The Running/Keeping Fit Thread

[Norbs]

It sounds safe enough for you. I've a squat rack and bench already, as well as bike etc (including washing machine and dryer in my gym/garage and to my chagrin, a growing collection of toys, not man ones either).

In terms of music i just fire bluetooth from my watch/phone/laptop to a bluetooth speaker. It's plenty good enough.

I'd use it as an accessory to free weights but when i've a spare 3k to drop on something frivolous i'll probably just go on holiday instead.

They've added a number of software updates since I bought it, including a Bluetooth music option but it doesn't work properly yet as the Bluetooth volume drowns out the trainer and background sounds. They're rolling out an update at the moment where you can lock the end point of the cables, eg when doing a barbell chest press you'll not end up with the bar squashing you.

The 100kg is well enough, I'm not looking to bulk and I've found that nothing really requires more than 40kg

[Norbs]

Not even close to being pear shaped with a 50 to 52 inch chest

I'm pretty thin now though compared to how I used to look given I have lost a few stone of muscle the past few years.

Do they call you straw legs?

[Norbs]

So Doc,

I bought that Speediance Gym Monster and couldn't be happier. From having only ever been an aerobic/cardio exerciser, even back in my gym days, it's opened me up to all that strengtg training has tp offer. I'm following a 12 week program and the machine offers me additional sessions that are AI generated to compliment what I'm doing and to promote a bit of HIIT based training and stretching days.

Highly recommend it to anyone who prefers to train outside of a gym environment, who wants to add resistance and strength training and who likes a bit of tech

[Norbs]

I'm a lover, not a fighter

[Doc_Piptorious]

Three and with a pistol each

Getting closer to a fair fight in that case



How about a stake? Losers buy the winner all the burgers he can eat? You know from where

[Norbs]

Three and with a pistol each

[Doc_Piptorious]

Are you Barry McGuigan?

No because he is someone people will have heard of and he was a big success.



Plus he is tiny. Think the only time in my life I might have made bantamweight or featherweight might have been when I was about 10 years of age


I'm not Katie Taylor either before you ask


Reckon I could still take on a Norbs or two though

[Norbs]

Are you Barry McGuigan?

[Doc_Piptorious]

Were you a professional boxer Doc? How long did you do it for? Always curious to hear these stories

Much longer amatuer career than a pro one unfortunately.

Actually won stuff to a decent level in the unpaid ranks whereas scraped into the double figures in terms of bouts fought in the pro ranks. Never lost in the paid ranks but I was very much a low level guy who, if I had not been forced into coaching by an injury in my 20s, would have become a make up the numbers guy even if I did not believe that at the time. The closest I got to "fame" in the pro ranks was getting on the cover of a boxing mag for one of their "names to watch" lists and getting name checked by Jimmy Magee on RTE (Irish national tv and radio )

Sparred with some very good guys though and was a regular sparrer for a number of heavyweight title holders so if nothing else I know what a top guy hits like

Have coached to national level in two countries at amatuer level and coached (part of team) to world title level in the pro ranks, much of my practical pro coaching coming within the Kronk set up as got to shadow the best of the best there, so do have all my formal qualifications as well as complimentary qualifications in the likes of Sport psychology. Much better coaching career than an in ring one.

And in the past year or so have returned to my roots to coach at local level a few days a week in an ABC that decades ago was good enough to take me in when I was in Uni and in need of somewhere local to Uni in order to train for provincial and national bouts.

I fit in the coaching around my main day job which these days is being the part owner of a retail business.

Do have lots of stories but more than a few would get me into trouble if I started putting them up in public Lot of names in the sport might surprise people as to who were good guys and who were not so nice despite having nice public personas pushed for them.


But one massive perk was I got to meet a lot of my in ring heroes in the sport like Marvin Hagler (an absolute gentleman that oozed class. Got a pair of his shorts and gloves - as in ones he wore in the ring), Larry Holmes ( he put a hand print in plaster for me that I have mounted to this day. Fun fact, I have a bigger hand than Larry), Lennox Lewis (Got a glove from him that he signed on the spot too), George Foreman (really funny man who then went to my old ABC off the cuff and spent hours hanging with kids) and a ton of other all time greats.

Lots of more recent names I would have met too. The Klitschko brothers, Andy Lee (know him since his pre Kronk days), Henry Akinwande, Ricky Hatton, Tyson Fury, Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler and others. They would be folk I spent a bit of time over the years with rather than people I met for a handshake or only shared a few words with.


Same on the coaching side of things. Met almost everyone I could have hoped to have met and worked under a few that would have been bucket list names for me. I never was or never will be on the level of those men and women, but what they instilled in me kicks in every time I prepare to enter a training facility of any kind and kicks in when I am in my darkest of places mentally.

Even now my respect for coaching sees me automatically drop to knowing my role when in another man or woman's place of work. As is the case since my GF and I have taken up Hapkido together since last year. I have a martial art background as well as a boxing one as trained in a branch of kung fu alongside my boxing training right back to my amatuer days as used one to compliment the other. Hapkido is fitting like a glove (pun intended) as a boxing background gives you a big advantage when training in it as your stand up striking is such that it compliments what you learn in Hapkido very very well. As does the years of learning balance.

What is making Hapkido a lot of fun for me is even though I am raw compared to a lot of folk there, my size, balance, striking and strength is getting me paired with smaller but far more skilled practioners than I. So I am being challenged greatly alomost every session and training with people far better than you only makes you better yourself.

I'm apparantly difficult to throw (big part of Hapkido is the throwing of an aggressor - be it off balance or to the ground outright) and when the smaller more skilled folk go to throw me, my natural balance kicks in and I often end up turning their attempted throw or hip toss into me lifting them clean from the mat and into a slamming position from which I can then strike them whilst prone. It generally teaches to avoid using brute strength and how to counter such, but as I bring good balance and training with my strength I become the Hapkido version of a southpaw doing things "wrong" for a righty.

