How important is physical conditioning to you?

[Reaver 10]

We have all heard the correlations of strong body=strong mind and vice versa....

 

So how important is physical conditioning to you as far as trading and every day life?

 

If conditioning is important to you, what do you do for training? Also, what do you eat? Do you follow diet guidelines, or just eat whatever? etc...

 

Just figured it would be good to share some ideas and have discussion on this often overlooked topic.

 

 

 

I personally USED to run 8 miles a day and do an ungodly amount of PT (calisthenics)...but of course we had SEAL Team 8 H Platoon on board and they were some very generous guys to work with as far as dishing out new and exciting ways to cause extreme pain to yourself in the form of training.

 

I have toned it down significantly these days. I have a gym set up in a Florida Room (fancy word for a sunroom I think) and it has a standard olympic bench, two sets of dumbbells and a pull up dip bar and of course the heavy bag and a 50lb weight vest to make things more exciting...along with various other odds and ends (sandbags, jump ropes, etc). I pretty much just mix it up to keep myself occupied...I'll tell you, after 4 years of kicking your own ass every day for peak physical performance (I could clock a 1.5 mile run in my Bates 924s and BDU pants in 7:42), it is easy to burn out if you're not careful...so I have to strive to keep things interesting.

 

I definitely don't work as hard as I used to, and sitting at a desk all day at work doesn't help either. I try to keep things as unprocessed as possible...but I don't go crazy with it....I eat whatever I want sometimes..I love sushi...and I will eat the occasional lean cuisine or hot pocket as well.

 

Just wondering what everyone else did for physical training and diet, if anything.

[james_gsx 16]

Not a thing but run up and down stairs all day long. But I would really like to get into running again. Theres something about those early morning cool air runs that gets me going for the day.

 

My brother in law used to run several miles a morning then do an hour of pushups/situps (he was a Ranger). He would usually wake up around 3 am to start as I was going to sleep.

[TinGull 10]

The one thing I just started back up doing is walking in the morning. Either that or take a bike ride to the garden which I'm about to leave and do here in a few minutes. Or play the drums too...that gets my blood going more than anything.

 

To me, physical conditioning is VERY important. Does it need to be as hard core as what you do, Nate? For me it doesn't. It might for others. Last week was one of the hardest weeks for me in a year mentally in this game we call trading. I had a talk with a fellow trader here on the boards and we got to talking about how the subconscious mind has such influence over things you do. Then, I remembered a book I read called "Walking Your Blues Away". Sounds cheesy, yea, but I hadn't realized how powerful it could be.

 

That day I went on a walk for about 2 miles which it says to do in that book. I took my iPod with me and listened to some Anthony Robbins audio books and some Dr Wayne Dyer stuff and it was that walk that I think has changed my ENTIRE outlook forever. Since then I've seen the markets in a new light, and am seeing my whole life in a new light. The power that a walk and some positive thinking can have on your life is quite simply amazing.

 

So, I must head out on my bike to the garden now and check on the tomatillos and peppers

[Nick1984 10]

Im a gym junkie myself. I workout at the gym 3-4 times a week cause I just love to push weights and I love lifting more and more. When I break past a plateau I've been on for a long time it's a fantastic feeling. As I type this I've just come back from a big squatting session and my legs feel like jelly but it's great.

 

I love to discipline of bodybuilding. It's a very vain sport and it's very taxing on a person both physically and mentally. You've got to love yourself but hate yourself at the same time by constantly finding faults in your physique that you need to iron out. It's winter here atm so I've just come through my "bulking" phase where I've stacked on around 9kgs over the past 5 months of training. I'm 6'4 and in pounds I weigh in at around 220 or so but I'm not sure if thats a good conversion (102kgs).

 

Now it's time to start transitioning off for summer and to loose the excess fat I've put on with a slow gruelling process of cutting up.

 

Year in year out, same thing all cause I'm vain and I always think I can do better, push harder, train more intensely. Its a great stress relief pushing some weights, and when you cut up you can do other things like boxing. Have you ever tried hitting the heavy bag for 6 rounds of 3 minutes....thats some intesnse stuff!

