Best products from r/AdvancedFitness

We found 24 comments on r/AdvancedFitness discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 70 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/AdvancedFitness:

u/JSCMI · 1 pointr/AdvancedFitness

Your body is going to regulate its blood volume, etc, so it's all good. Blood pressure typically drops to improved levels when body fat is brought down to healthier levels. Your body is fantastic at adapting and regulating itself. There are some aspects like excess skin does take a long time to go away but it's not going to hurt you.

> obese people generally are not short on glycogen, which means their muscles are insulin resistant. so they most common way to deal with excess serum glucose, is to store it as body fat.

You may be interested in some of the info from Alan Aragon and Brad Schoenfeld regarding insulin resistance and sensitivity of muscle cells and compared to fat cells and the things that affect them (sometimes independently). Remember that lean, muscular people also carry lots of glycogen. The mechanisms you're mentioning are very, very broad and work through many different pathways so be careful of people who would cherry pick particular observations to suggest that the body works a certain way (which might indeed be true) while neglecting the countless other ways the body can accomplish the same thing.

When it comes to body composition, you can set your clock by the facts that total energy balance determine changes in mass and resistance training is the largest factor in influencing any given person's body fat vs muscle level for any given mass (barring a medical condition, of course). If you ever read something scienc-ey that doesn't jibe perfectly with those two facts take a long, skeptical look at it.

> i've been fat, nearly all my life, and 300+ pounds for the last 15. it sounds like my body will have a predisposition to be fat. cool :/.

I wouldn't conclude that from the facts you've given. It sounds like you've lost a substantial amount of weight already. Are the changes you've made sustainable? If so, you're fine. If you're saying that your body will always have a predisposition to be fat when you overeat, then yes that is true of you and 100% of other people.

> i dont ever think i NOT want to sit down and eat a whole detroit style pizza with a half gallon of chocolate milk

This is a great example of a habit everyone's body is "predisposed to getting fat" from. If you could consume that much for regular meals without getting fat I would worry there was something seriously wrong with you endocrinologically or something. The fact that you gain weight when you do this and lose weight when you eat better is an indication that you'll be a-okay.

On the side of psychological adherence, I'd assume even more strongly now that you'll function better in the long-term staying off bulk/cut cycles. If you don't already have a yard high stack of reading material you've been meaning to get to, I recommend checking out this book too which is written by nutrition and exercise professionals and gets a bit into this aspect of long-term health. Their conclusion, based on their expertise of available science, is that the general population's best bet is probably to figure out what the diet of their target body would be and then just eat that. As you approach your target weight your weight will change more slowly but who cares? This is the long game. If you figure, for instance, you want to land at 180 pounds and estimate that maintaining that will be 2,700 calories a day (as an example, the book walks you through how to get a better estimate for any given individual rather than just equating any given weight with a particular calorie intake) then eat 2,700 calories a day for 6 months and see what happens. You can enjoy the day to day better than trying to pursue weight loss more aggressively, you can make better progress in the gym, and best of all you're establishing habits that can be automatic which will make them easier to maintain than cut/bulk cycles and therefore less likely to have days where you say fuck it and eat a bucket of chicken. So anyway- after 6 months you're closer than where you started to your target, you're enjoying life, and you're probably able to eat much more intuitively. Your relationship with food can continue to improve over time and you're avoiding metabolic adaptations that may be setting you up for discomfort in trying to maintain adherence down the road.

Their recommendations involve macronutrient targets, soft food quality targets (as in targets are soft / have wiggle room, not soft food), advice about "cheating" urges, and so on. It's all very well grounded, practical, and yet still consistent with pretty much every nutrition paper that has come up here in AF. They talk about how there are so many different diets that can work (whether keto, paleo, IIFYM, etc) because there are certain core attributes they share so they're all right, not because any particular one is magical. The author asks you to build your diet around your own favorite foods in a way that is consistent with those core attributes to get yourself on a sustainable plan that, in the long run, also happens to get you to your goals.

