Gears Workout
polycounter lvl 17
So i thought this was kind of cool. After shedding some pounds for GDC, Epic Games Executive Producer Rod Ferguson shares his secrets on healthy eating and exercise. 
http://epicgames.com/community/2011/05/the-gearsviking-gearsworkout/
http://epicgames.com/community/2011/05/the-gearsviking-gearsworkout/
Replies
edit: wow split not spit :P
How old is Rod anyway? And yeah, Lamont, I totally agree. I'm not eating healthy now, but I am eating healthiER than I used to. It's helped me a lot.
Losing weight is in many ways harder if you dont have a sedentary lifestyle, since if you try this nonsense and dont sit in a chair all day you will DIE
figuratively or maybe literally.
anyway, OP is super cool. Reminds me a bit of cholden's geek get fit thing.
P90X-ing, got to try It since everyone is chatting bout It.
If there's inspiration to take here, it's that a sedentary guy took action and got a result. That'll happen for pretty much everybody. If you're serious about working out, though, this workout isn't something to follow (I don't like body part splits for lifts anyway, but skipping legs in favor of a shoulder day is just so so bad...)
I realize I'm probably bitching because i thought the "Gears" workout would be something manly and awesome like the "300" workouts that Zack Snyder and company did at Gym Jones for the movie
Only reply worth listening to people. The legs comment made me laugh too.. ridiculous.
*sigh*
Amen Brother!
It would be great to hear some more details about your weight loss diet, and how many pounds you lost with it.
Now I am not a gym expert, but it seems to me that his diet is not a maintenance diet, since he is losing weight? What good would a maintenance diet be for weight loss?
I'm 5'9". At my peak of poor health, I weighed 272 pounds. After a year of serious training to fix that, I got down to 180 pounds. That was too thin, so I started focusing on lean mass and now weigh about 210. My diet was (and is) developed from a number of sources. I'd recommend to start out reading this:
http://figureathlete.t-nation.com/free_online_forum/null/the_tdawg_diet_version_20
I'm also a fan of modified paleo diets, with an emphasis on non-grain carbohydrate sources. There are some exceptions, I'm not especially hardcore about it, but it's a good platform. I'm also a big fan of John Berardi's Precision Nutrition plans:
http://www.precisionnutrition.com/about/john-berardi
For exercise, I would bore you to death if I really got into it. I love strength training and will talk all day given the chance. Philosophically, I believe in working intensely and getting it done quickly. I'm a huge fan of high frequency training, lifting heavy and lifting often. I rarely bother with bodypart splits, instead preferring to do full-body workouts 2 or 3 times a week. That's supplemented with maybe 30 minutes of low-intensity cardio a day and some non-exercise physical activity on the weekends, like sports, heavybag training, etc. Basically, take something like P90X or Crossfit and adapt some of the emphasis on circuits and complexes for more traditional, power-based lifts and that's where I'm at.
In particular, for people interested in really improving their physique, I recommend just about everything from Chad Waterbury:
http://chadwaterbury.com/about/
He has (unfortunately IMO) gotten a bit commercial lately with his fat loss, ab developing stuff - kind of playing to the casual Men's Health crowd. But all his research on HFT has been incredibly helpful. Once you stop spending an hour a week doing curls and shoulder flyes and start doing deadlifts, things change in a hurry.
I also really like Alwyn Cosgrove's work, Eric Cressey for mobility and to a lesser degree John Romaniello's stuff (though he's probably more entertaining than purely informative.
http://alwyncosgrove.com/
http://ericcressey.com/
http://www.romanfitnesssystems.com/
Leg-dominant full body exercises are, in my experience, the most important part of a workout. If I could only do three exercises the rest of my life, they'd be the deadlift, the front squat and the pullup, in that order. Unfortunately, men spend most of their gym time working over their chest and arms, which look nice but functionally speaking are the least important. If you ever spend a full day helping a friend move all his furniture into a fourth floor apartment, the next day it's your back and your legs (what lifters call the posterior chain) that are kicking your ass, not your biceps and pecs.
