Workout information and workout links for strength workouts and bodybuilding workouts for men and women.

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Workout Info
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        If you want your weight training efforts to be efficient and productive, your workout routine should focus on your particular goals.  For the beginers or those coming back after a long layoff, general conditioning with a variety of weights and equipment will probably be your first step. 

        If you are just trying to "get in shape" you might stay with this first step for a few months or a year - as long as you are making progress. As you continue to handle higher weights with lower reps - while adjusting your diet - you can expect your body to shift from efficient fat storage to effective fat burning and muscle building.
        Some will move on to bodybuilding, powerlifting or training for a specific sport.
But for most of us, we just want to look and feel better without making it a full time job. Some extra power and strength - perhaps some sense of slowing down the age clock - that would be OK too.

                Aerobics or Weightlifting?   
        Aerobics burn up oxygen and some calories only while you are exercising. Weight lifting quickly exceeds your oxygen capacity, then turns to glycogen [stored carbohydrate] in your muscles, then to breaking down fat for energy while your are working out.
        After your weightlifting workout, your body consumes an enormous amount of energy constructing new muscle tissue and maintaining it. As you acquire more muscle, you will continually require more energy which should come from your own stored fat if you have properly adjusted your diet.

                How much exercise and how often?      
        Fitness authors Bill Phillips and A. Scott Connelly M.D. both tell us that too much exercise can bring poor results while not doing enough will be ineffective.  Weightlifting, unlike aerobics, will overstress your muscles causing microscopic tears in the tissue. With proper nutrition and rest, your muscle will repair and rebuild over the next few days becoming bigger and stronger.
        If your muscles are not stressed enough, there will be nothing to repair, and thus no growth. If they are continually overworked, particularly with insufficient rest, nutrition and protein between workouts, the repair process will never catch up with the challenge.
        Phillips and Connelly both recommend high-intensity weight training with under 10 reps per exercise set, and only brief rest periods between exercises. They both suggest that you do this only 3-4 times a week for less than an hour each workout.

                Does weightlifting make women "bulky" or shapely? 
        Don't worry! Lifters, male & female, spend years trying to add muscle. Due to estrogen, few women can actually "bulk up" without hormone supplementation. But most women can get much stronger and many women lifters find that adding muscle tissue makes them look toned and shapely.  You can increase the mass, strength, endurance and balance of your muscle tissue while improving your posture and bone desnity.

                Weightlifting for Older People  
        It helps to minimize the natural loss of bone density and to prevent osteoporosis. Weight training is the only exercise that can save and repair your muscles and build bone.
        A study conducted by the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University showed that a high-intensity, lower-body strength-training program more than doubled muscle strength in frail older people ages 86 to 90.

  Deadlift, conan's wheel, 247 & 255 stones.
  52 is getting a little old for this kind of work. Should have done this 20 years ago.

Dave Draper's Workout
Jeff Everson's Workout
Shiloe's Workout
training @ GetBig.com
Dungeon Gym workout
Lift for Life workout
Beverly Int'l Workout
Training with Dr Squat
Natural Strength Workout
MCBB Training
ABC Bodybldg Workout
Westside Barbell P L
Atomic Athletic strength
Firefighter's Workout
NAS Strongman Training
Charles Atlas
Bill Pearl's 20 month plan
Into to BodyBuilding pdf
Larry Scott's abs workout
Danny O'Dell strength

Karen Miller workout
Grrl Athlete workout
M&F Hers workout
Women's Weight Training
Natural Strength Women

Overview: A T P and  Muscle Energy

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DISCLAIMER:  The information contained in this website is for educational and recreational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to replace the advice or attention of healthcare professionals. Consult your physician before beginning or making changes in your diet, supplements or exercise program, for diagnosis and treatment of illness and injuries, and for advice regarding medications.
        No approval, agreement, support or warranty is given or implied concerning the information given on this website or to the links and the information contained therein.
        The views expressed by the many divergent authors are not necessarily the views of Vince's Muscle Shop. This website is provided to you for personal entertainment, information, education, communication, and cybergratification purposes only and user exercises own risk by accessing this website and these links or by allowing others to access them through the user's system.

        WARNING: Lawn mowing with weights is inherently dangerous and can cause serious injury. This photo shows a lawn mowing professional on a closed lawn course.