 

Mens sana in corpore sana!

[notouch 10]

I use an elliptical trainer. Aerobic exercise is what it's all about in terms of health. You can also put it in front of your computer and monitor you positions while you're exercising. Note: not recommended for scalping. :no:

[Soultrader 12]

woah nick1984. You would be a giant here in Tokyo. Im 5'11, used to be a complete athlete and sports freak but ever since I started trading..... no comment.

 

I should get back to the gym... I dont think Ive broken a sweat in like 2 years. Oh yea... maybe try the Billy's Bootcamp excersise. lol

[Nick1984 10]

hehe James yea get back into a gym its fantastic. In the off season when I'm as big as I'm gonna be for a year its a big confidence boost walking through a crowd and seeing that I'm the biggest guy there. When I'm in the gym and I see a lil guy trying to bench my ego sometimes gets the best of me and the Arnold voice comes in my head and I laugh at the "girly man" trying to lift the bar hehe.

 

I'm about to start my boxing training in a couple of weeks. Can't wait to hop back into a ring and spar. Boxing is a fantastic sport if you don't have a lot of time to spend in a gym. Jump the rope, slug the heavy bag, do some speed work on the speed bag, and then do some polymetric exercises to develop your strength and speed and you'll be fit in no time!

[Reaver 10]

Tin,

 

oh no, I am definitely not hardcore...I used to be! I still keep it up as much as I can without feeling like I am going nuts.....it's alot easier to find motivation to be in peak condition when you know you may be getting shot at...but when you work in an office, it's a lot different!

 

I have found that muscles do in fact have memory...and it is alot easier to get back in chape once you have tuned yourself to that level before....

 

Another thing is that once you have crossed the threshold of where your brain can override your body (which will always try to tell you it can't do anymore)...you can pretty much do anything.

 

It's a fact, the body can do ten times more than it thinks it can. You just have to override the feelings of wanting to quit....once you do, the change is permanent.

 

I think there are some parallels to trading to be found in that statement as well.

[Reaver 10]

I use an elliptical trainer. Aerobic exercise is what it's all about in terms of health. You can also put it in front of your computer and monitor you positions while you're exercising. Note: not recommended for scalping. :no:

 

 

hey that's a good idea!

 

heh heh good one about scalping. lol

[torero 10]

I think physical conditioning is quite important. I try to play tennis and swim regularly when I can. It's a great way to take your mind off the market and come up with new ideas or just recharge or reduce the tension and stress from trading, especially on bad days. Just the act itself gives you better perspective and focus.

[darthtrader 10]

hey Nick1984, reading that fires me up, heh. I use to be obsessed with bb/powerlifting in highschool. When I was 18 I was 5'8" 190 and cut. I won the state highschool powerlifting competition with 500/330/550. That was with a cycle of testosterone suspension though, my foolish youth...heh. I actually had wanted to break the state jr records but gave up when this guy ripped me off on roids twice.

Now i'm 30, same height, 215 with a gut. I tried to deadlift a month ago and gave up after how hard 2 plates a side was. I just want to get cut and have the girly man beach muscles now.

 

What kind of cutting diet do you use? I've been reading stuff on tnation, been trying a 1800 cal a day diet, egg whites, fiberous veg, tuna, chicken, ehh thats it but this sucks mentally.

 

You ever try a whey shake with a half a cup of raw oats? I think i'm going to change up to 2 of those a day, then an egg white meal and chicken meal.

 

One thing with being away from BB/powerlifting for 10 years is the only advancements that seem to have been made are on the drug side. I remember hearing about that stuff Mark McGwire was using but now its illegal, typical.

 

I guess I'm glad I'm not 20 now though, I would be jacked on dbols and clen.

[Nick1984 10]

1800 cals a day is not really a lot especially at your height, you're starving your muscles!

