I've got nobody to train with, I'm doing this alone unfortunately.
Good to know I'm on the right track at least.
I know my results may vary, but how long did it take YOU to build that sort of stamina? How long until I should be able to determine whether I need to be pushing myself even more than I am, or whether I'm going at a good rate to improve my endurance?
How 'out of shape' are my results anyways? I remember about 5 years ago in P.E. class we had to do a 20-30 minute jog for a fitness test. My personal goal line for endurance is to be able to pass this test running consistently, if I had to take it again for whatever reason.
When I say 'steady pace' I mean a pace that requires me to run from the ball of my foot (no heel striking), but is fast enough that I can work my muscles at a comfortable rate of motion as well. I usually find with running that there's a speed gap between a walking position and jogging position which actually takes a bit of extra effort to slow my motions in jogging form to achieve, so I just run at the pace that feels most natural.
When you compare 5 minutes to an hour, that looks awful. But I known that I'm just starting this, I know I'm not in the greatest of shape. For an 18 year old, is that just flat out bad? Or am I actually reaching a fitness level suitable (but not good) for my age?
One thing I've noticed that was quite surprising is that I'm not having to force my breath. My body runs out of energy before running out of oxygen. my breathing does pick up, and I breath a lot deeper, but I've been smoking for about 4 years. I was expecting my lungs to be the first thing that started giving me trouble, but I seem to be perfectly capable of running until I could barely walk without having to grab at my chest or bend over to catch my breath. I do some SCUBA diving, singing, and I whistle a lot at a very fast pace (whistling on the inhale and exhale to get really fast rhythms) so maybe that's trained my lungs and stopped them from completely degrading.
I'm not in much position to quit smoking. I've been able to cut down since running, and I'm using the running as a sort of preparation to get my body in better condition to reverse the nicotine addiction when I do quit cold turkey.
So how does this sound, I'm still trying to figure out where exactly my body is at. I have weird fitness. I can lift huge amounts of weight, always could (I can almost bench my own bodyweight with absolutely 0 strength training). In P.E. class I was always able to sprint fast enough to keep up with, or even outrun most of the athletic types. I could also clear the high hurdles, which over half my class struggled with, and I even managed to clear the last ones after losing about 90% of my momentum (being fat and short, you lose a lot of momentum landing from a jump that high). But my muscles get really tired quickly, and my body seems to run out of energy quickly. As far as short term strength was concerned, even at 230lbs 5'8, I could perform well enough to compete with the other kids who ran on the track team, or who spent every lunch in the weight room training or playing football.
I've always been aware that this was unusual. Being twice the size and a fraction of the height of my classmates, by all logic I should not have been one of the top 10 high jumpers in a class of 30. I was also in the top 10 short distance sprinters, and almost broke the provincial record on the grip strength test. I realize this probably means I was born with very good genetics. I'd like to give thanks to this luck and make the most out of myself.
I've always kind of enjoyed being freakishly strong by nature. Given my size it was the only sense of fitness I could be happy with. Now that I'm dropping weight from running, I'm noticing that I already have very thick and long muscles. My biceps are about twice the width of most people I know my age who hit the gym 3-4 days a week. I don't want to lose this sort of strength, but I don't want to waste all my energy with intensive strength training. I'm also in no position to be hitting the gym.
How much of this muscle will be burned away if I'm able to keep them worked out with dumbbells every other day as long as there's an abundance of fat in my body to be burned for energy?
I'd like to lose my excess weight (specifically get rid of the man boobs), but if I can, I'd like to keep the body I developed by carrying an extra ~100lbs around my whole life. I'd also like to complete my goals of endurance and circulatory/respiratory health before I start shifting more focus on my weight training, so at the moment my excercise is heavily weighted in favour of running, with some weight work thrown in, just enough to tire the muscles and achieve a mild worn out tension at a resting state, but not enough to negatively impact my running time. One thing I'd like to note is that I've been doing squats (maybe not squats but they look almost exactly like squats, except that you use dumb bells), but I haven't been using anywhere close to my maximum weight. I've been doing 40lbs (20lb weight in each hand) and 60lbs (30lbs weights in each hand). 30lbs is the maximum weight I'm able to lift with just my arms, so this is easily below what I could be doing for my legs. Should I increase this weight and lower my reps? Or should I continue to do more reps at this weight to get what I'm looking for?
