***The Exercise Challenge***

I didn't tried them but I surely will. Today I decided to take a break because I have a weird feeling in my knee. It's not painful, but it's really weird, can't describe it... I've been squating for last 4 days straight. I've also felt light headache today, I don't know if it's maybe a sign of overtraining... So I decided to listen to my body and take a break.

 

Great run! And thanks man. Ye Ive got to a decent standard because of all the years' hard work but never making it to nationals! Unfortunately you need both talent and hard work to make it to the top in competitive sport. Thats a reality. Not that anything stops me...

 

Great working out everyone! Some impressive sessions there. A lot of good strength routines (baldur, airship, dane17, duellant).

My last week looked like this:

Mon - am: 5.2 miles easy (38 mins), pm: Weights and core - dumbbell bench press, chest fly's, clap press ups, pull ups, dumbbell rows, dumbbell shrugs, exercise ball: back extension, alternate arm and leg lift, hand to foot stability pass. (22 sets total)
Tue - Track session - 2 x (800m, 600m, 400m, 200m) with 60 secs recovery between reps, 3 mins between sets. (splits - 2:28.25, 1:47.39, 67.37 ,30.88; 2:27.07, 1:50.14, 71.14, 29.5)
Wed - 6 miles easy (39 mins)
Thur - rest
Fri - Body fitness assessment in lab (VO2 max and body composition)
Sat - rest
Sun - rest

Cautious weekend off training after consistent 40 mile weeks for past 4 weeks or so. First track race in less than 3 weeks. The countdown has begun!

Lets conserve all the sexual energy for greater use!!

 

Day 8
Pushups, Curl ups, Deep Squats - Ladder 27
Plank 42 seconds

Maybe I will do some more Chin ups for day 9.

 

May 2: Rained out.
May 3: 8,845 steps
3.3 miles

 

intresting

 

This Challenge is great! I did so much more exercise in the last few weeks. Also I found so many good training videos on youtube and I realized I don't need go to the gym or use a lot of eqquipment. I can just extend my bodyweight exercises and it will get me so far.

I read the OP again and I want to remind you guys that even a minute a day is good. So instead of pausing between the "hardcore" days for one ore more days why not do a little bit of stretching or whatever. It makes a difference and it will help you stay in the routine!

Currently I'm building up my core, arms, legs. I eat a lot of protein. I wonder if it makes sense if I still do long runs like for one hour and more. What do you guys think? Is it a good combination or is it counter-producitve? Maybe I should rather go for sprints?

@Dane17 I have some questions about nutritions if I may

1. I want to do intermediate fasting. but not every week, rather about once a month. I'm not sure what would be a good way to do it (fasting whole day ? Two days? OMAD? only light food?) Do you have a recommendation?

2. How do you even get enough calories with OMAD?? Bodybuiding tips are always like "eat many meals" "eat lots of protein on every meal" "have a (healthy) snack here and there". I know that Buddha said to his monks "eat only one meal a day". But I just don't understand how OMAD works with sport and esp. Bodybuilding.

3. You're also a vegan. Do you take any supplements?

 

1. If you want to fast only once a month, than I suggest a prolonged fast. Intermittent fasting is there in case you want to do it often(usually every day), but doing it only once a month won't have such an impact. However, doing prolonged fast(24 hours or more, I've been going even for 5 days without eating anything and drinking only water, and did 3 days dry fast(no food and no water)) will surely get you many benefits. But I would really suggest you to daily limit your feeding window to at least 12 hours(for example, if you ate your breakfast at 8am than you should be done with eating your dinner before 8pm), it would be optional if you could go for 10 or less, but if you lifestyle doesn't allow you, than 12 is still fine. It's such a small change but it makes a great impact for your health. It has been proven to increase muscle mass and boost fat burning.

2. "Calories in VS Calories out" concept turned out to be false many times. People don't understand how complex our body is, and how fast it can adapt to new environment. I recommend you to watch "That Sugar Film", it's about guy who increased his sugar intake but he stayed at same amount of calories a day. We can all assume what happened to him, his health was at extreme risk, and he got overweight even tho his calories consumption stayed the same. It's not that simple like many "fitness youtube experts" say. I once saw a video of one popular fitness youtuber, and he said that you can actually loose weight even by eating only pizza, but you need to eat less calories than your daily need. It's such a BS, only thing you can loose that way is your life. We are giving our bodies much more than they actually need, and it's all because food industry is promoting that "3 meals a day plus snacks" lifestyle, which isn't normal for human beings. We are eating so much that our bodies can't actually absorb what we eat, and it got used to it, so even when we start eating no more than we need it still needs some time to start absorbing everything normally. I remember when I used to follow those bodybuilding advises, I used to eat 5000+ calories daily. I was tired all the time, because my body was digesting foods for whole day. It also couldn't absorb a tiny bit of all of that food, because it didn't needed to. You need to understand that this is all about business, food and medical industries are the biggest in the world, and of course that they will spread the lies. In the last century, food industry paid scientists to say that sugar is much healthier than fat, and to start spreading lies about bad influence of fat to your health. It's all about business and selling products to people. Fasting is free, that's why it's so unpopular and often hated method. Today we think that we know everything, but that's exactly what our ancestors thought in their time, and it turned out to be false. In today's science there are many contradictions. They are recommending us to eat minimal amount of salt, even tho it's proven that salt is essential for our bodies, and that more salt is much better than less. There is many false information out there. When you are fasting, you are experiencing hormonal changes, and they have much bigger impact on your health and physique than amount of calories you get. But of course they will tell you that you can't build muscle or stay healthy while fasting, because they can't sell you fasting. And I'm also not saying that I'm bodybuilder, I am working out because of my health, but good physique is just a consequence. I've managed to gain muscle mass even tho I am getting 1600-2200 calories a day. It's not that simple as they are presenting to us... There are some great athletes who follow OMAD, like Kōhei Uchimura(considered to be the best gymnastic of all time by many), Ronda Rousey, Herschel Walker, Nun Amen Ra(Deadlift world record holder for his weight class, he deadlifted 305kg while weighting 83kg), Fred Sanya(Kenyan bodybuilding champion) and there are probably many more...