 

Basically for the last 4 months I've been bulking eating as much as I could every day and I didn't really care what I ate, i just needed the cals.

 

I started my cutting a week ago to get ready for our summer. Basically I've just started by making small changes to my diet. Instead of full fat milk, cheese, yoghurt etc I've switched to low fat. I also have started adding in more protein powder into my diet to increase my protein intake as I reduce carbs. Fat intake remains the same its about a 40/45/15 split between proetin/carbs/fat but I'm not that strick. By base metabolic rate needs approx 3000 cals a day to maintain and when you add in the fact that I work out I need around 3400 to maintain my weight. To begin with I started to cut out 300 cals a day from my diet through simple food substitutions and started walking 20 mins a day after a workout and 1hr a day on my off days.

 

Also water intake has increased. I'm drinking 3-4 liters of water a day at a minimum. In my first week I've dropped 1/2 a pound and thats about right. I don't want to loose faster than that because any weight loss with be catabolic and I don't want to undo all that hard work at the gym to pack on the muscle mass.

 

In 2 weeks I'll start adding in boxing to my weekly exercise routine as it's both fun and fantastic at burning off fat. Try hitting a heavy bag for 4 rounds it's not easy!

 

Plyometric exercies will also start to come in around week 4-5 of my cutting routine. Plyometric jumps and leg work will be the bulk of my plyometric exercise routine. Plyometrics help to maintain muscle mass but develop explosive power through fast movements. Fantastic if you're training as a sprinter, boxer, or football (any code) player.

 

After 8 weeks the diet will become very strict. I'll start to slightly starve my body with a 2300 calorie per day diet plus daily cardio. On training days, 30 mins after sessions. On off days 2 hours of cardio. On the off days 2 sessions of HIIT sprints (hill sprints) will be incorporated to the routine as well as walking (i hate jogging, its bad for my knees and its only marginally better than walking at a brisk pace).

 

As for whey with raw oats...I LOVE IT. The oats add a nice texture to the drink and its a great source of slow release carbs. I have that in the morning with b'fast (my biggest meal of the day). Take your carbs in early in the morning and afternoon so you're fuelled up for the day!

 

As for exercises I'm a great fan of compound exercises both when bulking and cutting. Bench press, deadlifts, squats, dips, pull-ups, bent over rows etc are the best exercises imho. Also olympic type lifts such as snatches, clean and press are great too. I only really do isoloation exercies to hit stubborn muscles that haven't popped out enough from compounds, so i'll do bicep curls, shrugs, and calves in isolation. I also use isolation to pre-exhaust a major muscle before I do a big compound lift.

[Nick1984 10]

Btw, as an ex-powerlifter you should love doing all those big compounds. The technique you use to lift the weight is different to BB though. I always aim for hypertrophy and complete muscular failure in my sets (I'm a fan of Mike Mentzer's training style) and so I keep strict form as best I can and I keep my ego in check when lifting. I'd rather lift a lighter weight correctly than a heavy weight incorrectly.

 

Many guys say they have 200+ pound bench presses but you see them lower the bar down only 15-20 cms and press back up thinking they're somehow awesome... lol.

 

With bad form I can bench around 140 kilos or more not sure what my 1RM is though. If I take it seriously its hard to bench 110kgs with strict form! Squatting is the same, some guys load up a bar with 200+ kilograms and squat down a few inches, convulse back up. It looks like they're trying to make love to the air in front of them haha!

[dalby 10]

in answer to the question - very.

 

i have a background in olympic style weightlifting and to a lesser extent powerlifting.

 

i weight train 2-5 days a week, eats lots of protein and i love working out

[gedward3 10]

Good Thread Reaver.

 

Just thought id say hello on my first post.

 

Physical fitness does keep your mind in order to say the least. My backgound was that i trained and competed in Thai Boxing for 6 years but retired about 7 years ago when getting hit hard started to hurt and the healing process went from 7-10 days when i was younger to up to 6 or seven weeks near the end of my short fighting career of 16 fights. My regime now is 3 or 4 days running, weights and bag sessions Mon - Fri with healthy food and no alcohol.

