Stage 3

The YTWL is killing me! I can only use 5lb weights and I feel so wimpy. I even let my ego convince me to try 8lb weights today and I was immediately informed by my body that this was not going work.

On the other hand, I feel more and more like a bad*ss with the deadlift / bent over row combo.

What are you loving and hating about this stage?

Original Post by puppykisses:

I will start with 5 lb weights, I believe the book said light weights....if not I will just write it in myself.

Actually, the book says "a pair of very light dumbbells". So you're good :)

I wish he gave some indication of what is considered "light" in the context of this book.

oh well that's one more thing i did wrong. it did make it hard to keep count doing it they way i did, he he. i get confused easy. 

im thinking of getting a personalized program next as my gym just doesn't have all the equipment & im sick of having to pretend that i am holding a barbell.

octo - no problem.  I think we've all gotten something wrong.  I didn't read it completely until I was pretty far into the program that I was supposed to hold my arms straight without bending the elbows for the Ys.  I had been doing them with slightly bent elbows and that made it alot easier!

I can't believe your gym doesn't have a barbell.  Maybe you can ask them to get one!

I'm a little ahead of you guys, but I wanted to say that I started the YTWLs with 2.5 pound weights.  I've had shoulder problems for awhile, so that might be part of it.  But, I worked my way up to 5 pounds! 

I just graduated to 6.5 pounds on the cuban snatches.  I have a 1.5 pound dumbbells that have a strap, so I can hold them along with the regular 5 pound dumbbell. 

I did workout A on Friday, will attempt B today.

I HATE the Dumbbell single-arm overhead squat. I hate it with all my heart. I know I'm probably doing something wrong, but it's the most awkward movement I've ever encountered! Maybe my shoulders are too narrow, or my hips are too wide, I don't know. The dumbbell doesn't fit between my legs even if I take a wider stand than recommended.  The extended hand doesn't want to stay extended even with a negligible weight of 5 lbs, my whole body feels and looks all twitched while I attempt to squat, I feel it in my back more than anywhere else.

My husband hated it too, but at least he looked like he was doing it more or less correctly. While I looked like a complete idiot.

Is it just me or has anyone also found it unnatural?

I did like the Romanian one-legged deadlift - more than I thought I would. The One-armed dumbbell snatch felt awkward at first, but once I figured it out, I fell in love with it.

Maha-kisa, you made me giggle with this post! I, too, fell in love with the one-armed dumbbell snatch. As for that pesky squat variation - by the sound of it, you are doing it right, with the exception that you could probably hold the lower dumbbell out in front of your legs a bit - that will work the shoulder a little more and I think it will make the movement more doable for you.  

 As I've been reading the NROL I realize that this lift falls in the category of a twisting lift, because to do it you have to fight your body from twisting. It absolutely works the back. It absolutely feels like evil incarnate. In fighting the twist you are working a multitude of muscles. You might try a warm up set of even lighter weights or body weight on your next workout, just practicing the movement without the added resistance from the weights.

I agree that it looks silly, but once I got the hang of it I didn't despise it quite so much. Although, when I did the last set in stage 5 I had a moment of pure joy knowing I was finished. I might have even given a little yelp of glee.

Hey Yoga, yeah I asked them but there's just no place to put a barbell. I asked if they could get rid of a few machines & put it there, but they didn't seem to go for that.

I just did my last workout of stage 3. it was f-ing tedious! the first couple of exercises were ok but towards they end it just drags on. i didn't do any rest periods after the ytwl. couldn't wait to get on the intervals. i have to have my protein shake in between the lifting & the intervals. can't believe i have to go through that again on stage 5. but i know those exercise were put there for a reason, so ill just struggle on. stage 4, like 2 will be fun tho.

for some reason i feel uber emotionally sensitive after that workout, almost like its that time of the month but it was just last week so i know its not that.

Original Post by octo-luv:

i have to say stage 3 workout B is one of the more boring ones. im not saying its boring in & of itself but the others were just more exciting.

Now I know what you meant. I also found it boring, too slow, not so energetic. It lacks big, compound movements. All the back/arm/abs work is good, but my HR was very low all the time. I mean all the time during lifting, HIIT did bring it up :) I couldn't even wait 105 seconds between exercises during the second half, it felt like a waste of time.

YTWL is evil. I tried 5 lbs, couldn't lift high enough for Y and T, so I went down to 3 lbs. It was quite embarrassing, so I did the other 2 sets with 5 lbs but poor form. When my husband commented that "THAT" didn't look like a Y, I replied that it was a Y in italic. All bent and leaning to one side :).

I know I'll do better next time.

Original Post by maha-kisa:

Original Post by octo-luv:

i have to say stage 3 workout B is one of the more boring ones. im not saying its boring in & of itself but the others were just more exciting.

Now I know what you meant. I also found it boring, too slow, not so energetic. It lacks big, compound movements. All the back/arm/abs work is good, but my HR was very low all the time. I mean all the time during lifting, HIIT did bring it up :) I couldn't even wait 105 seconds between exercises during the second half, it felt like a waste of time.

YTWL is evil. I tried 5 lbs, couldn't lift high enough for Y and T, so I went down to 3 lbs. It was quite embarrassing, so I did the other 2 sets with 5 lbs but poor form. When my husband commented that "THAT" didn't look like a Y, I replied that it was a Y in italic. All bent and leaning to one side :).

I know I'll do better next time.

lol, who knows what my letters look like. cant really say im looking forward to stage 5. but excited about stage 4 tomorrow.

