Life Beyond Fife

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fitness•

Why getting strong is hard – Part I

Choosing to concentrate on strength training is a solid decision. But it's a hard one because for most people it's not like anything they've done before. Even for those familiar with press-ups (body weight exercises) or dumbbell curls, you have to open your mind to many new lessons, and unlearn or defend against incorrect ways of exercising. These next few posts will highlight traps it's easy to fall into when learning and training to become stronger. At present I'm an intermediate weightlifter. This is where I'll always be – I don't have the time nor inclination to become seriously strong....

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Food

The food that you eat, which fuels your exercise and aids your recovery, is every bit as important as the training routine you execute. As well as being just as important, the subject is just as big. The advice I give on food, however, will be limited just to this single post. Eat 1-2 grams of protein per kilogram of weight per day when strength training. Some say 1g per kg, some say 1g per lb (pound). Regardless of how much you eat, most people who aren't used to building muscle do not typically eat enough protein. There are many...

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Get strong first
fitness•

Get strong first

Having learned about the different fitness types, and about to make a change for life, you may have ideas about the type of body or changes you want to make. Perhaps a large part of your exercise routine will include long walks, or gentle jogs. Maybe it could include a ten minute punishing routine on a bike or rowing machine in the gym. I'm going to ask you to reconsider that choice before starting, and focus on one specific fitness type first. Strength. When we looked at the archetype strong man, I chose Mariusz. I could have chosen any strong...

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Preparation for training

We’ve already talked about how training is stress that the body can recover from. In order to make the gain from each session as impactful as possible, you need to prepare well. Preparation helps fuel your workout, and equally important, preparation for the next workout in the form of recovery also needs to be understood and practiced well. Food As far as workouts are concerned, food is fuel. Carbohydrates, especially complex carbohydrates, provide the energy needed for a workout. Sweet potato, wholewheat pasta, or wholewheat rice are good sources. Protein is good fuel too. White fish, shellfish, and chicken are...

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fitness•

Increase calories

Conventional wisdom says that getting fit is losing fat. Losing fat requires more exercise, and fewer calories. What you’ve just learned in the previous posts though, is that fitness is more complex than just your weight on the scales. There are many other measures of fitness and achieving progress in some avenues may require not eating less, but instead eating more. To explain a situation where eating more calories could be beneficial, let’s look at a business analogy. When you purchase stock in a company, you’re taking a bigger risk than putting money in a bank and getting whatever interest...

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The body as an engine
fitness•

The body as an engine

Up to now you may have thought of fitness or looking good as simply losing weight. Or more specifically, losing fat. Everyone knows if you want to lose fat, the key to doing so is down to diet and exercise. Fat is one of the two important energy storage supplies that the body has access to, and by limiting the amount of food you eat, you give the body less raw material to turn into fat; likewise, exercising burns up more fat than being sedantry. You could even write it down as a formula: $$\partial fat = calories - exercise$$...

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