Intro Post to team_fitness
I thought it was such a waste for me to delete a big 'ol chunk of text and pretend like it never existed... so I'm just posting my wordy as hell intro post to team_fitness, sans original cuts. I'm just posting it in my LJ for preservation purposes... okay, well, I guess I did say that I'd post it if anyone else wanted to read the "backstory" part of my fitness in high school and crap. =P I also didn't edit the entry if I changed some of the after material in the community post.
Hey there everyone, my name is Cynthia (but you probably know me as Chinny if you know me ^_-). I'd heard about this community from Pernell awhile ago, but I kind of fell off the face of LJ for awhile - and I didn't realize that this community is locked! Anyways, I should probably tell you a little about me, some stats, and my adventures in fitness...
General info:
Filipino, Age 24, 5'1 (and a half), weight varies around 130-136ish.
I loved being an "athletic" type when I was in grade/high school. I played basketball but now I mostly love volleyball, but my sports interests range beyond those. I didn't play sports in college and I was an on/off weightlifter. I used to coach club volleyball for two years after high school (at my high school with help from my v-ball coach) and the Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS) program visted my school and talked to the athletes - their focus then was on three main lifts; bench press, squat, and power clean. I believe this is what started my real interest in general heavy lifting because all my players trained to do it as well.
When I was in high school and active in sports, you had practice every day and either games or practice on Saturday... add in that you're young and invincible, then you could seemingly eat whatever the hell you wanted as long as it wasn't completely on the far end of the spectrum (as far as food consumption goes.) Since I wasn't the one running around everyday (I was the one telling people to run, ha), eventually it caught up to me. I didn't have the discipline to be at the gym doing whatever to match my previous fitness level, but my diet didn't change - I still ate the same crap thinking I'd be OK because I was an athlete.
One day, I jumped up to play DDR and actually FELT my midsection jiggling around. In the years prior to that, I'd *never* felt it move around like that... so I was depressed of course. Add that to coming back from two weeks in the Philippines and stepping on a scale at the end of the trip - I was 140lbs. of crap, because I knew that I didn't do anything but hang out, drink, eat... I turned 21 not too long before that, so of course that wouldn't help anything. So after a bit, I joined a class (for one lousy credit hour) at my community college that required me to come to the gym a minimum of twice a week, but no more than three times a week. Excessive visits did not carry over to the next week, and you could only miss a small number of classes (since it counted for points) before dropping letter grades. There was also a series of tests at the start, and then you were tested at the end to see if you progressed... you were also graded on if you progressed or not since in theory... you'd have progressed anyway if you were attending, right? :) It certainly helped with me being consistent about attending the gym, crappy gym or not.
Fast forward to now: I currently work for my Park District's Fitness facility. One thing that really helps facilitate productivity for me is the environment - I've always had an interest in gaining loads of strength, and I'm already at work in a gym. I talk to a lot of these people about their routines and goals concerning real life and their workouts and it can be inspiring at times when their ID picture looks nothing like them because they completely transformed themselves into someone healthier and more aware.
Being a woman and built like a pear(shape), my legs have always been my strongest point. My wrists are tiny (about a 5.5 inch circumference if you were curious) and my arms had just followed suit - they were thin and tiny. I used to have chronic knee pain... might have been from being 140lbs when in high school I had problems TRYING to get over 120lbs!
My major turning point would have to have been August of last year. I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (or ACL) in my right knee in November of the prior year and had surgery performed on it. In a nutshell: When torn, the knee is unstable and can "buckle," causing pain and swelling... you can't run (safely), that's for sure. Recovery after surgery is anywhere from 6 months to a year if you have good physical therapy... which I only had for a month because I turned 23 and wasn't eligible for my insurance at the time... great.
(Pictures are interesting... and break up huge walls of text...)