To me, hearing anyone say he doesn't train legs just screams inexperienced and uninformed, the way it would look if a newbie came here and told us about how he likes to boolean primitives together to create the base mesh for character models. You just shake your head and hope he figures it out at some point.
In this case, Mr. Fergusson mentions he knows he should train legs but chooses not to. I think that's worse than ignorance, it's willfully half-assing it. The thing about not training legs because you don't want to "walk sore" or whatever... Here's a video of a 9 year old girl squatting double her bodyweight:
[ame]
If a tiny little girl can do it, any healthy man worth the testosterone in his balls can suck it up and get under that bar.
Actually, yeah, I didn't describe that very well. I didn't mean to maintain his original bodyweight, but to maintain basic physiological functions. Unless he has an incredibly low natural metabolism (he mentions some prior fitness test), 1500 calories is just marginally enough for an adult male to function on. Even accounting for the desire to lose weight, pairing that kind of diet with a resistance training program is not just burning fat but it's also metabolizing lean tissue, which is not what anyone wants to do.
Not to Godwin this thread, but 1500 calories a day is roughly on par with what some workers in concentration camps received. "...a hardworking man ought to receive in 24 hours about 4,800 calories and an average working man more than 3,600 calories, the prisoners at Auschwitz were getting at most from 1302 up to 1744 calories for 24 hours! 1744 calories daily represent a little less than the basic conversion of food into energy of a grown man, or in other words a little less than the amount needed by a man resting in a lying position, covered and motionless."
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/gcpol10.htm
Everyone's caloric needs differ, but I never, ever went below 2000kCal a day when I was training to lose fat, and I feel that even going that low was a mistake when I consider I was also lifting at the time.
Majorly disagree on your broad stroke calorie count stuff though -- i'm 5'6 and weigh 130. I'm pretty athletic, but a 3600 calories would be wayyy too much for me in a day to not balloon in size. I mean, yeah, i should ideally be a bit heavier, but i'm not making the time to lift, so eating like that to gain would make me put on a ton of fat.
There are a lot of skinny nerd types here who don't understand how much they should be eating, but at the same time there are a a lot of people who don't need to be taking in that much. What people really need to do is RESEARCH THIS STUFF THEMSELVES.
And squats.
I don't really agree about the calorie thing. I have been averaging eating less than 1500 calories a day for months, losing about 3 pounds a week, and I have been gaining strength and seemingly muscle mass by going to gym and casually using the machines and treadmill about 3-4 hours a week. I am pretty sure I could eat nothing and still gain muscle at least for awhile, although I am not going to try it
One thing about the workout in the OP and a lot of other stuff I have read is how all the food people eat on these diets/routines tastes like shit. Is that really sustainable for people? The only thing the guy listed that I would eat is Greek yogurt -- I would rather starve than eat a protein bar.
That philosophy extends to my workout also. I just don't do exercises I don't like, and don't see why I would. I'm not a commando or an athlete, and I am not interested in pretending to be those things either since I think they are kind of dumb. I don't like squats or doing the leg press. I guess I am too much of a noob to understand why I should like something that I don't like? I'll keep an open mind though and maybe give them another try, although I'm not sure what the point is since I don't really want to lose weight any faster than I am, even if it does work better than what I am doing now.
Maybe with enough squats I will be able to sit like a boss, which would be sweet, because it's what I spend almost all my time doing.
Squats are one of the best exercises you can do, as they work your entire body. They're actually one of the best work outs for your core too, strengthening your abs and back, which helps when sitting for long periods of time. They're not my favorite, and I hate doing them as well when I first started, but once you get used to them, they can be extremely beneficial.
Instead of worrying a lot about calories, take care of the sources you get em... 200 calories of cheese is not the same as 200 calories of apples. Keep the metabolism high, so forget about dieting, eat often but from good sources. I recommend super food smoothies...(yeah those nasty looking green smoothies.... they are healthy bullets)
Also I take high dose of maca supplement, I come from Peru (from where maca comes from) so used to eat a lot of that back there with regular food, but in Canada I found Macasure a brand that delivers good quality although a bit expensive (capsules, as you cant find the root here). But for stamina and energy helps a lot.
