cheers for all the replys lads. I havent had a chance to read over everything yet, but will get round to it at the weekend or so.
I've just started doing a 5-day weights workout plan, with the weekend off (dedicated to football, cycling, hill walking) basically attacking 2 different muslce groups each day. I'll probs change that in a few weeks or so, but for now I think it will suffice. Then i'll probably start incorporating cicuit training and running into it by around christmas. I've also started using whey protein and carbohydrate mix, along with creatine, but just to get off this plataeu and until I pack on half a stone or so.
As far as I understand it, yes. If I am wrong someone please correct. The last time I heard, the armed forces accept that while in civvie life, people may make the wrong decision every once in a while. However, once you are in, there is a zero tolerence policy on drugs - AAS included.
To my understanding, some drugs can stay in the system longer than others, although I’m not certain on Drug half life’s (maybe the wrong terminology) perhaps some ASS my stay in you're system for a number of months, thus if used in civvy life could still be traceable in you're body in a drugs test later on once you have joined up, I very much doubt this would happen but maybe that could bring up some complications if you have used ASS just before joining.
As you know , there's no place for Performance enhancers in the Forces but if you have made that mistake used them in civvy life check with you're AFCO and find out about it.
In response to the post I started, at the moment I'm not doing anything that can be considered a weight training course. I just can't see the point using heavy weights at all, and don't want to end up doing non-specific training. I use the gym at least 3 times a week, but turn it into a sort of circuit training session, which heps with the motivation.
For example, I might go in and do a ten minute warm up, followed by press ups and sit ups and then plank, then maybe do the chest press for 5 sets at 50kg at 10 reps a set, then do more press ups, etc, then pull downs, press ups, etc, then tricep extensions, press ups etc, leg extensions, press ups etc, and some other exercises, always followed by some press ups, sit ups, crunches and back exercises.
The gym I go to has a some bodybuilders, powerlifters and mainly rugby players, but I havent got the physique to use heavy weights on a regular basis with any hope of building up muscle. I weigh on average 13stone, but as for now i'm happy to do circuits. I much prefer doing non-stop work in the gym for 40minutes upwards than sets of heavy weights with long periods of rest. In the long term, I think I will build up my fitness a lot more efficiently due to increased morale than I would by using heavy weights 3/4 times a week.
At home I used to use David Lloyds but the gym I go to in uni has limited equipment, although i'm not complaining because its a decent gym. I've just stopped using free weights as I did during the summer months, and adapted my routine.
As for cardio, i'm only going for 2 runs a week (still plagued by injury worries), play football twice a week but over the next few weeks i'm going to incorporate more regular swimming and cycling into my fitness routine.
How do you expect to get bigger to use the weights without doing the weights? Start as a lighter weight, leave your ego in your locker and lift lighter for what is comfortable for you. Drop the machines and use free weights, bench press, squats, deadlifts, pull ups and military presses.
Before you insult someone, first walk a mile in their shoes, that way when you insult them, you are a mile away and you have their shoes.
E5_Man wrote:How do you expect to get bigger to use the weights without doing the weights? Start as a lighter weight, leave your ego in your locker and lift lighter for what is comfortable for you. Drop the machines and use free weights, bench press, squats, deadlifts, pull ups and military presses.
I didn't say I was trying to get bigger did I? I said I'm happy to do circuits - a mixutre of machines and body weight exercises to achieve all round fitness. I might once again use free weights if thier is a specific reason and not to get bigger. I still do chest presses, miltiary presses, squats, etc, etc, from time to time. I think I was developing a bodybuilders mindset over the summer, being surrounding by them in the gym all the time. But my main concern now is fitness, not size. Ego has nothing to do with it!
I tihnk i'll gain more from doing circuits in the long run and increase my chances of passing a PRMC/POC, than if I used to same amount of time using weights. At the moment though, I don't give a damm about my size.
E5_Man wrote:building muscle is the muscle rebuilding from being broken down and over compensating
I didn't say it was, but my aims are not to get bigger in the sense of turning myself into a bodybuilder or getting the physique of a rugby player. Obviously I want to get leaner, gain and reduce fat, but not necessarily by putting on weight or growing in size. Apart from improvements in physique or posture, getting big is no longer an aim of mine. I'm aiming for endurance and upper body strength rather than size and power. That does not necessitate heavy weights (the Marines advise against using heavy weights) and does not require me to put two stone on in bodyweight.
I find it interesting how you want all the benefits from using free weight with out having to actually use them. One phrase you used inparticular strikes me as odd in the sense that you would be doing the exact opposite to acheive it. You say you would like to improve your physique and posture, and yet you are only going to use machines. If there is a surefire way to create muscle imbalances that negativly affect both asthetics and posture (and therefore performance) it would be to use a machine. The fixed plane of movement and the reduced ability to activate the supporting musclature put machines way below free weights in terms of not only achieving your goals but also being a "functional exercise" (whatever that phrase means nowadays).
Moreover, lifting heavy enables you to recruit more motor units and also increases rate coding to those motor units. Whilst spending all of your time training for particular lifts will (generally speaking) tend to make you stronger in only those lifts, the crossover benefits are huge.
Again half of the problem I feel is that there is no progression protocols in place as regards the training programme as a whole. If we take a handful of some of the best performance enhancing concepts currently used by athletes, and some used by aspiring bootnecks you will see that it would be impossible to use them all in a weeks cycle:
Interval Training
Circuit Training
Long Run
Hill Sprints
Plyometrics
Oly lifts
SAQ training
Fartlek running
Swimming
etc etc etc
Instead try breaking it all down in to phases with a specific goal for each phase.
Don't worry about getting "too big" for a couple of reasons:
first, you can be really quite big before it starts impedeing performance, and second, it actually takes a while to get that big in the first place (think years not months. Not just time either, lots of food, hard trianing and plenty of rest, oh and lots of food). I always think of it like this, if right now, your biceps measure 14" (as an arbitary number) and you feel like 20" would be too big, well you arms still have to be 15", 16" and so on before you reach the stage of being "too big".
Instead i'm just doing circuit training. Sometimes I do circuits outside on a field, other times I do them in the gym. Since I have to pay to get into the gym anyway, while I'm there I just incorporate some weight machines just to attack a few muscles and keep my heart rate up between bodyweight exercies. Thats all. Maybe from time to time I'll use barbells and dumbells, but I'm not doing a bodybuilding circuit or anything.
I'm not trying to get the benefits of using free weights without free weights. Since when has free weights been the only way to improve fitness, physique and posture? I am no longer looking to get my weight up - if anything, my weight should go down with the training I'm doing at the moment.
I think I am more suited for circuit training. If I wanted to, I reckon I probably have to discipline to build my weight up over time to around 15 stone, but I don't want to now. I'm happy doing what I'm doing, and I think in the long term I will be a lot fitter (not bigger, but fitter) for doing so.
Okay, obviously what I said did not make sense to you.
Free weights do not equal bodybuilders. Nor have free weights ever been the be all and end all. Finally no one ever got stronger by losing weight (and I use the term "stronger" in the generic sense that the majority of people on this site use the term "fitness").
It's interesting how you have quite clearly developed negative connotations with (in particular) free weights and the notion of bodybuilding. Clearly training in the manner a bodybuilder would train would not help you pass selection or get you into RT, however I can see far more benefits of incorperating somthing simple like heavy deadlifts into a training programme to acheive the latter goal than sitting at the chest press machine.
The style in which you go about trying to acheive your goals is of no concern to me, what baffles me is your rationale behind it all.
I havent had a chance to read over everything yet, but will get round to it at the weekend or so.