 

Then me and my girl call weekends Fat Free Saturday and Sundays. Basically pigging out within reason on booze and whatever we want.

 

I'd agree that some sort of physical exertion is good as more bloodflow to the parts that need it most, our brains is better than nothing. Whether that be a brisk walk for 10 minutes or a good 2hr gym workout depends obviously on age and preference.

 

Anyway first post over and hope to join you guys in more postings as i have been lurking for a while even though i read this site every day.

 

Great site Soul

[darthtrader 10]

40/45/15 sounds interesting. I went on a low carb diet 2 years ago and had got back down to 180 in the fastest time I ever had, my body seems to respond great to that type of diet but its so hard mentally. I was going to try to get rid of carbs and just add olive oil for calories but this is not working. I'm not too worried about losing muscle, I started lifting when i was 14 and having a decent amount of muscle just seems to be a statis point for my body.

The thing that sucks is I use to go to this dungeon style gym, i think there was one woman in the whole place but it closed down. I've checked out gyms here now and its like a social hour, 3x more expensive and most stuff i dont want. also it was cool because no one lifted stupid like that, it was all powerlifters and roided up bodybuilders, you would have been laughed out of the place. No suprise its gone, hehe.

Do you buy whey online? is gnc competative at all? Something cool i notice is that whey is even cheaper than chicken or eggs now, maybe i'll even go to 3 whey servings a day, i always liked the taste of protein shakes.

[Nick1984 10]

Low carb diets are hard physically cause your body craves carbs for energy. No way I could go doing a heavy leg session unless im carbed up (leg day is my cheat meal day hehe). You'll be starving your muscles if you severely restrict carb intake. Sure it takes longer to loose the fat, but you also get to keep most of the muslce you worked so darn hard for!

 

GNC is pretty pricey stuff for what you get. I get //http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/opt/whey.html from a local store where it's cheap as chips. I love the flavours they have and it also blends really easily in either milk or water. For a mega protein shake I take 2 scoops in low fat milk, one tbps of peanut butter, 2 eggs, and a bananna and all in a blender till creamy. Thats like having a whole meal in liquid form! Sometimes if its a hard workout I put in some raw oats as well.

[Reaver 10]

hey check out 1fast400.com or bulknutrition.com (same company) instead of GNC.

 

Good deals on supplements, etc. A TON cheaper than GNC. I've been using them a couple years now. No disappointments.

[dalby 10]

bulknutrition (aka 1fast400) is a GREAT website for bulk stuff.

 

btw, here's a great way to eat oatmeal...

 

first of all, i prefer NON rolled oats. irish style steel cut outs (cylindrical instead of smooshed flat. they have more nutrients as well, since they don't press them).

 

oats

milk (can use nonfat dry milk powder)

banana protein powder

egg whites

 

once you cook the oats, add the milk, powder and egg whites and cook it up

then add - splenda, and slices of fruit. (banana, etc.)

 

can also add cinnamon (which is actually a nice fat loss aid believe it or not)

 

if you are really hardcore, fry up some liver to eat with your oatmeal!!!

[darthtrader 10]

Thanks for those links, I was wondering if GNC would have had to lower prices by now with online shops, I'm surprised they are even still in business.

 

I think I'm going to wait to go on a ketosis diet until i lose 30lbs, not until next summer to try to get abs. I'll just go with 2 cups of oatmeal a day for carbs spread out.

 

Something I found that I can still eat oatmeal is to just take 6 or 7 egg whites, throw in some oatmeal then cook it like a pancake. Its pretty good with hot sauce, or at least it doesn't make me want to puke .

 

Something else I found, I learned to make an indian dish a few months ago. You just dice up a huge onion, throw in a pan with olive oil then throw in coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger powder and red chilli powder. Let it brown up, then throw a half cook chicken breast in cutup. When its almost done throw in plain yogurt, its like ghetto chicken tikka masala. If you can find an indian grocer you can get huge bags of the spices for a few bucks each. Throw any other vegetables you want in.