Tom Dunne, thanks for the info man. I will recommend anyone to tryout rock climb or surfing if you can. Those are great sports that burn hell lot of calories while tonifying muscles...besides how awesome fun they are. I know the gym sometimes is boring, a sport is better because you motivate yourself with your progress, gym too but it gets too repetitive at times, for me at least.
Anyway, I wouldn't give a blanket prescription for anyone's diet or workout needs. I mentioned Dr. berardi's work above, which I really benefited from, but his program seemed a bit to one-size-fits-all for me. I need more calories than 'average' to maintain my weight, but everyone is different. But the general thinking is that 1500kCal a day is too few to be healthy for the majority of men of average size.
About gaining strength while dieting, I think that most gains amongst newer lifters are neurological rather than physical. By that, I mean that if you haven't been training with weights regularly, your nervous system probably isn't that great at recruiting muscle fibers on a given lift. The first several months of lifting, you'll make leaps that far outstrip your mass gains as your body sort of 'learns' how to better activate muscles to do the work. In bodybuilding circles, they call these 'newbie gains.' I won't say it's impossible to add muscle mass on a 1500kCal diet, just that it's very unlikely - you'd need an awfully low natural metabolism and very good nutrient timing to make that happen. You can Google up your own numbers with various BMR calculators to get an idea what the medical average is for your build and activity level, etc.
About doing what you don't like... well, there's not much to say to that, I guess. We all do things we don't like sometimes because we think the reward is worth it. If it's not worth it to you (which is totally cool with me), then I understand avoiding it. I just wouldn't go posting my workout regimen for others to see when I know I'm deliberately not giving it my best effort (not than anyone here is, I'm referring to the article.) I know that Fergusson was asked, but still... not the example I'd want to set.
About squats, they're awesome BECAUSE they suck so much
I don't like spending a lot of time in the gym, and I really don't like squats. I like the results, though, so I spend my gym time doing the most effective exercises (heavy compound lifts like squats) rather than spend time with minor single-limb exercises that don't get near as much bang for my buck (bicep and tricep isolation, dedicated shoulder work, etc). People don't like squats and deads precisely because they're fucking hard, but hard is what gets you results - easy's what got us all fat in the first place. Generally, the more I dislike an exercise, the more I prioritize it. Besides, if a little girl can put up 187 pounds...
*edit*
One other thing about why heavy lifts are awesome. The heavier you lift, the more you burn, and the more you burn, the more you can eat! Google 'refeed' and tell me if that's not more appealing than munching on rabbit food every day of the week! :P
Everyone hates squats in the beginning! I've been lifting for years and man... to this day I will sometimes get a little anxious getting under the bar. I like the challenge, though. Life's filled with lots of difficulties, but there are few you can face directly like a loaded barbell - you lift it or you don't, there's no in-between. Polycount's probably not the most receptive crowd for this, but Henry Rollins wrote a great piece about lifting that is the truest thing I've ever read on the subject:
http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/henryrollins_iron.html
I don't know what to say other than my muscles that I can see/detect are clearly larger than they used to be. It is even completely obvious to my wife. I started doing the gym regularly in January, so I think I am probably past any early gains. It doesn't seem like a mystery to me -- if my body needs extra calories to build muscle, it can just get it from my fat, which I have plenty of.
In terms of diet, 1500 seems like kind of a lot to me, so it is not hard to maintain. A Burger and fries is like 900 calories, so as long as I pace myself the rest of the day I can eat more or less anything I want.
I get that some people need challenge in their life, but I have enough of that just with my job. I don't need the gym for that.
[edit]
This other BMR thing says I need 3950 considering my activity level...
Macros (protein/fat/carbs) determine body composition (bodyfat/muscle).
It really doesn't take much to workout for 45 mins a few times a week. Persistance is where most people fail.
NONSENSE! :P Are you being sarcastic?
Out of curiosity, how ripped are you Tom? If you're using a heavybag, you should have a pretty ripped core, no?
