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Fitness goals for 2014


Turkish
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So what are your aims for 2014? In 2005 I was the fittest I've ever been so set myself a goal to beat that by the end of the year. Want to beat my PBs for squat, (160kg) deadlift (145kg) and bench press (140kg) set in 2005. Also signed up to do Yorkshire Warrior in April and looking at doing Hell runner, Spartans and Tough Mudder later in the year. Really need to sort the diet out to shift the fat as I still carry too much due to my diet and too much booze. Going dry and Jan and going to try to stay that way until I do Yorkshire Warrior but with work that may be tricky. I'm looking for another martial art to get into, no Krav clubs within an hour of here so need to find something else if anyone has any recommendations!

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Be able to tie my own laces.

 

Get my 10K row time down to 45 minutes.

 

Play more squash.

 

Play some veterans' football.

 

Would like to get rid of about 3 stone. If I could achieve this by over-eating, taking little exercise and drinking more then I should be fine.

 

If not, and I require willpower to achieve my goal, then sadly I fear I'll fail, like I do every year.

 

Others have suggested the 5:2 diet on here. I tried it and it worked well for me.

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So what are your aims for 2014? In 2005 I was the fittest I've ever been so set myself a goal to beat that by the end of the year. Want to beat my PBs for squat, (160kg) deadlift (145kg) and bench press (140kg) set in 2005. Also signed up to do Yorkshire Warrior in April and looking at doing Hell runner, Spartans and Tough Mudder later in the year. Really need to sort the diet out to shift the fat as I still carry too much due to my diet and too much booze. Going dry and Jan and going to try to stay that way until I do Yorkshire Warrior but with work that may be tricky. I'm looking for another martial art to get into, no Krav clubs within an hour of here so need to find something else if anyone has any recommendations!

 

Am I right in thinking you're in Leeds? If so have a look at crossfit Leeds. They'll quickly sort any pb's out.

 

And your Olympic moves.

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Am I right in thinking you're in Leeds? If so have a look at crossfit Leeds. They'll quickly sort any pb's out.

 

And your Olympic moves.

 

Not far from Leeds. There is a cross fit club a few doors down from the gym I use at the moment, I hear lots about it and its meant to be very good.

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The gym I work at is opening a Crossfit 'box' in March, so want to start doing more of that. Did 4 obstacle runs this year and plan on doing 4 again next year (18km, 14km, 2x 19 km).

 

In the gym I want to improve my squat (150kg) and once completed the Olympic lifting course, more of those lifts. Main goal is to get down to 8% bodyfat and stay injury free next year.

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Complete 100 mile cycling sportive at an average of 15+ mph.

 

Climb the killer mile at Mow Cop.

 

Bought a cycle trainer for when the weather is poor or when they finally salt the roads. Should help with the general fitness and stamina ahead of the warmer weather.

 

Grow to love the turbo. Ideal for interval training. If you want any tips let me know. Training entirely in garage at present. Got Garmin Edge 500 with cadence and HRM for birthday. Very useful!

As for my goals. Sub 30 min 10 mile time trial. (will be on road bike). Sub 3hr 30 for Dorset Rotary Cycle ride in September. 100 mile sportive ticked off. Get to 80 kg to give me a fighting chance in the Hambleden Valley (Rotton Row, Holloway Lane out of Turville, Pishill, Icehouse Lane and the Vineyard climb) PRs on as many Strava segments as I can and if the lottery comes up, I'll be off to the to the Alps. The Cormet de Roseland seems to have my name on it. Happy sporting 2014.

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Would love to get back to the fitness levels I had when I was in the Royal Marines but, to be honest, anything close to that would be great. That was 7 years ago though mind.

 

Now I've moved to the US I have more free time (I used to commute from Southampton to London daily), so will try to make use of that to get back to good fitness and strength levels

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Others have suggested the 5:2 diet on here. I tried it and it worked well for me.

 

I started this early last year as my desk job and no fitness regime piled on a couple of stone in a year. Doing the 5:2 stopped my weight gain dead, immediately.

 

Goal for 2014 is to get myself signed up at a gym and get there at least 3 times a week. Thats the easiest goal I can set and will take things from there.

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I started this early last year as my desk job and no fitness regime piled on a couple of stone in a year. Doing the 5:2 stopped my weight gain dead, immediately.

 

Goal for 2014 is to get myself signed up at a gym and get there at least 3 times a week. Thats the easiest goal I can set and will take things from there.

 

I have to say that the idea of fasting for two days per week filled me with dread, but now I find it very easy. The compensation is that as long as I keep up my exercise regime, I can pretty much eat and drink what I want for the rest of the week. It feels more like a way of life now than a short term diet.

