Hope you all are still enjoying the program. I'm planning to get start up this week. I've had to hold off for a few months because I had a miserable bout of sciatica. But it's been better for weeks and I'm looking forward to getting active again!
I started a week ago. I'm going to do it 2x's a week. So I've done workout A and B in stage 1 and enjoyed it!
I look forward to doing it again this week. Though, since I'm doing this in my house I had to modify the lat pulldown on workout B.
And yes those lunges always get me. My butt was sore for 2 days afterwards!
I'm almost done with Stage 1 now, how did it go by so quickly? I do a 1.5 break due to illness but now just have 2 workouts left before entering Stage 2.
I'm still doing this program and lovin it. I will be starting stage 4 next week. Stage 1 is the longest, once you get past that the stages go quite fast so it never gets boring. I'm finding some of the exercises really interesting and effective. The body matrix is a killer but challenging. When I started I could barely do 1 full push up, I can now do 10, so I know I have definitely improved. Also my body fat is melting off me, so I can't be more happier with this program. How is everyone else going?
Excited to get it but I'm not planning to start it until the end of July, want a chance to read it thoroughly and practice lifting actions maybe before actually doing weights.
I'm not sure about going to the gym to do weight lifting though. What equipment do you need to be able to do the workouts at home? It's just that gym member ships are very expensive and I am super poor. If all I need is a set of dumbells and a ball, then I think doing the workouts at home would be cheaper. And avoid the embarrassment of lifting tiny weights for the first couple of weeks :/
I actually did the entire thing a few years back when the book first came out and LOVED IT. Since then I stopped exercising, gained a million pounds and blah blah blah. Since the program was so much fun, I thought it would be a good place to start my weight loss. I'm currently about halfway through Stage 1 and I'm really, really looking forward to getting to the next, more interesting stages!
*I do 15 minutes of HIIT after the weights, even though it isn't prescribed by the program. I'm trying to lose weight here! I also run and cycle on the off days for extra calorie burn. (Or at least, I try to. I'm still trying to re-establish good, healthy habits!)
I'm going to do my second workout of Stage 1 today. I know everyone has different opinions about adding extra exercises to the routines, but I have added a few that will specifically target my abs and some more for the arms as these are my trouble areas. If it becomes too much, I will drop back to just doing the original program (highly modified, though, because I don't have a step or a ball or a bench - this is what led me to adding other exercises, especially body-weight exercises, into the program).
Please, let's keep this thread going! I really want to see how you all progress so you can keep me inspired to carry on
I just started reading the book this week. I got it from the library on Monday and may end up buying it. Haven't done any of the exercises yet but am following a weight training plan my gym gave me last week. Anyway looking forward to starting the program.
I just ordered NROL4W a few days ago. I live overseas so it will take a good 2-3 weeks to arrive. Just read through the entire thread though and am really excited about starting.
We have a pretty sad gym in our apt complex- no rack, no barbells, no bench (well there's literally a padded bench you can use for bench presses but you have to use dumbbells). I'm determined to try to make this happen anyway.
Anyone else following/recently finished/started this program?
I'm still doing it. I'm about halfway through stage 4. It's great. Lots of fun and brutally hard work!
You might run into trouble with the absence of barbells (for the deadlifts, mostly, and the squats in stage 1) but you'll probably be right with everything else.
I'm sort of still doing it. Do to my knee injury I can't do anything on my legs, so the doctor has me just swimming and doing upper body/core work. I've adapted the workouts and am using roughly the same format but I've obviously had to switch out all of the lower body work. Because I can only do upper body work I only lift about 1-2x per week and try to swim 3x a week because, well, there's only so much I can do!
I have been working up to trying to do a pull-up, though! I'm been slowly upping the weight on my lat-pull downs. We *think* it's about 5kg per plate so that would mean I'm up to 60kg. If I can just move up 3 more plates then I think I could manage a pull-up on my own. I've tried a few times and am certainly getting closer but am not quite there. DH keeps telling me I shouldn't do pull-ups because it's going to make my back too big (yeah... I have problems finding bras because my back is TOO SMALL! I don't think this is going to be a problem! ).
indi- do you have strap on weights in your gym? Mine has them and it helped with squats back when I was still able to do them.
Oh no sorry about your injury, running! Good for you for listening your doctor and healing your knee.
We don't have strap-on weights, only plain dumbbells. And they only go to 15 kgs each! I am the only one who uses the 15 kg weights too, and they aren't even heavy enough for my squats. (I don't even squat heavy!!) Even the men who use the gym usually just stick to the two or three machines.
Fitness and lifting has yet to catch on in India, can you tell?
DietVet awesome website, thanks! I forgot about those forums. It looks to be really active and useful.
Do to my knee injury I can't do anything on my legs, so the doctor has me just swimming and doing upper body/core work. I've adapted the workouts and am using roughly the same format but I've obviously had to switch out all of the lower body work. Because I can only do upper body work I only lift about 1-2x per week and try to swim 3x a week because, well, there's only so much I can do! 
I've tried a few times and am certainly getting closer but am not quite there. DH keeps telling me I shouldn't do pull-ups because it's going to make my back too big (yeah... I have problems finding bras because my back is TOO SMALL! I don't think this is going to be a problem! 
).
