Topic: The Health, Fitness and Exercise Thread

Hi all! I wondered if it would be a good idea to start a thread where we can regularly (or semi-regularly) post about what we are doing to keep fit.

I know different sports have their tailored social networks but I'm not personally part of them. I also find the idea of talking about this thing with family quite embarrassing for some reason. So I wonder if a semi-anonymous place like this might encourage us to post thoughts, progress, good days and bad days and we can support eachother in any exercise and fitness goals we might have.

I don't personally do new year's resolutions but I thought if others do, then now might be a good time to start this thread so we can help eachother stay on track. A bit like the game club thread but for exercise. Of course Ring Fit Adventure counts so you can post about that here too!

Please discuss any sports or exercise you might do, keep us updated weekly or daily or with whatever frequency you deem appropriate. This thread is for people of all abilities from power walking with your dog to bench pressing an elephant. I don't need to say it because you're all good people but no shaming should take place. Friendly banter perhaps but please say if somebody has bent you out of shape so that person can cease and we can move on with supporting eachother.

If nobody is interested in posting this sort of thing here then I am sure this thread will die in obscure dignity 😅, with that in mind, I will share first and hopefully it will encourage others to do the same!

I'm one fat MF! I've been fat for most of my life except a brief few years at university when I was super skinny for some reason (probably because of no home cooked meals!). I've never really been "healthy" except maybe once a year or every couple of years, I will do some sort of exercise schedule for a month or two that will inevitably end because I've sustained an injury from work or just being old or something.

Anyway, first lockdown in march '20 I began DDP yoga which was good and I got about 10 weeks into the 13 week beginner schedule before I stepped over the stair gate (we have dogs) and put my back out. That pretty much put all my activity (even daily walks) on hold for a good while and I never really got back into it.

Someone gave me a fitness tracker for Xmas, one of those cheapo £20 ones from Amazon. I also took my partner back to her house recently so she could go to work. She took her yoga mat with her so I bought a new one off eBay for 13 quid and started DDP yoga again. I started on Monday (before the mat arrived) which was just the instructional video and today did the instructional video again and one of the work out tapes.

Long story short, I'm exhausted but I hope to actually finish the full 13 weeks this time and no previous injury flares up or new injury occurs!

I'm not sure about this fitness tracker really, whenever I look at my heart rate im quite surprised that it shows a resting heart rate of <90bpm sometimes when I'm sweating buckets. The app for the tracker does show a graph of how your heart rate goes up and down and out of an hour's yoga today it said I was in the fat burning zone for 25 minutes. Not bad I suppose but I wish it showed me properly when Im doing the work out so I know I'm doing it right.

So yeah! What are you all doing or planning to do to keep or get fit? Please share!

I cycle an average of 20km each day about 4 or 5 days a week. Pretty consistent with that.

Bit of a mix with other exercises, but I try to do 5k runs where I'm able to fit them in and I do various types of strength training.

I have to use my imagination a bit as I won't pay a subscription to use a gym and there's no room to have my own. Works pretty well for me but there's always room for improvement.

@ralphdibny
It's tricky finding ways to be motivated with fitness. If you can find someone who's keen to join you and you share a particular goal, that helps a lot to keep you coming back and sticking at it.

Yakyak! I’ve been cycling 80-150 miles a week for the past 3-4 months, prior to that I was averaging 50-60 miles a week for about 3 years which isn’t bad in itself but trying to move it to the next level. Might go down a bit again once we are out of lockdown as I am working from home a few days per week and I’m doing longer rides in the day time than my usual commute. Will need to make up for that with longer weekend rides! Aside from that I stretch daily and do push-ups, pull ups, planks and sit ups every 1-2 days. I used to do a ton of yoga and got really good - I’ve got arthritis so had private sessions with a great teacher for about 6 months. I’m no where near as good at it as I was but still do a lot of the stretches I learnt every day.

I’ve got a 82 mile sportive booked for May and most likely booking a 110 mile London > Brighton > London ride for June but the jury is still out on that one.

I’ve always been pretty thin, looking pretty lean these days, but I eat my fair share of crap so maybe I’m one of those skinny fat people. Resting heart rate of about 62-64.

Considering the arthritis then I think I do pretty well, I’d like to do more sport but I’m a bit limited unfortunately. Almost physically incapable of running due to foot pain, couldn’t jog 100 meters I bet.