I lost around 15 pounds during a summer when I were a camp monitor!
I'm definitely not what I would call ripped. Might show some abs if I squint and the lighting is good, but that's it
Decided to post pics so people don't think I'm full of shit
Yeah, BMR numbers can be all over the place, depending on what a formula considers to be your level of activity, whether it accounts for BMI, all that. Online stuff is at best good for a guideline, not perfect accuracy, but I bet every one you tried had you
far over 1500, right? I've never seen one recommend that little for an average height male, even a total couch potato.
About how you look, I am sure you've added muscle, but don't discount the power of perspective. A doughy 250 pound body will look less strong/muscular than a 200 pound body, even if they have the exact same muscle mass. Definition counts for a lot. Look at how huge Hugh Jackman looked in the last Wolverine movie; he only weighed about 190 for that film and looks really built in most shots.
Good job
Haha - yeah, I did totally crop them down in Photoshop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction
Not at all. When I graduated college I was 195, an increase from 180 of high school and I hated how fat I was. I am 6'2 so that wasnt really fat at all but I still hated it. 3 or 4 months after I dropped to 175 which made me happy and where I'm sitting at now
eidt: The article is still a good read and people could benefit from it. Working out is the better way to lose weight but I hate working out :P
Yeah, I think that is true. I don't think I have put on a ton of muscle, but it is certainly there. I think it is not hard to maintain what you have even with when cutting back calories a lot, so long as you are fat and don't have much muscle to start with.
Does anybody here jog? After jogging for a few months, I did a 10 minute mile -- not a huge accomplishment for most people, but I was pretty stoked about it. I am doing close to 2.5 miles in a row jogging at 5mph or interval training to boost my heart rate, jogging at a steep incline.
It seems like endurance runners have super low body fat, which is cool, but also a lot of knee problems, which sucks. Anybody here doing half-marathons or marathons? I am still working up to be able to do a 5k
I have been reading basically everything on this guy's site, but I thought this article was really good:
http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html
What this guy said matched up perfectly with my personal experience.
I hit a mysterious weight-loss plateau recently, and looking back at my raw caloric intake, I could not figure it out. I suspect it is the result of some "minor" changes in my routine, and I am excited to see if cutting out my morning snack and eating a bit fewer carbohydrates will get my weight dropping again.
Also, it is interesting to see a person talk about gaining serious muscle mass on a weight-loss diet, which I would like to do if it's possible, since I am in the gym anyway.
Talk to me in 10+ years about how easy it is to lose weight...things tend
to change metabolism-wise unless you maintain regular physical activity
(which, as we know, can tend to fall by the wayside doing 'puter art as
a jerb)
I'm (ahem) over 35 and not exactly 'fat' (5'9", 170-ish), but getting down
to where I'd like (160-165) is a b*tch, even with 3-5 35-40min treadmill
walks per week...and fast-food is merely a 1-3 times a month "treat".
lotso luck to you on your "easy" weight-loss theories in your future! :poly142:
(peels off to go get on the treadmill...)
I used to do lots of treadmill, eliptic machine too. And never got results like I wanted until I tried some high intensity interval training.
this video is the truth (in the end...everything is in the food):
[ame]
For the record, 5'9 180 lbs. Strongest and biggest I've been in my life.
Workouts work differently for other people. Tom prefers his total body workouts. I work more with a bodybuilder style split (4x a week lifting with running/cardio 2-3x a week). I've been doing differing combinations of these splits since I was 15, got more serious once I was 18.
I don't really do fancy dieting though. I have a rotation of food (fish, chicken, rice and pasta, sandwiches and such) that I mix in and out. If I want to drop some pounds, I eat less or go with lower calorie rice. If I want to gain, I cram rice or pasta with some sort of cheese sauce or whatever sauce down my throat. I've been six packing too and yea it's a bitch. I like extra muscular bulk.
Oh yea, Legs and Core are the center of being strong. I squat and deadlift every week. Sure they are a bitch but once you do them you walk away feeling awesome and with a sense of pride.
