Lost some weight, been doin abs, surfing better.

[robzig]

[Karlos]

How about good aerobic workouts? Anyone knowledgable on these? I'm needing to increase my aerobic fitness as much as possible over the next 5-6 weeks & outside of 2-3 sessions of martial arts training, am also doing a couple of sessions of hill runs. These involve 6-10 150 metre (or so) dashes up a fairly steepish hill using the walk back down to the starting spot as the recovery. I feel these get the lungs burning & seem to be doing the job, but as I'm not up on the science of this sort of thing I'm wondering if there are more effective ways of reaching an optimum cardio fitness level. Any tips?

[oldman]

Man I need some guidance in losing some weight. I went from 68kg to 80kg in what seemed to be over night. I found out I really love red wine and Coops which set my eating ship in the wrong direction. F**K......now I'm up around 84kg and feel massive.

Man, you must be feeling that. Similar starting weight to me, but I've never got up to anywhere near 80 kgs

It never hindered my surfing up until now, my lower back went on me last week. I gotta get back to fighting weight period.

I have started to eat healthy again and get on the bike through the week but I'm finding it hard to stay on track. Any pointers?

Not a surprise that the lower back is giving out. Usually one of the first casualties in the middle aged weight gainer.

Get your eating sorted out is my best advice. Try to ensure a good variety of foods, and just try to eat less.

It's only a modern phenomenon that people in the west only rarely, if ever, experience pangs of hunger. The worse of it is the size of the average meal. If you can start to look at your food in a different way you will see that meal sizes these days are much more than you require. Trim down the portion sizes and start to think of food as something to keep the hunger pangs away rather than fill you up. If you have eaten until you feel 'full', then you have eaten far too much in reality.

According to research, the mechanism that tells you that you are full takes about 15 or so minutes to reach your brain. If you are thinking about second helpings, give it some time to get through that you have had enough. You really only need to eat enough to get you to your next meal, which is likely no more then 4 hours away.

Cutting out beer is effective, but probably not sustainable. Try to cut it out for the med-week and give yourself a treat on the weekends.

Sometimes I look at a piece of food and consider how many kms I'd have to run to burn it off, and it helps me put it back down.

[Beerfan]

www.calorieking.com.au.

Soooo easy to use, and you'll be surprised what's in you're eating. No gimmicks, no bullcrap. Basically you search what your'e gunne eat the niext day ( there's a search engine in the site ), add it to breakfast,lunch, dinner, or snack, then it'll tell you how many calories,fat,protein,carbs etc. It will also tell you how much you should be eating daily ( once you put your height,weight and age in ).

Eating is 80% of weight loss.

Back pain when doing abs is why i use an ab bench, or incline bench. Hunt for a cheapo on ebay ( i did, 20 bucks!! ). No pain at all, AND because you're doing it on an incline, you're working the abs harder.

Beer isnt that bad for you either, as you can tell i like my beer ( 3 kegs in my fridge ), you just have to factoer them into your daily calories.



My .02 cents.

It's a good feeling being lighter, leaner, and fitter, as well as the benefits from surfing. THe mrs loves it too. The only pain in constantly pulling my jeans up hahaha.

I started mainly coz im 30 in march, and the men in my family are ahem "round", and i see my cousins my age turning into big units. I dont want that. Plus i have kids. Big factor also.

[oldman]

How about good aerobic workouts? Anyone knowledgable on these?

See NC's workout routine, halve it and you'll be the second fittest man on the northern beaches!

(How does he find time to surf?)

You can get pretty complicated about this stuff. It tends to come down to any exercise that gets your heart rate up, and as Nick's exercise routine suggests, it is about getting your heart rate up to a % of your maximum heart rate, for a sustained period of time(which is dependent on age among other things, be careful here).

Google maximum heart rates and I'm sure you'll find some charts, the idea often revolving around getting your heart rate to certain levels, and to sustain that for periods.