Vince deadlift
Vince - Conan's wheel
247 pound stone
255 pound stone
ALS walk
stone carry
Brigantine beach
Sea Isle City New Jersey 1985

                                                Vince's Workout
                              In 2003 I began taking about 200 grams of protein a day and got back into working out - usually 3 days
                        a week. I did most of the workout on a cable machine - lats, pull-downs and seated rows with about
                        150 to 180. Also dead lifts, curls, and squats.
        For about 3 years I have been jogging and mowing the lawn with a 40 pound vest and 10 pound ankle weights. As I got conditioned, I moved up to 15 pounds on each ankle and 25 to 50 pounds in a back-pack over the 40 pound vest. This helped get me ready for the "strongman" work out that I currently do and which I think is the best overall strength conditioning that you can do. The heaviest stone that I have is now 235 pounds and I try to do sets of 3 or more, lifting it from the ground to a 3 foot or 4 foot high deck.  When I do these heavy workouts I only lift twice a week.

        I have tried to stay in shape over the last 35 years, since my first encounter with weightlifting as a growing 150 pound high school junior. I would occasionally join a gym or work out at home for 6 months at a time, until something else became a priority. My strength would rise and drop a bit through the years. As I got older my weight would usually peak around 195 following the annual Thanksgiving through Christmas feasting, then drop to 175 in the panic preceding the annual summer return to the Jersey Shore.
        My father taught me that there was nothing wrong with hard work, and he was quite active and strong well into his eighties. Over the years, the  self-satisfaction from working hard kept leading me back to physically demanding jobs such as building houses. It is the reason that at 54, I enjoy mowing my lawn wearing 95 to 120 pounds of weight or carrying 200 pound stones around my yard.
        If you do not see hard work as a noble and worthwhile pursuit,
you will not do well with weight training. It will not seem right to you. You will keep thinking that you should be paying someone else to do it for you. If you now hire someone to mow your lawn, shovel your snow covered sidewalk, or change your flat tire - you know what I am talking about.
        Hard work is not a curse and disciplined eating is not a punishment! 
        It is a means to an end, or at its best - an end in itself. The good news is that if you do succeed in shaping up - that hard work and discipline will likely carry over to other aspects of your life.

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        In February 2006, at age 53, I tried the 40 floor Rhodes Tower stair climb.
        I made it to the top in just under 10 minutes including a breather on the 20th and 30th floor.

2004

2004

2004

2004

log lift to 5 ft at Xenia Strongman May 2006
18 inch deadlift with 450  at Xenia Strongman May 2006
Conan's wheel with 400 for 168 feet  at Xenia Strongman May 2006
208 stone to 50 inches, 225 stone - not quite  at Xenia Strongman May 2006

 May 2006 at the Xenia Strongman - almost 54. 170 & 190 log to 5 ft - missed the 200. 450 on the 18" deadlift.  208 stone to 50 inches - not quite on the 225. 400 Conan's wheel for 168 feet.

 Some calories burned calculators:  Calories per hour.com  [click Activities Calculator]   NutriStrategy.com
 WV Dietic Assoc  and calories to maintain current body weight     Scientific Psychic diet calculator    Use this for an aproximate starting point, but also track your current daily calories to see what actually has been keeping you at your current bodyfat level. If you then start cutting junk carbs and saturated fat to reduce your daily calories - while boosting protein, you should start to lose body fat. Exercise will then help the process along.
        Here is another exercise/calorie chart from Harvard School of Public Health using MET's - metabolic equivalants.

        For most people Exercise alone will not reduce body fat! Any exercise is helpful and heavy lifting will keep you strong, but the calories burned by an hour of exercise 3 times a week is usually not enough to offset the extra junk calories in your daily diet.  You have to burn up or eliminate 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of bodyfat.
        The calories burned in these 60 minute activities is based on my weight of 175.
You will burn about 30% less at 125, about 30% more at 225.

Cinnabon Classic - walk 7 miles!
Starbucks Frappuccino venti - walk 3 miles!
Krispy Kreme chocolate iced - walk 3 miles!
Super Big Gulp 44oz - walk 4 miles!
Mcdonalds large fries - walk 6 miles!
Snickers 2oz - walk 3 miles!
Cheetos 3oz - walk 5 miles!
Pringles 6 oz can - walk 10 miles!
Wendy's large Frosty - walk 5 miles!

May
2006

May
2006

Xenia 9/06 Strongman - 6 reps with 315 - 60 seconds
Xenia 9/06 Strongman - 450 pound frame carry for 50 feet

 September 2006 at the Xenia Old Fashion Strongman -
        6 reps on the 315 deadlift in 60 seconds. The 450 frame carry went for 50 feet. The stones had to be carried and placed on a barrel - 208 for 10 feet & 235 for 5 feet - missed 280. Harness pulled a 9 ton ambulance for 50 feet.
        Not a whole lot here, but I'm 54 at this contest and dropped from 185 to 174 to get in the open lightweight. It was a good day. I was happy to make it through another one.

