Who Dares Wins

Maybe_Memories

Well since one guy on this had a thread titled with the Navy SEAL motto, figured I'd go with the SAS one. :pac:

Right, so I'm 19, 20 in a few months, male, and currently a little under 82kg. Joining some branch of some military when I finish college (assuming eye surgery is a success!! :eek: ). So for that my main fitness goals are cardio-vascular endurance with a high VO2max and muscle endurance.

I actually started exercising properly for the first time ever about 6 months ago, but I wasn't very committed and wasn't fully sure of what I was doing and diet etc. Still I got my 1.5 mile run down from 15 minutes to 11 before christmas, then I did pretty much nothing during the 4 weeks I had off and put on the old holiday weight; I basically gained half a stone and haven't been able to drop it yet. My run time also went back up and I'm currently doing the 1.5 miles in about 14.30. Ideally in a few months this will be a sub 9 minute.

My current workout is:

5 sets of 10 push-ups,
5 sets of 20 crunches,
2 pull ups and then 4 sets of the assisted pull-up machine. (I'm pretty proud of myself; two weeks ago I could do no pull-ups.)

Every week 5 reps added to push ups and crunches, 1 rep to pull-ups, maybe 2 depending.

That's done 3 times a week and once a week I do 3 sets of max reps of each exercise.

As for running, 3 times a week it's a 30 min run at a pace 9km/h.
Twice a week it's interval runs doing 6 1/4 mile runs at a pace of 13.8km/h with 1/4 mile walks in between. Every now and again I do some hill sprints if I get the time, which is usually only about once every 2 or 3 weeks.

Trying to lose about 8 kg with all this. Surprised I haven't lost a bit already since supposedly my RMR is about 1950 and daily activities supposedly put my daily caloric expenditure at about 2400, then adding in exercise would make it about 2700. I'm eating about 1600 calories a day. But not losing weight. Damn it!

Anyway, I'll update this about every week or so with my weight, max crunches, push ups and pull ups, and my run time.

Maybe_Memories

First "official" interval run today.
Ran 2 minutes at 13.8km/h, walked 4 minutes, and repeated 5 times. Was really feeling it in the last set; could barely breathe!!
I plan on doing this three times a week but since it's nearing the end of the week I'll continue at this level next week, then the week after reduce walk by 1 minute, after that increase run by 1 minute, and so on until I'm running at this pace for 30 minutes, then that'll become my base level for my easy longer runs, then I'll go through the program at a faster pace. So I guess I'll see a sub 9 minute 1.5 mile in about 5 - 6 months?

Tomorrow is the max reps day for the push-ups, pull-ups and crunches.
Hoping to hit at least 20 in the push-ups.

We'll see how it goes!

Maybe_Memories

Pull-ups are now at 3, 4 if I really try.

brownej

Well done on the pull ups.
Perseverance pays off with them. It's a great feeling when you can do one without the assistance mcahine.

Personally I was a bit lacking in cardio vascular endurance but I found the cross trainer was very effective for me at increasing it. This has helped my running by allowing me to go at a sustained faster pace. As the cross trainer is non impact and is not the same motion as running it won't help directly with the running but personally I found it great to get up my cardio endurance which allowed me to run faster for longer.
It might be worth a try for you once a week. Obviously you have to work up a sweat on it. there's no point using it on the minimum setting like some of the people you see in the gym.