Lost some weight, been doin abs, surfing better.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Anyone use any of those"energy" drinks like Red Bull etc before/after surfing?They certainly don't contain"energy" but are they any different than having extra strong coffee to get the heart rate up?

I tend to surf much better when I'm calm and relaxed, so I prefer to stay away from them.

Theoretically they are meant to help you burn more fat during exercise on the flipside.

I find that they just tired me out more once they wear off and both my physical and mental endurance take a blow.

[pridmore]

I used to have the trainers put guarana in my water when I played league, the others players used to hate it when they would grab my bottles and get a mouthful of what tasted like kava ( muddy water and footy socks so my son reckons ) but it definitely helped me in games, best to take small but frequent hits of it as well as water throughout the entire game.....

[nthnbeachesguy]

Some interesting thoughts here, some good, some I don't understand whatsoever. I don't care what anyone says, diet is the biggest issue when it comes to weight control so get off the beers first and foremost. It is possible to get fit and lean while drinking but it makes it one hell of a lot harder. Personally I find fat loss is better treated as an all out battle, hit it as hard as you can and get it off otherwise people tend to be discouraged with the time it takes to see results. Take a 4-6 weeks off the booze, get into a habit of walking 45 mins in the morning before breakfast, get rid of carbs from your diet after lunch and do not base your result around what the scale says.

Get a tailors measuring tape, that and the mirror are all most people need. Take a chest, gut and backside measurement and gauge your progress on how far you can reduce your gut, backside and chest measurement in that order of priority. You can look at the scales if you want but depending upon the type of training you get into and your exercise regime previously (if you even had one) you may even find your weight goes up. This is because you may build some more muscle and that weighs more than fat so despite the fact that your losing fat your weight may go up. I have been on a bit of fat loss process lately, the first 3 weeks I lost 4 kgs, since then my weight has maintained but I have lost an inch around the gut, bit less around the butt and I look a hell of a lot better.

This business of doing hundreds of crunches or sit ups is ridiculous, in what sport does anyone utilise their core for endurance in the range of motion that sit ups and crunches offer? If your training for surfing then your better off doing 4x 10 reps of side axe swings or something like that, fits in with the movements associated with surfing ie: twisting torsional movements. This idea that you can spot reduce fat is basically rubbish so you can forget doing 100's of situps to achieve a 6 pack. Everyone has a 6 pack, covered by varying degrees of fat. You need to decrease total bodyfat to see it, I don't think anyone has ever seen someone with flabby arms and legs but a ripped torso.

Cardio fitness for surfing is probably best done with swimming, running for long periods I don't like to much, generally speaking unless you're tow surfing or riding the longest wave in the world your legs are required for maybe 10-20 secs at a time. Sprint training is a good idea for your legs as are burpees, squats, lunges and things like that. The added benefit of sprint training is the fat burning effect afforded by whats known as High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short. It's been show to elevate your metabolism for up to 36 hours or so after the completion of the training as against endurance style's of training which tend to only elevate it for a few hours.

When you want to lose a bit of fat I find it easier to hit it hard, it's a lot harder to get to the desired fat level than it is to maintain so the quicker you can get there the better. Having said that, a lot depends on your goals, if you just want to lose a lot of weight, go right ahead and cardio the hell out of yourself, your body will chew up muscle for a fuel source and you will end up skinny fat, yeah fine your skinny but you got hardly any muscle at the same time. I could go on and on about this but I'll quit now unless any has any questions.

[Beerfan]

You obviously know more than i do, cheers for the reply.

1) Tell me what a side axe swing is, or point me to a link please.

2) From what i've "researched" alcohol is bad because it gets metabolised first, so then your body stops burning the fat. How bad can a few beers ( 3 ) 2 or 3 nights a week be?

3) Sweet, im swimming 20 laps ( god im fit hahaha ) twice a week. Will keep that up.

4) I agree with the eating thing. I dont flog myself cardio wise, just make sure i do something every day ( or try to ).

5) Hardest part i find is the bit of fat at the front of the guts. just doesnt wanna go. My pants are falling off so obviously im dropping my waist size, and around the sides are toning up, but that little belly in front is taking its time to disappear. Hints tips??.

