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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
I've been doing two things with an aim to reduce my stomach fat and become more lean.
Current measurements are 5'11" and 162lbs. My BMI is higher than average but not to the point of being overweight. Most of my body fat is around my stomach and sides, which I want to burn off. Other than that, I have a rather lean and slightly muscular physique.
I don't particularly have a routine when it comes to cardio, but for weights I planned to do lower body workouts on Sunday & Wednesday, then upper body on Monday & Thursday, leaving Tuesday, Friday and Saturday as my rest days.
It hasn't gone according to plan at all.
Last Sunday I did my first leg day and my lower body was aching so much that I struggled to even get out of bed some days. I didn't go again until the following Sunday. This time went better, but after the Monday workout I've been feeling a lot more fatigued.
Yesterday I only managed ten minutes of cardio and about twenty minutes of lifting. Today I haven't even hit the gym because I just feel so tired. I've had persistent problems with fatigue in the past long before I attempted this routine.
I understand what you meant, but I think it's important to say that your BMI is not higher than average. It is in the upper half of 'healthy' BMIs. The average person is actually overweight.
BEAT. SABER.
My husband and I spent last weekend away with his D&D crew, and while they had their sessions, I borrowed and played with a friend's Oculus Quest. He only had Beat Saber installed, along with ~200 custom songs.
I think I played Beat Saber for approximately 8 hours that weekend. I ran through multiple full battery charges on the headset and sweated up a storm. My arms were ridiculously sore during our drive home.
A few days later, my husband surprised me with a gift: my own Quest! In his words: "I haven't seen you that happy in a long time." My friends, while watching me play, noted that I had a giant grin on my face the whole time.
Beat Saber is absolutely the most fun I've had gaming in recent memory. A long, long time ago I spent my time playing copious amounts of DDR, so I'm already someone who knows the joys of full-body rhythm gaming, and Beat Saber is basically VR DDR that's way easier on the knees.
I just got the sideloading of custom songs set up for my Quest and spent the better part of the afternoon downloading songs. Tomorrow I'm going to start regular cardio for the first time in a long time, and unlike pretty much every cardio exercise I've ever done that isn't DDR, I'm genuinely looking forward to it.
I've seen a video of Beat Saber, it looks insanely fun.
I've played it on my friend's VR setup, together with other games. And honestly, while for other games VR seems to me like an overrated gimmick that I wouldn't pay money for, Beat Saber is so great that I started considering it for this game alone.
Yeah, I don't have a strong interest in VR gaming in general, so my Quest is likely going to be nothing more than a Beat Saber headset. I'll certainly try some other experiences, but even if I hate all of them I'll still get my (husband's) money's worth out of it through Beat Saber alone.
Fellow exercise game convert here! My game of choice is Ring Fit Adventure. I've only used it for seven days so far (7 out of the last 8 or 9 days, I can't remember) and it's basically moderate pilates.
I find the gym to be absolutely dreadful and I don't know how anyone does it - I find it so, so boring. I always thought I needed to get into a sport instead, but honestly I am so out of shape that the idea of other people seeing me struggle with basic fitness is mortifying. So something I can do at home that gives instant feedback like a game is just perfect for me.
I can't prioritize a VR setup right now just financially, but Beat Saber is definitely one of those games I've really wanted to try. I love rhythm games in general and it looks cool to play.
Glad Ring Fit Adventure is working out for you! I actually considered getting it myself, prior to discovering Beat Saber.
Like you said, there's definitely something to finding exercise that's a "good fit". I've done periods of exercise before, but I always end up stopping them after a bit because I simply don't enjoy doing it. I know it's healthy for me, but exercising has always been a chore -- even when I was fit and could run for miles!
DDR was the one type of "exercise" that I loved, but it's not practical for home play and is terrible for your knees and ankles. Beat Saber is now scratching the same itch that I left behind with DDR years ago, with much less impact on my leg joints.
I'm with you that there's an advantage to privacy as well. With Beat Saber, you can increase the intensity of the workout by "getting into" the song a lot more and moving your whole body along with giant arm swings. It's way more fun to play this way than standing there like a tree and barely flicking your wrists, but, of course, it looks ridiculous and isn't something I would want people watching me doing. From the comfort of my own home, however, I can sway and swish and slash like nobody's business.
How do you side load the custom songs?
I followed this guide for the Oculus Quest. It's a bit of a process, but it works.
I messed my back up with kettle bells. I'm following Pavel Tsatsouline's "Enter the Kettlebell" DVD to get the basics down with a 35 LB bell now, but before I got my form right, I was messing around and hurt myself. For now, it's atg goblet squats and pushups along with my regular cycling to work and school.
For the past few months I've been using an iOS app called Fitbod for my workouts and honestly been one of the best changes to my fitness. It's really expensive for an app at 60 a year, but so far I've been happy to pay for it.
The key feature is that it builds a workout for you based on available gym equipment and previous workouts.
It isn't perfect by any stretch, the app is pretty buggy in a lot of weird and annoying ways. The UI will often break and you have to just hope that if you restart it in the middle of a workout it won't just lose all your progress.
Sometimes the workouts it makes are way too easy or too hard, but you can alter the weight and reps or replace the set with something else and it will suggest similar exercises.
Still, it's made the gym a lot more fun for me, so I really recommend it to anyone whose struggling with going consistently.
Wow that would be a killer feature for me, who tends to spend 1 week a month traveling and using whatever random equipment the hotel gym has. Too bad it's iOS only...
I haven't tried Fitbod because it's only available for iOS, but I do use a very similar app called Bodbot (which is on both Android and iOS). You might want to give Bodbot a try to see how it compares.
I have a pretty solid home gym setup but have been finding it difficult to work up the motivation to work out. Part of that is just depression stuff that I'm working through, but part of it is feeling less than confident in any workout programs I try. Anyone have any good suggestions?
I'm pretty bad about working out, but the only stuff I've found myself doing was either a long-term goal, or something I find fun. I'm trying to learn basic kettle bell stuff right now, for example, because I'm trying to get the movements to feel right, and I'm interested in what I can do with it.
If nothing else, just do a little bit every day to keep from getting stiff and weak.
This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem, in that I find that working out helps tremendously with my depression. A few things I found help are
These are great tips, thank you. I think the small, consistent, morning workout idea is a great one