@LieutenantFatman nice one! The gyms around my area are a bit of a racket. At least they were when I last looked into them 6-7 years ago. They'd kind of sign you up to 12 months knowing full well you'd probably only go for 2 but the contract meant you'd have to keep paying for 12. I did sign up to just do swimming at one of them a long time ago but the pool would always be full when I went or there would be like 5 heavily perfumed old ladies swimming in a row having a chat taking up the entire width of the pool! It wasn't a great experience really and I packed it in after a couple of months (but had to pay for 12 🤦🏻‍♂️).

I used to do that couch to 5K app a couple of years ago, I probably did it for about 6 weeks. I can't remember the length of the workouts, maybe 30-40 mins. I never got to the point where I ran the full time though (the app tells you when to walk and when to run). I think the most I got up to in the schedule was 15 minutes run, 2 minutes walk then another 15 minutes of running, which I was quite proud of to be honest.

I'd like to start it up again when I've shed a few pounds, I'm way too heavy at the moment to even consider doing something like that because of injured feet. I have plantar fasciitis which is manageable but mega painful when it flares up. I do quite an active job and if I have to work more than a few days in a row then I basically can't walk for ages out of choice. I'll come home and just sit for hours in pain. I'd still go to work the next day if I had to but it would be the only movement I could force myself to do in those periods. Pre pandemic, I was just trying not to take these long periods of work because of how painful it was.

I think I prefer exercising by myself to be honest, it's just a bit easier in terms of not pushing myself too hard toward injury in order to keep up with someone and not slowing down to the point of little effect for someone less able. Also I just find it embarrassing for some reason, I don't know why. Maybe if I was Muscles McGee I'd be less embarrassed about it but I'd rather people just didn't know about it or didn't recognise me if I'm out doing the couch to 5K. I have maybe one friend who i'd be happy to work out with but our schedules never really align and obviously we couldn't do it in lockdown. We did the insanity workout together for a bit when that was popular.

@kyleforrester87 😂 I nearly spat out my post workout pizza and Dr pepper when I saw that pic! In laughter, not in self loathing! To be fair, it's the only thing I've eaten today...

Glad you made a more serious post though, I was going to say that I thought you were a keen cyclist. Sounds like both you and LtFatman keep quite active which is really good. My brother does a lot of cycling but I don't think I'm brave enough to do it on the road really. I was using the exercise bike while playing Spyro the Dragon just before Xmas though, might as well do some exercise while I game right?

It's funny you say that about being thin but eating junk, in my skinny uni years I ate absolute crap all day. Chocolate, biscuits, crisps etc. But it was literally all I ate, I think I put the pounds back on after uni when I was being given home cooked meals but continuing to eat crap as well. According to the HRM on this fitness tracker, my resting heart rate is anything between 60 and 90 which at least is inside the normal parameters but it seems a bit weird that the range is so large.

I quite like the yoga because it feels like a really good workout but without the impact of running. That being said, I'd think I'd get a bit confused in a normal yoga class because DDP has swapped the names of normal yoga moves with wrestling related names like the Diamond Cutter and Road Warrior 1 and 2! It's probably not the best set of yoga tapes to watch but it's at least bearable. It's kind of a bit cheesy and lame which gives me a bit of a laugh while I'm doing it.

Where's your arthritis out of interest? (You don't have to answer if that's too personal). Also, what's your foot injury? Is it plantar fasciitis? I know there's a few YouTube videos with treatments for it but none really worked for me. I did adapt them and work out a half decent treatment for it though. I use boxing wraps (for hands) to bind the arch back into my feet. It can put you off balance a bit but the wraps are long enough to go around my ankles too so it holds the arch in place and offers enough support to keep me upright and mobile. I'd wear them all day around the house and also when going to work but take them off to sleep at night. After about 3 months of wearing them, the daily pain was gone and now I try not to take stupid jobs. It was a 6 month stint of IT support daily that did me in last time so I've just tried to avoid jobs like that since my feet healed. It does come back sometimes after heavy activity so I do use the wraps again if it does but it heals a lot quicker now if I don't put stupid amounts of stress on them.

During the lockdown last year, I did get into a good habit of going out jogging most days (going out for exercise is allowed over here). But once winter hit and things got cold, I got lazy again.

Lately, I've just been going out for walks a few days a week, sometimes catching a few monsters in Pokemon Go while I'm at it.

I’ve been telling myself to get back in shape for a few years. I’m thin enough, that’s not the problem. It’s just that I feel less strength, endurance, and energy than I think I should have. Jogging, weight training, swimming, and cycling are all on the list as candidates to try this year. I also wouldn’t mind taking up boxing or martial arts, but I’m not keen on catching COVID from some other dude trying to knock me out. It’s a double whammy.