Getting your heart rate up involves working the biggest muscles. Biggest muscles in the body, gluteus maximus, latissimus dorsi, then upper leg muscles (hamstrings and quad groups).

The routine you describe will tend to help your power, but the fact that it isn't sustained means that the cardio-vascular isn't getting the same benefits. When talking about % of maximum heart rates, they usually recommend 10 minute plus time ranges. The hill sprints are killers but don't sustain the heart rate.

As always be careful with this stuff. 40+ year olds need to be aware that pushing yourself like you did when you were younger may be deadly

[robzig]

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[Karlos]

How about good aerobic workouts? Anyone knowledgable on these?

See NC's workout routine, halve it and you'll be the second fittest man on the northern beaches!

(How does he find time to surf?)

How does he find time to do ANYTHING else. Sheeit, I've got a job, a family, I like to surf & hang out & ...

You can get pretty complicated about this stuff. It tends to come down to any exercise that gets your heart rate up, and as Nick's exercise routine suggests, it is about getting your heart rate up to a % of your maximum heart rate, for a sustained period of time(which is dependent on age among other things, be careful here).

Google maximum heart rates and I'm sure you'll find some charts, the idea often revolving around getting your heart rate to certain levels, and to sustain that for periods.

Getting your heart rate up involves working the biggest muscles. Biggest muscles in the body, gluteus maximus, latissimus dorsi, then upper leg muscles (hamstrings and quad groups).

The routine you describe will tend to help your power, but the fact that it isn't sustained means that the cardio-vascular isn't getting the same benefits. When talking about % of maximum heart rates, they usually recommend 10 minute plus time ranges. The hill sprints are killers but don't sustain the heart rate.

This contradicts what I've been led to believe. But then again, I should have explained what I need to increase my fitness for, & that it is more an anaerobic thing I'm needing. I'll be grading for a black belt at the martial arts dojo I train at, which is going to involve three very intense sessions, & I'm wanting to be able to handle it as best I can without throwing up or passing out. My fitness is pretty good at the moment, but I'm looking to be as well prepared as I possibly can be.

[Karlos]

How about good aerobic workouts? Anyone knowledgable on these?

I've been doing Tabata intervals twice a week for many years now. The first few years sprints at the local oval, the last several years on a Concept 2 rower. I start with 9min of warmup, 1min rest/psyche-up, intervals, then 3min cooldown. I follow this program, especially important not to go straight into the 20/10s (it'll kill you). Otherwise just google 'Tabata intervals', there's lots of information out there.

This is exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for. Gracias.

[steve shearer]

Yeah.

I'm a big fan of high intensity.\Not so much duration.

And using bodweight exercises to really hammer large muscle groups.

If I've only got 5mins I'll go do 50 chins and go to complete muscle fatigue.

Bike riding seems to really complement surfing....working legs and hammies and also being fun, which is key.
I hate gyms. Too much sweaty sausage.

I don't eat shitt food...I'm 74 kilos at 40, which is exactly what I weighed at 19.

I love beer but have 2 months off a year....one in Jan/feb after Chrissie and before the autumn surf season and one in Sep/Oct.

Standup paddle, rockfishing...whatever...keep moving.

A month off beer feels pretty amazing and boy that first one back tastes good.

[Beerfan]

A month off beer feels pretty amazing and boy that first one back tastes good

I agree steve, though i never go a full month "dry", i have cut down a lot, and yep, i feel better for it.

[RickyG]

I'm limited to one surf a week if i'm lucky

I've been going to the gym at lunchtimes most of this year primarily to keep a level of fitness going to help me be ready ti surf when i can. Focus is on cardio, some stretching and strength/tone of shoulders, back and tricep muscles for paddling.

It's been pretty positive (also the best stress-reliever I know) but getting busy at work and/or sick and suddenly 3-4 sessions a wekk becomes 3-4 weeks away and lots of ground to make up.

