CAG Health and Fitness Thread

I think people go overboard with health and fitness and miss out on a lot of tasty food and don't enjoy life as much.

Just eat sensibly in small to medium sized portions, and take a 1.5 mile walk everyday, and you'll be fine. Eat salt and fat in moderation.
 
Just to flesh out why you're off base here...

Healthy foods can and should be tasty. Once you start cutting out extra fatty, sugary, buttery foods, your taste buds will adjust.

No one is saying never eat pizza or burgers again for the rest of your life, but I firmly believe 95-99% of meals a week should healthy. The healthy foods will provide you with the fat and salt you want. For example, the roasted almonds I have for a snack today have plenty of both for me.

Smaller and moderate portions aren't the way to go if you're still eating unhealthy. Scientifically speaking, fatty foods will not leave you satiated. Foods like veggies have a higher chance of leaving you feeling full. Oh and eating slower helps too.

As for a 1.5 mile walk, it's nor bad for you obviously, but don't expect any weight loss from that...unless you're like 300 pounds and never do shit anyway. You need to do something more intensive for at least 140 minutes a week. That's the minimum, and even that's barely anything.
 
Yeah, if you want to keep your body fat down, look good and be healthy you have to work out and eat right.

You can have cheat meals where you have a burger or dessert etc., but that should just be a couple meals a week. There's plenty of tasty food that's not full of fat and sugar.

But I get not everyone wants to be health conscious and just wants to lounge around and eat whatever they want. And that's fine but it will bit them in the long run as health problems emerge at earlier ages from not taking care of yourself and being overweight, you likely won't live as long etc., and it can hurt in other areas of quality of life like success in dating, general self image/self esteem etc.

But to each their own.
 
I usually just eat whatever because I need to gain weight =D

I'm good about staying away from pop though, and I've been drinking my coffee black for a year now. I had a LAN at my apartment this weekend though and kind of pounded through 8 mountain dews and a bag of chips :cold:.

Anyways, good ideas for filling meals on a college budget? I'd like to figure out ways to use all this white rice I have, but all I usually do is toss some eggs in it.
 
Frozen veggies are really cheap and filling. You could always mix them with the rice. Throw some chicken in and you can make a damn good stir fry.
 
Yeah, rice, frozen veggies (much cheaper than fresh produce), boneless/skinless chicken breast bought in big packages, tuna, sweet potatoes, whole grain bread etc. are a solid and cheap foundation for eating clean. Add in some fresh fruit if you can afford it.

Whey protein powder to get the extra protein (hard to get the reccomended 1-1.5 grams per lb you way without it). A solid multi-vitamin and maybe some other vitamins along with it to make up for not eating as much fresh veggies and fruit as you should and you should be good to go.
 
Yea I gave up on that trying to pack that much protein on work out days. If I can get half of that I'm satisfied. I should try out whey again, I suppose.

Just looking to gain 5-10 pounds this year. I'm 5'5 115 lb :lol:. I stay the same weight but my workouts still seem to be effective. I can bench a few reps of 150 lb and I'm satisfied with my other areas as well, but another 5-10 lbs would be nice. I probably won't be getting much taller so I don't want to get stocky by gaining too much weight.
 
Yeah, definitely get the whey and take some right after working out (I take a shaker bottle to the gym and add water from the water fountain and drink it on my drive to work since I usually work out before going into the office.

You won't gain much muscle if you don't get both enough protein and enough calories, especially since you probably have a raging metabolism like I do (and especially did back in high school and college) and really have to eat a ton and eat right to put on weight. It's a great problem to have as I'd rather struggle to put on muscle than easily put on fat. But it does make it harder to gain weight.

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey is my favorite of the ones I've tried. It tastes decent and mixes easily--I like the French Vanilla Creme flavor. And it's fairly reasonably priced compared to other named brands on sites like www.advantagesupplements.com.
 