@crimsontadpoles it is a bit chilly to stay out for a long time, I seem to remember running in the cold would make my teeth hurt for some reason.

Walkings still good though but it's always one of the things in my day that I'll skip if I have something else to do. And I really shouldn't skip it because it's good for you, both physically and mentally. Breathing in cold fresh air through the nose is good for blowing away the general every day haze.

Even better if you have a game to take your mind off walking the local area again and again. It's mad how the people are getting questioned by police for playing Pokémon Go. I don't know the full details, maybe they are gathering in groups or something which is not so good I guess. But if a game gets you fit and active and more importantly is an outdoor activity where the risk of covid transmission is low, then I say go for it.

@Th3solution jogging is certainly something with a low barrier for entry during the pandemic. Do you currently own a bike or any weights...or even a swimming pool perhaps? I've got a crappy old mountain bike but it would probably be more effort than it's worth to get it up to scratch. Do you reckon you'll start any training soon?

Probably best to leave the contact sports until the vaccines roll out. Could hang a bag from the ceiling I suppose. I actually bought a bag a few years back. It's an empty one that you fill with clothes or bedding. It only cost £15 but it smells like leather and seems quite good quality, I never really had a place to hang it though, would have to be screwed into a joist above the ceiling I suppose.

I think you could do something like circuit training in your own home too, might be good to get a tape to do it along to because they show you the exercises.

@ralphdibny I own a road bike, but like yours, it’s in quite a bit of disrepair and would take either a large time investment or a large monetary investment (or both) to get it road-ready. I think it needs a new chain for sure and a lot of adjustments to the gears, which were slipping a lot the last time I tried to ride. The tires are probably ok, although I couldn’t guarantee that either.

I’d love to have a punching bag. It’s been a random dream of mine since I was a boy. So many times I would have liked to have wailed on something to get my frustrations out. I think it would be a healthy way to channel anger and nervous energy.

But yeah, my best bet is to strap on some running shoes and go jogging outside. Low barrier to entry. I have no start date in mind. So I guess that probably means it will never happen 😅

@Th3solution haha well that's why I made this thread really, I thought people might have new year's resolutions to exercise and through coincidence I've decided to exercise at the beginning of this year - definitely not a NY resolution for me though! I thought this might encourage people to stick it out a bit if they came here to talk about it.

Funnily enough, I did buy that boxing bag after I seriously fell out with my now ex-best mate haha. Maybe we would still be friends if I had found somewhere to hang it in time lol. Just to clarify, I didn't beat him up or anything, I just bottled up my emotion from the incident and we never reconciled beyond polite civilities.

@ralphdibny

Personally I found with injuries, swimming can be fantastic in assisting getting the body back to where it needs to be, depending on the injury of course. I was hit by a car not too long ago and swimming was an absolute life saver in speeding up my recovery time.

Swimming isn't really an option at the moment with this pandemic going on, but if you get on with cycling ok then that has a ton of benefits as well, and I'd say definitlely stick with that.
Rowing machines are meant to be good as well, I was tempted to get one last year but most of the good ones had sold out, seems a lot of people had the same idea, haha.

I would recommend getting a kettlebell if you don't have one, kettlebell swings do a lot of good for you, one of those super exercises that strengths dozens of muscles quickly across the whole body while burning a lot of calories and fat. This thread actually inspired me to take it to the next level, I always do 4 sets of 10 but today I ended up doing 8 sets of 20, just resting now, lol.

Regarding motivation, it's definitely worth finding something that drives you, some sort of goal can make a big difference. That can differ from person to person, on one occassion I had a particular cosplay in mind when going to Eurogamer, I was keen to be as close to the right body shape as I could be to be King from Tekken 2.

Just remember to ease yourself into new exercises your body isn't used to in the first few weeks and work your way towards how much you want to be doing bit by bit and do all the required warm ups and streches. Nothing less motivating then getting an injury in the first week that puts you out of action.

@Th3solution

I've always found it hard to motivate myself to run. In the end I kept asking my wife to go on runs / jogging with me, initially she had no interest. After having done a few runs (and yes, on starting off, you will be rubbish) and seeing some gradual improvements, she's now the one saying let's go for a run every few days.

