February Strength and Fitness thread

mountainmist

mountainmist

Joined
Jun 12, 2013
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Somehow we stopped doing these, but i donno why??? Well, I'm doing this so I'll post this for all to use


Originally Posted by Qeth
As an offshoot to the Move Your Butt (MYB) challenge, some of us in the general fitness thread came up with a BP challenge for those of us who do body weight and weight lifting exercises.

Goal is to accrue 50 Becker Strength Points (BSP) during the month. I propose, as alternate goals, the following:

50 points--Standard
100 points--Advanced
200 points--Professional
300 points--Spartan!

Scoring:

100 light reps = 1 BSP
50 medium reps = 1 BSP
25 heavy reps = 1 BSP
15 very heavy reps = 1 BSP
200 heavy punching bag combos = 1BSP

Definitions:

Light rep: a rep that can be done 15+ times without resting. Most body weight exercises will fall into this category.
Medium rep: a rep that can be done up to 14 times, with reps 12-14 being challenging, and 15 near impossible without assistance.
Heavy rep: a rep that can be done 6 times, with reps 4-6 being very challenging, and 7 near impossible without assistance.
Very heavy: a rep that can be done twice, rep 3 impossible without assistance.
Heavy punching bag combos: a set of at least 2 moves (ex jab and straight, jab roundhouse kick, etc) done sequentially.

Light - 15+ reps
Medium - 7-14 reps
Heavy - 3-6 reps
Very Heavy - 1-2 reps

Post workout, tally up everything and see how many points you have.

Example: Back/ bicep routine

Barbell rows: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps
Pull-ups: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps
Cable rows: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps
Dumbbell shrugs: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps

Barbell curls: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps
Hammer curls: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps
Wrist curls: medium weight, 8 reps per set, 3 sets = 24 reps

Total 168 medium points

(168 medium points) divided by 50 = 3.36 BP

This challenge is IN ADDITION to the MYB challenge. Points do NOT cross over, the challenges are SEPARATE.

This challenge will last the month of February.

Good luck and stay safe!
Click to expand...
 
I can grab a sheep and flip it onto it's rear so it can get it's feet trimmed, does that count for anything? :D
 
No sheep to flip out here, so I tend to stick with crunches and pushups.

330 light reps this morning.
3.3 BSPs to start.
 
Mon Feb 1

Ok! First entry!

L= 32
M= 40
H= 4
Vh= 0
(Weak chest day!)

Bp= 1.28

Day 2, Feb 2, Biceps

Bp=4.1

Day 3, Feb 3, legs

Bp=2.3
 
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Moved one 5-foot Steelcase desk, alone.
Moved one 4-drawer steel file cabinet (mostly empty), alone.
Reassembled one 1/2HP Buffalo drill press on 2-head cast iron table, alone.
Moved one stainless steel foreman's desk, alone.
Moved one 700lb cast iron 1941 Naval production inspection table, with 2 other people
Watched Hans move a 150lb anvil. I watched alone. That was hard work.

My truck wants its Beckerhead Points.
 
Any advise for a dude who works 50 hours a week and has a six week old to take care of? I don't like the way the scale is tipping these days.... I need to find time to exercise. Just don't know where to find it. Seeing how time can't be put into the bank, I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks!
 
My 2 cents for tinfoil hat timmy:

Honestly, working out doesn't have to take a whole lot of time.

There are a few things that I really like. One of them is the program at hundredpushups.com. Try both that and the 200 situps program. Program sure works. No matter how many you can do at first, you can really improve quickly if you stick with it, and it doesn't take more than 5-15 minutes a day. As far as finding time goes, the best thing to do is to wake up 15 minutes earlier and pound out some pushups and/or situps, and you'll find that you actually have more energy when you're off to work, because you got your blood flowing. Be warned; getting back into working out sucks for a couple weeks. After that, it stops hurting, and after a while, a switch flips in your body and you start to get energy instead of feeling tired.

You can also do other short workouts. There are a lot available online, for instance.

When I was working my old job, I would regularly work 60 hour weeks, and still find time to get at least an hour of exercise in every day. One of the things that really helped was finding things I could do at home, because changing into gym clothes, driving to the gym, working out, and driving back almost doubles how much time you have to spend. When you have a pair of bar bells and can just do some curls, shoulder presses, etc, when you're sitting on the couch watching football or something, you'd be surprised how easy it is to get some good exercise in.

