Pretty awesome, but I actually find highly developed strength much more impressive and inspiring when combined with agility, as in these examples!
Well, that ... is why I like Olympic weightlifting. Some people say the Olympic snatch is gymnastics with a barbell. I'd venture to say they're right. Olympic weightlifting is not a brute strength sport at all, it's very much about flexibility and agility. If you doubt me, try doing some of the Olympic lifts, even with just a bare bar. The reason they require so much agility and actual athleticism is that they're full range of motion lifts, the bar goes from the ground to over your head, in the clean and jerk, 2 motions, and in the snatch, one motion. It's an entirely different ballgame than say, benchpressing, where your ROM is only as long as your arms to your chest, or a deadlift, from the ground to your waist. Think of it this way, too, imagine you holding your bodyweight over your head, can you imagine how much balance it takes to simply not fall over with it over your head? The Olympic lifts, once you get into sport training, are often used to develop good explosive strength and overall full body strength. ... [ YouTube link ] ... see how she has to drop down really low to catch the bar? It's a really complex motion. ... a lot of people have that misconception about Olympic lifting, that it's "just" strength, and it's simply not so. I'd probably venture to say Olympic lifting is just a rung below more technical than gymnastics actually.
Thanks for that link and analysis. I found it rather surprising but suddenly realised what you meant, especially when I thought of the Cirque de Soleil stuff where someone has to hold someone else over their head or to the side of them etc. Interesting .
1000Knives wrote:
... My sport though is figure skating. Figure skating is so so fun, and it's really technical ... . I don't really like parkour, simply for the fact that it seems really dangerous ... that rules out parkour for me, and gymnastics is just, well, really really hard. ... I just love in skating the feeling like you're flying you get everytime you step out on the ice. ... .
I haven't ever lived close enough to an ice-rink to practice it, and the couple of times that I did try it, in my early teens, my ankles didn't seem strong enough to feel safe or comfortable doing it, balancing on a blade ... On the other hand I absolutely loved skating, old-fashioned skating on four-wheeled skates like little "cars". I got really good at it ... around the age of 10-12! :lol But then we moved, from a small village with smooth and safe wide pavements near our house and v little traffic, to a house by the side of a busy road in a big busy town with nowhere close enough for me to skate freely and safely, so I gave up, and later, when I could have picked it up again, the only kind of skates I could find were ones with one long line of wheels under them, which put my ankles under pressure again.
But I loved that flying feeling too, of skimming, of moving way faster than could on my bare feet, while still using "usual" walking/running movements/skills.
Agree about parkour and risk/danger, but just love watching it, the freedom and grace like monkeys swinging through the trees, semi-weightless, almost magical. Wish I could do it! :lol Way too late to start now! Even if I began with baby-manoeuvres somewhere over those huge drop-mattresses.
I'm enjoying lifting weights though, and simply feeling slightly stronger again overall. Another of the online-videos that I've begun using as model/tutorial is all about building core strength, and several of the exercises in it are still really hard for me to do, but I'm gradually getting better! :lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83YoRPB3P2A&feature=related
Might be worth checking out Sparkpeople.com. I got more into fitness a couple of years ago and joined the teen branch of this (it's a free website) though I had a few health issues and had to quit. I've recently got back into it and I find that they have some really good videos on there. Some are specifically tailored to certain programs they have set up. Like 28 day bootcamp. There's also a tonne of other information on there about health, nutrition and fitness in general. It's worth a look at least. _________________ Am usually bored so PMs are welcome!
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ...
Might be worth checking out Sparkpeople.com. I got more into fitness a couple of years ago and joined the teen branch of this (it's a free website) though I had a few health issues and had to quit. I've recently got back into it and I find that they have some really good videos on there. Some are specifically tailored to certain programs they have set up. Like 28 day bootcamp. There's also a tonne of other information on there about health, nutrition and fitness in general. It's worth a look at least.
Thank you for the ref. I had a look. They have an impressive range of videos, very thorough and comprehensive, but I prefer videos with music and I need to really identify with a presenter in some way, or find them appealing/amusing/interesting or something, and none of the ones I saw at Sparkpeople did that for me.
But as a result of looking at their stuff I realised that what I've been hearing as "ploddies" in relation to certain equipment, ( eg. rings/balls for pressing ) which I thought was a trademark or something, is actually how most people pronounce "pilates", :lol and on following that up I came across the following very beautiful, if rather long, ( 49 minutes ) and slow, exercise/stretching video, apparently by someone from Roumania, currently living in Israel, speaking russian ( please someone correct me on that if I'm wrong ) doing callisthenics.
