've lost weight and built muscle. i've gone down two complete sizes and i've brought down my cholesterol.

with everything that i have read, and that's a WHOLE lot lately, there is still a great divide even amongst the best of the sports medicine community was to the benefits/costs of doing more or less cardio.

i'm not talking about the marathon or 1/2 marathon training that you did before. i'm talking about daily cardio, 30-60 minutes each time -- anywhere between *fat burning* to HIIT.

there is nothing that really shows that it's counter-productive. on the other hand it does burn more calories and calories still translate into fat anyway you analyze it.

personally, i haven't had any problem with over-training or lack of strength during workouts. i do get tired during the day, but that's more because i have long, long days (and short nights), and i take a nap to solve that problem.

i also eat 100% of the time to support all the energy i expend and to further the strength work and recovery i want and need. i eat 100% clean, balanced meals with good protein at each meal and i never under-eat, so there is no reason in the world why i shouldn't continue with the amounts of cardio i do.

bodybuilders that do supersets, tri-sets etc also expend a whole lot of energies, some of them maintaining at least 65% heart rate for at least 30 minutes at a time, more towards 60 minutes. then they do 20 minutes of HIIT. what's the difference here? none.

are you familiar with Tom Venuto (http://www.fitren.com) ? now there's someone who knows what he's doing - check out that man's body ! he also contributes to many other sites and from everything that i've read he makes a whole lot of sense.

i think that most importantly each one of us has to do what is personally compatable with their body, lifestyle, capabilities, goals. since i've never been in *good shape* i have no idea yet what my genetics are like, muscular, lean, tall i'm not for sure (i'm 5'1"), whatever. i'll have to keep being patient to see what really comes out in the end. i wouldn't mind being totally lean, but i wouldn't mind working on being more muscular if that's what my body says i should do. we'll see.

take care,

adriana