Anyway - that books seems like something that might be helpful to you so that's my description as to why.

> and incredible accomplishment!!!

> i had honestly never thought of it that way..................

Don't ever forget it, dude. Every healthy person is predisposed to getting fat with the food intake you've described. The better questions about obesity aren't why people get fat (it's because they eat too much) but rather how are habits to eat an appropriate amount of appropriate foods best established. People overeat for so many different reasons, though! If your reasons are being addressed in therapy then that's awesome and I'm not in any way qualified to second guess that. I'd just urge you to get plugged into the other half of this "rehabilitation" which is establishing sustainable, long-term, healthy eating (and exercise) habits. I don't think the conclusion people often make from study OP linked has any relevance to you at all.

Something else you may not have considered: You are going to have the pleasure of finding out how naturally lean your body is once you put enough time into feeding it the way your body wants to be fed instead of the way your anxiety was overfeeding it. It's probably going to be average because that's what average is, but it might be better too, and it's almost guaranteed not the "naturally fat" you've been under the impression of because of the non-physiological overfeeding tendencies that you're dealing with. Stick with it because every 6 months or so you're going to realize that your body is a whole hell of a lot better than you ever realized which is pretty exciting.

u/duzhesen · 5 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

You need to get on Instagram, brotha.

I feel like I'm rehashing a lot of what's widely available on the webs, but you probably need to start by thinking through the complexity of your question.

Yes, you can train at low rep ranges with bodyweight. That's the goal, in fact, if you train that way. But it's a unique pursuit in that the leverages required of training with maximal intensity first require what we might call an intermediate/advanced mastery of technique, form, balance, and all that jazz. In the bodyweight-training community, the top-end movements are all considered skill movements: only after mastering handstands, planches, levers can you implement the patterns dynamically, i.e. handstand pushups, planche pushups, front lever rows, one-arm chinups.

Here are some good resources for you to explore:

  • Jason Ferruggia writes about this a lot, but this is the best intro article.
  • Al Kavadlo isn't a "power" guy, but is a great entry point.
  • Baristi Workout is fantastic, and will direct you to tons of other people you should explore (like Frank Medrano, Barstarzz, etc)
  • Battle of the Bars = badass
  • Christopher Sommer runs the Gymnasticbodies.com training service, but this is the article that started it all and is highly informative.
  • The /r/bodyweightfitness/ subreddit is a gold-mine resource, but beware the Crossfit-esque insider attitude.
  • Overcoming Gravity is arguably the most comprehensive bodyweight training book around.
  • I'm currently obsessed with Ido Portal's training methods - they're among the most unique on the planet.

    Ahhh, there's so much to explore. The problem is that there ISN'T (yet) a cohesive system for developing maximal power with bodyweight movements. IMO, Ferruggia has done the best job, merging bodyweight and barbell training for maximum development. In the end it just becomes an issue of personal preference - though you can develop immense strength and power with bodyweight training, it takes infinitely longer than barbell training. If you're a coach, and raw power is the goal, then BW training almost necessarily gets reduced to supplemental training.

    Good luck to you, have fun, and definitely consider reposting this on r/bodyweightfitness. They'll sort you out something proper.
u/exlaxbros · 6 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

I coach HS men's lacrosse and college men's rowing

My major was sport psych, so I learned a lot of useful tools in the classroom but also found it really helpful to read about other people who actually applied stuff in the real world. Even if our situations aren't the same and it's not 100% applicable, I like to read about successful coaches just to see what I can pick up from them.

Textbook: Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. It's cheap and really useful as just what it sounds like--laying a foundation.

Textbook: Sport Psych Handbook. Also cheap and useful, lot of good information.

Pick up something by John Wooden and read it. You don't have to believe 100% of what he says, but every coach should know some basics of positive coaching and sport psych, plus just having it as a piece of cultural literacy.