I actually eat pretty well. My problem is Mt. Dew and wine. And when I say Mt. Dew I mean maybe 3 cans a week.. which doesn't seem like much, but for some reason hammers my body. Wine is another story all togtether lol.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']Yea I gave up on that trying to pack that much protein on work out days. If I can get half of that I'm satisfied. I should try out whey again, I suppose.

Just looking to gain 5-10 pounds this year. I'm 5'5 115 lb :lol:. I stay the same weight but my workouts still seem to be effective. I can bench a few reps of 150 lb and I'm satisfied with my other areas as well, but another 5-10 lbs would be nice. I probably won't be getting much taller so I don't want to get stocky by gaining too much weight.[/QUOTE]

are you a 115 lbs guy? damn...
 
Yeah, soda is just bad news. I forced myself to switch to Diet Years ago and have stuck with it and try not to have more than one a day. It's helped a ton, and now regular soda tastes crappy to me now that I got used to the diet taste. I mainly stick with Diet Coke, Coke Zero or Diet Dr. Pepper.

Beer was my major vice, but my new year's resolution was not to drink at home anymore and only when out for dinner or drinks with friends etc. Have stuck too it so far. And only drank once since New Year's Eve as I've been swamped with work and other stuff and turned down most chances to go out lately.

[quote name='DestroVega']are you a 115 lbs guy? damn...[/QUOTE]

It is damn thin. Of course he's only 5'5". I was only around 135lbs when I started lifting back freshman year of college, but I'm also 4 inches taller.
 
If you have a vitamin world around (if they're even still in business) their store brand protein bars aren't bad and are pretty cheap. Have some good cheap multivitamins etc. as well. None around where I live now though.
 
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[quote name='dmaul1114']It is damn thin. Of course he's only 5'5". I was only around 135lbs when I started lifting back freshman year of college, but I'm also 4 inches taller.[/QUOTE]

I can beat that - I was 5'8" and 120lbs at the beginning of this summer. After a couple months at the gym, I've managed to make it to nearly 130.
 
Dang, I'm 5'8 and 165 pounds. I couldn't imagine being 120 or 130. I think my smallest was 157? I wouldn't mind being back there by summer.
 
10lbs in a couple months is a lot, don't get discouraged when the gains slow down.

Just the way it is, skinny people will put on a lot of muscle the first couple of months and heavy people will lose a lot of weight in the beginning. After that gaining/losing 2 or 3 pounds a month is pretty typical.

I'm 5'9 and 158lbs at the moment. My lowest since hitting this height was the 135 back in high school/start of college back in the late 90s. Heaviest was 166 in grad school where I had a couple years of really working out hard and eating a ton of clean calories etc.

Now I'm mainly just trying to stay in shape, keep bodyfat down etc., not really worried about the weight beyond hoping to lose the little bit of fat I have on the midsection.
 
Glad the discussion picked up, these are some neat ideas.
@ posters Kirin , Jeeze man. I'm 5'9 and weigh 155. I can't even fathom weighing that little, lol.

I'll chime in with my protein shake/bars I eat/drink:
I like to drink a whey gourmet shake once a day after a workout with light vanilla silk.It adds 15 g of sugar + 18g protein to a shake that is negligibly different from the gold standard ones(20g protein and like 1.5g fat). Are you guys drinking your shakes with water? What do you think of silk?

I also eat Pure Protein brand protein bars I buy locally: http://www.pureprotein.net/pages/products_bars.asp . The stuff is fantastic and has barely any sugar or fat compared to a lot of other brands.
 
I wouldn't want the sugar, and I hate soy milk, so that's a no go for me.

I just use water as I don't want to use real milk (as well as being impractical to take to the gym since I'm drinking it on the way to work) as that slows down digestion and you want the protein to absorb rapidly post work out. No idea if soy digests quickly or not.

