Adequate training for general fitness?

[londonpride]

not talking elite level athlete here but to get improved fitness, be considered fit, and mostly to lose weight/fat what do you think is the minimum per day you should be looking at doing? and what sort of exercises do you find work best?

i've heard people who just say 'run run run' which is obviously the simplest form of weight loss and cardio fitness, but what do you find effective?

do you enjoy running or are you one of the types who can't bare the treadmill and have developed individual ways of keeping up your fitness? how long per day do you spend working out to achieve your fitness? (obviously everyone is different but im interested in hearing peoples own thoughts on this).

currently i do about 1 hour per day, 30 minutes running/cross trainer, 10 or so bag work and 20-30 minutes weights.

[Dave78]

i think you are doing plenty LP, as long as you are doing it to an adequate intensity....its not about the time spent, its more about the effort spent doing it (hope that makes sense).

Balls to the wall but keep techniques, go all out, push yourself each and every time!

[Allan Shrek]

You could make an argument that there's no such thing as fit, only fit for purpose. The fitness of an elite fighter is vastly different from that of an elite triathlete but both are fit across many areas.

[JonathanFrakes]

Grow a beard

Fit ends with T

[Wiegieboard]

Through my education and personal experience.
Governmental guidelines went from 45minutes of cardio 3 times per week to I believe it was 20 minutes of cardio 3 times a week or something shit like that.
I'd say that Joe Bloggs can increase their base fitness levels by a pleasing amount with a one hour long training session composed of cardio, strength, motor skills training (mixed with other elements) and flexibility done 3 times per week.
I've seen many clients (and myself whilst coming back from illness) improve in elements of specific testing to a level that they feel it makes a difference in their everyday life by using this method.
Improvements in joint R.O.M. and general flexibility.
Improvements in pretty much full body co-ordination.
Improvements in speed of body and limb movement.
Improvements in strength and muscular endurance using large compound movements.
Improvement in technique, VO2 max and lactate threshold whilst running, swimming, cycling, hillclimbing etc.
I found that whilst combined with diet control, these 3 sessions a week can alter your samatotyping profile in different ways depending on how your sessions are designed and how your nutrition is planned.
I find that 1 hour of mixed training 3 times per week can be particularly effective for reasonably motivated individuals who were previously sedentary. The majority seemed to find it not too much and not too little whilst receiving motivation through their improvements

I believe in trying to make training slightly sport specific whilst training Joe Bloggs, cycling the training methods of fitness and motor skills from different sports to give overall co-ordintion improvement whilst encouraging them to break their old pbs over time with regards to their strength, flexibility, speed and endurance.

[Barracuda187]

not talking elite level athlete here but to get improved fitness, be considered fit, and mostly to lose weight/fat what do you think is the minimum per day you should be looking at doing? and what sort of exercises do you find work best?

i've heard people who just say 'run run run' which is obviously the simplest form of weight loss and cardio fitness, but what do you find effective?

do you enjoy running or are you one of the types who can't bare the treadmill and have developed individual ways of keeping up your fitness? how long per day do you spend working out to achieve your fitness? (obviously everyone is different but im interested in hearing peoples own thoughts on this).

currently i do about 1 hour per day, 30 minutes running/cross trainer, 10 or so bag work and 20-30 minutes weights.

If your object is to be fit generally then I would recommend in starting crossfit at your nearest crossfit gym. Those guys break down fitness into the different components and vary workouts almost every time you train. Someone told me is the idea with Crossfit is that they can hang with the elite in their chosen fitness test or training (Fitness not skill based) but will also be able to do all the other areas of fitness to higher level for example, they can run with an Triathlete (Obviously not beat them) but able to train at a good pace for 6 miles however, they will be able to Deadlift a significantly more than them, be faster over 200 metres than them and be able to do more pull ups + other exercises. The limitations to crossfit appear to be in its lack of specificity to sport but it is a great tool for building excellent fitness + off season training. The real skill is periodizing it for opimising perfomance in competition. Goodluck man, keep at it, train hard and train smart

[PieDog]

agree with above. Crossfit is a very good example of general fitness at a high level. Workouts which are short and intense and challenge the whole body and cardio system. Diet is a huge part of being fit too. Personally im doing Stronglifts 3 x per week, BJJ 3 x per week, and i dont consider myself fit, but im getting there slowly.

[londonpride]

would you consider 20 minutes per day of weight to suffice in toning up muscle? (obviously not making it massive).

for instance today i did on the weight machine:

10 reps x 5 chest
10 reps x 5 shoulders
10 reps x 5 back
as well as biceps and sit ups.

cardio i'll do later being 30 minutes on the cross trainer
then in the evening a 10 minute intense circuit involving skipping, sprawling, rapid punching, squats etc.
then end with 5 x 2 min rounds of bag work.

looking to lose another 10kg's and whilst having sorted out my diet getting paranoid as to whether i'm doin enough to reach my goal in about a month/half.
away from training at my mma gym my problem has always been getting enough additional exercise

[simonmobiledisco]

there is no such thing as toning muscle.
Also get off the machines and grab a barbell

what access to equipment do you have and I'll try and make a suggestion for you

[londonpride]

well toning up but not looking like a body builder, obviously that takes far more time and effort which i don't think is worthwhile for mma.

what is wrong with weight machines? it's all i have access to apart from some dumbells.