I would very very strongly recommend against cutting your calories further, especially when you're already eating as few as you are. The 'mystery' is almost certainly because your metabolism has adapted to this new, very restricted calorie diet and has compensated by slowing down in order to preserve lean tissue.
I know this sounds counter-intuitive, everyone thinks so at first, but the best thing to do is probably to add calories for a bit and convince your body it's not starving. That's especially true if you have added muscle. If you've got more muscle than when you started dieting, your body now need MORE calories per day to maintain lean mass, not fewer calories.
I don't have time to find a specific link (I'm on vacation! :P) but Google something like "plateau adding calories" and read into it. It's a very common topic, as almost all dieters who get serious about weight loss hit a plateau at some point.
I wish you luck, because it's damned hard to do unless you're both pretty fat and a relative newbie to strength training. For me, it was much easier to lose fat then gain muscle - trying to do both had me going nowhere, like trying to turn right and left at the same time. Some folks say they can do it, though. Most rely on what's called a 'carb cycling' diet, in which an excess of carbohydrates are consumed twice a week or so, timed to be specifically after intense resistance training. If you try something like that and get results, definitely let me know!
*edit*
Blarg. Hate giving advice without some kind of reference. Read this about plateau busting, especially item #7:
http://www.answerfitness.com/208/weight-loss-plateau-tactics-overcoming-weight-loss-plateau/
And read this about a carb-cycling diet. Kelly Baggett is a great source, I really recommend him:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kelly3.htm
I'm spot on at 180 in that picture - I remember being on the scale at the doctor just a couple days before that pic was taken. Hard to tell from that pic, but I'm pretty 'wide' the way I'm built, shoulders to waist, so even when I'm lean I carry more weight than you'd think for my height. Also, remember my comments about squats - lots of thin guys have chicken legs, but my quads and calves are very solid
I don't have anything against bodybuilding splits except that (IMO) they require a lot more time in the gym without getting me any better result. If I was seriously into sculpting certain muscle groups and the like, I'd definitely do it, but I've built an overall athletic body (for age 35, at least) by lifting 2-3 times a week in 45 minute, balls-to-the-wall sessions. The only thing I target are forearms, as mine are just really small and grip issues limit many of my pulls.
In a given week in which I train three times, I will do at least two days with some squat variant and two days with a deadlift variant. On my current plan, I'm hitting back squats on Tuesday, standard overhand grip DLs on Thursday and pairing front squats with Romanian DLs on Saturday. I also often do things like dumbbell lunges (which I truly hate) and isometric work with each leg to get the load from squats off my spine.
well, I was actually increasing my calories slightly and loosening up my diet when I hit this snag, so I am going to go back to what I was doing before and see how it goes.
Mostly I am going to focus on shuffling around eating times and eliminating some of the simple carbs I had started eating in recent weeks.
There are a lot of reasons you can plateau. I know from experience that a lot of times you can stop losing weight for a week or two, and then continue to drop weight even if you keep doing the exact same routine and diet the entire time.
[edit]
I started in with the leg press and lat pulldowns more seriously. I find that if I limit the range of motion a little, and don't pile on the weight, the leg press doesn't hurt my fucked up knee, so that is nice. Maybe I can build up to more weight. I also started doing dumbbell rows, which I like, although the heaviest dumbbells at my gym are 50's.
great link dude. cheers. there's a message in there that goes a long way to supporting my view that exercise as a method of weight control contradicts the human bodies management of calorie ( energy ) resources. if by design the human is evolved to travel these long distances ( for example ) then it would / should follow that the impact of that effort on energy stores be kept as low as possible. if not then the whole system and intent breaks down and it's all for nothing
in the end. the fundamental bottom line to work from has to be calories in. calories out. the body which evolved in an environment of scarcity being designed to store excess as fat. and first and foremost dig into that stored fat when no other calories are available. similar to that first point it makes no evolutionary sense to eat away at muscles. the contradiction there too should be as obvious
if anybody is serious about dropping fat i say forget cardio for a while. gradually pull back on calories toward a target BMR and hit the heavy weights ( relative to your strength level ) with intensity