Sometimes if I'm working out on the weekend and coming home right after (or just used the little gym downstairs in my condo building) I'll have one with milk and a banana thrown in the blender later in the day as well as the post workout shake.
 
I've actually been working out for 5 years now, granted, I didn't know what I was doing for the first 2.

I just stay the same weight as I never wanted to put the effort into getting bigger. At one point I was gaining pretty steadily but I was eating sooo much, it was miserable. I like the results from the gym, even if I'm not getting considerably stronger. Right now, I think I could try to gain 5-10 lbs again though.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I wouldn't want the sugar, and I hate soy milk, so that's a no go for me.

I just use water as I don't want to use real milk (as well as being impractical to take to the gym since I'm drinking it on the way to work) as that slows down digestion and you want the protein to absorb rapidly post work out. No idea if soy digests quickly or not.

Sometimes if I'm working out on the weekend and coming home right after (or just used the little gym downstairs in my condo building) I'll have one with milk and a banana thrown in the blender later in the day as well as the post workout shake.[/QUOTE]
To put it into perspective, 15g of sugar is just about how much an apple has. Fair point about protein absorption though, I have no clue if it absorbs fasts, I'll have to research it before I completely screw up,lol.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Just the way it is, skinny people will put on a lot of muscle the first couple of months and heavy people will lose a lot of weight in the beginning. After that gaining/losing 2 or 3 pounds a month is pretty typical.
[/QUOTE]

Not always the case. I consider myself heavy (6'3 260lbs). When I start working out (I get on kicks; something I need to stop and just make a lifestyle change), I normally gain muscle prior to losing any weight. I can tell based on seeing areas getting bigger and firmer. I do not take any extra form of protein or any supplant; Just eat like a normal American. Typical workout includes 30 minute weight training (normally 30 second rest between each set of 3 sets/12 per muscle/exercise) and 30 minute cardio (try to keep heart rate between 140-170).
 
[quote name='Moltres423']To put it into perspective, 15g of sugar is just about how much an apple has. Fair point about protein absorption though, I have no clue if it absorbs fasts, I'll have to research it before I completely screw up,lol.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it's not much sugar at all. I just try to avoid adding sugar as much as possible as I figure I get enough from fruits and other foods.


[quote name='lordopus99']Not always the case. I consider myself heavy (6'3 260lbs). When I start working out (I get on kicks; something I need to stop and just make a lifestyle change), I normally gain muscle prior to losing any weight. I can tell based on seeing areas getting bigger and firmer. I do not take any extra form of protein or any supplant; Just eat like a normal American. Typical workout includes 30 minute weight training (normally 30 second rest between each set of 3 sets/12 per muscle/exercise) and 30 minute cardio (try to keep heart rate between 140-170).[/QUOTE]

Yeah, you can gain muscle without the extra protein, especially early on when you get on a kick. But you'll eventually plateau and need to be getting the 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound you way (if you can get it from regular diet, then great of course) and make sure you're mixing up workouts, moving up in weight etc. to keep gaining.

Like I said, everyone will gain/lose pretty quickly when they get on a kick, the key is to keep motivated and stay at it once things slow down and you're gaining/losing 1-3 pounds a month after the first few months.

Supplements are up to the individual. It's always best to get proteins and vitamins from real foods than supplements. It's just hard for most to hit that 1-1.5 grams per pound of protein needed if they're really trying to bulk up and put on muscle. If ones just trying to lose weight and tone up some then they don't really need to bother with that and just make sure they eat well enough that they're not losing muscle mass from the training and end up looking like a long distance runner etc. :D
 
Going out is out of the question if you're a health freak, because most of the food in restaurants is salty and fatty, unless you're going to an expensive, fancy place.

There's healthy food that actually tastes good, but most of it is Asian stuff, rice, and fruit.

I am making an effort to avoid the salts though. What are some good alternatives to snack chips and crackers?

I've heard chips and salsa is good. Saltless pretzels and mustard sounds safe. What about celery and some kind of yogurt dip?

