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Saturday, Jan 09, 2010 - 15:30 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Quad Damage

Following on to what is empathically not a resolution, I hopped onto the old elliptical trainer only to find out that it had seen better days, if not due to overuse.


Ouch


In the flush of that worrying can-do spirit, I enlisted my cousin's company in picking out a new one. The store had maybe seven models of varying makes and prices, but some pedal-pounding whittled down the selection to two of the mid-priced ones, with the others being so obviously inferior that I suspected that they were there just to make those two look good. In any event, I signed away the next few months of my discretionary expenses on the dearer of the two.

The few days between purchase and delivery were divided between academics, DotA, some cursory weights work and an evaluation of my exercise history (definition of decent intensity being 3 or 4 sessions of about an hour a week that result in sweating, definition of sustained being maintained for at least a month):

Periods of sustained decent exercise intensity:
First year of JC, BMT... RT (not really)

Most recent voluntary run of over 3km: Single training session for half-marathon, late 2005. Perhaps somewhere within said half-marathon.

Periods of voluntary sustained decent exercise intensity:
Maybe first year of JC... oh who am I kidding. None.

Periods of voluntary sustained decent exercise intensity with proper nutrition:
None. Nada. Zero. Zilch.

And I always had this impression that I was pretty fit. Hmm.

Well, there's always today, and figuring that I might as well do it properly if I am going to do it at all, I scoured the Internet for information about fitness training, and discovered that opinions are like arseholes - everyone has one. Is egg yolk good for you, or should you eat the whites and discard the yellows? Should you do cardio before breakfast on an empty stomach? Is cardio even necessary? Six meals a day, or one? Carbohydrates, or fat? The list is endless.

So let me present my conclusions, culled from numerous disparate sources, so far:

  • Getting the perfect programme is next to impossible
  • Doing almost anything is better than doing nothing
  • For losing fat, both exercise and reduction of food intake help, but the balance is preferably tilted more heavily towards exercise, since serious dieting (apparantly the usual female approach) damages the metabolism, while packing on muscles helps to burn calories even at rest (yay)
  • But the right nutrition is far more important, especially for rank beginners (i.e. "can't out-train a bad diet", or borrowing from CS, GIGO)
  • Protein is needed to build muscle, when it comes down to that
  • Train for intensity, not length of time
  • Fast food and fried food is bad, very bad
  • Supplements are not required
  • Remember to drink water
With all this in mind, I've cut the night-time/early-morning snacks completely for these few days, and am transiting to a six meal a day routine simply by leaving about half of each usual meal (scaled to 70% as per previous post) for three hours later (on reflection, my home fare has been quite healthy). This isn't even a sacrifice, since I don't particularly fear hunger, and would quite often skip a meal if the queue were moderately long (which is a negative example).

Switching from hot to cold showers was slightly harder, but it has to be said that it really wakes one up (especially in the mornings), and saves water on top of it all.

Finally, as for the spanking new elliptical machine, I discovered to my horror that I could only stand a few minutes before my thighs began to hurt horribly, before I noticed that it had been set to maximum incline by default. After some reconfiguration, I set off on a mission to hit 70% of my maximum heart rate (about 140, using various formulas and a resting heart rate of about 65) and hold it for 45 minutes to an hour... and failed miserably.

First problem: Breaking about 120 beats per second. Even reaching that was a chore, and even near-maximal effort for a couple of minutes couldn't push it much past that.

Second problem: Lower quadriceps began to get sore, despite not really being out of breath. Hopefully this is the good sort of acclimatization burn.

By the way, a minute on the trainer appears to burn only 10 calories, so even 45 minutes will take just 450, or a couple of donuts. Argh.

The big returns from the last session have pulled me up to $1164/$1500. Will it continue? Stay tuned.

$100 on Aston Villa to beat Wigan (at 2.15)



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