 

I invested in a new rowing machine rather than trying to commit to get to a gym 'n' days/week. Anything that can remove the excuses for not exercising is a good thing for me.

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Retired from playing football finally this year and can already see the negative effects. Definitely going to get back into running. And need to shed over a stone.

 

Has any one tried these tracker bracelet (Jawbone and FItbit) things? Don't want to waste £80+ for glorified pedometer but if they work then money well spent.

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Grow to love the turbo. Ideal for interval training. If you want any tips let me know. Training entirely in garage at present. Got Garmin Edge 500 with cadence and HRM for birthday. Very useful!

As for my goals. Sub 30 min 10 mile time trial. (will be on road bike). Sub 3hr 30 for Dorset Rotary Cycle ride in September. 100 mile sportive ticked off. Get to 80 kg to give me a fighting chance in the Hambleden Valley (Rotton Row, Holloway Lane out of Turville, Pishill, Icehouse Lane and the Vineyard climb) PRs on as many Strava segments as I can and if the lottery comes up, I'll be off to the to the Alps. The Cormet de Roseland seems to have my name on it. Happy sporting 2014.

 

Garmin 800 with HR and Cadence £200 on Amazon at the moment.

 

Very tempting.

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Garmin 800 with HR and Cadence £200 on Amazon at the moment.

 

Very tempting.

 

Go for it. You won't regret it. Having good accurate data about yourself is crucial in goal setting particularly in an endurance sport like cycling. If you do get this, you can do a simple VO2 Max test on your turbo that you can use to set your training zones using your HRM. Warm up thoroughly for 10 minutes. Use a lowish gear. I have a triple on the bike on my turbo so that's using the 39/19 gear at around 21 kph (13mph in old money). In the ninth minute change up to your next gear staying in the same front ring and increase your pace. This would bring it up in my case to around Zone 3 (17-18mph). As the ten minutes warm up finishes hit the lap button on the Garmin and go as hard as you can sustain for 6 minutes at as even a pace as you can. It is no good going off at 25mph if at the end you are struggling to maintain 13mph. At the end of the 6 minutes hit the lap button again to stop the lap and cool down at warm up pace for 10 minutes. This should give you max and average heart rates for when you are working beyond your lactate threshold. You must make sure you finish the test interval, another reason not to go all Billy Big ****** with it. All you need then is to work out your max heart rate (220 bpm - age in years) and you should then be able to work out your training zones from there. Plenty of info on web as to how to do this although Garmin devices will work it out for you if ANT+ enabled with HRM. I know all this sounds geeky **** but unstructured training using the turbo just won't work. You can't just sit on the bike and ride. If you do boredom will set in and very quickly the turbo wiull be a redundat item in the garage.None of this advice is my own, but I paid £15 for a self-coaching manual from http://www.flammerouge.je/home/home.htm on the say so of a friend Much of what I have said has been gleaned and from this, which I consider money very well spent.

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ive lost 5 stone in 18 months, but still have another 2 to go. going to really go for it the next 3 to 4 months as ive put a bit on since mid november when i did my 1st half marathon. am already booked in for reading Half Marathon on 2 march, anything inside my PB of 2.25 id be happy with, a few 10ks to do before that, then the haywards heath 10 mile in May. hopefully at my target weight by then

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  • 1 month later...

okay chumps try this one. Get on the treadmill and do 5 minutes at your normal 10k pace. After the 5 minutes set the incline to 10 and up the pace by 5km per hour. Then jump back on and do 30 seconds, jump off at the end and rest for a minute, repeat for as many times as you can. Did it after my weights session, managed 5 but couldn't quote get a 6th out. Absolute killer, the aim is to get to 8.

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Pretty much fitter then Ive been since I was 18 now I reckon.

 

Slimmed right down, starting to really tone up (christ it takes ages to get some real tone going !) and I reckon Im in the top 3 of the fitter players at my club which is pretty good considering Im one of the older lads and its a respectable standard (playing with ex Millwall and chelsea players helps).

 

Basically playing football 4-5 times a week, badminton 1-2 times and the weights routines 3x a week has helped. Unfortunately some of the lads have let me down and I wont be doing tough mudder this year but hey ho Im happy at the moment

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Managed to lose over 2 stone thanks to a mix of Krav (now a P3, aiming to be a P5 hand to hand combat machine by the end of the year), running 3-5 times a week inc Park Run up the Common. When I started I was scraping into the top 100 with times around the mid 23mins, quickly got that down to low 21mins, I aim to break 20mins this year. It may kill me but I'm going to do it. Now I've shifted a fair chunk of fat I'm doing circuits (well a Taba regime recommended by a mate of mine in the Navy, handy for doing in the garden/ garage/ park whatever) and some basic Kettle Bell training along with lots of lifting my own body weight.

