Obese people should not be doing crazy workouts

[Damon]

If you're an obese person, please take it easy when working out. Don't do anything that requires you to jump or hop around. Do cardio, weight lifting, and some other workouts that aren't rough on your knees, legs and other joints. 

Bear in mind, when you're obese, you have to consider the amount of weight on your body. You can't just do jumping jacks and think nothing bad will happen. That's how a lot of obese people break legs and arms. Obese people should walk more. I would advise not even running, as that would be rough on your knees depending on the weight. 

Anyway, this was just a helpful tip, as I was recently reminded of the show the biggest loser, which pushed obese people to do workouts they probably shouldn't even be doing. Really, it comes down to working out slower, at a slow pace until your body can take more intense workouts. 

[James]

Yes you have to build up to it but I also think people may take it a little to easy when they get started. I feel that way because people that talk to me that do not work out are always reminding me to be safe and to rest. I have a 6-7 day a week workout routine and know exactly how hard I push or dont push it is all planned out in advance. 

But yeah if you are brand new top priority is going to be getting into a routine so start with the standard 3 days. Then slowly build up from there. The priorities I have always followed in working out are: 

Frequency: How often we do an activity
Duration: How long we do an activity
Intensity: How hard we do an activity

So if I was doing it all over again it would be something like I am going to jog every day for 30 minutes. If you have technology you can define this even better and say I am going to jog every day for 30 minutes at 80% of my max heart rate. 

As the body adapts those 30 minute runs would have to get longer but I would stay at the same intensity. 

Once I hit a time I am happy with which is typically between 60 - 90 minutes and I have the frequency pretty much as high as it can be 6-7 days a week. Now its time to start sprinkling in some hard stuff. Still going to work out every day but some days will be harder then others. 

This is the pattern I like to follow. 

I made a mistake this week though and my last bike ride was on Friday the 20th. 5 days later I hop on the bike to do a typical 90 minute endurance effort on the bike. Watching heart rate by time I hit the end of hour 1 not only was I spent but my heart had worked harder then my past 90 minute endurance efforts. I honestly did not think something like this could happen so fast. 

Now I know that regardless of how bummed out I may be feeling I need to keep the efforts going. The body wants to stay in movement and it is my job to do that. What I should have done on those days I was not feeling it was just reduce intensity even more and keep the duration the same and just go through the motions. 

Will see how my run goes tomorrow last time I ran was on Saturday the 21st. Hopefully my bike ride reminded my heart of what we can do and the run tomorrow will be no problem. 

Stay safe out there. I think it boils down to building a plan, executing on that plan, and staying consistent with it. We tend to learn what we can and can not do as we go as long as we are listening to our bodies. 

Stretch EVERYDAY! 

[Sophia]

The easiest thing someone can do, no matter where they are or what size they are starting out as is... WALK! You don't have to overdue it. Your body views it as a natural movement. You might be sore the first few days but you will slowly feel better and best of all, it helps everyone lose weight. People who are very obese should start with a 10 minute walk each day and go up 5 minutes every week. 

[Justin89]

My uncle was obese and he went a little too crazy. He was playing basketball at 350+ pounds and well, the body can only take so much and his knee and leg kind of snapped when he went the wrong direction during a game. 

People who are obese, should walk, power walk, lift weights and do some other cardio workouts. Once you're down to a weight where your body can take the weight, you can then play sports and do other fun things. Your body will thank you. 🙂 

[Scarlett]

I have seen a lot of people get hurt thinking they had to go big or go home when it comes to weight loss. The best approach if you are obese is the adjust your diet first. Lose some weight that way so when you do start incorporating exercise, it is less weight on your joints.