gwenbasil: (Default)
gwenbasil ([personal profile] gwenbasil) wrote in [community profile] lifting_heavy_things2012-06-17 01:01 pm

(no subject)

Hi everyone,

I'm new! I used to work in a grocery store, where the job was awful, but some of the physical work made me happy - I did several sets of "rotisserie chickens" a day, and was proud of my "box of five watermelons" deadlift.

Now I work at a desk, and the pay and treatment are better but I'm getting restless. So I'm shopping for a gym membership - help, what am I looking for?

Also, I don't have the monies to pay a TRAINER - where do I start with the exercises? I can get over-enthusiastic in step 1 of anything I do, so even though I intellectually know I need a sort of limited program to stick with, my instinct is DO ALL THE EXERCISES and I don't think that's right.

My goals are to get stronger, especially in the top half - and not gonna lie, LOOKING stronger, with poke-outey arm muscles eventually is a motivation too. I'm 5'9 and 150 pounds-ish, eat what I want, turn a big stink-eye on beauty-standards-for-women, and am completely uninterested in weight loss (though I know I am probably going to have people talk to me about it at every gym I go to) I FEEL skinny, as in skinny-with-the-negative-connotations. I'm accepting diet-to-go-along-with-sudden-interest-in-gaining-strength suggestions, cos I think y'all probably get where I'm coming from.

Right now I can't do a pull up, I can do about one push up, but I can walk pretty much infinitely.

The idea of running for a reason that isn't fleeing danger makes me go ugh and roll my eyes, but I'll do it if it's in service of some other goal.

I've lurked on this blog for ages, being impressed by you all, so I've suddenly decided to jump in! I know a lot of the things I've mentioned are repeated in your archives, but 80% of the motivation of this post is "State your plans in public, so you aren't tempted to weasel out" ;)
rydra_wong: Two bare feet and ankles sticking out of rolled-up jeans. (body -- barefoot)

Re: Opinion, I haz them

[personal profile] rydra_wong 2012-06-19 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
This is a good question, and as I'm not a runner I don't really know the answer; it might be worth starting a new post to get people's opinions?

However, as a rule of thumb, training is specific -- so the best way of training to run is to run.

Gaining leg strength from strength training may help give you some extra explosive power in a sprint, but it's not going to improve your running as much as, well, actually running.

How much running you should do by way of training obviously depends on what kind of running you might need to do (short sprints? carrying things?) and how close you are to the necessary standard already.