 

Basically to anyone starting out, it really does take about 6 weeks of improved diet and exercise before you notice a difference, 8 weeks before over people do and 12 to realistically reach a goal. The 5:2 had almost instant results, I genuinely look forward to fasting on Mondays now (I'm starving as I type) as I like the feeling fasting gives me after a heavy weekend. It in turn improves your overall diet and you recognise you need nowhere near as much crappy food as before. Weekends I still have a proper blow out though, just throw some exercise in somewhere to compensate. All in all I feel really good, spent a fortune on new jeans/ suits (lost 4" off the waist) and tops (now a S/M rather than a M/L) and it really wasn't that difficult.

 

Big thing is lifestyle though, I commuted to London every day which took a huge chunk of my day. I won't work in London 5 days a week again purely because of the effect on my health, lifes too short and I've got a cracking work/ life balance. Working from home today so gonna log off now and do a cheeky 6k run before my long awaited dinner!

 

Keep it up everyone, Turkish - shocking there's no Krav near you, these Northeners really are behind the times! You know what us Krav guys think of Martial "Arts", I look forward to your first Win Chun/ Mai Thai/ Kung Fu lesson where someone goes for a kick and you immediately, instinctively move in for a knee to the groan, fingers in the eyes and a elbow to the throat. Before scanning obviously...:)

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  • 2 weeks later...
How many times a week you doing Krav now mate? I really do miss it, by far the best thing I've ever done. :-(

 

Every Tuesday at Exile Gym in Shirley, same guy that runs it does Andover and Amesbury on Mondays and Wednesdays (a bit far for me) and now a new session every Thursday in Hythe. I would go to that but I play 6 a side on Thursday night which I don't want to miss. Know what you mean re' Krav, best thing I've ever done, would recommend it to anyone. Looking at entering some inter club K2 tournaments. Lot's of rules unfortunately but the only thing Krav doesn't have is element of competition so if my Krav instructor thinks I'm good enough, I'll get in the cage and have a go!

 

Tell you what though, before our session on Tuesdays the Wrestling lads are finishing up. Fookin hell, they are super fut, most do it as part of an all round UFC weekly routine, but these guys are solid and look like they've been mangled by the end of their session! The instructor is brilliant, a Romanian ex Olympic Gold medalist who absolutely mullers some of the huge Polish/ UFC lumps in there with his technique!

 

Can't believe there's nowhere near Harrogate that does Krav mate, shocking! Think there's a bloke on here (Hockey Saint?) that does a form of high impact Kung Fu that is very similar to Krav? Going on memory and don't know what it's called and if that would be any more accessible for you?

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I started this early last year as my desk job and no fitness regime piled on a couple of stone in a year. Doing the 5:2 stopped my weight gain dead, immediately.

 

Goal for 2014 is to get myself signed up at a gym and get there at least 3 times a week. Thats the easiest goal I can set and will take things from there.

 

I have started this 5:2 diet .....bloody hell its hard keeping under 600 calories a day - when a banana is over 100!! something as simple as crunchy nut cornflakes or shredded wheat can be as much as 400.

Have switched to skimmed - upped my gym work, bought a bike....am starving though!

I can't run as have a metal knee so have to be careful with exercise

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  • 2 weeks later...

Actually made it to the gym today. Worked my nuts off on a full body weights circuit and thought I was going to pass out at the end. Felt good a bit later though.

 

Going to give the 5:2 a go. Few bowls of porridge with water instead of milk should be easy enough to stick to for a couple of days a week.

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Actually made it to the gym today. Worked my nuts off on a full body weights circuit and thought I was going to pass out at the end. Felt good a bit later though.

 

Going to give the 5:2 a go. Few bowls of porridge with water instead of milk should be easy enough to stick to for a couple of days a week.

 

Get hold of a kettlebell and do the swing challenge. 300 swings a day, every day for a month. I'm hearing great things about it.

 

This is the circuit i'm currently doing 3 times a week along with 3 runs a week in prep for Yorkshire Warrior in April

 

20 swings

2 x Turkish get ups

20 press ups

20 swings

20 burpees

20 swings

20 sit ups

20 swings

10 figure of 8s

20 swings

20 kettlebell sqauts

20 swings

 

3 times through, 2 minutes rest between each set. Time each circuit and do each one as quickly as the first. Is very tough but very good.

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Only just found this thread. Fitness has never really been a problem for me, it's more gaining weight. Hoping to get to around 80kg down the gym, currently 77.5. Been going for nearly 2 years I think now and it's slow progress, despite eating like a horse and using protein shakes.

 

Pretty much given up badminton after getting bored with the poor standard at my club. Just football now, despite limited talent.

