Found a cool website with a lot of reviews and info on supplements

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Training and Health
61

now you’re onto it …I was wondering when you were going to bring up diet?..

Eh? I’ve been saying for years on this forum that you won’t gain any mass without the proper diet.

so if I was to trade part of any of my cardio workouts for a high resistance, low rep workout A. my body would be needing different fuel,

Perhaps

B. My metabolism would change and

Probably. When you say “Cardio workouts” do you mean actual cardio? Or do you mean your 2 hours of ab exercises? If you mean actual cardio, then your metabolism would change. If you mean your 2 hours of ab exercises, then no, it wouldn’t change very much at all.

C. I WOULD GAIN MUSCLE MASS!!!

No. Especially not with a low rep weight workout like you mentioned above, unless you’re doing very high sets to keep the volume up. But you didn’t list numbers for the amount of reps or sets so I don’t know exactly what you mean.

62

Been watching this thread and have been reluctant to say anything because I guess I would be considered a “fatbody” by a lot of people.

The one thing I’d like to interject is a bit of personal experience. At the end of a lot of my boxing workouts we “do abs”. I mostly do them because it’s a nice, little, relaxing cool down at the end of the workout and I’m not the type to skip out on exercises unless I just can’t do them.

Our ab workouts range anywhere from 50 to 100 reps per exercise, around 7 exercises, done nonstop. The 10 or so minutes doing that might not compare to 2 hours of it, but it’s pretty high rep.

I can keep up with the other guys in the gym most who have that six pack, and outlast a few of them. I do this pretty regularly; so it’s not like a one time thing.

I gotta back up Iron’s position that it’s not that aerobically taxing, doesn’t do too much for actual ab strength, or ab definition. I can’t really speculate on 2 hours worth of it, but the number of muscles those exercises hit isn’t all that large. An efficient exercise: burning the most calories over a period of time, would incorporate a lot of muscles.

If I had 2 extra hours to work cardio & definition every day; I’d spend it on the elliptical crosstrainer, either doing interval type work on a high setting or just cruising on a medium level.

Given that; if I made one lasting change that was geared to improving my definition, it would be refining my diet to a “T”.

Oh yah, I also have to back up the “genetics excuse”. I know plenty of people who eat more than I do, work out a whole lot less (if at all), and have much “fitter” looking bodies.

The viewpoint that looks down on “fatbodies” if they don’t meet that Men’s health ideal of shredded abs and a 28 inch waist is a bit … angering. As if appearance dictated performance; and if you don’t look good you’re “worthless”.

If these body “standards” were true, then every guy out there with rippling abs and a bodyfat %age under 15 should be able to destroy me at every speed & endurance related athletic endeavor, and that’s just not the case.

In the meantime I’m just going to do what I can to improve my athletic performance and aesthic appearance; trying not to waste my time giving credence to people who think I’m “worthless” and “weak” because I won’t be in any underwear ads.

63

dude, no-one here is caling anyone worthless OR weak. :rolleyes: we are discussing the alternate ways to train and respective benifits…no offence to the fatboyz…just run my better lean :wink: and you’re right…the trained opponent gererally (unless he sucks) will nearly always have the upper and against the rest of the population:p

last call on abs…
when I work out, I work right through the serratus anterior, external oblique, rectus abdominus/transverse abdominus and bring as much pelvic diaphragmic utilisation into the repetoire as possible. I also train using interval intensity variation. I have no idea of how a person could target more core…again, asthetic value side-effect

Now on the weight regime and added mass issue, one more time for Iron…

while I don’t really have any personal need to continue this conversation I do feel that you deserve and would appreciate the opportunity to voice your knowledge…

Firstly, the cardio that I would need to trade time off on is things like boxing, skipping, aerobics, and footwork etc…I still disagree with your theory that ab-workout isn’t cardio, but then again you’re not here to witness and can’t quite comprehend so it’s irrelevant…

The weight workout I was refferring to is:

3x sets of 15-12-8 + 1 at max

If I were doing weights, I would like to stay balanced and proportioned so I would go bench, lats, tricep flys/extensions, traps or shoulder raises, hammy curls/weighted glute contractions/ weighted pulley aductor extensions, calf raises/lifts, and whatever else I felt was needed for the days balance or objective…

Really Iron, been there done that workout however according to your personal objectives, I have no doubt it could increase your perfprmance and may be worth incorperating…I prefer to go high cardio though because otherwise I’m needing more protein for recovery and more carbed building material…= more mass !!!:D…besides…who’s got time to eat that much!!!

