OP you are an absolute legend. this thread is so awesome and i can only see it getting better.

that being said, you did promise to answer even noobish questions so ill put some of mine down.

basically ive been overweight for a few years. in the last 3 weeks i have got back into a good weight training program as well as tried to clean up my diet. its all very basic what im doing atm, as im just getting back into it. however im still a bit iffy about what kind of cardio i should be doing and how much.
im 6"0 and 101kgs. ive got a very solid build so i dont really want to throw on too much muscle bulk, i would rather focus on shedding all this excess lard. i would guess my ideal weight where i had very little fat and decent muscle mass would be around 86-88kgs (based on previous expereince) i just want to know what kind of cardio and how much i should be doing. my muscles have definitely started responding to the weights but i still have a solid coating of chub over it all. im very motivated to get into really good shape, but i just want to make sure im doing the right stuff to get there.

1) what kind of cardio and what frequency would you recommend foir me to maximise my fat burning?

2) is it important to measure all my food intake and keep very close tabs on it or is it sufficient at this point to just stick to good clean healthy foods and eat 5-6 smaller portions per day?

also feel free to shed any extra light or tell me if/why im ******ed etc etc. as i said, im pretty noobish with it all.

thanks again

cool. I think I just misunderstood the context as well.

What about that madcow guy?

only if you answer the follow-up to my golf question

Thanks OP.This thread is outstanding sir.

LG,

worked with any rowers? if so, what were your experiences with them? what did you primarily have them work on? if not, how much do you know about the sport?

gd,

are you heavy or light? what are you pulling on your 2k, 5k, 5x5, 1hour pieces etc.? what kind of program/club do you row for - division?

just realized that you asked me something earlier and I forgot to respond....

LG - dont meant to hijack the thread. I am sure you are way more qualified to answer his questions.

Thanks for doing this OP - am following and will ask specific questions later.

Rippetoe has written some books on programming and the barbell lifts. His interest is strength. His book is not a crossfit book.

Why not leave crossfit out of it. There's not a book on it, and I don't see the need for you to express your feelings on something you aren't familiar with and haven't used. Obviously, it is your choice.

We've had plenty of threads in this forum between people with no concept what it was yet who feel confident of their opinions on it from watching a video or two and reading crossfit's faq. Those threads haven't been valuable. [Mike Boyle is a respected (I gather) S&C coach who looks like an idiot in my opinion for doing this same thing.]

How would you go about assessing an athlete who came to you before you started working with them? Whether its a beginner or an elite athlete or anyone in between.

What sort of thing would you do in general with a novice lifter who was weak and skinny came to you looking to improve his performance for sport?(eg. soccer, basketball whatever) I think answering this would go along way to curbing the Rippetoe and Starting Strength chat in the thread. Oh and for reference the main value by FAR of Starting Strength is the teaching the correct form of the main barbell exercises (90% of the book is just that), not any methodology or sample programming.

Finally have you any details of transformations athletes experienced with your training? Not names or whatever as I am sure you don't want to post that but anonymously would be cool. For example strength, speed, other performance gains, lean mass increase etc in a certain time period.

Interested in this as well.


I'm older than most of the other posters in here, and haven't lifted in years.
Do I need to focus on doing low weight/high rep workouts at the beginning to let my joints and connective tissue strengthen, or is it ok to do high weight/low rep work as well?

+1 on the "thanks lifegrinder you rock" comments.

There's some really good info in this thread.

I'd like to ask a question about stretching / light antagonist work during rest periods. I've seen all sorts of things about this, from stretch the muscle you just used to stretch the opposite muscle or don't stretch but do a bit of light work for the opposite muscle group.

To put some specificity into the question, let's say I'm doing five sets of three heavy front squats with two minutes rest.

During the rest interval, what should I do to improve performance in the next set / strength gains? What if reducing DOMS / better recovery is my priority? What about if my goal is simply hypertrophy?

Also do these principles hold for other exercises (eg during bench rest periods stretch the lats) or did I pick a bad example?

Thanks in advance.

hate to bug you, but I'm assuming you forgot about my first post. Do you have any thoughts on my Q?

I did not forget, but I am traveling to Portland tomorrow on business. As such, I won't have responses to my private messages and other questions until 5pm pac tomorrow (8 pm et).

Sorry for the delay, life calls. If I find myself with internet at the airport, I will defintely take the time to respond to all

Including you ActionJeff!!

light
best 2k last year was 6:50 (1:42.5)
best 6k was 21:55 (~1:49) -- this was most recent

was fairly untrained last year in the spring. row for a very small club at a university. would love to get my 2k into the mid 6:30's by april. we are off the water in ~2 weeks and will be indoors. have access to erg/weights.

been trying to follow the "wolverine plan" fairly popular @ concept2. very confused on the necessity of strength training.

do you think something like 6:35 is feasible ~6 mo from now?