I have done the first A and B at home.  I will do the 2nd A and B at the gym this week.  It was so cold last week leaving the house again was just not going to happen.  I did exercise B on wednesday then stayed home on Thursday with my sick 3.5mo old grandson.  Wow carrying a baby around after doing the ytwl was quite a challenge.  Baby is doing better but my arms still hurt.

Maha I'm finding the same thing with the One armed squat. I watch myself in the mirror the whole time and try to figure out what I'm doing wrong, because it's just so akward and I feel like I'm not even close to doing it right. I have totally backed off in this stage and have been so inconsistant 'cause I'm trying to lose about 10 pounds and the longer I'm on the program, the more I gain. My measurments haven't gone down either so...kind of a bummer! Anyway, mine are more like twice a week now if I'm lucky!

ckfyamaha, how much are you eating?

I find that their recommendations are a bit too high even for maintenance, yet alone losing.

I created a spreadsheet and put in all my CC data for the last few months, and it seems to be working - my expected loss/gain matches the actual figures. I'm using it now to design an eating plan for NROLFW.

The book says I should eat 1800 on recovery days, and 2000 on lifting days. That is 1885 a day on average. If I lift 3 times a day, say, 5.5 hours a week and burn (gross) 400 kcal an hour, I'll have a (net) SURPLUS of 3000 kcal. That's almost a one-pound gain! Maybe EPOC takes care of the surplus, but I doubt that.

So I add at least 3 more hours of high intensity cardio a week and eat 1800 daily on average. This puts me on maintenance level (or very low deficit, around 0.5 lb a month).

(This is all based on sedentary burn of 1510 kcal. I'm pretty small to begin with).

I'm going to follow this plan and see how it goes. If I start losing weight, then I'll believe in EPOC :) and will up my calories.

I do agree with those that say stage three is more boring.  I do not do the 105 rest period and some of the exercises I tried to superset like the one arm dumbell snatch and ?was is bent over row? Anyway, that did work for 2 sets then I rested a minute and did the third set.  I did the same for the wierd sqaut and the incline press.  It was harder with the plank and woodchop.  I then went home and did the matrix; that last set of jump squats are so horrible, I feel as though I have absolutely no spring in my jump!!

Yeah - stage 5 is even worse than 3  with the 2 minute wait times.  It is really hard to not superset.  I tried to get thru without the supersetting except for the ab work.  I did the 4 sets, so it took forever.  I was really happy to move on to stage 6, which is sooooo much shorter!

If I ever do this program again, I would do the 3 sets instead of 4, just because of the time.  The shorter workouts seem like you are done in a flash and you don't even mind having to workout.  Anything more than an hour for me seems like too much!

Original Post by maha-kisa:

I find that their recommendations are a bit too high even for maintenance, yet alone losing.

Maybe they're assuming light activity (at a minimum) rather than sedentary?  Or maybe they're assuming people without a history of calorie restriction?  The book's numbers worked really well for me; I'm losing (*very* slowly) on what it recommended for maintenance.  But I do spend a fair amount of my workday on my feet, so that could be a contributing factor. 

susiecue, it may be the case. I'm a software developer, so I'm at my desk 8 to 4. The office is about 8 km away from our house, so we drive (my husbands and I work together).  I don't think a bit of housework every day is enough to consider it "light activity". Oh, and my hobby is ... cross stitch, not the most energy consuming activity ;)

I just came back from RPM (spinning), which I haven't done since December. Boy, I'm exhausted. It's pretty much HIIT, but 55 minutes instead of 15.  Max hr 96% MHR, average (including warmup and cooldown!) - 81% MHR.  Now I need to eat something, but I'm not sure I can.

Yeah MAHA I was at first trying to eat the suggested but I had always had about 1300 before that even though I've always been really active I have a VERY slow metabolism. It sucks! So I think that's why I gained right away, and then it's just really hard to get rid of. I'm not sure what the spreadsheet is but then again, I don't know a whole lot about computers. How does that work to put in your CC data? Do you eat really healthy all the time? I have been trying to do cardio more to burn off the extra but honestly it's been so hard for me the last couple weeks with the weather outside, and no treadmill.

    Oh what is EPOC? Thanks for your advice!

Original Post by maha-kisa:

Oh, and my hobby is ... cross stitch, not the most energy consuming activity ;)

Maybe not, but it keeps me from snacking when "watching" TV.  And there's the bonus "strength training" of 'pick the cat off my lap so that she stops batting at the thread; put the cat on the floor; pick the cat *back* off my lap; put the cat on the floor...  '  What kind of projects do you like to work on?  I'm currently doing a cute bright Winnie the Pooh picture - then I'll go back to finishing the border on my carousel horse (which is gorgeous, but a definite long-term project; I'm working on the third in a set of four; I started on the first one about ten years ago).

LOL. This is sooo off topic :) But I can't resist.

I have to fight with my cat too, she likes to "help", but fails to understand that wet and chewed up floss isn't easy to work with.

Here are my finished projects, and the current WIP is Sue Coleman's Raven. I think I know what carousel you're talking about. Is it by Teresa Wentzler?

I lost on the recommended calorie amounts but I was doing a lot of strenuous hiking and biking.  This winter I was getting out less and I had to cut back on calories. (It didn't help that my nutrition was inconsistent.)  I'm looking forward to getting out there again.  I try to do HIIT on the treadmill as much as I can, but I REALLY hate cardio on the machines.