38, Overweight, and Sprinting ....

Hello

I have joined my local coucil gym and started exercising. My goals are:

• To do a set of pull ups (cannot do any without assistance right now)
• To lose my gut
• To not lose the Dad's Sprint at my son's Sports Day this summer

Last summer I went in for the race, thinking "how hard can it be" and came in last. It was like being at school all over again - I was never any good at athletics!

So, today I did my usual workout (bit of treadmill, row, then leg press, low row, lat pull down, chest press). I was on a different treadmill today and did not get on with it at all, so only did 5 minutes, - I usually do 12 minutes with intervals (not fast = top speed 12km/h, but feels quick for me.)

I then I decided to make use of the indoor running track. I basically did a "sprint" down the track and walked back. Did this about 5 or 6 times, and felt that was enough for the first day.

Now, I think I should carry on with some sort of sprint / walk thing, as it felt good, and it should in theory give me a chance of not being last in the dad's race this summer.

The question is - when is the best time to do it? Should I do it at the start and then do the resistnace machines after? Should I do more spints / walk cycles, or do some sprint / jogs, or something else?

I did do a few (I think 20) walking lunges too. Do those help with sprinting? 

I saw a coach with 2 athletes (as an overweight chap I felt very out of place, but carried on anyway!) and took a mental note of the exercises they were oing - lots of skipping / high knees, short fast steps, etc.

Suggestions?

Remember, I am out of shape, overweight - goal is simply to not lose against the other dads!

I think I have about 4 months before the next Sports Day.

Tripwire? It won't catch them all but you only need to catch one out and you won't be last.

It's a good idea, but I want to play fair. Plus it may be hard to install without being noticed. But I will not dismiss the idea completely.

Jon Wade wrote (see)

Hello

I have joined my local coucil gym and started exercising. My goals are:

• To do a set of pull ups (cannot do any without assistance right now)
• To lose my gut
• To not lose the Dad's Sprint at my son's Sports Day this summer

Last summer I went in for the race, thinking "how hard can it be" and came in last. It was like being at school all over again - I was never any good at athletics!

So, today I did my usual workout (bit of treadmill, row, then leg press, low row, lat pull down, chest press). I was on a different treadmill today and did not get on with it at all, so only did 5 minutes, - I usually do 12 minutes with intervals (not fast = top speed 12km/h, but feels quick for me.)

I then I decided to make use of the indoor running track. I basically did a "sprint" down the track and walked back. Did this about 5 or 6 times, and felt that was enough for the first day.

Now, I think I should carry on with some sort of sprint / walk thing, as it felt good, and it should in theory give me a chance of not being last in the dad's race this summer.

The question is - when is the best time to do it? Should I do it at the start and then do the resistnace machines after? Should I do more spints / walk cycles, or do some sprint / jogs, or something else?

I did do a few (I think 20) walking lunges too. Do those help with sprinting? 

I saw a coach with 2 athletes (as an overweight chap I felt very out of place, but carried on anyway!) and took a mental note of the exercises they were oing - lots of skipping / high knees, short fast steps, etc.

Suggestions?

Remember, I am out of shape, overweight - goal is simply to not lose against the other dads!

I think I have about 4 months before the next Sports Day.

I wouldn't get too excited about the prospect of a Fathers Day sprint. At my son's primary school they've abandoned competitive events in favour of team building fun exercises where nobody loses or feels sorry for themselves!

Pathetic!!!

Why not simply ruin everyone elses fun by destroying the team building activity? That way, you will achieve your goal as everyone but you will have failed to complete what they intended to do, whereas you have. That makes you the winner.

Why not just enter the egg and spoon race instead. i always used to win the egg and spoon race.

Hi Jon, 

you've made the first positive step by actually doing something. With four months to go you can make a considerable to change to yourself. I would imagine the largest, singlemost effective thing you can do is to lose the weight. Whilst chin ups and gym work are all part of the bigger picture to making 'the new you' sprinting without a monkey on your back will be much easier. To lose weight you cannot beat lots of easy running/jogging. This website is full of ideas on how, when and where to do it. Given there are so many differences of opinion they must all have some basis in truth. Therefore, get out as often as you can and eat sensibly. You'll cream 'em on the day!