And to play devil's advocate, the years you're losing of your life are the elderly ends, when you're most likely going to be in a nursing home, unable to move around, could have dementia, and most of your friends are dead. Although my Dad is almost 80 and in pretty good shape and is pretty active. But he wasn't much of a health freak. He didn't indulge in bad food except for sweets. Alot of your health has to do with genetics.
 
[quote name='2DMention']Going out is out of the question if you're a health freak, because most of the food in restaurants is salty and fatty, unless you're going to an expensive, fancy place.

There's healthy food that actually tastes good, but most of it is Asian stuff, rice, and fruit.
[/quote]

Not true. Most everywhere has salads, grilled chicken, fish dishes, pasta dishes (avoid cheese and cheese sauces) etc. Portions are usually too big, so set aside half or so to pack up and eat the next day at the start.

I do live in a city and eat a local joints and not chains which helps. Some are healthy, some aren't.

I mainly eat most of my meals at home and go out for my 1 or 2 cheat meals a week and pretty much eat whatever I want at those. If I go out more than that I'll go for the healthier things on the menu.


And to play devil's advocate, the years you're losing of your life are the elderly ends, when you're most likely going to be in a nursing home, unable to move around, could have dementia, and most of your friends are dead.
Click to expand...

If you take good care of yourself, you reduce the odds of ending up in bad health at earlier ages. Luck plays into it as you can still get diseases, or in an accident that disables you etc. While some like your dad stay healthy without taking to active a role in exercising etc. (though eating well can make a huge difference on it's own, and sounds like he did that).

But on average, those who take care of themselves will be healthier to later ages. Plus, people who are obese etc. are lucky to make it out of their 60's, much less worry about whether they are in a nursing home at 80 or 90 etc.

As well as just feeling crappy all the time, looking crappy and having the social and self image negatives that go along with that. Taking an interest and keeping yourself in decent shape just has a ton of benefits. Feel better physically and mentally, look better, get sick less, have lesser odds of health complications like heart disease as you age etc.

Odds of living longer is just part of it. Being healthy just leads to better quality of life at every stage of the life course.
 
[quote name='2DMention']
And to play devil's advocate, the years you're losing of your life are the elderly ends, when you're most likely going to be in a nursing home, unable to move around, could have dementia, and most of your friends are dead. Although my Dad is almost 80 and in pretty good shape and is pretty active. But he wasn't much of a health freak. He didn't indulge in bad food except for sweets. A lot of your health has to do with genetics.[/QUOTE]
Tell that to Jack Lalanne! Guy was still fit as a fiddle all the way until he died. I think that for the most part a nursing home can be avoided by staying active and eating right. Diseases can hinder this though in old age.

As for a diet replacement to snack chips and crackers, carrots and hummus work if you're at home. Soynuts or trail mix is nice for on the go and provides the salty,crunchy taste you crave with chips. There's also baked chips but they are just empty calories with no real nutritional value to them, but still have half the bad stuff of regular chips.
 
[quote name='Moltres423']
As for a diet replacement to snack chips and crackers, carrots and hummus work if you're at home. Soynuts or trail mix is nice for on the go and provides the salty,crunchy taste you crave with chips. There's also baked chips but they are just empty calories with no real nutritional value to them, but still have half the bad stuff of regular chips.[/QUOTE]

Thanks. Isn't there some kind of yogurt dip that's good too? Hummus is good, but can be expensive, can't it? How about celery and peanut butter?
 
[quote name='2DMention']Going out is out of the question if you're a health freak, because most of the food in restaurants is salty and fatty, unless you're going to an expensive, fancy place.