[Reaver 10]

Thanks for those links, I was wondering if GNC would have had to lower prices by now with online shops, I'm surprised they are even still in business.

 

I think I'm going to wait to go on a ketosis diet until i lose 30lbs, not until next summer to try to get abs. I'll just go with 2 cups of oatmeal a day for carbs spread out.

 

Something I found that I can still eat oatmeal is to just take 6 or 7 egg whites, throw in some oatmeal then cook it like a pancake. Its pretty good with hot sauce, or at least it doesn't make me want to puke .

 

Something else I found, I learned to make an indian dish a few months ago. You just dice up a huge onion, throw in a pan with olive oil then throw in coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger powder and red chilli powder. Let it brown up, then throw a half cook chicken breast in cutup. When its almost done throw in plain yogurt, its like ghetto chicken tikka masala. If you can find an indian grocer you can get huge bags of the spices for a few bucks each. Throw any other vegetables you want in.

 

 

Yeah man I hate GNC. I used to work there about 8 years ago in high school. There was a lot of shady stuff happening there, not to mention mark-ups, etc.

 

They cannot compete with online retailers...they just have the edge when it comes to advertising and mall exposure, pro endorsements, etc..so they maintain tons of business....

 

Those recipes sound awesome! I'll have to check out the Indian one for sure...

[Nick1984 10]

Thanks for those links, I was wondering if GNC would have had to lower prices by now with online shops, I'm surprised they are even still in business.

 

I think I'm going to wait to go on a ketosis diet until i lose 30lbs, not until next summer to try to get abs. I'll just go with 2 cups of oatmeal a day for carbs spread out.

 

Something I found that I can still eat oatmeal is to just take 6 or 7 egg whites, throw in some oatmeal then cook it like a pancake. Its pretty good with hot sauce, or at least it doesn't make me want to puke .

 

Something else I found, I learned to make an indian dish a few months ago. You just dice up a huge onion, throw in a pan with olive oil then throw in coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger powder and red chilli powder. Let it brown up, then throw a half cook chicken breast in cutup. When its almost done throw in plain yogurt, its like ghetto chicken tikka masala. If you can find an indian grocer you can get huge bags of the spices for a few bucks each. Throw any other vegetables you want in.

 

Be carefull with a ketosis diet, you'll get lethargic on it. Also don't go trying to kiss any girls cause your breath is gonna stink like crap and so will your trips to the bathroom! On a ketosis diet you have like 0 carbs so I wouldnt have that oatmeal if I were you!

[Reaver 10]

Yeah ketosis isn't that bad, well, that's actually relative of course. lol

 

You are generally lethargic the first couple days, then once the ketosis kicks in, things start to get back on track. Lots of research suggests that humans were meant to thrive in ketosis....due to the diet of ancient man, etc.

[darthtrader 10]

I did a ketosis diet once, I didn't even feel lethargic really. The hardest part for me was just the mental carb cravings before ketosis kicked in. I was doing more an atkins deal then though so when I had a carb craving I would just go and get 3 double cheeseburgers from mcdonalds, toss the roll out of be all good.

 

Here is the diet I was looking at.

http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1150209

 

That has to be so hard mentally. I've read the new thing now is to have feeder days once/bi weekly to get glycogen back into your muscles but I would assume that starts the whole waiting for ketosis over again. I'm sure that diet is hard to top but damn...

Thats basically where I want to tweak that diet with whey/oatmeal to get just enough carbs to stay out of ketosis but restricted enough calorie wise to lose. Then maybe try that diet seriously next april to get abs for next summer.

[darthtrader 10]

Oh yea, do you guys take creatine at all? I was pretty shocked to see that still talked about. I'm suspious of the entire supplement industry since anything that works seems to get banned by the fda. It was pretty new when I stopped, from what I remember I thought it only worked via water retention in your muscles to give you leverage on lifts but there must be something more to it if its still around.

worth it?