To loose weight you need to have less calotires going into your body.

Running is fantastic for helping, but without a diet it's going to shape your body a bit but not really loose any weight, if you run a marathon a week and don't eat extra you will loose weight.  If you run a bit you loose say 100-130 calories a mile, you need to loose 3500 calories a week to loose 1 lb.

DIET is they way to loose weight, exercise is fantastic for making you feel better, and also to help reshape your body.  exercise and diet, brilliant

Don't get me wrong it's fantastic to exercise, but seriously loosing weight is about having less going into your body in the first place. 

Run 5 miles and have a posh protien filled drink to celebrate and say look how cool I am i need a sports drink, and you've completely lost the diet aspect of the run as you've probably drunk more calories then you've lost on the run.

The tummy will disappear easily, as long as you diet.. Sorry but them's the facts.

Oh to put this in context i've lost 82 lbs in the last year and gone from never having run to staggering very, very slowly through a marathon.  I love running, and it's changed my figure and done all the sort of things that you want, but only because I controlled the amount of calories going in at the same time.

So, as far as the sprint training goes, any time is OK?

I will up my running (working on it). But the sprint training can only really be done on the days I go to the atrhletics centre.

They also do a "fitness for runner" class, I will try that out too.

If you want to run, save money look at couch to 5 k programs and just do one of them, the general fitness will improve greatly from doing this, and if you can run for half an hour you will find sprining for 100 yards relatively painless   To start upper body fitness buy a set of 1 - 2kg weights and just do it at home, can save a fortune compared to a gym.

http://www.nhs.uk/LiveWell/c25k/Pages/couch-to-5k.aspx

Might not help you much, I run everyday, speedwork once or twice a week and I always come second last in the Dads Race - I don't come last because one of the Dads is nearly 10 years older than me - all the other Dads are probably 20 years younger - I am guessing the Dads Race is a sprint so don't altogether see why you would benefit from a C25K plan as your goal is to lose weight (diet) and improve your basic speed so would suggest the diet and sprint drills rather than gentle jogs is the way forward - the jogging will help with the weight loss but to my way of thinking it won't do a massive amount towards increasing sprinting speed. Good luck  

I stand (actually to be precise sit) corected

Ther's another caveat, if you were always rubbish at sport you probably always will be, not everyone's good at everything. Sure you can train to make yourself better, but there's a limit. Natural ability trumps perseverance.

I don't really agree with Lardarse as I wasn't sporty in school at ALL, but have become so later in life. I think the way sport was taught in school just didn't really agree with me. Booktrunk is absolutely right about the diet, and if you lose weight it'll be way easier to learn to do pull-ups too! A good way to speed that up is to get a resistance bar and put it in a doorway at home. Then do one (or try to do one) every time you pass the bar. If you can't do them yet just pull up as high as you can and hold it for ten seconds before lowering yourself gently back down.

Re. the sprinting, I don't know if it matters when you do it,  but make sure you are nicely warmed up first.

literatin wrote (see)

Re. the sprinting, I don't know if it matters when you do it,  but make sure you are nicely warmed up first.

I've just had a vison of the OP doing a 2M warm up and 6*100 strides before the Dad's race

Sorry, as you were ... and good luck Jon

Joining an athletics club later in life and doing parkrun every week, I've come across a great many people who hardly exercised at all in their earlier incarnations, but do very fast times for their ages at 5k, 10k, half marathons and marathons. Were they 'rubbish' when they were younger? Or did they just never achieve their potential? For sure, elite athletes have to have some innate ability and, should one dare to say it, a body type that makes them more likely to succeed in their chosen event - but even for them, the old saw about it being 99 per cent perspiration is correct. So, to move back to the point, if the OP really wants to get faster, he probably can. He might even get to the point of winning the race if he pulls out all the stops. Who really knows? Finding out should be fun though.

to be honest i dont think you need a sprinters regime, you just need better fitness. This is a dads race not the county champs!

i wouldnt bother with weights, skipping, high knees, lunges or whatever unless it something you want to do regardless of this dads race.  Just go out and do some running, get some weight off and you will find you will naturally move faster.  nothing major just a couple of kms every other day.  on the treadmill or road.  Just get moving, get some decent fitness. 

good luck,