6) im eating protein, coz i definately dont wanna end up a runt hahah. Can only eat so much tuna and boiled eggs though, so i eat the protein powder, a low carb one. Definately fills you up, but i only have it on my brekkie.


7) Why no carbs after lunch?

[oldman]

Agree with most of what you said northernbeachesguy.

7) Why no carbs after lunch?

Except for the bit about after lunch carbs. Lots of studies show that it doesn't matter one jot what time of day the kilojoules go in, it is all about the number of Kj.

It's a good idea to go full-on for a period to get to your desired weight, and stay away from the beers during that time, but for a lifestyle this is gonna kill ya.

A few beers on a few nights per week is an essential part of good health. Eat less so you can drink more is my motto.

Definitely with you on the issue of not bothering with the scales. Weight is pretty much unimportant, it's about fat levels.

[pridmore]

that pst w big, couldnt be fucked reading all that, just eat less crap and do more excercise....

[nthnbeachesguy]

Carbs are basically energy you don't need to go to sleep with a stomach full of energy that aint gunna be used. If you train in the evening, say around 6 it's fine to have some carbs around 4ish to fuel for that. After you train you need high GI carbs within 20 mins of finishing your training along with a serve of quick acting protein. Your muscles are hammered and the high GI carbs create an insulin response that shuttles the protein to the muscles. I don't eat carbs after lunch other than with a post workout shake as I have found it very effective when trying to lean up.

There are ketogenic diets where you basically forgo any carbs other than those found in vegies (these are pretty much calorie negative, in other words they require more calories to burn than are contained in them) where after a period of adjustemnt where you typically feel like shit, your body learns to use fat for fuel rather than carbs. You can check this with little piss strips from the chemist.

Axe swings- go find a cable machine, set it up at shoulder height, stand side on, rotate you hips to face the machine with your torso while your legs remain fixed, grab the handle with both hands and rotate through 180 degrees with your torso till your facing away from the machine. Repeat for 10, switch sides and do it again. You can vary these going from low to high or high to low to get all through your core.

As far as alchol is concerned, your body recogises it as a poison so it priority is to process it out ASAP, everythign else consumed with alcohol pretty much gets stored as fat.

As far as nutrients go, the amount you eat determines if you lose or gain, what you eat determines the composition of what you lose or gain. You coulld eat one big mac meal and dessert that accounts for daily calorie allowance for arguements sake and eat nuthin else for the rest of the day. BAD BAD BAD, shit food, you might lose weight but your gunna lose muscle and not your gut. Eat 4-5 smaller meals a day that are high in protein, moderate carbs and lower fats and you stand a good chance of maintaining muscle and losing fat.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to spot reduce fat, lower belly and back is notorious for being stubborn for men, a couple of things you could do and this will sound weird, is up your omega 3 fats, eat fish oil, add flax seed oilto your shakes. I remember reading that your omegas 3's should be at least equal to if not more than your omega 6 intake for the day, most peoples are completely different, all omega6 no 3. I did read some theories that omega 3 fat changes the composition of the fat cells themselves allowing for easier transition from fat into energy therefore being burnt off. Dunno how true that is but its interesting theory.

Also a couple of cups of green tea can help as well.

[Cpt.Caveman]

Don't forget that not all calories and carbs are treated as equal.

Eating carbs that are packed full of fibre, plant nutrients, cooked with some healthy oil, etc. will digest far more slowly than other types. This type of digestion tends to keep your metabolism as stable as possible, avoiding your body from going into a fat storing and conserving state.

Portion control is important, in that if you don't eat for hours and let yourself get super hungry at dinner you'll most likely be eating too much food in the one setting. This is where snacking to curb hunger comes in handy.



On the topic of fat in the belly area. The HIIT sprinting intervals that we talked about earlier tend to target the stomach area more so that other types of exercise (8s sprint, 12s rest for 20mins straight). This is partly due to the fact that this type of high intensity exercise drives up your stress hormones far more than other types of exercise, and that men particularly tend to have more receptors for those stress hormones in your abdominal fat.