@ralphdibny I definitely think you’re on to something about a thread like this being a good motivator to get people at least thinking about exercising. It’s worked for me.
The forums have the same effect at motivating me and pulling me out of my comfort zone as far as progressing my gaming experience, so the same should hold true for other walks of life.

I've found it so hard to get motivated during lockdown. I started off well following along to workouts on YouTube and doing yoga every morning. But a few weeks in I totally lost interest. I was so glad when the gyms opened back up so I could go back to weight training, gutted they had to close again.

I was pretty new to lifting before the pandemic but I'd started to get pretty into it. I think it appeals to my gamer side, like seeing the numbers on the weights go up is really motivating. And I definitely recommend logging your workouts so you can keep track of how much you've levelled up ^_^

I had a lazy time over Xmas and now I'm on furlough again so no walking to work for exercise. I'm trying to make the effort to pick up my dumbbells once in a while even though they are too small really (better than nothing) and I'm gonna resurrect my "squat during loading screens" rule that I made last lockdown, just so I'm doing something.

I quite enjoy my running and am trying to up my game a bit this year. It's even nicer since I moved house in November to somewhere a little more rural so I have a few nice (but often hilly!) routes to go out on.

I try to get out at least twice a week; once at the weekend and on Thursdays (as I don't work that day) but might do an extra one after work once it's lighter in the evening as well.

I can do 10k relatively easily now but my normal loop is about 7k with some reasonable hills and I managed to do that at an average pace of under 5 mins/km today. I'd love to be able to get up to half marathon distance this year if I can!

@Thrillho Are road races a thing in the UK? I had a fun time in the past doing them, ranging from 5K to 10K and beyond. Obviously nothing is likely going on in the pandemic environment, but that is a fun way to be motivated and have a goal to push one’s distance and/or time. Something like a good road race would be proper motivation for me to get out there again with the runners.

On a side note, what’s your favorite type of running shoe? I’ve tried Asics, Nike, Reebok. I favor the Ascics Gels, but Nike Airs have been good in the past. I have a friend who swears by Brooks, but I’ve never tried them.

@Thrillho That's a good pace. Probably about 4 years ago I was in that kind of zone but since then I definitely feel like I've lost the edge somewhat.

I mostly run off-road due to knees being pretty terrible but love running and used to enter fell races around the peaks and the lakes, and try and fit in a few mountain marathon events at least a few times a year. Unfortunately having a family has put the brakes on that a little bit in the past few years so I mainly run locally now and haven't done anything competitive for a few years. I aim to try and get at least one event in this year though so I guess that is my New Years resolution if I have one at all.

The thing with exercise is, most of it comes down to motivation. Even if you are fit enough, if you haven't got that motivation then you'll find that you don't really push on past where you currently are. I have had my ups and downs over the years and on several occasions have put my back out and had other injuries to a point where it's been months to get back to doing anything and have felt like I'm starting from scratch again, however you find something to give you that push and you'll do it. That's different for everyone but I generally I think that most people struggle to find that one thing that makes them want to do exercise. I reckon a lot of it comes from our school days as I remember being totally put off of exercise by teachers and other pupils, you know - those ones that are just good at everything and don't hesitate to take the p*** if you don't have the right ability or shape. It's getting a bit better now but even so there should be more of a push to try and show people that exercise isn't just for those people wanting to be part of the sporting elite, but should generally be for our health and well-being.

One of the things that I've discovered over the years is that the best place to start is strength training, and I don't mean getting down to the gym. Body weight stuff is amazingly good as you don't need any equipment, you can easily start and build up the moves and you can pretty much workout most of your body that way. Running and cycling both have lowish barriers to entry but again the secret is to find a way to enjoy them. As I mentioned above I'm mainly off-road for the old knees but that actually motivates me as well as I enjoy getting out across fields and trails etc rather than plodding pavements. Same with the cycling as we are near a place with some good mountain bike trails which can be great fun regardless of what level you are at.

@LieutenantFatman oh crap, are you ok now? Or still recovering? Also holy crap, King from Tekken?!? He's super muscly!!!

I really like swimming, after the fiasco with the Mafia gyms, I did find another local pool which was much less busy and only cost £3 for a swim. I think work picked up though and as is normally the way, I got too busy and never got back into it.

