be careful with the deadlift. Make sure that your back is kept straight and has a slight concave curve when you're on the descent as you don't want to put stress on the vertebrae (which can make you pull a disc).
Also, many people are afraid of squats because they have "bad" knees. Well, you're not doing squats right. Just analyze the hell out of squats, have other people watch your form, etc. Some pointers, keep your back as straight as possible, tighten your abs as much as possible, when you squat down look straight ahead. When you squat up look straight ahead. Make sure that as you increase the weight that you squat that you can do them with good form, and that your legs don't buckle inwards (happens to some people).
Finally, FOR ANY WEIGHT LIFTING exercise, make sure you do a warmup for the muscles that you are going to workout. You need to do this so that blood starts entering the area you want to target, and that the tendons and ligaments are warmed up and pliable.
To do this, do the following: 8 reps at 50 % of your max [not your absolute maximum weight for that exercise, but the maximum weight for say 6 reps] always keeping in mind good form. Wait 30 seconds or when you feel confident you can do another set. Do 6 reps at 70% of your max. Wait 30 seconds~1 minute. Do 4 reps at 80% of your max. 30 seconds~1 minute (in these rest times you can stack on the extra weights for the next set). Do 1 rep at 90-95% of you max weight. Rest 30-1 minute. BEGIN your real sets with reps. At this point your body will be warmed up for that exercise.
Also remember that abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym. If you want to see that 6-pack under that fat layer, you need to eat healthy, and not diet like crazy (because then you lose muscle mass and your muscles become smalls). For most people to see the 6-pack you need to have a body fat percentage of like 5-9 percent. (most people are 13% or above). It's not hard to do, but when you pack on muscle, your body actually burns more calories per pound of muscle (because muscle is more metabolically active)
Also, make sure that you drink a lot of water each day (try to get as much as a gallon each day) because you need to get of the toxins that your body produces and to keep your body hydrated. This becomes more important, the more active your lifestyle becomes (i.e. working out). Expect to drink as much as a gallon of water each day (you will be pissing a lot at the beginning but your body adapts after a week or so).
In conclusion, staying in shape consists of 50% working out, 50% nutrition. Perhaps even the nutritition could be 65% because it's just that important.
i'm going to include some notes that i have accumulated over the years so you can guys can read them over.
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=6063
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=6064
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=6065
if you have the time, i suggest signing up to discussfitness.com forums, and looking around there, as they do have a very good community for fitness
👍
Some points for nutrition. You need to have carbohydrates for energy. They are your main source of energy throughout the day. Atkins may help you lose 5 pounds or so quickly, but you're looking for LIFELONG changes in your nutritional and exercise habits. Eat healthy 6.75/7 days of the weak. On the 7th day, have a cheat meal (NOTICE I SAID CHEAT MEAL NOT DAY!!!), and eat whatever you want. This won't affect your gains in the long run because the other 6.75/7 days of the week you're living healthily. This also makes eating healthy a lot more tolerable because you want be longing the bad food as much.
Easy ways to lose fat quickly. Stay the **** away from pepsi, any sodas, even diet sodas, etc. All it is is cheap corn syrup that is mass produced with lots and lots of phosphoric acid in them that will make your teeth roth. Do you really want to be a doctor that can't smile to their patients because your teeth are ****ty? I don't think so.
DON'T EAT 3 MEALs A DAY!!! Eat 4-7 meals a day every 2-3 hours. Think aboutt his logically. Our bodies haven't changed in the past 5 million billion years that we have been on this planet (probably a little less
🙂), and what did we do throughout the day. We actively searched for food, and constantly ate throughout the day. I know it sounds hard to do this, but anyone can do it. If you're eating 4-7 meals a day, they're gonna be in smaller portions and take less time to eat per meal. This makes sure that your metabolism is constant, and that you're not having random jumps in your metabolism spikes throughout the day.
We store fat on our bodies because food was so scarce, but now with mass manufacturing and processed foods, we're getting way too much sugars. 300 years ago, sugars used to consist of like 3-5 percent of the diet. Now it has become like 30-50 percent for most people.
Proteins are essential to building muscle, blah blah blah, you allknow that.
There are healthy fats that you need for daily functioning i.e. fish oil, flax oil, olive oil, canola oil. Having a tablespoon (or a pill of it) every day in the morning is more than enough.
This is what my food schedule looks like:
8 am: wake up in the morning. Eat rolled oats (oatmeal) with milk, an apple, a banana, A MULIVITAMIN (and you must take this everyday), fish oil capsule
10 am - organic (not processed) whole wheat pasta with some tomato sauce, milk, orange
10:30~10:45 (after food has been digested a bit) - workout in the gym
12:00 - when i come back from the gym i put some whey protein in a cup of water (i don't use milk after the gym workout, because milk contains a protein called casein that slows down absorption of the amino acids. However, milk (and cottage cheese) is good at night, because it steadily supplies amino acids to the body throughout the night.
1 pm - tuna sandwich/chicken breast (i try not to have that much tuna as tuna is known for mercury saturation), piece of whole wheat bread, milk, spinach leaves
3:30 pm - chicken breast/lean turkey meat (i decide between the two based on personal choice), btw make sure you add some spipces or something if you can't stand the taste of plain chicken, vegetables i.e. broccolli, tomatoes, milk (i drink a lot of milk
🙂 )
6:30~7:00 - some type of meat, milk, much more vegetables, very small piece of bread
Sleep at 10:30 pm ~11:30, before i go to bed, I eat a serving of cottage cheese, drink some milk that is mixed in with a scoop of protein.
8 hours of sleep. Continue next day (you can change up the foods this is only for one day, and i don't do this every single day).
Okay, finally last last thing before i'm done
🙂, rest is crucial not only for studies, but for building the body. Sleep is the time when growth releasing hormone is produced at its peak, and when most progress is made (so you're tearing your body down during the workout, and repairing it during the night). Seeing as you're all in medical school, you might be the type of person that pulls all-nighters every once in a while
🙂, and one benefit of sticking to this is that you will have more energy for that occassional all-nighter.
The last last thing is that when you exercise, you begin to become more efficient with your time, and you feel like you actually did something tangibly productive so you feel GOOD about yourself. I feel 100x more better when I workout, then when I do well on a test for some reason (of course I feel happy when i do well on a test, but since we're committed to such high standards in academics we are used to this).
If this is all too much (and it isn't), and even if you do 1/2 of what i told you, you will see signifcant gains in a month.
Peace