The whole notion of doing bicep curls to get toned and skinny biceps/arms is now a fallacy, but doing bike sprints to target your beer gut may actually be possible.



On the topic of alcohol, you can't forget that alcohol is a form of energy itself. It actually contains double the energy than sugar. Considering that most alcohol drinks tend to have sugar in them as well, it goes in the same basket as sweets and fatty stuff for weight loss unfortunately.

[nthnbeachesguy]

Something else I thought you might find of interest, most people are of the opinion that fats are bad, carbs are for energy and protein is for muscles. Thats all fine and dandy but the combinations of these food types are important as well. It's ok to to eat protein and carbs together, protein and fats together but the carbs and fats together is a big no no. Carbs are providing energy and your body has no extra requirement for energy so the fat is not used for this purpose and is stored in your gut and love handles for later. this pretty much rules our pizza during a fat loss phase in case you were wondering.

Your body is the product of a long history of evolution and it's only been in the last few hundred years or so that food has been as easily accessible as it is now. In the past, it was usually a case of feast or famine, there may have been long periods without much to eat and then someone managed to kill a mammoth and everyone gorged themselves for a few days. In order to survive the human body became very effecient at storing the excess energy as fat from this feast or famine cycle to be used as required when times were leaner. An interesting footnote to this being that in the past, being fatter was a desirable state as it indicated wealth and status. Being fat was hard to achieve back then whereas now being lean is hard, funny how things change.


Fast forward to today and you can eat anything you want pretty much 24 hours a day everyday, your body still has the same capacity for storing fat as it did back when and as can be seen everyday, this is turning into a problem. The misconception that starving yourself will lose weight is tied to the feast famine issue as well, your body will settle in for the long haul and get rid of what it see's as surplus to survival.

In the past muscle would have been held onto longer in a fasted state cause it was being used to hunt, gather etc. Today we lead sedentary lives so muscle is surplus to requirements. Muscles are used for energy as converting it is easy and eventually fat but no one wants to be feeling that hungry for that long.

Been ranting again, maybe it's of interest and gives ppl a better insight into the why our bodies do what they do.

[Nick Carroll]

I know most of youse won't do any of the stuff recommended in this thread...but if you do decide to go all High Intensity rep on your own arse, go do it with a squad who has a good coach.

Swimming, running, whatever, trying to get to 90-95% of potential effort is damn near impossible unless you've got the technique out of the way.

Try to sprint in a pool or on flat sand/track without some technical advice and tips and you'll probably hurt yourself in a chronic sorta way. Wouldn't that suck.

nthbeachesguy, in ref to hundreds of abdominals, ever tried knee paddling a racing paddleboard for more than five minutes.

[oldman]

I'm really not big on the high protein low carb diets.

As a health thing, they are unsustainable. Do it short term if you have to, but it isn't a lifestyle, and it isn't a healthy diet. Protein requirements for the average adult are quite minimal anyway, and pretty much all the good things your body needs are in vegies, which are carbs (and fibre).

Can't agree that the time of day for when you take in certain types of foods is relevant. It has repeatedly been shown to be inconsequential in lab tests, and I haven't seen any that support it.

As for the idea of reducing fat in certain spots of your body, I'm pretty sure that where your body deposits fat is entirely a product of your genetic disposition. You can reduce your overall fat levels, but your body will not take fat from a particular part of your body in preference to another, other than as it has been programmed by your genes.

[nthnbeachesguy]

Yep, used to be a clubby down Bungan but with my background in swimming I found I was more effecient lying on the board. I would pick a good paddler and wake ride out to the bouy and then after turning for home hit the gas, swing a little wide to avoid being wake ridden myself and monster the runs all the way back. Was a particularly effective strategy. Never really got that far into it to be honest although I did do a brief stint with my togs up my arse in the boats.

I understand your need for crunches mate but for joe public it's an enormous misconception that this is the be all and end all when it comes to 6 packs. As far as surfing is concerned, as I outlined the ROM provided by crunches is pretty much non existent. Sit ups can be of a little benefit, they activate the hip flexors which helps when trying to pop, more beneficial for snowboarding though.