Until I hit Shaolin/dengfeng, I’m pretty happy wth what I have cheers

:wink:

64

Bmore Banga said:

In the meantime I’m just going to do what I can to improve my athletic performance and aesthic appearance; trying not to waste my time giving credence to people who think I’m “worthless” and “weak” because I won’t be in any underwear ads.

I know a lot of people who have more bodyfat than me and are in better shape, too :smiley: You’re right. Apperance does not equal ability.

Blooming Lotus said:

…besides…who’s got time to eat that much!!!

I know how you could free up about 2 more hours for eating :smiley:

As long as what you’re doing works for you, that’s good. I just think that you could free up 2 more hours in you day because your not going to lose any conditioning or anything by reducing your huge ab workout.

When I was a freshman in high school I used to do 400 crunches per day (not much compared to your workout) because I thought that’s what you needed to do to get a six pack. I eventually got visible abs, but it had nothing to do with my 400 crunches a day. Of course, that was 8 years ago and now my only ab work comes from heavy deadlifting, squatting, and benching, and I still have visible abs (knock on wood).

65

LOL@losing the ab routine

I know alot of peeps can spend hrs doig abs for very little benifit, I used to be one of those folks…explore the abdoer and get creative…then come back and we’ll chat
:stuck_out_tongue: :smiley: :cool:

66

I thought visible abs were more a result of low body fat. I mean, some of my friends that don’t work out at all have visible abs, simply because they’re skinny. Maybe I’m wrong though.

67

You’re 100% right.

68

Originally posted by shaolin kungfu
I thought visible abs were more a result of low body fat.

That’s correct.

69

Wasn’t pointing the finger at anybody with my statements, I was just covering my viewpoints on the issue as a whole.

The statement goes back to people who rush to say “that guy ain’t got abs, so he can’t know what he’s talking about”. Kinda like how John Baystyles (sp?) gets so many people buying his videos, while you’d have a hard time convincing someone who didn’t already know to get into John Davies.

Abdoer sounds a lot more involved than your typical ab calisthenic (crunches, bicycles, leg lifts, etc). I’ll definitely give it a look if I get the opportunity.

Skipping rope is one of those things I don’t count as strictly cardio because it has so many benefits that carry over to the skills outside of just improving aerobic capacity & burning calories. I tend to lump stuff like jogging, biking, & elliptical in that category. Same with other calisthenics like burpies/squat thrusts, pushups, mountain climbers, & explosive squats- while I would consider making a seperate workout for those exercises, I usually only work them in the context of the class/fight workout.

I like this back and forth and I’d like to think I’m pretty open minded to both sides. If what you’re doing’s working for yah, keep at it. :slight_smile:

70

Originally posted by BMore Banga

The statement goes back to people who rush to say “that guy ain’t got abs, so he can’t know what he’s talking about”. Kinda like how John Baystyles (sp?) gets so many people buying his videos, while you’d have a hard time convincing someone who didn’t already know to get into John Davies.

I like to blame that as the reason why commercial gyms won’t hire me as a personal trainer. The average person associates huge bodybuilders with fitness knowledge. Since I’m not a huge bodybuilder I must not know anything. :rolleyes:

I swear tho, I see trainers making people do THE STUPIDEST THINGS!!! wtf is that all about?

71

…like 2hr ab workouts :smiley:

seriously though, people have different ideas of what health and fitness is and how to achieve it…they’re not neccessarily wrong, they’re just creating different “pictures”

72

Yeah, but how helpful can improper instruction and useless exercises be?