Any thoughts on the "ask a guy who uses steroids" thread other what you've already addressed ITT? I'm particularly (but not at all exclusively) interested in what you think of his assessment of the likely long-term health consequences.

I'm still reading the thread. I have contacts who are avid users and have been for a while, so I've been in the process of veryifying certain points on both sides of the argument. There is also a professor at Purdue who I am close with that studies steroid users (including long term data). Hopefully he will respond to my e-mail shortly.

I've never take steroids and the one athlete I caught doing so in my program was asked to leave (this is not to say I haven't trained an athlete on drugs, I have suspected a few, but I simply can't risk having a known user in my program. Rumors spread like a rash in this industry.)

When all of my people get back to me, I will get back to all of you guys.

I apologize if alot of my responses to some of you guys include: give me a day, I want to confirm some things. I am very careful about what I try to say and the opinions I express (especially on a subject like AAS). This is not to say I don't have initial opinions or do not know anything (I will tell you when I know I need to do some more re-search [I]ala crossfit[I]). But the knowledge in my line of work is constantly changing and sometimes the imperical evidence from a study doesn't match the personal experience of multitudes of coaches. Thus the catch 22 whenever it comes time for me to respond to something instantly.

oh my bad. Yeah no rush at all.

I'm actually not (not sport specific) atleast. I have enough knowledge and have studied the biomechanics of rowing. I know how to train a rower, that doesn't mean that I have or that my skills would be as polished as say the S&C coach at a rowing powerhouse like princeton.

I do, however, have contacts with such coaches. I'll shoot and e-mail out and see if the guys have anything on hand.

higher_energy, you did nothing wrong brother, I only made that hijack remark in the OP so that nobody found amusement from trolling. This thread has taken off fast than I could imagine and I'm absolutely loving being able to help all of you guys. This is by far the best mannered and some of the most educated (shemp et al) group of posters.

lg

.

LG,

U may have missed this post. wanted to know what would be a more effective cardio program. I am strength training 4 daysw a week, and jogging 4 mile (9 min/per) 4x/week. I am 175 5-10. My strength is good and is progressing. My goal is the last few pounds(literally maybe 2-3 pounds of blubber) that like to collect and have a party around my waist. My diet is the best I want to do (actually pretty good), but think I am screwing up my cardio. Thouhgts?

its hard to say man. how tall are you and whats your weight? when was the last time you pulled a 2k - give me a day. What boat are you in at your club and what seat? what kind of work outs does your coach have you do? do you have one practice a day or more? how intense are the people that you train with?

assuming you absolutely beasted it on the water this fall and haven't pulled since spring you might be in the high 6:40s now. everything is feasible but it will be tough.

to be honest, its such a broad question - i am not entirely sure how to approach it and like i said, i was just a rower, not a coach like LG. I could comment on routines, work outs etc. if you have any specific questions/comments

OP,

LISTEN HERE BUCKO,

If you want to get a grasp of Rippetoe's training ideas and then critique them, you will want to buy Practical Programming rather than Starting Strength. The latter is more or less a "how to" in terms of exercise form; where as the former is more about the nuances of exercise programming for athletes of different levels.

This is very much appreciated.

Nope I didn't, but the programs I'm thinking of are on another computer. My archiving sucks absolute balls.

I will find it and get back to you. Naturally, you can take from the programs elements that you think you can add and will help you.

Please dont apologize, this information you've given the forum is very valuable and no one here minds waiting a bit to get it. I haven't seen a poster with half the credentials you have post here. I also really respect the caution you use when answering questions, definitive answers relating to sports and nutrition are very hard to say with a high degree of accuracy. There are several ways of doing things wrong that we know for sure, but optimal strategy to workout the body, like you said seems to change rather frequently.

I know that extreme protein (70%+) diets can do havoc on the kidneys, but have yet to see anything against high fat diets. This guy on another forum claims to have adhered very strictly to this diet for 47 years and says he is in perfect health and put on muscle well past age 40.

I used this to measure body fat percentage. It sends a small electronic signal through your body and measures how fast it comes back. The measurement never varies much and people claim its fairly accurate. I know the best way is the underwater test which I have just not really looked into yet.

Taubes' spends the first half of the book showing how there has yet to be one study done (he has nearly 1000 sources) that can implicate saturated fat to high levels of atherosclerosis and increased mortality. He then does a very good job of showing how highly refined sugar and flour are the most likely causes of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, alzheimers and basically any chronic disease. He finishes the book debunking the myth that obesity is caused by overeating and blames it on a hormonal and metabolic disturbance where insulin sensitivity of the fat cells plays the major role. Heres a decent review from amazon