Off Season Conditioning

[deadheadskier]

That's running, I don't think a low impact elliptical will get yo those numbers. 7.5 min mile is fast!

I've rotated through using the elliptical, treadmill and stairmaster at the gym. I change it up based on boredom.

When I train cardio, I do interval training of 60 seconds as hard as I can go, 90-120 seconds 'jogging' pace depending on how I'm feeling and how much recovery I think I need to hit it hard again for 60 seconds. Training sessions are always 30 minutes.

From a typical 30 minute session I get calories burned readouts of approximately:

550 elliptical
475 stairmaster
450 treadmill

in terms of which machine I feel kicks my ass the most

Stairmaster - and by a large margin
Treadmill
Elliptical - definitely the easiest

That's the reason I place little stock in how many calories a machine tells me I've burned.

 

[deadheadskier]

Calories are counted by middle-aged people whose physical activity for the week is loading their kids into the suburban to go to soccer practice.

ben

you clearly need to spend a bit more time on this site and learn the AZ demographic. :lol:

for the most part, we're a bunch of working stiffs in our 30s and 40s trying to fight back decades of beer over consumption. We're not 18 year olds completing backcountry feats that have never been done before like yourself. And though we are not, it's cool as shit for someone like yourself to contribute on the site.

WTF is a plyo anyway? Point me to a routine if you think it might help me improve my skiing fitness for the upcoming season. I've heard of plyometrics before, but have never investigated what they are. Perhaps I've been too busy drinking beer. :beer:

 

[Tooth]

Plyo is "jump training". Go onto ebay and order P90x plyometrics dvd and go for it.

 

[Nick]

are you guys really counting calories? If you want to do real preseason training, it's mostly about how much plyos you can do. Think about this in terms of skiing. If a run takes 5 minutes, try to be able to do 5 minutes solid of plyos (basically jumping around). Calories are counted by middle-aged people whose physical activity for the week is loading their kids into the suburban to go to soccer practice.

I wish it was that easy. I was a fat schmuck in high school, (well, not super fat but I was arond 200 lb always, but zero muscle). I really do need to watch what I eat, as I have a self control problem, and if I don't actively pay attention to what I eat, it doesn't matter how much I work out (and I work out normally 5 - 7 hrs / week). I will still gain weight.

when I started writing down calories, I was shocked at how much I was eating. Some days, over 4500 calories.I would eat a whole pizza.

Exercise is the only thing that has kept me in check, if I didn't work out regularly I would be 250 lb. probably, haha.

watching my calories works. If I track and eat less, I can drop 2 - 3 lb / week, which I've been doing now for two weeks (down 6 lb so far). Getting ready for the season!

 

[bvibert]

I use Sparkdiet.com and their calorie tracker, they have an app too. it's pretty good. I haven't been perfect about tracking it though, but I'm going on Day #11 of no-cheating, except Saturday when I had 2000 calories, 800 of which were light- beer . Every other day has been ~1200 - 1400 cals and I've dropped almost 5 lb. in the last 10 days.

That's the site that I used when I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. Their tracker was always such a PITA to use though, that's why I stopped using it. I tried to start back up with them several times since, but it never lasted too long.

I'm liking the interface on myfitnesspal much better so far.

 

[wa-loaf]

are you guys really counting calories? If you want to do real preseason training, it's mostly about how much plyos you can do. Think about this in terms of skiing. If a run takes 5 minutes, try to be able to do 5 minutes solid of plyos (basically jumping around). Calories are counted by middle-aged people whose physical activity for the week is loading their kids into the suburban to go to soccer practice.

heh, we can't all be 20 forever. You'll get a real job eventually and find yourself in the same boat. And yes we are mostly middle aged people here ... but I load the kids into a Subaru to go to soccer.

So watching what you take in, working out and doing plyo (hope you are doing more for your core as well) is the best way to get in shape and lose weight.

 

[Madroch]

Plyo rocks... while I've been various weights over the past several ski seasons and regularly done cardio before and during each season, I never had more ski stamina than right after finishing P90x with the plyo focus. After I stopped, and the season wore on... I lost a lot of it. Skiing two or three days a week for 4 hours at a clip (at least one of those days with intermediate kids) was obviously not enough to keep my middle aged legs up to snuff. That is why I am doing insanity now.. it is all plyo.. day in and day out. I plan to continue various plyo excercises through this ski seson (hybrid of p90x/insanity) to try an avoid losing the legs and the inevitable winter weight gain. We'll see if my thoery pans out...

 

[Madroch]

Yep.. and I count calories because I am middle aged, sit behind a desk 10-12 hours a day and the pounds really creep on.

 

[Madroch]

That's the site that I used when I lost a lot of weight a few years ago. Their tracker was always such a PITA to use though, that's why I stopped using it. I tried to start back up with them several times since, but it never lasted too long.

I'm liking the interface on myfitnesspal much better so far.

Never used Spark... but it seems that most folks who have used spark and MFP prefer MFP for logging cals. Livestrong has a program too, but it is kind of a PITA also.

 

[Madroch]

Plyo is "jump training". Go onto ebay and order P90x plyometrics dvd and go for it.

Or get the insanity "Plyo circuit" or "Max plyo"-- or the whole damn insanity set, just about all the disks have some plyo (Cardio circuit, max cardio, cardio strength, Max interval, etc).

