I'm a relatively healthy weight for my height.

5'10'' and 156 lbs. I still have a lot of muscle from when used to exercise frequently.

My BMI is healthy, but I want to lose some weight and get my abs back. I've been trying to eat healthier as well, but I cheat.

I don't exercise enough anymore. When I was 12, (a year ago) I would lift 25 pound weights everyday, sit-ups for 20 minutes, and 50 push ups.

I'd like to join a gym, but I'm too young so I have to be confined to regular exercises and my weights that I have in my room.

Any recommendations?

Lookwise rectus is what I'm after but right? so mainly them but give it a bit of variety righto.

Ok I'm doing situps till I'm tired then resting by doing the feet thing religously, would I be missing any section of my abs doing that? Cardio wise I plan on 45 minute run twice a week.

This'll get me what I'm after right?

At 3/26/07 01:10 PM, Jesse-Ray wrote: Ok I'm doing situps till I'm tired then resting by doing the feet thing religously, would I be missing any section of my abs doing that? Cardio wise I plan on 45 minute run twice a week.

Both those exercises will only target your rectus abdominis. Because you lie down to do these exercises the ground is able to support most of your weight and this allows your transverse abdominis and your obliques to switch off as their main roles are to stabilise and support you. It is for this reason that you will see far greater gains if you perform abdominal exercises in the upright position.

As long as you're eating right and your cardio is of a reasonable intensity then that should be plenty to help you lose any excess body fat to help you get more toned.

So whats the best thing I can do without equipment to get a full ab workout?

I'm just getting back in the groove of things. Me and my friend are playing basketball, football and baseball this summer. I am going to start working up running 10 miles each day, 5 in the morning and 5 at night. I also am also going to start doing all the exercises that I did when I was in the Marines. I still and in decent shape and it won't take me long to get in good shape. I'll start doing free weights in a few months so I can get my body better for it.

Oh and this is the first time I've posted in this thread. I might just have to look into this more often.

At 3/27/07 03:15 AM, Jesse-Ray wrote: So whats the best thing I can do without equipment to get a full ab workout?

Without equipment the best exercises you could do would be pushups, dips - just use a chair or a bench for these - or squats - if bodyweight squats are too easy you may want to hold some dumbbells or just some heavy objects when you squat to make it a bit harder. If you have a chinup bar you can also do chinups.

Theres also a whole lot of isometric exercises such as the plank, the side plank and the superman. This website explains how to do those three exercises.

At 3/28/07 12:26 PM, Trypper wrote: Just deadlifted 250x8 for 3 sets, fucking awesome. That puts my max around 310 now, I'm happy. :) Time to finish up my deadlift day with my abdominals routine and grip work. Be back in a bit.

Is that in kilos or pounds? Either way it's more than I deadlift. My max is about 90kg and I don't want to go any higher because I don't wan't too much muscle mass on my legs because I'm a long distance runner.
Just a suggestion. If you're trying to get maximal muscle growth then you may be better off doing only 2 sets of 4-6 reps. That will be enough to get muscle growth and because you're doing less sets and reps you'll be able to lift a much heavier weight which means that you will probabally see greater gains. I'm assuming your technique is perfect or near perfect because - and I'm sure you already know this - you should never do maximal lifting if you have poor technique as you could easily injure yourself.

Hi there i would like to join this club, i have recently started going to my local gym and i am loving it, i have started to see a nice improvement in my arms (visual and actual strength) and a deffinate strength improvement in my legs. However i am finding it difficult to shift weight and i think its all down to the fact that i love my food :S whilst my food is not processed crap or fast food and is usually quite balanced in terms of food groups i usually let it down by portion size. I also feel that i need to improve my work out to incorporate more chest and more abs stuff. my current work out will usually consist of:

2-3km row

stretches

various resistance machines each with 3 sets of 10 reps
( i can think of 9 or 10 machines that i will use, however on some i do less reps at a high weight)

2km row

2 or 3 sets of around 20 sit ups using the frame thing

stretch off

i find that out of all the CV machines rowing i am best at, with cycling i can do it but with the same amount of time on a rower i burn more cals, cross trainer will shatter me after about 4 minutes, and the same goes for running

i hope you guys can help me :)

Agh, baseball season really takes a toll on my shoulder. It still feels like a slab of raw meat, and has for a couple days now. I still managed to get through arm day, but nowhere near as productive as I should have.