While looking for more core/torso workouts/exercises I found the following great warm-up, ( an increasingly urgent :lol requirement for handling the tougher weights and core routines ), which I have incorporated into my "Major Muscle Training" sessions:
It's so much better than most of the warm-ups I'd seen before in that the presenter doesn't spend hours explaining the workout, it doesn't require any equipment, doesn't waste time, and covers a lot of ground really fast compared to many warm-up videos which seem to spend the first five minutes just relaxing the neck :lol or seem to believe that warming-up = marching on the spot.
Discovered a super supplementary warm-up exercise though, when about to begin with the above routine this morning. I was feeling fed up of having to use mats for the slightest floor-exercise because the linoleum on living-room-kitchen floor was grubby, ( dusty, smeared/stained and scattered with fluff/grit/bits, etc ) so decided to clean it! 15 minutes later floor was shiny and new, and we were well warmed up. Was weird to realise how great for the core, legs, arms, etc a bit of housework is/can be ... ... ... !!! :lol ...
Anyone else have any favourite online exercise/workout videos?
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I'm beginning to wonder if the apparent lack of interest in this subject/use of online videos is partly to do with the poor quality of internet connection available to many people, dial-up or slow or expensive kinds of internet provision? ... Because as an aspie I'm amazed that more people on the spectrum aren't into this way of getting fit, in the safety and solitude etc of their own home! :lol
Lol look how active this forum is. It's one of the least active subforums on this site. I don't think people in general care about fitness much anymore. It's all about that Facebook now. In a way, the nerds have won. Now everyone cares about what happens on the computer in schools more than they do about what happens in the gym or on the field. People in general now are getting fatter and less in shape, just the way things are now for everyone. So this site here reflects that, and possibly exponentially, as most of us are "nerds" who in school, etc, probably got ostracized for lack of athletic ability, and so have negative connotations about trying athletic stuff because of it.
For me personally, with videos, though, I think my lack of body language skills translates to watching movements and stuff, too. I really need things explained well verbally. Also I'm just weird and constantly like music on, and videos disrupt that. Main thing that's weird about me, I'd rather read like 10 pages of stuff rather than watch a 4 minute video. Weird I know. I one time read I don't know, the equivalent of 100 printed pages about Olympic weightlifting and a guy pointing out USA's problems in it, just...because.
I think a big issue I have in fitness stuff is, I sorta like doing things my own way, coming up with my own particular formulas and whatnot. To an extent, it can be bad, as I'll reinvent the wheel sometimes, but yeah. I'm not one to blindly follow coaches, etc. I set specific goals in mind for specific things I wanna do, and then specifically do those things, and yeah... Like even with weights, I originally thought weightlifting was stupid. I only knew of like, bodybuilding kinda movements, you know, tricep and bicep isolation exercise kinda things, and just thought it was dumb. Then I read about isometrics, thought it sounded slightly more logical, then discovered powerlifting/Olympic lifting movements, and thought it was really cool. But, I didn't like what everyone else was doing, and so didn't do it. I like finding my own way to do things. Again, sometimes I have to watch myself, as I can be completely dumb about it, but yeah.
But yeah, the main reason I guess is just apathy. Like, in high school, I thought lifting weights was a "cool" thing, but my family members and friends get quite annoyed at me talking about PRs and different techniques and all that. Any fitness endeavor, you're really not gonna make friends, honestly you might lose some if you get serious, simply because your healthy choices might clash with their unhealthy ones (ie, them going out drinking or something.)
Sorry for my rambling, but yeah. _________________ Too kawaii to live...
Too sugoi to die!
Lol look how active this forum is. It's one of the least active subforums on this site. I don't think people in general care about fitness much anymore. It's all about that Facebook now. In a way, the nerds have won. Now everyone cares about what happens on the computer in schools more than they do about what happens in the gym or on the field. People in general now are getting fatter and less in shape, just the way things are now for everyone. So this site here reflects that, and possibly exponentially, as most of us are "nerds" who in school, etc, probably got ostracized for lack of athletic ability, and so have negative connotations about trying athletic stuff because of it.
I also thought it might have been because of the whole site getting rather slow recently; this section had always seemed pretty lively in the past when I used to post a lot more ( 2007-2009 ) so it didn't occur to me that perhaps very few people actually look/post in here. Agree about how physical activity is being increasingly sidelined, everywhere, at school, home and at work.
I was definitely one of the super-inactive bookish types at school who hated sport, teams and things, and running around in the freezing cold getting damp and muddy, expected to put on bursts of speed to catch and cover etc without the regular training necessary to do it well, being yelled at by teachers standing comfortably on the sidelines, etc. It was just hugely stressful, on top of the changing rooms hassle, sweaty clothes, no shower after ( impoverished girls grammar school in UK ), having to rush to get dressed in time for the next lesson, etc. Hideous basically.