When the Game Stands Tall was a great book about a coach who took a program from nothing to The Streak. Haven't seen the movie.

Education of a Coach by David Halberstam, a fantastic sports writer, about Bill Belichick. Biographical and written with a lot of input from Bill himself.

If you have anything you're particularly interested in, let me know and I can maybe provide some more specific recommendations. Regardless of what sport/age you coach, the above are all good and useful books.

u/Gingryu · 2 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

Very interesting! Thank you for the information. I was able to find a good resource about Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga here. Just in case anyone else was interested. I really would like to work yoga into my week as a more relaxing form of exercise compared to my normal martial arts/weight lifting/rock climbing routine. I just wouldn't have time for an actual instructor.

As for the book I'll save you the time book. 10$ book and seems by the reviews to be the best instruction you can get without a yogi to assist.

Thank you for all of the info!

u/ColonelMusterd · 2 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

I will swear by [Dr. Evan Osar's Corrective Exercise Solutions for Common hip and Shoulder dysfunctions] (http://www.amazon.com/Corrective-Exercise-Solutions-Shoulder-Dysfunction/dp/1905367260) Its not a great title but the book is a great intro into functional training or corrective exercise. What I found really good about the book is that it spends a great deal of time teaching on what it looks like when an individual has optimal movement patterns and breathing strategies. Only after that is understood does it show what abnormal or inefficient patterns look like and how to correct them. The last few chapters cover advancing an individual past prehab and rehab into performance and how to make exercise performance as safe/efficient as possible with exercise progressions and guidelines.

u/Furthur · 2 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

the 60second mark is usually what we base out sub-max estimates on. It signifies your bodies ability to recovery from aerobic exercise which means your muscles are more efficient at finding homeostasis again after being asked to perform work. Your score is great! There are lots of tests like this that estimate VO2max and are a great way of tracking your overall fitness over time.

If you are interested in a book that keeps benchmarks for fitness, strength and endurance wise.. check out this you should be able to get one fairly cheap and it has all the info for standards and fitness assessment you'll need. Plus.. for 1$USD and change it's an invaluable resource for standards and norms.

u/Apolly_Bae · 2 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

Oh there's definitely upper and lower limits to the amount of volume and intensity that will be beneficial to hypertrophy and/or strength. I think Scientific Principles of Strength Training by Mike Israetel, James Hoffmann, and Chad Wesley Smith covers the factors going into all of that well enough if you're interested in further reading.


In the case of a study like this, I think there was too much volume or intensity for the Squats and Bench Press to be trained together in the study's High Intensity group. If you're going to do strength training on a similar schedule like they did in the study then you'd probably want to look at doing something like Tactical Barbell's Zulu program for a more reasonable volume and intensity arrangement. It has one working each exercise (Let's say Bench Press and Squat for example) on a Upper/Lower split twice a week. Intensity progresses in a wave like fashion for each microcycle (Roughly 70-75% 1RM in Week 1, 80-85% 1RM in Week 2, and 90-95% 1RM in Week 3) and volume is kept around 3-5 sets of 5 reps for Weeks 1-2 and then 3-5 sets of 3 reps during Week 3. The Tactical Barbell book has the full details and additional programs.

u/Whisky4Breakfast · 6 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

The first overall source I'd look to for Ex-Sci is a textbook from Mcardle Katch & Katch it's a bit more user friendly for getting into the field.

Another good source for info is the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and they have an Intro to Exercise Science as well. They're a bit more Science and Research Heavy, so they can be good or bad depending on the reader.

To get a good starter for musculature a very helpful one is Strength Training Anatomy This one is only a very colorful and visual source of where the different muscles are and how they're involved with different movements.

Supertraining was mentioned earlier in the thread, and is an Amazing source for how different training variables and methods affect the body.

I've found Exercise Metabolism very helpful in how the body uses different macro-nutrients in various intensities of physical activity.