3 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell shoulder presses
3 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell bench presses
2 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell curls
3 barbell bench presses (doing it with one shoulder is a LOT harder than I thought it would be)
10 shoulder shrugs
10 chinups
10 pull-ups

I'll have to save forearms & triceps for tomorrow I guess. Hopefully my shoulder will return to taking a beating a little better, esp. now that I've started a switch from an overhand pitch to a sidearm pitch, to improve speed & accuracy while reducing shoulder and arm fatigue. Let's hope. :)

As for the weight issue, no biggie for now. I'm about 5-7lbs off of my goal with a little over 3 months to go, and I figure that if I start successfully cycling calories while keeping up my routine that should do well. I was thinking like, one day of 2500 calories, two days of 1600-1900 calories, repeat. I've also really gone light on the cardio lately, so i'mma try to get in more 30-minute uphill jogs as well, maybe 2-5 per week.

Any thoughts on that, think it'll work?

At 3/29/07 04:14 PM, Buddhist wrote: Agh, baseball season really takes a toll on my shoulder. It still feels like a slab of raw meat, and has for a couple days now. I still managed to get through arm day, but nowhere near as productive as I should have.

3 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell shoulder presses
3 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell bench presses
2 sets of 10-12 reps of dumbbell curls
3 barbell bench presses (doing it with one shoulder is a LOT harder than I thought it would be)
10 shoulder shrugs
10 chinups
10 pull-ups

I'll have to save forearms & triceps for tomorrow I guess. Hopefully my shoulder will return to taking a beating a little better, esp. now that I've started a switch from an overhand pitch to a sidearm pitch, to improve speed & accuracy while reducing shoulder and arm fatigue. Let's hope. :)

As for the weight issue, no biggie for now. I'm about 5-7lbs off of my goal with a little over 3 months to go, and I figure that if I start successfully cycling calories while keeping up my routine that should do well. I was thinking like, one day of 2500 calories, two days of 1600-1900 calories, repeat. I've also really gone light on the cardio lately, so i'mma try to get in more 30-minute uphill jogs as well, maybe 2-5 per week.

Any thoughts on that, think it'll work?

Ah yeh you should be well on your way to achieving your goals. Just a thought you might want to be careful of working your shoulders allong with baseball. I'd imagine that sport is heavy enough going on the shoulders, just be careful you don't over-do it as you miht get injured. The shoulder is very easy to injure - especially the rotator cuff.

As for me. Meh, with college, work and an active social life i'm lucky to be able to go gym twice a week. Its no worries though, with a chin up bar at home and soccer and swimming three times a week i'm still seeing improvements.

I'm actually alot happier now that i've stoped working out 5-6 times a week. Theres more important things in life i've found which can be enjoyed as well as working out.

OK I know yous love linking these, whats the ultimate equipmentless ab routine.

At 4/1/07 09:20 AM, Jesse-Ray wrote: OK I know yous love linking these, whats the ultimate equipmentless ab routine.

I'mma slap you.

At 4/1/07 04:33 PM, DaSadGirl wrote:

At 4/1/07 04:08 PM, Trypper wrote:

Ok, here it is. Take a knife, and cut the shape of abdominals into your gut.

Okay, fuck that. Lol.

I just got an Ab Lounge today. Was fun setting it up and was pretty easy. Got the newer version at Sears for around $160-something dollars. They had the original cheaper version at Walmart for under one-hundred munnies, though. I tested it out and I could feel the burn. I'm planning to use it while I watch the second half of the Suns vs. Mavs game.

( 2

€160?! you clown. Just do crunches, leg lifts etc and save yourself the money. Remember though about 60% of the work put into a good 6-pack is all about what you eat. You need qute a low body fat % to have a visible 6-pack.

I bought the Abs Diet by David Zinczenko (the original one), based on that recommendation from you VL ages ago.
The principle seems good, but it seems like its gonna cost a fucking bomb to be able to afford all the food it mentions.
I assume you have experience with this VL, as you recommended it... any tips to get around the expense? Or is it in my head.

grr, getting a low BF% is hard. I've added muscle, butt here's still a distinct lack of tone. :(

Maybe I should return to my daily 60-minute cardio? I dunno, I'm still not eating much so I don't think it's a caloric issue, and I'm lifting and working out more and more so I don't think it's a muscle issue...

Maybe I just need more time? I dunno, I'm so lost.

At 4/2/07 10:44 PM, Trypper wrote: Just keep lifting hard as much as possible, your bf% will drop eventually as you gain more muscle mass as I said before you started lifting. The cardio really isn't needed if you are lifting regularly and training abs on a regular basis. Your abs will be visible and ripped up before you know it.