Re the paddling - I've noticed lately that I seem to be getting really sore arms and shoulders regardless of the effort put in to these muscles which is denting my enthusiasm a bit.

Am I missing something? I've read the correct padlling technique thread so I know I should be focusing my paddling effort in my back and based my above muscle group selection purely on what hurts most when I get out of the water (triceps mostly, then shoulders and back).

Any idea/pointers anyone can share specifically re tuning up upper body for paddling strength would be greatly appreciated. I'm starting to think I'd be better off jogging/cycling and doing yoga for flexibility rather than the gym.

[J-P]

I swam (in my steamer) for a grand total of 400m on Saturday.
That was as far as I could go before I nearly spewed.

Please someone tell me that swimming in a steamer is REALLY hard and that I'm not that un-fit? I'm twenty-friggin-six!

[Nick Carroll]

I have a lake a few hundred metres down the road. What do you use in the flat water??

surf club racing mal.

Vary the abs, don't just crunch. get a fit ball and open up the whole centre of your body. You'll be doing Mck Fanning top turns in no time

[purple pyramids]

nick's workout sounds like it was designed by rob roland-smith.

i'm still recovering from the last workout with him...20 years ago.

[Nick Carroll]

It tends to come down to any exercise that gets your heart rate up, and as Nick's exercise routine suggests, it is about getting your heart rate up to a % of your maximum heart rate, for a sustained period of time(which is dependent on age among other things, be careful here).

well kinda.

what you really wanna do is push the heart rate up then back it down, then push it up again. Recovery's as important as the effort.

Karlos's uphill sprints to decline recoveries are excellent -- k try breaking the set down, so you're running 50 - 75 - 100 - 125 - 150 - 125 -100 - 75 - 50. Use the pyra,mid to stagger the effort so the first half is 70%, then as you drop off the other side and get shorter again, lift to 90+%.

Note how I'm not saying "100%", 100 is a bogus notion -- if you're putting in 100% effort then you're probably not being efficient... technique starts to fall off at around 92% effort of pretty much anything.

Run with your arms up, hands rising past your shoulder line, and lift your goddam knees -- kicking your feet out the back doesn't work.

ps shearer and ringmaster, are you really the same body weight and shape as you were at 21?? holy shit, I'm not. 8kg heavier minimum, definitely more muscle, still flexible but less so than at 21, 32" shorts instead of 31", pretty much everything works differently. Oh yeah and no hair.

[Nick Carroll]

I swam (in my steamer) for a grand total of 400m on Saturday.
That was as far as I could go before I nearly spewed.

Please someone tell me that swimming in a steamer is REALLY hard and that I'm not that un-fit? I'm twenty-****-six!

Swimming in a steamer is well known to be piss easy.

The rubber floats ya. That's why they don't let you use wetsuits in surf swim races.

Don't be afraid to spew! If you can do it on Friday night, you can do it on Saturday morning.

[oldman]

This contradicts what I've been led to believe. But then again, I should have explained what I need to increase my fitness for, & that it is more an anaerobic thing I'm needing.

Fair enough karlos. Anaerobic stuff is more high intensity short period, and will result in increased power, which tends to build muscle mass.

Aerobic type exercise tends to be at the other end, increasing muscle tone rather than mass, sustaining smaller effort over longer periods of time and exercising the heart/lung fitness.

The former advice about keeping heart rates up to a % of maximum heart rate is what was being advocated in recent times for trimming the fat off you (which I see now is not what you were after). Theory being that the body uses most available energy sources (glucose in the blood) before working its way through the most readily available sources left until it has to use the fat stores.

Although in the last few years there was a bloke at Uni of NSW who was doing interesting research on more interval type workouts, and getting as good if not better fat burning results than just about any other type of exercise. Can't remember his name sorry.

Good to think about what you want to achieve when you do exercise. More power versus more stamina, as the exercises required are very different.