Xenia 9/06 Strongman - 208 stone 10 feet, 235 stone 5 feet
Xenia 9/06 Strongman - ambulance pull for 50 feet
Running - 143 calories per 7 minute mile  -  how far can you run?
Tennis - 635 calories per hour
Roller skating - 556 calories per hour
Cycling  4 minute miles- 794 calories per hour
Sleeping - 71 calories per hour
Office Work - 119 calories per hour
Watching Television - 79 calories per hour
Guido Gazzara

 My Dad - Guido Gazzara-
        This is probably around 1959 when I was 7 and he was 42. He worked where everyone's father worked in Paulsboro, NJ - at the Mobil Oil Refinery. He was a lab tech conducting tests on oil furnaces until he "retired" early at 55 on his doctor's advice after he had a heart attack.
        He got tired of being "retired" and started doing service calls and furnace repairs for a local oil delivery business. He did this into his mid-seventies driving out through rural South Jersey on the coldest winter nights because someone was without heat.  
        When he was 85 he was still riding his bike on most mornings, usually to the next town so he could walk with an old friend who was recovering from a heart attack.
        At 88 he had a stroke and could not walk.  I called him from Ohio to ask how he was doing and he said he felt great.  I said that I heard he could not walk. He answered, "No I can't walk, but other than that I feel fine" So there was a man who knew when to be happy - a lesson most of us never quite get.
        He was usually busy with something and always helped friends and others with real work like plumbing, electric, and of course heating. When I, my brother, and my sister grew up and got married he came over to help each of us with our home projects. When he was 73 he flew out here to Ohio with a small carry-on bag and a tool box to help me install a gas furnace in the house I was building.
        He spent his last year in a nursing home and died in 2005 at age 89. I drove back there often to visit. He always said that he liked the place and was glad that he lived so long.

        So here was a man who knew what life was really about. Be willing to work hard, do what you know you should do, go to church, be happy with what you have, don't chase after things you don't need, stand up for what you know is right, take care of yourself and your family, and help people who need it.  

         Life is really much less complicated than many people think it is.

Saint James High School weight lifting club 1970

        I am the guy seated on the right, pretending to be much bigger than I was. The guy behind me is my buddy Tim. I still see him about 6 times a year when I go back to NJ. Were both 54 years old. He still asks me how much I'm benching to see if he is ahead of me.

        I guess I am an "old school" guy when it comes to lifting. Before franchise gyms were in every zip code, a group of us guys at Saint James High School started our high school weight lifting club. We welded together our own racks and benches, combined our individual 110 pound sets of weights, and started lifting together.

        This was about the time when Dave Draper was in his 20's and Arnold and those other guys were still in high school, probably trying to get as big as Dave Draper. We all were. Of course, as you can see from the yearbook photo, none of us in the weight lifting club got huge. But we did get stronger because we worked out together, encouraged each other, and competed with each other every day.

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Calories Burned / 60 minutes - 175 pounds

Accordian Playing

143

...

Competitive Soccer

794

Lawn Darts

198

 

Skiing or ice skating

556

Surfing

238

 

Aerobics

516

Ping Pong

318

 

Shoveling snow

476

Irish Step Dancing

357

 

Weight Lifting

457

     

Walking - 15 min. miles

397

Vince & Guido Gazzara

  Some of the best sites for Muscle Anatomy Illustrations and Brief Exercise Info and videos:
ExRx Exercise & Muscle Directory   ABC Bodybuilding Animated Exercises   Dave Draper's Exercise Descriptions   
Bodybuilding.com Exercise   BB.com Anatomy   BB.com Stretching   Bodybuilding Terminology
Better-U exercises   Better-U anatomy    Fitness Atlantic exercise videos   Vandal Strength videos
UWL Exercise Videos   Critical Bench Exercise Videos

230 stone at 9/07 Xenia contest
400 deadlift off blocks at 9/07 Xenia contest
150 X carry at 9/07 Xenia contest

 September 2007 at the Xenia Old Fashion Strongman -
        Back again for the fall contest in Xenia, this time in the new 50 plus "Masters Major League" class. So I guess I am getting old, and as in all my competitions I was the oldest guy there. I was in a contest in May and another masters-only contest in July, but really did not get to train much for either.
        We finally had time to do some training and I got back up to the 230 pound stone at this September contest and got 255 in practice. Deadlift is stuck at 400 off the blocks, but I did get 345 off the floor on June 9th when I turned 55.
        In the 50+ class I only had 150 pounds on the new X-carry, but I was able to hustle for 285 feet in the 60 second time limit.
        If I can continue to train consistently I will probably still get new max weights on the stones and deadlifts. The real goal is to still be able to do these weights five years from now.

Vince, Terri & Darin at the Xenia 9/07 Strongman
Hugo Rivera's regular column on About.com
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