Well, tomorrow is ab day for me @ the gym, so I'm going to do weighted decline crunches, oblique stretches, and medicine ball crunches.

Also, I was wondering. Is it better for me to do, say, 1x of my max (I'm guessing between 225-250 on a deadlift) or to do 10x of a lighter weight (150-180lbs)? I'm wondering for Thursday (arm day) so I know for my benches and such.

At 4/2/07 11:44 PM, Buddhist wrote:

Also, I was wondering. Is it better for me to do, say, 1x of my max (I'm guessing between 225-250 on a deadlift) or to do 10x of a lighter weight (150-180lbs)? I'm wondering for Thursday (arm day) so I know for my benches and such.

You'll get the best results doing 4-6 reps of the heaviest weight you can possibly lift for that many reps.

At 4/2/07 05:56 PM, Nev wrote: I bought the Abs Diet by David Zinczenko (the original one), based on that recommendation from you VL ages ago.
The principle seems good, but it seems like its gonna cost a fucking bomb to be able to afford all the food it mentions.
I assume you have experience with this VL, as you recommended it... any tips to get around the expense? Or is it in my head.

It doesn't cost me a penny. Sure do you parents not do the shopping? Go with them odds are they will be happy to buy healty food for you.

I mean I sometimes go shopping with my Dad and we never spend much. The things I would always buy are:

Brown bread
Eggs
Lots of fruit and veg
Cereal bars

That would be for snacks.

The thing is though my dad is a chef so I have always eaten 'good' if you know what I mean. We would never have things like chips,fish fingers etc etc for dinner. It is always things like lasagne, pasta,steaks, grilled fish,cabbaage and ham,stir fries etc etc. Also I am a good cook myself so I am well capable of wipping up a healthy tasty stir fry outta like a piece of chicken, rice and a bit of veg y'know?

My advice is that you don't have to go buying all the little things in the book. Buy the bair essentials and keep your meals simple, tasty but always homemade. Processed food isn't something i'd reccommend at all really.

At 4/3/07 09:42 AM, VirginLungs wrote: My advice is that you don't have to go buying all the little things in the book. Buy the bair essentials and keep your meals simple, tasty but always homemade. Processed food isn't something i'd reccommend at all really.

My family is quite different, but yeah, I get what you're saying, cheers.
I spent a few mins last night just planning out what I'm gonna eat today and it turned out a lot simplier than I thought. Still I've only started implimenting it today, so I just gotta get used to it all.

At 4/3/07 06:41 AM, Trypper wrote:
Quick response to this. Lower reps go for strength and more dense, striated muscle fibers, higher go for more of hypertrophy as a whole.

Can you please elaborate on this because that doesn't make sence to me. If you're doing more reps then you wouldn't be able to lift as much weight so how then would you be able to achieve more hypertrophy?

At 4/4/07 05:36 AM, Trypper wrote:

Well, it wasn't as elaborate as it should have been, I had a hangover when I posted it. 1-5 reps for strength, neuromuscular mainly in the lower of the reps, 6-8 a mix of strength and hypertrophy, favoring strength in the lower, and hypertrophy in the latter. From 9-12 it is considered mainly hypertrophy only, and from 13-20 it is slight hypertrophy with the higher reps favoring more endurance/aerobic workouts. I've done quite a bit of research on the subject of strength, and this is what I've gotten. Has always done me good.

Thats still not making sence to me because hypertrophy = strength. You will also only see strength increases due to neurological adaptations when you first start a program. Neuromuscular strength is the precursor to muscular hypertrophy. When you first start a program you will initially have massive strength gains without any hypertrophy and this is simply the neurological adaptation of the muscles to the increased load. The only requirement to gain neuromuscular strength is that you overload. Provided you are overloading you will gain neuromuscular strength regardless of how many sets or reps you are doing because you will still be lifting far more weight than your muscles will be used to so they will adapt.
You will only see hypertrophy once the muscles have neurologically adapted to the weight

Did 275lb for 4 reps this morning, and a 1RM of 295 right after, could have done 2, but my back was arching slightly and I decided to keep my form as strict as possible. This is only due to my doing squat and bench maxes yesterday, my lower back and legs are a little sore, not much, but enough to effect my form slightly on heavy lifts. Not the best I've done, but I am making the transition from rep work back to my original work, powerlifting. I just have to get my body back in the form it needs to be in, composed of that lovely Type IIb fiber. ;)

