Fitness Help!!??

Tuff_Mcduff

Hey,

I hope someone can help.
I've been out injured for around four years due to a knee re-construction as I snapped my cruciate ligament. Three operations later and a long recovery Im back training again.
I'm a kean footballer and have played at quite a hight level.
Ive been working so hard down the gym and at my new clubs football training sessions.
One thing which I want to do is just tighten up a bit and loose a few pounds. Im 5"11 and weigh 76 Kg's. A lot of people think this is fine for my height but I just want to loose a bit of weight round the waste. Im sure this will give me a bit more pace on the football side of things.
Ive been running 11km in an hours run on the treadmill, burning around 80 calories, followed by a 30 min cycle, 15min cross train and 15min step.
Ive been think about taking protein shakes............... will this help me lose or gain weight?

Look forward to your response(s)

James

Gazz

A cruciate ligament 'snap' is a HUGE injury.A 'career ender' for most footballer's.I'm not insulting your intelligence here but you have been given the all clear by the physician's who treated you to start running and training again?If so i take my hat off to you for coming this far after enduring so much pain and misery!

Firstly,your 'people' are correct a weight of 76kg for a man of 5' 11" is fine.
Secondly.I'm a bit miffed as to how you are only burning off 80kcal after an 11km run!!!That treadmill is in dire need of some serious recalibrating!

Thirdly,on the protein issue,i would of thought it would be a weight 'increase' due to synthasis into muscle mass if you are lifting a significant amount of weight.

And with regards to toning and tightening your abs,there is a wide veriety of exercises you can do.Take a look at some of these:

Bodybuilding.com - Exercise Guides Database.

Pay particular attention to 'Air bikes'.They are extremely effective but must be kept up over a period of time along with a good,low fat,carb moderate diet.

Tuff_Mcduff

Gazz,

Thanks so much for your reply.
Withn regards to my 11km run........ my actual calorie burn is around the 800 - 850 mark. I stupidly left a zero off. Doh!
I played a competitive game last night for the first time in a month, my training programme seems to be paying off. I seem so much sharper and match fitness seems to be getting there.
Unfortunately we got beat 3-1 but we played well in appaling conditions.
Thanks for the link, I will have a good read on that.

With regards to the protein shakes someone recomended my to take one for breakfast and one for lunch and eat a proper dinner, they said this will help to lose a bit of weight.
Not sure what to do. Might just keep up the 11km run on the treadmill. Im sure doing this 3 or 4 times a week for a month I will lose a few pound no problem.

One more question........ what heart rate should I be working to?
Im 26, so 220-26=194 (Thats what my max heart rate can be) is that correct?
I've been working out to about 171 bpm
Would you say this is sufficient?

Abbs

With regards the treadmill i was just wondering if you find your knee hurts after it?

I had a nasty American football injury and hurt my left knee quite badly... i now cant use the treadmill and so have switched to the cross trainer. There is pretty much zero impact and so my knee is ding dang do even after a decent 12km or so...

On a 12km 'ski' i find its about 1000 calories.

Gazz

Tuff,

Thats sounds a bit better.I would have a protein shake 'between' breakfast and lunch and one right after the gym.Don't substitute shakes for balanced meals.If the fat and calories are low in your diet then you will obviously burn more off than you consume don't EVER skip meals!

I came across a very good website last night with a fat burn calculator,take a look and work out your ideal target heart rate:

Target Heart Rate Calculator Tool – HealthAtoZ.com

Keep up the running if you are comfortable but don't over work that knee.It might be advisable to spend a couple of weight training sessions a week,building up the muscles around both knees with some leg extensions.The vast mojority of footballers i know aim for a physique that involves a lean,light upper body and big,thick,musclular legs.This keeps stress on the knee ligaments at a low.

bootneck01

Hey have you tried hyipoxia training, the marines use it alot when there recruits get injured, i used it alot when i dislocated my knee and broke my foot, its very demanding and buts no stress on the joints.
Hyipoxia training is about starving the lungs of oxygen and is very good at getting injured people to a good level of fitness. All is required is a object that will sink and a deep swimming pool, wait till it sinks to the bottom and go get it, try this 15 times its bloody hard work, also the swimimg pool can be good for circuit training.

Gazz

It's funny you should say that bootneck.I take my son swimming every weekend and we started larking about,chucking our locker keys,that are on quite heafty rubber wrist straps,into the deepend and diving in to get them.It's pretty shattering after 3 hour's of it!

bootneck01

Well fitness is usually judged by lung capicity, and i think that sort of training is good if you have injury problems

Gazz

Yes it is.The first port of call in the rehabilitation process for Football player's who have sustained the kind of injury that Tuff had is swimming and also for alot of boxer's i train with.