My problem with dropping fat is not typical. I have been able to in the past. My problem is working my lower body in, specifically my left leg and cardio limited to a recumbent bike. It have severe degenerative osteoarthritis in my left knee (I wish I could post a copy of my latest X-ray, the surgeon said it resembled that of an 80 yr old cripple) I recently (Dec 12) had arthroscpopic surgery to remove a loose, and rather large bone spur (approx 3/8" thick and the diameter of a nickel). This was my last effort of relief before total knee replacement, hopefully putting it off anywhere from 1-4 years. Constant pain has become a way of life and I can handle it.
My question is how do I perform an efficient, and effective workout including some kind of cardio to drop fat while working around this old injury. BTW if it matters, my stats are: 36 yrs old, 5 years of consistent training (however not much the past few months due to this)over 15 years of training total, 6’1, 228, 19-20% BF. I am not making any excuses and will do whatever I need to do, so any help from forum experts would go a long way
About 2 months ago I severely pulled my hamstring, putting me out for about 3 weeks. During that time a managed to drop body fat.
All it took was a clean diet and doing a modified version of energy systems work using mostly the upper body. Typically I would do a circuit of 10 chinups/pullups, 20 pushups, 20 full situps, and eventually as my hamstring started to get better I started throwing in some overhead squats into the circuit. This can either be done continuously or with minimal breaks between each circuit (1-2 minutes).
With my experience, a clean diet was the most important part of it. Good luck with the knee.
I would try some kind of sled dragging routine. I know that there are heavy duty sleds that westside powerlifters use that they drag for conditioning. A typical workout is something like 6 drags of 60 yards each which can be done using many different pulling techniques. There’s no impact, its not fast, there doesn’t need to be any full leg extension, and I’m sure you can find a way to work around your knee.
Thanks for the response. The clean diet is really key for me. Not being mobile or as young anymore is starting to smack me in the face to focus in on this.