Personally, I swear by kettle bells. Weight lifting does not really keep my attention for too long and since my workouts are geared towards martial arts, I avoid isolation machines because my focus is on full body strength and unified movement. Kettle bells are fun for me because I can get a good cardio workout at the same time as strength training if I so desire. Like anything though, it's all about personal preference. I'm not into bullking, but rather building lean muscle so it works for me and I actually enjoy it.

Also, just living an active lifestyle is a plus. I live on Cape Cod and very close to a nice long bike trail. I work out on an island with juvenile delinquents, so we do a lot of activities out there. I do martial arts 5 days a week and take one yoga class per week, but practice some 3-4 days a week after Muay Thai.

Like a lot of you, I'm not much of a gym guy. If I'm cutting weight for a tournament I will go hit the ellipticals for a while though or if I'm traveling and thus don't have my kettle bells with me I'll buy a week long or day pass to a local gym. It is all addicting though. I messed up my thumb pretty good last night and am taking a couple of days off and don't know what to do with the excess energy. Rest days are important though, so I suppose I'll just rearrange the routine this week.

Ran my first 5k today (Pinion amped me up, then the rest of Broken played during the race in my iPod). I'm running another one next weekend, then a few more through the summer. Then, who knows? I'm not much of a runner so I was glad to even finish below my personal expected time today.

I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. Mine was more due to a person distracting me while i was in the middle of a set and lowering the weight on bench way too fast. A lot of it will come down to how well are your muscles are warmed up, are you hydrated, etc.
Body's do have their peaks but also one should not be afraid to move forward. People need to learn to listen to their body when lifting weight. Some days your body will say no and you need to listen or risk injury if you do too much. And if possible have a person spot you when doing heavier weights.

I will lift pretty hard until I am done playing football. I also run to NIN every day.

denny285 posted:

wackyberry posted:

I just noticed this thread! Count me in as a success story and workout junkie. I've been maintaining a 100+ pound weight loss for over 2 years now and have taken up running. I've done 2 marathons and am training for my 5th half marathon with a time goal. I ran the Las Vegas marathon in December which nicely fell within a week of NIN playing there so it made for a kickass trip.

That's great what marathon do you plan on running nest and what is your time goal? I ended up signing up for the Chicago Marathon right after my first and will be following a 16 week program for this one ( i only trained about 6 weeks for my first but i've always been an athlete)

Thanks! I'm doing the Boston Run to Remember half marathon at the end of May. I don't think I'll be able to get another full marathon in this year. I'm trying to do it in under 2 hours, which I don't think normally will be a problem but we're traveling a LOT in May for the tour so my training is slightly spotty, and of course I never eat as normal while traveling so we'll see how it goes. I think the tour might throw me off my game a little, but it's worth it. Chicago is definitely on my list of marathons to run! Good luck!