[absolution]

I have been active on this forum for a couple of weeks now. Thought it was time I introduced myself.
I am 37 and a Personal Trainer at Total Fitness in Wakefield (although officially freelance).
I have been Bodybuilding since 2004 (natural for life) and recently discovered Crossfit and now FK.UK. In my contest prep 2009, I used Crossfit style wod's in place of cardio and got my best condition ever. Much more fun too.

I have now finished Bodybuilding this year and aim to get stuck into Crossfit/FK

I had my first go at Fran today. Scaled a bit. I used 40kg on thrusters and 1 band for pull up assistance. It still killed me and took me ages. I will attempt to a) finish it with the 95lbs and no band then time myself.

Loving the new challenges. Especially timed WOD's and Olympic lift technique.

Anyone else come the bodybuilding route and not gone back?

[Andy]

hey buddy,

I used to do bodybuilding routines/rep ranges years back. Stil ldid a loot of isolation stuff even when training for size etc when playing rugby. haven't (until yesterday) done any bodybuilding type work and won't go back either. Don't get me wrong i think we can learn alot from bodybuilders regarding nutrition etc and for those that train those rep ranges and styles hard like they should be I take my hat off to them. They put it a lot of work and dedication to their training. For me though I spent years trying to get bigger blah blah blah but always got bored and disolutioned with it so would fall out of training for weeks at a time. Functional training, especially crossfit type training (timed etc) hooked me in. Still found i got results that surpassed those when training for bodybuilding. I find the power, strength and conditioning development much more satisfying. Yes it hurts like buggery sometimes but with measured results every session you find yourself progressing all the time. Oly lifting kicks ass man and is very enjoyable to do when you have technique ok.

Stick with it man. Timed WODs etc will always hurt but you will learn to deal with them. The main thing I find is the ability to know when i need to back off before i 1, puke or 2, fail. Failure is the enemy of this type of training. Not sure how much you know about this type of training bud but if you wanna get your times down, take a small break before you go to absolute failure. If you go to absolute failure you will use up to much time in recovery. There is a fine line man but i'm sure you know that already.

Good luck with it all buddy and keep asking questions!

[Gubernatrix]

I've never been a bodybuilder as such, but when I first joined a gym knowing nothing at all about training I was given the usual 3 sets of 10, body part routines and so on. Trained like that for a few years before graduating to other methods.

I knew after a couple of years that what I was really interested in was being stronger and fitter but it took me a while to find out how to do that and to gravitate into powerlifting and functional fitness protocols.

Anyway, welcome to the boards, thanks for starting the discussion. I am sure we can all learn a lot from someone who competed in bodybuilding. That must take a lot of dedication!

[Chet]

Hello mate,

Welcome to FK.UK - thanks for the introduction. Interesting to hear about your history and your use of functional workouts for contest prep.

In terms of coming through the bodybuilding route - yes, I certainly did bodybuilding-style workouts, cardio, and very strict bodybuilder-esque weighed + mesaured food intake for a while before 'finding' and getting into this.

It's funny because diet plans such as the Zone feel like a holiday comapared to that, and weighing and measuring every meal remains ingrained (no pun intended) from that time! .

Great to hear you are having fun with the challenges and workouts.

Stick around, keep asking questions as Andy said, good luck and hope you continue having fun!

[absolution]

Cheers guys

I do aim to stick around. I am really enjoying becoming a beginner again and finding new challenges every day in the gym.

My workout today was as follows

Buy In

Jungle Gym dips practice and kipping progression

Strength

Squat Clean and split jerk

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (40kg, 45kg, 50kg, 55kg, 62.5kg)

Conditioning

5 rounds of 5 x handstand push ups and 10 x heavy bag altertnate shoulders.

Cash out

2 sets of 5 single arm kettlebell swings (just trying to gain confidence to snatch 40kg bell)

Just trying to follow your template. Make sense?