There's healthy food that actually tastes good, but most of it is Asian stuff, rice, and fruit.
[/QUOTE]

There are still plenty of options out for "health freaks". Salad with olive oil/vinger for dressing can be found about every fast food or sit down restaurant. Most sub places give you the right portion of meat (4 oz or less) and you can load up on veggies. If you go to any sitdown restaurant, you can ask them prepare it a certain way for you (i.e. grilled, no seasoning or salt). As for Asian food, it is just as bad for you. Asian food is loaded with sodium. It's in every dish/sauce. White Rice lacks the nutrients since most of them are "enriched" (IOW empty carbs). If you get whole grain rice with zero sauce stirfry, then yes it can be healthy... but again Asian food as a whole is very unhealthy.

Back to food, I am a firm believer in moderation. If you deprived your body of something you want, you will fail everytime in a weightloss journey. Cut back and it goes a long way. My mom lost over 40 pounds just by cutting her portion in half and walking around the block a couple times every other day (no more than 20-30 min); this was in a 3-4 month span.

As for the devil's advocate thing, I agree with your statement. Yes... not being obese you keep your risk for heart attack and diabetes down, but you still don't eliminate them. Your genes can cause you to have high blood pressure which can cause you to have a heart attack. Failure of organs/arteries are most heredity. Cancer and many other disease can happen to anyone. There is still the risk for accident. Being more into fitness, you run more risk into bodily damage (lack of stretching, random injury, etc) i.e. Mark Clayton just from running down field this year ruptured his patellar tendon (knee) with zero contact by another player.

Yes, it can give more self esteem but not in all cases. There are plenty of overweight people that are fully happy with themselves. There are also plenty of healthy people that also still have poor self image.
 
Fair enough. Like I said, I don't expect everyone to be a health freak. If people are happy and content just living life, not worrying about extra pounds or staying in good shape, more power to them.

I enjoy working out, so that parts easy. Plus I'd feel like a hypocrite if I didn't keep myself in good shape appearance wise since I'm very shallow when it comes to dating etc.

Eating healthy can be harder as who doesn't love a good burger or cheesecake etc. As you note, moderation is key there. I mostly eat healthy at home, eat pretty small breakfast and lunches most days and eat pretty much whatever I want the 1 or 2 times a week I go out for dinner or lunch.

Thankfully I've never had much of a sweet tooth so that helps. But I do like salty food like chips, red meat, fried foods etc. so those are the things I have to limit and keep in moderation.
 
If you don't have sweets around you, you'll never be eating them. Candy is my vice, I never buy it but if I get it as a gift I will pound through entire bags in a day. The nice thing about candy though is it's just sugar. A lot people snack on oreos or pastries that utterly destroy you, while a pack of skittles has less sugar than a can of coke and is much less damaging -- and most people become pretty sick of sweet things after finishing a bag of skittles ;)

Anyways, ever since someone recommended me bananas and peanut butter it's become my favorite snack (works well with sliced apple as well). Good source of protein and a serving of fruit that almost feels like eating dessert. When I'm in a hurry that's my usual breakfast.

On the topic of lifting, I've always separated my works outs into muscle groups (bicepts/back, tricepts/shoulder, chest/leg) and it's worked well in keeping me fit -- but if I wanted to gain mass should I do full body workout each time I go?
 
[quote name='2DMention']Thanks. Isn't there some kind of yogurt dip that's good too? Hummus is good, but can be expensive, can't it? How about celery and peanut butter?[/QUOTE]

The hummus doesn't tend to be more expensive than the yogurt dips etc.

Usually $2-4 a tub (though the tubs are small). The Sabra brand is more expensive (usually $3.99 or so if not on sale) but is the best tasting. The other brands like Athenkos (or whatever) tend to be a $1 or so cheaper.

Peanut butter is ok, but still high fat so watch how much you eat. It's the healthy kind of fat, but you can still have to much of it. I've never cared much for peanut butter myself--outside the super sweetened kind in a Reese's Cup or something which I try to avoid.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']
On the topic of lifting, I've always separated my works outs into muscle groups (bicepts/back, tricepts/shoulder, chest/leg) and it's worked well in keeping me fit -- but if I wanted to gain mass should I do full body workout each time I go?[/QUOTE]

No, you're doing it the right way. You really don't want to work a muscle group more than once a week if you're trying to build muscle.