So now I've got this honking bionic leg and can only bend it (x) degrees because my muscles essentially have to reconnect and remember how to bend properly and shite... let me tell you, nothing makes you more appreciative about simply bending your limb than not being able to use it at all. :) The doctor eventually cleared me to only do upper body work, so I got to work - it was a way for me to "even out" after all. From there on, I started *really* attending the gym regularly (and I still worked at the gym with that thing on for a month, haha.) Gym-goers were pretty supportive, and I've been told that it was inspiring to see me lifting in my condition - Kind of like, "Man, what excuse do I have if that girl is not even at full capacity and she's working her ass off?"
So all I've been doing since then is researching, being consistent in attending, and the hardest would be modifying my diet... food and how I eat that is. I try to eat a lot of protein (100+ to about 135g/day) and I also supplement with protein powders, green tea, fish oil, a multi, CLA, and calcium.
I previously was doing a traditional bodybuilding split each day of chest/triceps/shoulders, back/biceps, legs(and abs?), but I've recently started the Stronglifts 5x5 program, which is essentially 3x a week with a specific sequence of exercises; major ones which are performed 5 sets for 5 reps among other things. I hope to see some great gains on this program and I'm really looking for something different with my workouts because I'm more a fan of strength training (gaining strength) than bodybuilding (sculpting muscle, focus on building mass) at this point in time.
In the future I'm also aiming for my knee to fully recover, or at least to the point of not consciously worrying about its stability - so that I can pursue other types of exercise a la Crossfit or some type of (mixed) martial arts.
I constantly lurk at gymrats and have learned boatloads of info from their info page links and from all the posts that scroll by. They're brutally honest about what they think, and mostly have the science and journal info to back it up. It's one of the communities that I heavily recommend because when you read fitness forums like bodybuilding.com, t-nation.com and the like, you usually have to sift through a lot of crap. That community minimizes the sifting for sure, but if you ever join and intend to post there... please research it first, I'm not kidding about the brutal. :)
If you read all that, thank you... I realize that the post is fricken ginormous, but I tried cutting it up a bit and I thought that including my rehab story might help inspire someone to jump to the gym.
Here's one last (somewhat old) progress picture of mine that I hope may inspire some other lady to hit some weights... but feel free to express if you don't think women should have muscles and such, I'm open to opinion. ;)
Hey there everyone, my name is Cynthia (but you probably know me as Chinny if you know me ^_-). I'd heard about this community from Pernell awhile ago, but I kind of fell off the face of LJ for awhile - and I didn't realize that this community is locked! Anyways, I should probably tell you a little about me, some stats, and my adventures in fitness...
General info:
Filipino, Age 24, 5'1 (and a half), weight varies around 130-136ish.
I loved being an "athletic" type when I was in grade/high school. I played basketball but now I mostly love volleyball, but my sports interests range beyond those. I didn't play sports in college and I was an on/off weightlifter. I used to coach club volleyball for two years after high school (at my high school with help from my v-ball coach) and the Bigger Faster Stronger (BFS) program visted my school and talked to the athletes - their focus then was on three main lifts; bench press, squat, and power clean. I believe this is what started my real interest in general heavy lifting because all my players trained to do it as well.
When I was in high school and active in sports, you had practice every day and either games or practice on Saturday... add in that you're young and invincible, then you could seemingly eat whatever the hell you wanted as long as it wasn't completely on the far end of the spectrum (as far as food consumption goes.) Since I wasn't the one running around everyday (I was the one telling people to run, ha), eventually it caught up to me. I didn't have the discipline to be at the gym doing whatever to match my previous fitness level, but my diet didn't change - I still ate the same crap thinking I'd be OK because I was an athlete.
