What is a decent amount of exercise

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Ok so now I can manage 20-30 min biking alternating between 3 min moderate, 1 min intensive.

I do 4 times 10 sets of squat jumps.

Stretching before and after.

As time allows I can do this each day without feeling sore.

So, now I want to add in more upper body strength. I used to enjoy diving a lot and as the dives got deeper and I needed larger tanks of air I found I didn't have the upper body strength to sustain it. Now.... if there ever is a life of going back to my own interests after kids, I would like to dive again... So any good ideas for exercises to build upper body strength?

Thank you.

OOPS... 5 times a week.

I would say you certainly could use some more protein for the amount of excercise you want to do. If you don't like meat aside from fish or lentils, black beans are a really good source of protein. Also you could try and get some protein bars they have a lot of flavors that do not include any meat so that could also help. But yeah if you don't eat meat you should make especially sure you are eating other protein sources. Without enough protein muscles are more likely to get damaged then become strengthened from exertion as far as I know.

Also make sure you stay hydrated that is very important as dehydration can wear you out a lot.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 15 Apr 2018, 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

^^ Sorry, my last post was correcting that.. 5 times a week, not 5 times a day. I struggle to fit in 5 times a week!

^^^be very careful about bending knees and arms under weight-bearing load, more than 90 degrees.

Body weight exercises like press ups are a good way of building upper body strength. You can do them anywhere at whatever time suits you best. If you have a barbell or dumbbells, you could try shoulder presses which are a very effective way of improving upper body strength. The same goes for bench presses though, as the name suggests, you do need a workout bench to perform them unlike shoulder presses which you can do standing or seated. Even just adding press ups to your routine will make a difference.

As for body weight exercises, pull ups and push ups are king.

You are without a doubt not getting enough protein to sustain muscle and bone mass though. If don't like meat, then fish, eggs and greek yoghurt are really effective protein sources. With greek yoghurt you can add anything too it, berries, fruit, nuts, chocolate ect.

^^ thank you both, good ideas.

For protein I do eat Greek yoghurt every morning, during the day I regularly eat feta and quinoa and plenty of nuts and lots of peanut butter. I eat fish and some chicken but I am definetely going to start eating more beans and lentils too. Probably 80% of my food intake is vegetables or fruit.

CG, what do you think of those kvarg products - they are marketed here as Swedish and are high protein dairy yoghurts? I have never seen them when I go back to sweden though and I find they market quite a lot of things in the uk as Swedish which then aren't Swedish at all!