
It takes 6 - 12 months to change your body. - AndrewWarner
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/health/nutrition/22best.html?_r=3&ref=health
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tdavis
Another important note: fitness goes away _much_ faster than you gain it.
After six months of twice-daily training (cardio in the morning, power lifting
at night) I was in _amazing_ shape. Then I stopped. It only took three months
for me to lose approximately 50% of my strength.

Now I'm "back on the wagon" so speak, going to the gym daily (though only
once) and it is very slow going to gain my strength back. I lost 40-80+ pounds
on every lift and much of my stamina as well. It is very demoralizing, so I
recommend that _if_ you can get into a regular exercise habit, for god sakes,
stick with it! It is so much harder to form the habit than it is to break it
so you must be very vigilant.

As an added bonus tip, anybody who tells you that going to the gym "a few days
a week" is always enough because of muscle fatigue and so forth is an idiot.
Segregating muscle groups properly and using the bare minimum of supplements
allows you to go at least every day. Personally, I feel as if once a day isn't
enough to accomplish much of anything as I am forced to split my days between
weight lifting and cardio to achieve any sort of balance.

Edit: replace "every day" with "6 days a week"; a day of rest goes a long way.

~~~
gaius
_Segregating muscle groups properly and using the bare minimum of supplements
allows you to go at least every day._

I'm not convinced by that; if you are going heavy on major compound exercises
(e.g. squat and deadlift) you will need CNS recovery at the very least. Right
now my programme looks like weights day, light cardio day, heavy cardio day,
repeat, rest day, back to beginning. That's only 2 weights days a week but
believe me, that's plenty.

~~~
tdavis
If you only have two lifting days per week, going heavy on compound exercises
makes sense. Also, presumably, you're working a greater number of muscle
groups per day which requires more recovery time, especially if you're doing
low-weight, high-rep work. I avoided compound exercises (other than deadlifts
on Back day) and was doing high-weight, low-rep, not to mention the fact that
having 6 days over which to spread out muscle groups helps substantially.

Combined with a high-calorie (balanced) diet and supplements, I was able to
make consistent gains week-over-week for the life of the program. In the
beginning it was more difficult as my body wasn't used to the work, but as
time went on it got to the point where I was fully recovered in the areas I
needed to be to complete the day's routine with more weight than the previous
week's iteration (each day was a separate routine).

~~~
gaius
My weights day 1 is squat, leg press, calf extension, leg extension + whatever
else I feel like - sets of 5x5 or 3x8. Weights day 2 is deadlift, pull-ups,
t-bar/bent over rows + whatever else I feel like. Pressups on cardio days.

I plan to stick with this 'til the end of February then adapt it to prepare
for a Marathon in May.

~~~
tdavis
Right. See, that's an insane volume (number of sets per body type) and a
really high total number of reps. You're doing 125 reps per workout at a
minimum! It should be noted that even advanced trainers only have a volume of
about 4-6 sets per body part, whereas you're doing 15-20 on legs alone
(press/calf-ext/leg-ext + squat).

Since you're preparing for a marathon it seems to make sense to focus on
lower-body and mainstay complex exercises (squat/deadlift), but I am
unfamiliar with that specific sort of training so I can only speculate.

As mentioned, you seem to have an exceedingly high volume, especially
considering the narrow focus of your exercises (at least one day 1). Your rep
count (5) suggests a focus on raw strength, but the set count (5) is more
common for endurance.

~~~
gaius
I'm driving my squats through the heel, so it's much more of a posterior-chain
exercise and doesn't really hit my quads or calves much. If I was training
like a bodybuilder with a raised heel, I'd switch the leg extensions for leg
curls.

My objective right now is to improve core strength and relative strength, then
in the 3 months leading up to the Marathon to shift a bit more towards power-
endurance (e.g. Tabata, Fartlek, weekly long run). Previously on half-
marathons I've really lost my form towards the end, that's just wasting energy
needlessly, especially on cross-country. This time I'm going to keep it tight
all the way.

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sam_in_nyc
I'm suspicious about the experiment. How did they verify the subjects
exercised the proper amount? How can you tell that I'm giving something "my
best effort?" Seems kind of impossible.

In my opinion they proved that random subjects cannot stick to an exercise
regiment assigned to them by researchers...

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gaius
The real numbers are: you can lose 1-2lbs of fat a week. You can gain 10-15lbs
of muscle _a year_. And that's if you do _everything_ right: train hard, get
enough sleep, eat right. Even 12 months is optimistic if you have a lot of
damage to undo.

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symptic
Anyone hoping for a drastic change withing a month or two needs to focus more
on diet than exercise routine. There are so many misconceptions involving
working out and weight loss & muscle definition. It's borderline depressing.