One day, I jumped up to play DDR and actually FELT my midsection jiggling around. In the years prior to that, I'd *never* felt it move around like that... so I was depressed of course. Add that to coming back from two weeks in the Philippines and stepping on a scale at the end of the trip - I was 140lbs. of crap, because I knew that I didn't do anything but hang out, drink, eat... I turned 21 not too long before that, so of course that wouldn't help anything. So after a bit, I joined a class (for one lousy credit hour) at my community college that required me to come to the gym a minimum of twice a week, but no more than three times a week. Excessive visits did not carry over to the next week, and you could only miss a small number of classes (since it counted for points) before dropping letter grades. There was also a series of tests at the start, and then you were tested at the end to see if you progressed... you were also graded on if you progressed or not since in theory... you'd have progressed anyway if you were attending, right? :) It certainly helped with me being consistent about attending the gym, crappy gym or not.
Fast forward to now: I currently work for my Park District's Fitness facility. One thing that really helps facilitate productivity for me is the environment - I've always had an interest in gaining loads of strength, and I'm already at work in a gym. I talk to a lot of these people about their routines and goals concerning real life and their workouts and it can be inspiring at times when their ID picture looks nothing like them because they completely transformed themselves into someone healthier and more aware.
Being a woman and built like a pear(shape), my legs have always been my strongest point. My wrists are tiny (about a 5.5 inch circumference if you were curious) and my arms had just followed suit - they were thin and tiny. I used to have chronic knee pain... might have been from being 140lbs when in high school I had problems TRYING to get over 120lbs!
My major turning point would have to have been August of last year. I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (or ACL) in my right knee in November of the prior year and had surgery performed on it. In a nutshell: When torn, the knee is unstable and can "buckle," causing pain and swelling... you can't run (safely), that's for sure. Recovery after surgery is anywhere from 6 months to a year if you have good physical therapy... which I only had for a month because I turned 23 and wasn't eligible for my insurance at the time... great.
(Pictures are interesting... and break up huge walls of text...)
So now I've got this honking bionic leg and can only bend it (x) degrees because my muscles essentially have to reconnect and remember how to bend properly and shite... let me tell you, nothing makes you more appreciative about simply bending your limb than not being able to use it at all. :) The doctor eventually cleared me to only do upper body work, so I got to work - it was a way for me to "even out" after all. From there on, I started *really* attending the gym regularly (and I still worked at the gym with that thing on for a month, haha.) Gym-goers were pretty supportive, and I've been told that it was inspiring to see me lifting in my condition - Kind of like, "Man, what excuse do I have if that girl is not even at full capacity and she's working her ass off?"
So all I've been doing since then is researching, being consistent in attending, and the hardest would be modifying my diet... food and how I eat that is. I try to eat a lot of protein (100+ to about 135g/day) and I also supplement with protein powders, green tea, fish oil, a multi, CLA, and calcium.
I previously was doing a traditional bodybuilding split each day of chest/triceps/shoulders, back/biceps, legs(and abs?), but I've recently started the Stronglifts 5x5 program, which is essentially 3x a week with a specific sequence of exercises; major ones which are performed 5 sets for 5 reps among other things. I hope to see some great gains on this program and I'm really looking for something different with my workouts because I'm more a fan of strength training (gaining strength) than bodybuilding (sculpting muscle, focus on building mass) at this point in time.
In the future I'm also aiming for my knee to fully recover, or at least to the point of not consciously worrying about its stability - so that I can pursue other types of exercise a la Crossfit or some type of (mixed) martial arts.
I constantly lurk at gymrats and have learned boatloads of info from their info page links and from all the posts that scroll by. They're brutally honest about what they think, and mostly have the science and journal info to back it up. It's one of the communities that I heavily recommend because when you read fitness forums like bodybuilding.com, t-nation.com and the like, you usually have to sift through a lot of crap. That community minimizes the sifting for sure, but if you ever join and intend to post there... please research it first, I'm not kidding about the brutal. :)
If you read all that, thank you... I realize that the post is fricken ginormous, but I tried cutting it up a bit and I thought that including my rehab story might help inspire someone to jump to the gym.
Here's one last (somewhat old) progress picture of mine that I hope may inspire some other lady to hit some weights... but feel free to express if you don't think women should have muscles and such, I'm open to opinion. ;)