And even after an awesome epiphany about my body, its value/importance, etc in 1992 after which I vowed to care for it and changed my diet radically I only managed to maintain a regular physical exercise routine ( 5 x 45 min swimming per week, 2-3 aerobics/cardio sessions/wk, 4-6 40 minutes fast walking and one long ramble/hike per week ) for about 6 months before abandoning it. I didn't give up on the dietary changes though; in fact nutrition, ( and its impact on mental as well as physical health ) became a huge special interest of mine. But that sort of lost its appeal last year, and I surprisingly find myself increasingly fascinated by the role of physical activity in both mental and physical health.
I remember reading somewhere a couple of years ago about how profoundly important, even crucial, phsyical activity is to the formation of neural connections, in *learning* anything in fact, in being *able* to learn new things, as if the brain needs the sort of hugely complex network created and maintained by physical activity/movement to "attach" learning to ( like mnemonic tricks which involve imagining rooms you walk around in order to remember things? ). I don't know; I just remember being very struck by that idea, which was backed up by research into how children learn in school etc, and the ill-effects of predominantly "desk-based" schooling.
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For me personally, with videos, though, I think my lack of body language skills translates to watching movements and stuff, too. I really need things explained well verbally. Also I'm just weird and constantly like music on, and videos disrupt that. Main thing that's weird about me, I'd rather read like 10 pages of stuff rather than watch a 4 minute video. Weird I know. I one time read I don't know, the equivalent of 100 printed pages about Olympic weightlifting and a guy pointing out USA's problems in it, just...because.
I have that problem too, and my also-AS son, so we flail around an awful lot when first using a video, and some videos/exercise routines are quite simply beyond us completely. But I do need to *see* the movements, because I find it extremely difficult to translate words/language into physical reality. I love reading, and would far prefer to read a long article or book about nutrition for instance than watch and lsiten to someone talking about the same subject on a video, I hate having to learn by listening to people "telling". I'd much rather read about it, or watch them actually doing it. ... And the videos mean that the window of "time" is opened up in front of me to use for the exercise, whereas reading about it doesn't do that.
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I think a big issue I have in fitness stuff is, I sorta like doing things my own way, coming up with my own particular formulas and whatnot. To an extent, it can be bad, as I'll reinvent the wheel sometimes, but yeah. I'm not one to blindly follow coaches, etc. I set specific goals in mind for specific things I wanna do, and then specifically do those things, and yeah... Like even with weights, I originally thought weightlifting was stupid. I only knew of like, bodybuilding kinda movements, you know, tricep and bicep isolation exercise kinda things, and just thought it was dumb. Then I read about isometrics, thought it sounded slightly more logical, then discovered powerlifting/Olympic lifting movements, and thought it was really cool. But, I didn't like what everyone else was doing, and so didn't do it. I like finding my own way to do things. Again, sometimes I have to watch myself, as I can be completely dumb about it, but yeah.
I know about reinventing the wheel. :lol I have done that so much/so often. At least with online videos you can just switch them off, skip bits, laugh at them, grumble/groan, adapt/customise them etc, whereas any real-life gym class you can't so easily, and without the class I just end up doing nothing very much.
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But yeah, the main reason I guess is just apathy. Like, in high school, I thought lifting weights was a "cool" thing, but my family members and friends get quite annoyed at me talking about PRs and different techniques and all that. Any fitness endeavor, you're really not gonna make friends, honestly you might lose some if you get serious, simply because your healthy choices might clash with their unhealthy ones (ie, them going out drinking or something.) Sorry for my rambling, but yeah.
I experienced that loss of friends, or increasing impatience or even hostility towards me/my conversation during the first few/several years of my interest in diet, until I learned to stop talking about it. The internet was a lifesaver for that, in terms of finding others with the same interests.
Re. Rambling: not a problem. Ramble away. :lol Appreciate your posting/comments.
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And this one is the Russian/Roumanian callanetics one which I already posted a link to above, but just the first 10 minutes of it, some really good standing stretching stuff. I love the feel of this video; really calming.
Interesting .
:lol and on following that up I came across the following very beautiful, if rather long, ( 49 minutes ) and slow, exercise/stretching video, apparently by someone from Roumania, currently living in Israel, speaking russian ( please someone correct me on that if I'm wrong 
... Because as an aspie I'm amazed that more people on the spectrum aren't into this way of getting fit, in the safety and solitude etc of their own home! :lol 