 

[Riverskier]

You don't need to count calories or even diet in the traditional sense to lose weight. It is all about eating the right foods. Of course, many of the foods you should avoid for the most part (cheeseburgers, pizza, etc.) are the same foods you would avoid with a traditional diet. That said, you can eat as much fat as you like, as long as it is the right fats, and you can eat as much carbs as you want, as long as they are the right carbs. The biggest factor to watch is the glycemic load of the foods you are eating (not to be confused with the glycemic index). I lost 25 pounds last winter (all the weight I needed to lose) simply by eating this way, and with the only exercise being skiing once a week.

 

[jrmagic]

WTF is a plyo anyway? Point me to a routine if you think it might help me improve my skiing fitness for the upcoming season. I've heard of plyometrics before, but have never investigated what they are. Perhaps I've been too busy drinking beer. :beer:

If you want to try something quick, look up the leg blaster on Youtube. It was posted in this thread a while back.

 

[bvibert]

Never used Spark... but it seems that most folks who have used spark and MFP prefer MFP for logging cals. Livestrong has a program too, but it is kind of a PITA also.

The biggest problem I had with Spark is they never seemed to have the food I was eating in their system, or the search sucked too badly to find it. I hated having to manually enter stuff in. So far with MFP they've had everything in the data base (or something close enough at least). I also dig the bar code reader for purchased foods.

 

[wa-loaf]

The biggest problem I had with Spark is they never seemed to have the food I was eating in their system, or the search sucked too badly to find it. I hated having to manually enter stuff in. So far with MFP they've had everything in the data base (or something close enough at least). I also dig the bar code reader for purchased foods.

Livestrong has most of the store bought foods in their database. The tough one's for me are when I go to the cafe at work and buy lunch. Then I have to kind of add up all the parts of my sandwich to figure out the calories. That's kind of a pain.

 

[bvibert]

Livestrong has most of the store bought foods in their database. The tough one's for me are when I go to the cafe at work and buy lunch. Then I have to kind of add up all the parts of my sandwich to figure out the calories. That's kind of a pain.

I decided to use "close enough" options this time around. I tend to be too exact, which get's tiring for me, and I stop doing it. If they don't have the exact brand of something I'm eating, or if it's from a cafe or homemade, I just find something that's close, always trying to err on the side of being more calories than it really is.

 

[Grassi21]

I decided to use "close enough" options this time around. I tend to be too exact, which get's tiring for me, and I stop doing it. If they don't have the exact brand of something I'm eating, or if it's from a cafe or homemade, I just find something that's close, always trying to err on the side of being more calories than it really is.

That has always been my biggest gripe about those cal-counting apps. I want the exact brand in the exact amount or else I get annoyed real quick. Taking your close enough approach is worth a shot.

 

[deadheadskier]

Livestrong has most of the store bought foods in their database. The tough one's for me are when I go to the cafe at work and buy lunch. Then I have to kind of add up all the parts of my sandwich to figure out the calories. That's kind of a pain.

perhaps you can make a suggestion to HR that they post the calorie count of menu items in the cafe?

 

[BenedictGomez]

I've actually dropped 10-15lbs and am the leanest I've been in years.

Awesome job dude, keep up the good work!

I definitely don't trust the calorie burnt trackers on the machines at the gym. Doesn't seem possible that I can burn 1100 calories on an eliptical machine in an hour.

Yeah, there's something wrong there. I dont fully trust any machine's output either, though I do track them as an approximate guide, it's good enough for government work, so to speak (or alternatively, better than nothing). But unless you're practically running on that elliptical like an animal, I dont see how you're getting 1100. I use various machines at various gyms and come in about 580 - 650 calories at 60 minutes depending on how lazy hard I work.

are you guys really counting calories?..........Calories are counted by middle-aged people whose physical activity for the week is loading their kids into the suburban to go to soccer practice.

This is simply not true. Elite athletes at all levels and sports count calories.

Frankly, if you can do it, you should. Do you absolutely need to? No, not at all. But on balance, in the long run, someone strictly counting calories and exercising regularly, will have better results than someone not counting calories at all and exercising regularly, which is a pretty obvious concept really.

You don't need to count calories or even diet in the traditional sense to lose weight. It is all about eating the right foods. Of course, many of the foods you should avoid for the most part (cheeseburgers, pizza, etc.) are the same foods you would avoid with a traditional diet.

I mean, this really isnt technically true either though. If you overeat "all the right foods", you're 100% going to gain weight, so diet is important. Maybe I misunderstood you?

In an extreme (and somewhat admittedly unrealistic example), I could eat nothing but 2000 calories of cheeseburgers per day for a month and do better than someone overeating 3000 calories of almonds, cottage cheese, vegetables, tuna fish, whole grains, and lean meats like turkey breast per day for a month.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Livestrong has most of the store bought foods in their database. The tough one's for me are when I go to the cafe at work and buy lunch. Then I have to kind of add up all the parts of my sandwich to figure out the calories. That's kind of a pain.

I use the USDA nutrients database for this. I dont know how livestrong works, but on myfitnesspal you can create a saved item if it's something you make for yourself a lot (like if you make a ham, turkey, American cheese on wheat sandwich at the cafe every day) and then it's no time at all.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/

I always trying to err on the side of being more calories than it really is.

I do the same thing! I do that with exercise too.

 

[jrmagic]

I don;t see myself having the patience to enter all my food intake into an app but I do try to keep a general idea of where I am at each day,