Just recently I've actually started to notice how much slow and fast twitch fibres can affect your speed and power. Most of the muscle fibres in my body are Type IIa which means they can switch between Type I and Type II depending on the type of training im doing.
Up until the athletics season that has just finished I was doing pure sprint training and the season that has just finished I decided to concentrate purely on distance training because i wasn't happy with my fitness. Just a few days ago I was looking at my 100m times and I noticed that this season my fastest run was 12.23 and the previous season my slowest run was 11.61 some of my runs this season were over 1.5 seconds slower than the previous season. I've also found that I can't lift as much as I used to be able to lift because my muscle fibres are pretty much all Type I at the moment

Mmm okay ab wise I'm getting a good amount of tension from the Bench Crunch (Upper) and the Hip Up (Lower) but cant really feel much during some oblique workouts suggested so what works for yous and any modifications I should be doing, also should I be doing more than 1 excercise per ab region? Finally I heard it's largely skin fat content that determines abs, I can get a prolly 3/4 pinch on my ab skin should it be able to show through that or is more cardio needed?

Cheers Guys

Oh man, I was on T-Nation and found an awesome article for DB exercises that work your arms & your core. After an easy beginning, these things have really begun to kick my ass.

I did all of the following with either one or two 25lb dumbbells (I really need to buy some heavier ones, 30-55lb in 5lb increments would be preferred, but I'm strapped for cash so I just apply extra force):

2 sets of 12 reps on each arm of the Self-Supported One-Arm DB row (Ver. 2)
2 sets of 12 reps on each arm of the Self-Supported One-Arm DB row (Ver. 1)
2 sets of 12 reps of the alternating Dumbbell Lunge & Press
2 sets of 12 reps on each arm of the One-Arm Dumbbell Bench
2 sets of 12 reps on each arm of the One-Arm Dumbbell Push Press
2 sets of 12 reps of the Alternating Dumbbell Push-Up and Row (this one's a killer, jeez)
2 sets of 12 reps of the Single-Arm Dumbbell Overhead Walking Lunge
50 regular push-ups
5 explosive hand-clap pushups

oh lawd, tomorrow is leg & forearm day. Gotta find some more ab exercises now that I did these today. They work amazingly on the core though, my abs were literally rock-hard throughout the entire process, where normally I have to flex them to feel the hardness that I felt during this workout.

At 4/8/07 10:11 PM, Buddhist wrote: (Workou)

I see you do 2 sets of basically all exercises. Do you do a warm up set or anything?

At 4/12/07 02:23 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 4/8/07 10:11 PM, Buddhist wrote: (Workou)

I see you do 2 sets of basically all exercises. Do you do a warm up set or anything?

Meh, not really. I do some light stretching and especially stretch out my back beforehand (my lower back always is my problem area), but other than that, nah.

Also, did those same things today but with 35-50lb weights from 6-10 reps. Still gonna do some lighter-weighted reps at home, and perhaps tomorrow I can purchase a couple 45lb DBs.

Hey whats up, I'd like to join the Gym :P

After stopping weight training for like a month thanks to a crazy ending to my 3rd quarter I have enough time to start working out again.

I went to train two days ago, stretched and started out with heavy dumbbells, which I really regret. I completely forgot to start off a little light, heh. Not only was I already kinda warn out from everything I did with the heavy dumbbells, I was sore as shit for these two days. (It isn't just that I started off heavy, remember I took a month break from weight lifting lol)

Anyways I work out just for myself, I don't really do it for any school sports but I am athletic and in shape. I bench only around 155 and squat for about that amount as well. (yea that's low for squatting for my age, w/e lol) Whenever I do dumbbells I use 20's.

I aim for more reps/sets instead of high weight.

And hey what's up? :D

Don't go too high in reps or sets, either/both will result in minimal gains.

Right now I'm doing 3 sets of ten, with like a ten second break in between each set.

Should I change it up to like 2 sets of 12 which higher weight or something? :P

Higher weight, of course. I never go over 8 personally, I don't want just muscular gains, but rather strength. If you want strength, do rep work from 4-8 reps, and as for sets, 3-5 depending on how you want it.

Alright, thanks alot, sounds good, thanks alot man!

ive been lifting weights for about 2 years since i started football...but i havnt seen much of a change in my pecs and lats..also my biceps have gotten bigger..but not cut....is it because im vegan and need more protwin..please help me!!!1!