Everyone has such great things about Body for Life that I have decided to give it a try! I read the book on my vacation last week & today was my first workout - lower body - and I have to say that Bill Phillips kicked my butt!
A few questions for those of you more knowledgable than I:
On the quads, I kicked *** - DEFINITELY to the point of exhaustion - on my final 6 reps, I had to rest between each rep! ouch. Hamstrings, I didn't do enough, and realize it - upping the weight there next time. Calves, I did good - could maybe go up a little. Abs - just not challenging! I did ball crunches & then weighted floor crunches, but I can crunch 'til the cows come home.
So, the first thing I need - what ab exercises do you recommend that are good for the 12-10-8-6 thing? With crunches, I didn't know how to make them harder for the lower-rep sets.
Second - after I did the routine, I still had some time left while my hubby finished his workout, so I did 30 min. elliptical. Is this bad? I know that he says 20 min cardio 3x a week - but is it going to hurt me or delay my progress to do more? I like cardio - it is fun for me - and would gladly do more than my 3 weekly HIIT sessions.
Thanks, everyone! I'm sure I will have more questions as I continue on in this!
For abs I do hanging knee-ups, also straight leg lifts (which can be weighted when you progress).
Janda sit ups are good and hard - although reading about them they seem hard to do but I found them easy to execute but hard work on the muscles, basically I just tensed my butt and hamstrings and performed the movement EXTRA s l o w!
Personally I'd say it's ok to do extra cardio if you enjoy it - all movement counts. I'd count a fun 20 minutes on the bike like a recreational bike ride or a frisbee game in the park. He doesn't say in the book, do only these weights and these HIIT sessions and sit on your butt the rest of the week does he? I think all movement helps and the muscle-burning quality of cardio only really applies to very long steady state cardio like marathon running - probably anything over an hour and you're going to start using muscle for fuel rather than food, however (correct me if I'm wrong PTs) I think this muscle-burning can be prevented by eating/drinking carbs and protein during very long steady-state cardio like a marathon or such.
I agree with 2Frus, SusanB and Tom Venuto. A little extra cardio is a good thing.
Body for Life appears to be designed in such a way as to combat against two common problems facing people who are new to training. On the one hand, it provides an intense but not time intensive program so it addresses the needs of those who are hesitant to train because they are afraid they are going to be spending too much time in the gym. On the other hand, it also tames the new trainees on the other end of the spectrum who are extremely eager and are prone to overtrain. These are the people who are going to jump right in trying to train 2 hours or more a day, 7 days a week and not going to give their muscles a chance to recover, repair, and grow properly. Therefore, he finds a nice middle ground and a nice base that suits both groups perfectly. I think you can easily do a little more. However, I would caution before you do much more, to make sure you are giving your body proper recovery time.
Also, as 2Frus said, as long as you don't get into extremely long cardio sessions, you are OK. You don't want to deplete your glycogen stores completely because then you start jeopardizing your lean mass. While aerobic exercise burns predominantly fat, it still requires some sugar burning (glycogen). If you deplete your glycogen stores, the liver will start taking amino acids (which are meant for building and restoring muscle), will strip the nitrogen from them and convert them to provide the needed glucose. So unless you are training for long-distance running or other high endurance sport, there is no need to push the cardio for more than 45 minutes-1 hour at a time. 30 minutes is great. If you REALLY love cardio and want to do more than 45 minutes to an hour, break it up into 2 sessions, preferably with 8 hours or more in between to allow your glycogen stores to replenish.
The only thing I do disagree with 2Frus on (and I could easily be the one who is wrong here) is that I think eating/drinking carbs and protein during a marathon or "marathon" cardio session will only slow the rate at which the liver converts valuable amino acids into glucose. I don't think the glycogen can be replenished as fast as it is being burned here. So I too, would like to here from the PT's on this.
Thanks for the input, everyone! I am sore today - even the abs, which I didn't feel like I'd worked that hard - so good stuff. I am waiting until after work to do my first 20-min cardio blast thingy.
Wow, it's hard to eat this much protein and still stay in a decent calorie range, isn't it? Yesterday was my first day, and I ate probably 400 over what I would eat on a normal day of just doing low-cal weight watching - pretty much just to get the protein in! That sort of scares me - I have been a calorie-reduction fan for a long time now. . .I guess just give it a bit & see what happens? or???
Depalma - I wasn't sure whether it would stop it or slow it, so perhaps you're right. I doubt you'd be able to consume enough glycogen quickly enough for it to be used as fuel right away. I guess all our PT's are stuffing their faces with turkey today
I just realized that Su-Bee didn't state the intensity of her extra session of cardio. Perhaps because of the length, I just assumed it was steady state in the aerobic zone. Or perhaps because when I did BFL, I did some extra low intensity steady state.