One thing I found years ago that was incredibly hard and taxing physically, with balance coordination and decision making thrown in was rock running. A mate and I would go up to palmy, jog up the beach to the headland, put our runners on and then see how fast we could run around the headland on the rocks. Running, jumping, climbing, leaping our way around. Somehow we never hurt ourselves but I haven't found anything as hard that was in anyway as remotely fun as that since. By the time you got out the end of the headland you were pretty much a ball of sweat and then around the backside you become extremely happy that it turns into a path.

[nthnbeachesguy]

I'm really not big on the high protein low carb diets.

As a health thing, they are unsustainable. Do it short term if you have to, but it isn't a lifestyle, and it isn't a healthy diet. Protein requirements for the average adult are quite minimal anyway, and pretty much all the good things your body needs are in vegies, which are carbs (and fibre).

Can't agree that the time of day for when you take in certain types of foods is relevant. It has repeatedly been shown to be inconsequential in lab tests, and I haven't seen any that support it.

As for the idea of reducing fat in certain spots of your body, I'm pretty sure that where your body deposits fat is entirely a product of your genetic disposition. You can reduce your overall fat levels, but your body will not take fat from a particular part of your body in preference to another, other than as it has been programmed by your genes.

There is no one diet fits all, they are all goal dependant. An endurance athlete is not going to be able to function on the cutting diet of a bodybuilder and vice versa. As far as the timing of different types of food is concerned it's also a by product of your goal, I have never looked up studies in relation to carb timing but conventional wisdom and my own personal experience tells me that when I want to lean up, not having carbs at night is a tried and tested way of getting where I want to go. BTW I don't count vegies in my carb intake, as I mentioned earlier a lot of them almost calorie negative. For dinner last night I had a roo steak and steamed brocolli.

If you really want to get technical, once you have established a maintenance calorie level for yourself you can manipulate the intake based upon your activity for the day. Say your normal maintenance calories are 2500 but you want to go surfing for 3 hours, you could quite happily add 300 cals of carbs into your first couple of meals without any negative impact. I didn't say anything about this prior cause ppl tend to take it as a get out jail free card, oh I'm going surfing so I can mung out on bacon and egg rolls and a large chips.

The average adult is overweight, should we compare ourselves to the lowest common denominator so we can feel better about ourselves? I would prefer to aim a little higher, to do that I need to train and therefore I have a higher protein requirement than the average person. Typically I try ti get around 1.5grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight. From memory the recommended dietary intake is .5grams per kilo. I may have excess protein but I would rather have excess to my requirements than be in the negative.

I'll leave it at that for now, might start turning ppl off trying if it looks to complicated but it's something I'm kinda interested in.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[steve shearer]

This thread is being confused ......

there's training for Martial Arts, BJJ, Molokai races, clubby events, triathlons....and then there's training so you can surf better.

I'm not hearing much lately about how any of this relates to surfing and seeing as this is a surfing forum thats kind of weird.

Surf without a leggie for a while, ride a bike , don't eat shit food and don't get fat in the first place.

I'm now leaning heavily in the direction of the Carroll doctrine which emphasises technique over fitness.
Fcuk I've got better at surfing checking out Dane Reynolds blog than doing ball work.

[Nick Carroll]

well yes shearer you do have a point

we have gone a-wandering ...especially with nbguy's mention of speedos up the arse. bungan slsc, oh dear, you have my sympathies.

fitness for surfing better, maybe beerfan's original recipe was the best -- lose some weight, do abs, surf better.

[nthnbeachesguy]

Yup, carry on as per ppl.

[Beerfan]

All good info here. Good to get a wide range of views.

Nick, you're dead right, i tried the HIIT at the pool while doing laps. I was f&cked, but felt good afterwards. Next day the back was a bit sore haha. My rule is to only do something i can do til im old, so no extreme diets or anything. Just keep eating right, and doing some sort of cardio as often as i can during the week. I mean, im not a performance athlete, f&ck, im not even an athlete fullstop, so i dont think i need to get too serious.