So I get to be a less skilled but very awkward practise partner as I can also switch to a boxing stance when they go into a striking stance. Does mean I also pick up a few extra bruises as the much better than I folk try out new ways to put me down and keep me down

As a health related aside, I can whole heartedly endorse Hapkido as a great way to get fit, keep fit, discipline the mind further, meet great people and boost confidence should anyone here be thinking of taking up a martial art for fitness reasons or to compliment a current skillset.

Age is no limit when it comes to a martial art or any combat sport. You can go just for the physical and mental benefits and never spar or compete hard.

[Sus]

Been running for most of my life save for when injured and for a few years when I was having that scuffle with Tommy the Tumor and his mates.

Never boxed below heavyweight and super heavyweight in my younger days and I am back running on a regular basis at 52 and taking groups from the ABC out for roadwork sessions each week. So I would probably always been what you would call a bigger lad and have been running for 40 odd years now.


It's all about how you look after your body and how you take your build/size into account when trying to build up to a level of fitness.


If starting it later in life or after an extended break from regular exercise , I would be using a greater mix of lower impact exercises in there, like running machines, treadmills and so on, and also paying attention to the surface types one runs on outdoors, but age and size is not a barrier if a person does not try too much too soon and also reacts/listens to their body when it is sending messages that it needs a break or needs some TLC/a change in the training routine.


Hell folk do not even need to go running to develop great stamina and see fantastic changes to theior body in terms of weight loss and all the health benefits that come with that. Regular, as in daily, walking is utterly fantastic to do. Start with a km or two each day for a month, then double it in the second month, double again in the third month and after that test yourself each following month to find your limit for that month.

Get up to walking between 6km and 10km at least five days a week and the weight will be falling off of you each month as your get there and you will be noticing your body toning up all over. Plus you will get the pleasant surprise once you are a few months in of discovering you have a burst of pace when you try to run for a bus or whatever that had been missing months earlier.

Were you a professional boxer Doc? How long did you do it for? Always curious to hear these stories

[Norbs]

Been running for most of my life save for when injured and for a few years when I was having that scuffle with Tommy the Tumor and his mates.

Never boxed below heavyweight and super heavyweight in my younger days and I am back running on a regular basis at 52 and taking groups from the ABC out for roadwork sessions each week. So I would probably always been what you would call a bigger lad and have been running for 40 odd years now.


It's all about how you look after your body and how you take your build/size into account when trying to build up to a level of fitness.


If starting it later in life or after an extended break from regular exercise , I would be using a greater mix of lower impact exercises in there, like running machines, treadmills and so on, and also paying attention to the surface types one runs on outdoors, but age and size is not a barrier if a person does not try too much too soon and also reacts/listens to their body when it is sending messages that it needs a break or needs some TLC/a change in the training routine.


Hell folk do not even need to go running to develop great stamina and see fantastic changes to theior body in terms of weight loss and all the health benefits that come with that. Regular, as in daily, walking is utterly fantastic to do. Start with a km or two each day for a month, then double it in the second month, double again in the third month and after that test yourself each following month to find your limit for that month.

Get up to walking between 6km and 10km at least five days a week and the weight will be falling off of you each month as your get there and you will be noticing your body toning up all over. Plus you will get the pleasant surprise once you are a few months in of discovering you have a burst of pace when you try to run for a bus or whatever that had been missing months earlier.

Having a dog is brilliant for all sorts of reasons, forcing yourself to go for a 40min stroll daily. I've never injured myself walking. From an exercise POV, walking rarely becomes anaerobic so is almost wholly a fat burning workout

[fidget]

Heed Doc's advice. It's spot on.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Anyway, he still needs to stop running, he's too big and will end up ****ed. There's a reason runners weigh about 60kg and are beanpoles

Been running for most of my life save for when injured and for a few years when I was having that scuffle with Tommy the Tumor and his mates.

Never boxed below heavyweight and super heavyweight in my younger days and I am back running on a regular basis at 52 and taking groups from the ABC out for roadwork sessions each week. So I would probably always been what you would call a bigger lad and have been running for 40 odd years now.


It's all about how you look after your body and how you take your build/size into account when trying to build up to a level of fitness.


If starting it later in life or after an extended break from regular exercise , I would be using a greater mix of lower impact exercises in there, like running machines, treadmills and so on, and also paying attention to the surface types one runs on outdoors, but age and size is not a barrier if a person does not try too much too soon and also reacts/listens to their body when it is sending messages that it needs a break or needs some TLC/a change in the training routine.


Hell folk do not even need to go running to develop great stamina and see fantastic changes to theior body in terms of weight loss and all the health benefits that come with that. Regular, as in daily, walking is utterly fantastic to do. Start with a km or two each day for a month, then double it in the second month, double again in the third month and after that test yourself each following month to find your limit for that month.

Get up to walking between 6km and 10km at least five days a week and the weight will be falling off of you each month as your get there and you will be noticing your body toning up all over. Plus you will get the pleasant surprise once you are a few months in of discovering you have a burst of pace when you try to run for a bus or whatever that had been missing months earlier.

[Norbs]

yeah sadly I am aware of all that - still blindly ignoring it for now - I bet 3 weeks in I'll be a crock crying into me beer somewhere

My cardio ability improved when I was running but the constant aches weren't worth it. It's a young man's game

[Norbs]

I followed the above and the pain appears to have subsided substatially.

A lot of my issues stem from extreme tightness of the hips, hamstrings, calves etc.

Stop ignoring your body