The full body workouts are what one should do the first 2 or 3 months of first getting into lifting and focus on doing the foundation excercises like squats etc.

Once you're into it though, you want to do more exercises for each muscle group with a 3, 4 or 5 day split.

I do a 4 day split currently that's generally:

Day 1: Chest/Triceps/Abs
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Back/Biceps
Day 5: Shoulders/Abs
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

Do a 5-10 minute cardio warm up and then try to do 3 or 4 moves for the big muscles like chest band and quads/hamstrings, and 2 or 3 for smaller muscles like biceps and triceps.

Then do 20-30 minutes of cardio after (can do some on off days too, but probably not for you since you're super thin and trying to gain muscle rather than lose weight). I'd keep the cardio pretty moderate intensity since you don't want to burn to many calories given that you're a hard gainer.
 
I have my workout set up a little differently.

Day 1 - Chest
Day 2 - Back
Day 3 - Rest
Day 4 - Arms
Day 5 - Shoulders/legs
Day 6 - Core
Day 7 - Rest.

5 min on elliptical before, 15 minutes on treadmill after. Although, I want to bump that up to 20 minutes.

I do 5.5 mph for 10 minutes, and then 6.2-6.5 for the last five minutes.
 
I used to do a similar 5-day split, aside from not having a core day and still having shoulders on their own day. I also did it M-F and just took the weekends off back then.

But I just can't get in 5 gym days anymore with my work schedule, plus I was a tad worried I was overtraining, being a high-metabolism, hard gainer myself. So I actually saw better results with putting in an extra day of rest and thus burning fewer calories. Sometimes I cut it down to a 3 day split on a busy week by just doing shoulders on Chest/Triceps day.

For cardio stuff, a lot of things I've read suggest that intervals are the way to go. Run for a few minutes, jog/walk for a few and alternate until you've finished your 20-30 minutes or whatever. Or use the interval programs on machines like cross-trainers and ellipticals etc. that adjust the resistance and incline up and down etc.
 
Anyways, ever since someone recommended me bananas and peanut butter it's become my favorite snack (works well with sliced apple as well). Good source of protein and a serving of fruit that almost feels like eating dessert. When I'm in a hurry that's my usual breakfast.
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty good. I'll give it a try.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I used to do that exact split, aside from not having a core day and just doing abs twice.

I just can't get in 5 gym days anymore with my work schedule, plus I was a tad worried I was overtraining, being a high-metabolism, hard gainer myself. So I actually saw better results with putting in an extra day of rest and thus burning fewer calories.[/QUOTE]

I also throw a couple core exercises (deadlifts and good mornings) into the arm day. God I hate good mornings so much :lol:.

I might look into cardio on my off days. I've definitely caught the fitness bug again, and I feel lazy, slow, sloppy on the rest days.

I'm actually doing an independent study on behavioral techniques for weight management, hopefully I'll find some good info to share with you guys.
 
Yeah, I do deadlifts on leg day, as I do the stiff-legged variety that hit the hamstrings more than the core (but still works the lower back as well).
 
[quote name='2DMention']That sounds pretty good. I'll give it a try.[/QUOTE]

Measuring is a major factor when trying to cut back. Measure all your foods for a month, so you can estimate and eyeball later.

Serving size of Peanut Butter is 2 tbs, which = about 200 calories. A banana is 80 - 100 calories.

I stick with my 1/4 cup of roasted almonds for my go to snack. Fairly cheap, fills me up, provides the salty flavor I want all at once.
 
Yeah, until you get a good sense of food contents, pick up one of those calorie info books (or find a web site) and measure your food and track how many calories your taking in each day for a while. Then you'll get a better since of caloric content, ideal portion sizes etc. to go by.