I always found stretching at the pool a bit awkward. Everybody else is sort of jumping in and doing swimming exclusively so I remember being quite self conscious about doing my warm up lengths and then stopping for stretches before continuing on. When/if the pandemic finishes the I'll probably try and get back on it at that same place. I've been to a few different pools and that's pretty much the only one I've liked. At other pools I've been to, I get too paranoid about the urine content of of the water if its busy with a lot of kids there haha

I think I'll stick to the yoga for now, I might use the indoor exercise bike at some point if I have a not very intensive game to play at the same time. May get back on the couch to 5k when I'm a bit lighter and of course I'm going to try for walks. I think I'm quite a long way from using any kind of additional weights at the moment, there is enough resistance just from the weight of my own body. My lower abdominal hurts quite a bit today actually, I'm guessing from holding a plank during the yoga yesterday! Should be ok for tomorrow's tape though.

Generally I like to keep a loose schedule, anything too regimented tends to demotivate me weirdly, but I can stretch to 30 mins-hour of yoga every other day to dip my toes at first and see how it goes. I'm more accustomed to a kind of organised chaos in my every day life, if I have stuff to do then I form an efficient but flexible plan to execute over an appropriate amount of time. I know it sounds a bit weird but I kind of need to strike the balance between free will and a schedule which I normally do OK with.

Glad this thread had motivated you to go beyond what already sounds like a fairly extensive workout routine anyway! If you want to then do keep posting what you are getting up to whether it's the extended routine or you're standard one. I'm hoping just talking about it here will help and encourage others to join in as @Th3solution has mentioned. I think everybodys experience is different and no less valuable. If I spend a yoga day wallowing in front of the TV instead, while still a failure, is probably worth posting anyway as it can still be part of the experience of working out. There will be people who take it seriously, part timers, casuals, once a monthers and hardcore muscle people. The varied experience will hopefully encourage people to keep going with what they are doing or just go that little bit further.

@Urrggghhh nice, sounds like you do some tough workouts, especially for a a loading screen! Do you reckon youre going to get back into the YouTube videos/yoga? Might be worth checking the local sale/trades websites and apps like Shock, gumtree and Craigslist to see if any local people have some secondhand dumbbell sets going for a reasonable price

Speaking of videos, I've heard a lot about these Joe Wickes videos sweeping the nation. I don't know who he is or what his videos are like but people keep mentioning them to me. I thought Joe Wickes was a character in EastEnders!

@Thrillho nice one! That does sound hard doing the 7K with steep inclines so well done on being able to do that. It's so much better when you have a nice woods or meadows to go around I think. The grass is softer to run on so your ankles, heels, arches and knees end up with less pain. The air is generally cleaner to breathe with less cars around too. My only problem sometimes is dew from the grass soaking through the trainers.

I have this really nice woods about 15 minutes drive away from me that I really like to walk around. Not sure exactly how the lockdown rules apply, I know you can drive to open areas to exercise but it says to stay in your local area. The woods I mentioned is a couple of towns over from me. I'll probably still go there for walks every now and then though. It's been really muddy there lately tho so I won't be doing any running as it's hard enough to avoid the deep mud just when I'm walking!

@ralphdibny
Yeah, doing ok now thanks! Certainly was an experience, hopefully not one I'll have to repeat.
King does have some crazy muscles, I have nothing on him but just wanted to be at that point where I didn't feel silly cosplaying him.

I think Yoga is becoming more and more popular and if it's an exercise you enjoy then that's the most important thing. I know what you mean about schedules, I don't like to plan out too much in advance either.

@LieutenantFatman glad you are on the mend/mended! I did black suit spider man at my skinniest, then 90s Cyclops at a later date. I've got bits and bobs of a captain America outfit but the shirt is a really tight XXL (geek clothes always come up tighter for some reason - goes to show that they make this stuff for the fashionable posers and not actual geeks! J/k I know geeks comes in all shapes and sizes). The only game character I've done was Sam fisher from splinter cell, it was just all black with a head piece made from loo roll tubes. Painted some camo on my face with poster paint too 😅

Yogas good enough I think, it's certainly hard work with very little of the wrong kind of pain if you know what I mean. When doing tapes, I also tend to gravitate toward entertaining people. Obviously Shaun T is an absolute joker so Insanity was a blast (but quite high impact so not something I'd probably repeat) and I don't mind Diamond Dallas Page because despite the fact he's constantly "selling" his yoga tapes, he's still a familiar face from my childhood and it kind of makes me laugh how obvious the plugs for his products are.

I watched a bit of Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs too and that was really funny actually. There's a bit where they're doing the dance workout and he is shouting words of encouragement. "You can do it!" "Are you feelin it" "do you feel me" etc. But then he slips up and says "Do you want me? OOPS!" Hahah