My tight time schedule program has me wake up 10 minutes earlier during week days, and alternate between doing the hundred pushups and the 200 situps workouts, which gets me pretty set for the day. Then, when I'm on my downtime, watching TV, or doing something else, I try to multi-task. I do 3-5 sets of a single exercise until it burns on each set, and I work biceps, shoulders, back, squats, and flexibility/plyo/yoga. Again, that doesn't take long. You can really do it for only 5 minutes and get a really good workout for that muscle group in--try 30 secs on, 1 minute off at first, for instance, for 5-6 minutes, or a tabata (20 secs on, 10 secs off, for 4 minutes). Another thing you can do is use commercial time during TV time to do exercise. Do an exercise during the commercials. You'll get a really good full-body workout in by the end of whatever you're doing.

It's also a heck of a lot easier to exercise if it's fun to do it. Right now, I get the bulk of my exercise from classes I attend at a local Krav Maga studio, which also has cross-fit and cardio MMA classes. Find something you like and the exercise will make itself happen much more easily.
 
Timmy,
I don't care much for the gym. I do a series of plank, crunches and pushups at home in the morning, and typically go for a walk at night after the girls are in bed. With a sensible diet change, I lost 20 lbs last year (and 50 overall in the last 4.) I managed to make it out for my first mountain bike ride in several months last weekend, and I felt absolutely great.

190 light reps this morning.

13.8 + 1.9 = 15.7 BSPs to date.
 
Nice work, tjswarbrick! What did you do for your diet? I still pretty much eat whatever I want with the exception of high fructose corn syrup. I lost 10 pounds in two weeks ditching that crap though, but haven't lost anything else in a while.
 
A little background: I stopped drinking sodas shortly after high school, and have been a chicken breast fan for 20 years (I'm 45 next month.) But I love food, and cannot say no to a chocolate chip cookie. I don't do junk food or fast food, and most of my meals come from something recognizable as a once-living organism - not chemicals processed in a factory. I weighed about 175 lbs and ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted until I met my wife of 15 years and started hanging out with her instead of mountain biking every weekend and hiking a couple times a week.

4ish years ago, at 242lbs, I cut out thirds and stopped eating everything left on my kids' plates, and made a conscious effort to walk 1 mile a day 5 times a week. Dropped 10 lbs in about 2 weeks.
Shortly thereafter, my wife and I started Jenny Craig. After about 6 months I had started to transition away from it (kinda crappy prepackaged meals, and big $$$. But calories were low, it was eay to follow, and it got me started...) to having some sort of (usually chicken) salad for lunch during the week everyday. We would do a JC meal for dinner probably 2-3 times a week, and make a healthy lean protein, veggie, minimal-carb meal the rest of the time.
9 months in, I was down to 202 lbs and holding, and stopped attending the Jenny meetings and buying their food.

For 3 years it basically went like this:
200 crunches and 30 pushups in the morning,
1 serving cereal and fruit for breakfast,
sit on my ass all day at work,
kudos or breakfat bar and fruit around 10,
chicken salad at lunch,
yogurt and fruit around 3,
sensible dinner of lean protein (I eat a lot of chicken breast. Also love salmon, and need the occasional ribeye), huge helping of vegetables (steamed, or sauteed in just a touch of olive oil), small starch, water, often a glass of wine.
30-45 minute walk.
Skinny Cow or Weight Watcher's packaged dessert.

I maintained that 202 lbs, +/-3lbs, for 3 years. But I really wanted to get down to 190.

So, January 2014 my wife picks up this book "The 17 day diet." It's actually a 51 day diet and total lifestyle transformation. Luckily I had already made a lot of the desired changes. It had me cut out alcohol, nearly all carbs, and sugars for a couple weeks - then slowly add them back in, in moderation, and no carbs after mid-afternoon. In 2 weeks I was down ~ 10 lbs, after 3 I reached my target weight and at the end of 2 months I hit 182 lbs. I maintained that (+/- about 3 lbs again) until this past holiday season. I'm currently running 187ish (+/- 2 lbs), enjoying a little pasta, rice or potato with dinner a couple times a week, generally have fruit with either greek yogurt or 2 eggs in the morning, still have a chicken, fish or steak salad for lunch most days, alternate yogurt or fruit snacks twice a day, have a beer or glass of wine when the urge strikes, walk 2 miles most days, and continue my morning workout regimen. As far as meals go, weekends are pretty much "free" so as long as I don't go overboard I can enjoy bacon, burgers, pizza, spaghetti, scotch or bourbon, extra slice of cake - whatever. Just not every day. Had some awesome BBQ pork ribs last night! Anyway, at 6 ft tall I might be slightly over my recommended BMI or what Weight Watcher's says I should be (182-184lbs, I think) - but my blood sugar, heart rate and blood pressure are low, bad cholesterol is low, good cholesterol is reasonably high, people tell me I'm skinny, and I can go for a hike, run, ride, or swim for as long as I choose and keep up with my kids without getting winded - so it works for me.
 
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:thumbup:

I'll have to look into that. Sounds like you're pretty darn fit, especially for your height. I always thought BMI was bogus too, because some people are just built broader than others.
 
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