There are also sites out there to help estimate how many calories you should be eating based on your goals (weight gain or loss), estimates of your metabolism, activity level etc. that you can use as very rough guides. Some also break down how many grams of proteins, carbs and fats you should be getting a day as well.
 
Oh wow, I never knew Straight Leg Deadlifts work the hamstrings more over the core. I always thought it was the opposite...the other deadlift that has the squat motion (not sure of the name) worked the legs more.

So if I want to hit my core, I should be doing the other style?
 
[quote name='seanr1221']Oh wow, I never knew Straight Leg Deadlifts work the hamstrings more over the core. I always thought it was the opposite...the other deadlift that has the squat motion (not sure of the name) worked the legs more.

So if I want to hit my core, I should be doing the other style?[/QUOTE]

It's partly a matter of how you focus--i.e. which muscles you pull more with. That whole mind-muscle connection thing does work. If you want to nail your hamstrings and glutes on stiff legged deadlifts, you have to focus on pulling with your hamstrings and glutes and less with your back.

In terms of the different types of deadlifts:

The squat motion deadlifts hit the quads more (from bending and straightening your knees on the way down an dup), but also get the back and hamstrings.

The stiff-legged ones cut the quads out (since you're not bending your knees much), so hit the hamstrings harder while still hitting the lower back/core.

To me both hit the lower back about the same, so it's more a matter of which part of the legs you want to hit more. I do squats and then either leg press or walking lunges--so my quads are taken care of. So I don't the stiff legged deadlifts to hammer the hamstrings.

I don't really consider it a core exercise, even though it hits the core for sure (as does squats with balancing the bar on your back etc.). Just a hamstring excercise that gets me some extra core work on leg day. :D
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It's partly a matter of how you focus--i.e. which muscles you pull more with. That whole mind-muscle connection thing does work. If you want to nail your hamstrings and glutes on stiff legged deadlifts, you have to focus on pulling with your hamstrings and glutes and less with your back.

In terms of the different types of deadlifts:

The squat motion deadlifts hit the quads more (from bending and straightening your knees on the way down an dup), but also get the back and hamstrings.

The stiff-legged ones cut the quads out (since you're not bending your knees much), so hit the hamstrings harder while still hitting the lower back/core.

To me both hit the lower back about the same, so it's more a matter of which part of the legs you want to hit more. I do squats and then either leg press or walking lunges--so my quads are taken care of. So I don't the stiff legged deadlifts to hammer the hamstrings.

I don't really consider it a core exercise, even though it hits the core for sure (as does squats with balancing the bar on your back etc.). Just a hamstring excercise that gets me some extra core work on leg day. :D[/QUOTE]

Interesting! It's good to learn something new.
 
Thanks again for the link. I'll be using it today.

I'm sore as hell and I love it. It's hard to describe that feeling you have pre and post heavy workouts. It's just like...a constant burn.

Hopefully someone can help, my gf is looking to do a similar spread as me except...

Day 1 - core
Day 2 - back
Day 3 - rest
Day 4 - arms
Day 5 - core again
Day 6 - rest
Day 7 - legs/shoulders

I keep telling her to find a plan, but I think shes lost, so I'm just going to find one for her.

Any suggestions on where to start, or can she basically do everything I'm doing?
 
If shes not lifted before I'd start on a full body workout 2 or 3 times a week that's focused just on the major moves like squat, bench press, dead lifts etc. With much, much lighter weight than you do of course.

After she gets used to that, has form down, isn't misreable sore anymore you could move her on to doing more moves, focusing more on smaller muscles with things like curls and tricep extensions etc. and going on to a split like yours.

Girls don't need to workout differently at all. It's a myth that doing the same types of things will get them huge and muscular. They don't have the testosterone etc. to pack on tons of muscle--the bodybuilder chicks are dopers just like the male bodybuilders as the sport doesn't have drug testing at the highest levels.
 
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