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Riding 2 short (35km) and 1 long (135km - 180km) per week plus sensible eating has gotten me down from 100kg to 84kg, so close to my target of 80kg since October

 

Fitness levels are through the roof and as the weather/light improves the short mid-week rides will become 50km+ and I find myself actively looking for big hills to climb.

 

I had a target of 100miles/160km at 15mph average. Done that already so it's now 125miles/200km and 100miles/160km non stop.

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how are you getting on Turkish?

 

My original plan was to get back to my fitness levels of 2011, 10% body fat training 4 times a week, 110kg bench, 180kg deadlift, 130kg squat.

 

It has taken a bit of a hit due to a bout of diverticulitis but hope to get back on track now I have it under control

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Get hold of a kettlebell and do the swing challenge. 300 swings a day, every day for a month. I'm hearing great things about it.

 

This is the circuit i'm currently doing 3 times a week along with 3 runs a week in prep for Yorkshire Warrior in April

 

20 swings

2 x Turkish get ups

20 press ups

20 swings

20 burpees

20 swings

20 sit ups

20 swings

10 figure of 8s

20 swings

20 kettlebell sqauts

20 swings

 

3 times through, 2 minutes rest between each set. Time each circuit and do each one as quickly as the first. Is very tough but very good.

 

What weight of kettle bell will I need. 6ft tall and about 103kgs. Average level of fitness.

 

cheers for the advice.

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how are you getting on Turkish?

 

My original plan was to get back to my fitness levels of 2011, 10% body fat training 4 times a week, 110kg bench, 180kg deadlift, 130kg squat.

 

It has taken a bit of a hit due to a bout of diverticulitis but hope to get back on track now I have it under control

 

i've dropped out the weights totally at the moment as heavy squatting and deadlifts was having an impact on my runs, legs felt so heavy! Will pick them back up again after warrior. Doing 3 runs a week and 3 kettlebell circuits at the moment.

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Couldn't get 16kg, got 12kg. Should be heavy enough after a few reps. If I do the 300 a day, what sort of sets should this comprise of?

 

20 and do a minutes activity recovery between each set. Should be able to so the lot in under half hour, everyday for a month. Not done it myself but a couple of lads in my gym have, they've both toned up a fair bit.

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Only just found this thread. Fitness has never really been a problem for me, it's more gaining weight. Hoping to get to around 80kg down the gym, currently 77.5. Been going for nearly 2 years I think now and it's slow progress, despite eating like a horse and using protein shakes.

 

Pretty much given up badminton after getting bored with the poor standard at my club. Just football now, despite limited talent.

 

You need to be eating the right stuff at the right time, getting the right rest and doing the right exercises. You will also plataeu if you do the same routine over n over. Plus too much cardio will inhibit muscle growth.

 

(Ive been through the same problems)

 

What is a typical routine ?

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They are good aren't they, so much you can do with them.

 

Have you ever tried any of the alternatives on this page:

 

https://www.onnit.com/fitness/

 

The gimmick Kettlebells I don't think would add much but the Steel Mace and Clubs are a proper old school workout.

 

I have been riding to work from Woolston to Chandlers Ford but need to add some form of resistance training as well. Has anyone tried Pure Gym in Bitterne or are there better ones on the area?

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Have you ever tried any of the alternatives on this page:

 

https://www.onnit.com/fitness/

 

The gimmick Kettlebells I don't think would add much but the Steel Mace and Clubs are a proper old school workout.

 

I have been riding to work from Woolston to Chandlers Ford but need to add some form of resistance training as well. Has anyone tried Pure Gym in Bitterne or are there better ones on the area?

 

Been at Pure since it opened. It's good value for money, but absolutely rammed in the evenings.

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You need to be eating the right stuff at the right time, getting the right rest and doing the right exercises. You will also plataeu if you do the same routine over n over. Plus too much cardio will inhibit muscle growth.

 

(Ive been through the same problems)

 

What is a typical routine ?

 

I'm getting all the right advice, nutrition, rest, training schedules etc. I am progressing, it just takes time with my metabolism. I used to live in the US and spent the whole time eating pizza, ice cream and steak. Did bugger all exercise and didn't gain a pound.

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Aiming to get down to 100kg (currently 120kg). Just cycling at present with the aim of doing a Century in October (New Forest one). Already doing 30-milers and next challenge is the Isle of Wight sportive in July. Hard work for a fat bastard but definitely having an affect - I was 21st when I started cycling regularly last May. Its the only form of exercise I genuinely enjoy - I think the fact that you have no choice but to cycle home again is a big help for me. Far too easy to feel knackered in the gym and go for an early shower whereas last weekend I was knackered at Burley and knew I had 10 miles to go before I could stop.

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