No. I don't take any kind of supplements. I once mentioned that I'm not 100% vegan, because I have 2-4 days a month when I eat some meat or eggs. But other 26+ days I am eating like a vegan. I don't think I need any kind of supplements, it's just another lie they are trying to sell to you...

 

I'm so excited to get my future 32 kg kettlebell and to test my deadlift going up. YeaaaaaH!!!
Great to see so many parcticipants being active in here!
Keep on going friends!

/Baldur

 

Day 10
skipped yesterday, but bought a 10# kettlebell and pedometer today. Practiced bent tricep extention, concentration curl, upright fly. Need to find more kettlebell exercises. Did walking meditation too, but only for half an hour.

 

Anyone doing heavy dumbbell rows at home in a Bulgarian light type of set up?
Any idea about the results I might expect apart from getting good at dem rows?

 

Concerning kettlebell execises:
Watch "Enter the Kettlebell" from Pavel Tstatsuline. You could find it on YT or buy it.
Cheers!
/Baldur

 

Day 11
Watched Enter the Kettlebell and a bunch of other kettlebell videos on YouTube. Made me wish I had bought a 15 or 20 pounder. Also practiced with my 10 lb a bit working on shoulders and the Swing. Need to do more calisthenics again tomorrow.

 

Thanks a lot for your long answer, Dane. I aim for the 12 hours eating period now. I hope that will also help me to get a good routine with sleeping and getting up early. I also will eat less dairy products and less meat.

 

@Dane17 I'm a lean-muscular type of guy. Aside from chocolate and cake I eat quite healty and very little meat and only cheese and yoghurt of all the dairy products. I'm used to that.
But when I joined this Challenge I decided to go beyond my normal limts and really build up some muscle. At first I planned to gain my protein mainly from plant sources. But what I read on the internet influenced me more and more towards animal products and I thought it would be difficult and intricate to make that change with a largely vegan diet.

I was asking you all the these questions not because you are into extreme diets but because you seem to have some good experiences and also good results. You encouraged me to trust in my body, healthy food and the effect of dedicated exercise. I don't need to eat animal protein all the time! I understood that I was influenced to see the calorien/protein intake as a bigger challenge than the exercise itself, wich is obviously BS. Rather the question is: how will I exercise? How much? How effective?
I believe you, that the body is capable to adapt very effectively. However the extra caloriens I burn and the muscular substance I want to build have to come through the food somehow, right? I mustn't eat too little.

By the way I'm still very sceptical about the OMAD diet. It seems to work out well for some athletes but maybe only for a period of intense training, not for every day life. Also these athletes probably already have about the amount of muscle mass they need and don't do OMAD while building up a lot of new muscle. OK that's speculation. And I don't want to talk you out of it.

More importantly I think intermittent fasting is probably beneficial and I want to try it out.
But why do you need a fixed plan for that anyway? I mean the assumption is that we are still apt for a pre-modern diet (and not for one of abundance), right? And this diet was very flexible with frequent random changes of food and meal times and random periods of fasting or hunger. So when you want to copy that in a way, wouldn't it be better to make your diet much more flexible and changing rather than making it fix and dead on time?

 

Yeah you are probably right. Being too strict and doing only one type of diet is probably not the most beneficial. I do prolonged fast every now and than, and sometimes when I know that I must eat on some social events, than that day I am eating like normal people. I have breakfast (usually eggs), lunch and dinner. Sometimes I even spend few days eating like that. But my main way of eating is still OMAD and vegan. I'm aware that some animal products should be consumed, especially if you do not take any supplements. That's way I eat meat or eggs few times a month, and I really consider eating them more often, maybe 2 times a week. I was always trying to be open minded, that's why I started researching about carnivore(only animal products, mainly meat and maybe some eggs) diet, and even tho I don't like that way of lifestyle and find it extremely unhealthy, they have made some good arguments about the importance of meat in our diet, so I will probably eat that more often.

I'm glad that you decided to take exercising more seriously and build some muscle. That decision will change your life, just give yourself some time.

 

Right now I'm about 24 hours into my dry fast, I plan on going for 48 hours. I won't exercise while I'm dry fasting because I find it stupid and dangerous.

 

waddup! I just started the first mesocycle of my new training program, so I'll be logging my workouts this week so I have something to look back on

Chest

Incline barbell bench press (power sets) - 195x3, 205x2
Barbell bench press - 205x5, 225x2, 225x1
Dumbell incline bench press - 150x4, 150x4, 150x4
Dumbell bench press - 150x8, 150x8

I didn't intend to lift that heavy on barbell bench press, but I was working in with another guy and it was just easier to keep his weights on the bar. I gave myself extra rest between those sets to prevent over training

I also will be skipping abs this week as I pulled my groin playing basketball LOL, it's disappointing but oh well

 

Day 12
Walked over 5 miles today, and did my 10 lb kettlebell Swing for 30 reps, then did Press x30 both sides.
At least I got a little weight training in, but I seriously need to invest in that 20 lb adjustable kettlebell.

 

May 7: 9,086 steps
3.4 miles 5.47 k