Remember, this muscle is naturally built, it hasn't been built through any sort of training, so I don't know how much or if this muscle will really start to burn off as I burn off the fat.
Can you give me any further suggestions on my training and what I should consider given my unique condition of fitness?
I know about doing your strength training last, but I have all the time in my world (school problems, social problems, health issues going on stopping me from getting a job at the moment) so really I'm working out several times a day, as much as I can without injuring myself, with plenty of resting time between workouts, and varying degrees of intensity each workout. The only schedule I follow is with my weights which I do once every other day with a fairly consistent routine. Running however, I train with what my body wants.
I have the mentality that I'm going to push as hard as I can whenever I can, but I also take the approach that I'm in no real hurry to get things done. If my muscles aren't feeling perfect, or if I'm just lacking the energy I might just go for a long walk instead of a run, or I might do a few intervals of light jogging just to see if I can't boost my energy to push more, but if I can't I know I'll be back out in a couple hours and I can just keep myself active at a pace suitable for recovery until I get that wind and energy to push myself properly. I do at least 1 pushing run once a day. It may take me a few walks until my muscles feel warmed up and loose, but one way or another I always manage to get 1, if not 2 exhausting runs every single day. So it's not like I have to work my exercise into my daily routine or anything. I have all the time in the world to throw in something extra here and there or change this or that, the only question really is what my body will allow me to do.
With all this free time, you can see why I'm so interested on being able to maintain the heavy endurance. I'm sure plenty of people who physically could, would love to have enough time to go for a 3-4, if not 6 hour run every day as training. I'd like to take full advantage of an otherwise crappy situation. I really have nothing better to do than walk and run around the city all day. If my body would allow it I'd be doing 12 hour workouts every day just to pass the time.
Coming back to edit this again because on my first run of the day today I set out expecting to just do some light walking for a bit with some jogging thrown in, then come back and go out for a harder run later in the day. Instead I got out, started walking, my body felt uncomfortable moving this slowly so I picked up the pace... By the end of the run I'd traveled ~1.7 miles in ~20 minutes at a constant pace of 5mph! HUGE improvement thanks to my legs not getting as sore. At this level of intensity though, I did start to feel the effects of smoking in my lungs a bit more. I'm used to a bit of a heavy feel in my lungs after I've been running thanks to smoking, so I usually take deep, controlled breaths as my oxygen needs increase, making sure to expand my chest and lungs to full capacity. I figure I chose to smoke, I shouldn't cheat my exercises just because my lungs have to work hard to compensate for the consequences. This works well for me. I don't get winded, I don't get any pains or anything, I just have to learn to use more of my lungs when I breath to compensate. It sort of feels good to breath like that while running slow. I guess the shallow airways of my lungs are all clogged with tar so I can only properly absorb high amounts of oxygen when it enters the deeper airways in my lungs that barely get used.
This run however, around the 15-17 minute mark, I started to notice a slight "auuuuhhhhn" noise on my exhale. Like air passing over accumulated phlegm. I could prevent this, but it required some work from my chest muscles to help expand my airways to make it stop, and I'd have to keep them held open. Instead I just ignored it figuring "Yeah yeah, shut up lungs, I know I smoke" and kept going just making sure to keep my breath steady and controlled. I was not panting, huffing, or wheezing by the end of the workout, and my breathing returned to normal without the noise quite quickly.
Should I be asking a doctor about this? I figure that since there was no pain involved, I wasn't having any problems, just crap being blown around in my lungs. I know this wont stop unless I stop smoking, but until I do quit smoking, can I at least hope to see some improvements if I keep training like this?