One of my favorite books is also the Essentials of Strength and Conditioning from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). It's more geared toward programming for athletic pursuits rather than overall physical fitness, but it still does give a great understanding of training variables and the body's adaptations to them.

EDIT: The subject of Kinesiology is touched on in most resources, but you may also want to get a standalone resource for this if you want to really understand the construction and functionality of the musculoskeletal system. The courses I've taken and research I've done have used a lot of different resources, so I don't have a single one personally to include here.

u/startin2stack · 1 pointr/AdvancedFitness

I just started this book, but it seem's like it will be more of a fun read than informative. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455534684/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Definitely interested to see what results this thread produces

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u/TheStrengthCoach · 2 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

Lots of questions on this but I'll try to tackle them in order.

  1. Throughout the year, I keep track on a few Key Performance Indicators in the weight room and chart them against their sport performance markers. It's an imperfect system but it does allow for me to see trends i.e. if their max vertical jump decreased in week 14 and their sleep quality also decreased - and the last time those indicators decreased the athlete had a poor performance - then we can use that information to make appropriate changes.

  2. I typically 1RM test in a formal setting at the beginning/end of pre-season and beginning/end of off-season. We take a full session and run through a battery of different lifts and performance indicators. I also program "open sets" to failure at the end of each 3-4 week training phase to eyeball whether they are increasing. For an example I may program the last set of bench press at 95% of their 1RM and they manage to get 6 repetitions rather than 2 than I will use that data to increase their bench 1RM for the next 3-4 week phase.

  3. I don't do any isokinetic strength testing with my teams. I do obsess over quad-hamstring ratios (and our athletic trainers do a good job formally measuring the two). Hip-dominant movements always are programmed 2:1 over our knee-dominant movements as most athletes enter college with an overabundance of knee-dominance and a general weakness in their posterior chain.

  4. Hypermobility in overhead athletes is a big deal and I generally spend a lot of time teaching shoulder stabilization strategies. With this population, like Cressey, I spend less time static stretching and more time focusing on teaching them how to apply stiffness, i.e. activating their glutes, core and teaching them to stabilize and scapula control. Once athletes have the prerequisite strength and ability to fire the right muscles it often comes down to a timing issue. I'm a big proponent of using perturbations during movements to provide athletes with opportunities to stabilize.

  5. GPP first and than SPP later. Yuri Verkhoshansky has a some really good resources on prioritization that I've applied in a block periodization fashion. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Special-Strength-Training-Manual-Coaches/dp/8890403829

  6. I think Rippetoe and Kilgore are phenomenal. I REALLY enjoy "Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training" as well as his Practical Programming.
u/70sBig · 3 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

That first sentence is true for shorter efforts, but not marathons. In FIT we often say that high intensity conditioning will suffice for efforts up to three times as long as the length of the high intensity effort. The book also has a whole chapter on endurance training, too (includes cited research).

The reason that the longer runs/sessions are programmed is to provide the glycogen adaptation in the muscle (i.e. the muscle stores more of it, utilizes the substrates more efficiently, etc.). Not to mention the muscle fibers and musculoskeletal structures adapt to the longer effort.

So, yes, that's why these are programmed. If I had to guess, I'd say that most marathon programs have too many of these runs/sessions. Most modern marathon programs will have a mix of types of runs with "cross training". The progressive ones will have a) track repeats, b) tempo run, and c) long run (in addition to two cross training). I'd fluctuate the length/distance of the long run relative to how far out the race is if I were programming.

u/admiralrads · 0 pointsr/AdvancedFitness

I've got a knot in my back I've been dealing with for awhile - I still need proper maintenance to keep functional, but I've found that an electric massager helps a lot: https://www.amazon.com/TOPVISION-Electric-Massager-Stimulator-Cleared/dp/B07H97CR55/ref=sr_1_18?keywords=tens+massager&qid=1574448945&s=hpc&sr=1-18

The knot is still there, but after using this I'm so much more mobile.