If the extra session was HIIT, then I would think that you would want to take a longer break to recover and would keep the extra session to 20 minutes. I would treat 20 minutes of HIIT, the same as 45 minutes to an hour of steady state for recovery purposes (no scientific basis, just based on my personal exercise experiences). Personally, I wouldn't do an additional HIIT session. However, your personal mileage and preferences may vary.
When I did BFL, I did 45 minutes of LISS 6 times a week in addition to the cardio in the plan since I felt I needed more time in the aerobic "fat burning" training zone being as my body fat percentage was extremely high.
No, the extra stuff I'll do will definitely be LISS. I just really enjoy a step class now and again, or like I said, hopping on the elliptical for 30 minutes while hubby finishes his workout. The HIIT workouts will be strictly by the book. (Not sure I could handle more than that, frankly, even if I wanted to!)
I'm doing my first HIIT session after work today, and I realized I've never actually done cardio like that before. So I was thinking treadmill would probably be the easiest thing to adjust the effort levels on (as with ellipticals & stairclimbers, on some increasing the intensity means going faster, while on others it means stepping "harder," etc.).
But I don't know what would be best - a flat-surface run, increasing effort by going faster? Or a high-incline walk, increasing the speed, or a steady-speed run, increasing the incline?
And where to START? I honestly don't guess I know what a "5" is for me.
You need to just try it a few times. I do HIIT different ways- on an elliptical, set it to manual and go faster and bump up the resistance. On a treadmeill if my knees agre in agreement, I'll jog-sprint. If my knees are bothering me, I'll do power walk-steep incline walk. The first time I did BFL, I did almost all my cardio on a recumbent bike and used the interval program for HIIT.
If you are doing BFL by the book, don't worry about the calories- you'll just scare yourself. My first challenge (starting at my then goal weight but NOT goal body, I gained two pounds but lost 2 pants sizes and 7% body fat. I also re-gained a long buried eating disorder thanks to free day.
I've always struggled with this myself Su-Bee. I've never been good with any type of perceived effort index methods. Perhaps I haven't worked at it enough. I don't know. I go for the more convenient method of going by heart rate (which is not totally accurate unless you have professional tests done). However, due to my lack of skill with the perceived effort ratings, I figure there will be estimation errors either way.
I have a hard time figuring out my personal "5" as well, but I sure know my personal "10" when I see (or rather feel) it. So I work backwards. For me, my "10" is 90% of my maximum heart rate.
As far as increasing speed or resistance or both, I don't think it matters. I could be wrong and missed that from the book, but I mixed it up from session to session. Never did try mixing it up within the same session, but I don't see why that wouldn't work as well. What I think is important is increasing up the Intensity Index.
I did all my "20 minute Aerobics Solution" work on the stationary bike because I could control the intensity better for some reason. I don't know if it is a coordination thing or what, but I can increase the resistance on the bike and still pedal at or close to the same RPM whereas on the elliptical, if I increase the resistance, I tend to slow down and pretty much remain at the same intensity. Weird huh. Also on the elliptical, if I try to pick up the speed to fast and suddenly, I throw myself off and start to jerk around and cannot maintain smooth movement.
Experiment with the different machines and methods and find which method you enjoy and will continue to do the most.
Depalma - I wasn't sure whether it would stop it or slow it, so perhaps you're right. I doubt you'd be able to consume enough glycogen quickly enough for it to be used as fuel right away. I guess all our PT's are stuffing their faces with turkey today
This quote from a John Berardi article leads me to believe that you were right:
Talking about pre- and during marathon nutrition:
"While it is very important to start a race with muscle glycogen stores topped off, it is also important to note that the body tends to use carbohydrates much more quickly when there are more available. Unfortunately, even if you're topped off, muscle glycogen depletion can still occur. In order to prevent this from happening you should be consuming sports drinks or gels during your entire race. Since the body can only use about 60g of carbohydrate per hour during exercise, one to two servings of a drink like Gatorade or Powerade (or 1-2 servings of sports gels) per hour should do the trick for carbohydrate supplementation."
Am I hearing Mel right? That if we just ate by BFL's guidelines we'd eat more calories than we're used to?? Cuz I'm starving this week ... but ... but I was trying to count calories too. Hard habit to get out of.
Well, I don't think the HIIT session went at all bad - thanks for all the tips! I ended up walking on the treadmill, ranging from a "5" of 4.5 mph 0 incline to a "10" of 5 mph 5 incline. All things considered I *might* have had a slightly higher 10 but not by much, and could stand to bump the incline on my 5.
Today was my 1st day upper body. I am still feeling my lower body from 2 days ago! It's good, though - means I did something.
SusanB - I am definitely eating more calories than I feel I "should" being a calorie-counter, and I haven't had a day yet where I've managed to get in all 6 feedings. It makes me nervous. . .but. . .I am giving it the "wait & see" - I keep reminding myself that he says it is about feeding your body, not about NOT feeding it!
First Day on Body for Life - a few questions?
I guess all our PT's are stuffing their faces with turkey today 
