In reply to Beer Baron :
After seeing the video I don't think I could do that. My lower back is a complete wreck so most movements like that are a big no from me, dawg. Tomorrow morning is leg day so I'm going to try leg curls to failure, strip set, then immediately stand on a plate and do a super deep stiff leg dead with something super light. If my hams are already at failure, I'm hoping the deep stretch and a bunch of reps will really toast them.
In reply to infinitenexus :
You know your body.
For me, I hate stiff deg dead lifts, because I find the balance weird, the weight seems to want to get in front of me, and that puts extra forces on my low back. These have none of that issue. But that's my body. YMMV.
Wish I had some better options for you.
In reply to infinitenexus :
What about holding it from the "front", or the portion of the bar you load with weight? That's how I saw how to do it, and you should be able to pick it up in just a basic squat then take the position from there.
I've been reading through the thread again, and I think I'm going to temporarily abandon trying to join the 1k club. I got stronger in the three lifts that requires, but I let a lot of other things slip to concentrate on that. I like Beer Baron's philosophy of more go and less show. I'm working out to slow the decline of age and stay active.
I've had a week off out of town, and I've got a month before my next week off out of town. I think I'm going to focus on lifting in the 10 rep range on all of my exercises for the next month to build a new baseline to work with before I start lifting as heavy, because I've been ping ponging up and down without moving forward for a few months now.
As part of dropping weight and going for more reps, I also tried to incorporate the slower eccentric and explosive concentric. When I was trying to push as much weight as I could, the concentric was usually pretty slow, and the eccentric was faster.
I will say my muscles felt different after lifting that way. I'm very slightly sore today, and I'm guessing it's from doing more reps than I'm used to. I'm going to stick with this for at least a month.
I've had some weirdness with my lifting for about the past month.
So... I took over 3 months off following the vasectomy and subsequent issues. Started easing back into things smoothly afterwards. Just trying to reacclimate myself and build back up until I found where I was at now with the strength lost from not lifting for 3 months. Also started going for the absolute maximum ROM I could on squats without breaking form, instead of just regulation powerlifter depth.
Really easy to start. Building up doing sets of 8 and adding weight frequently with every set. Eventually built up to a point where sets are at real working weight and I am doing sets of 7-8 with maybe 1-3 reps in reserve on squats.
Recovery feels *really* hard from that. Like... harder than heavy 3's from before the procedure. Felt like I went from "eazy peazy" to wall. Like 4+ days to recover from sets of 8.
The character of the fatigue is weird. It reminds me of when I was first starting up, and the sort of nervous system recalibration I felt when I started lifting 20 lbs more than my body weight. Like I'm overloading my nervous system, not my muscles. But I'm working volume, not weight.
Anyway... I dropped weight a bit, and dropped reps to 6. Then I'm going to start building up much more slowly of 5 or 10 lbs/week. But this past week I only did the one "heavy" day of my main lifts and one other day of medium weight lift variations (plus 3 days of climbing).
Beginning this past Saturday I started trying to emulate an eating plan somewhat similar to what InfiniteNexus uses but, with fewer calories.
It looks something like this:
First meal = two scoops of whey with almond milk (immediately after waking)
Second meal = one cup of: oats or quinoa or beans and rice (post-workout)
Snack = two servings of fruit (right now it's bananas and cherries)
Third meal = veggie burger or almond/peanut butter on carb master multi-seed bread
My strength and endurance levels are up quite a bit (obviously since that's a TON of carbs) but my overall energy seems about the same, it might even be slightly lower than when I was carb-phobic. I felt more... intense and focused when I was eating predominantly fat and protein. My sleep has changed too; I seem to need more of it and it takes me longer to get going once I'm awake.
As long as my weight doesn't increase by more than a few pounds (water) I'll stick to this plan for a bit. My muscles have filled back out and the pumps are insane but, honestly, I feel a bit puffy. I may need to increase the protein and take out a few carbs. I've gotten into the habit of weighing myself first thing in the morning (after going to the bathroom), nude on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and finding an average to get a rough idea of where I am. I had gotten down to 175, then crept back up and stayed at 178 for a while then bounced between 176 and 178. I'm really hoping I don't see anything over 182.
In reply to The_Jed :
I would want to add more colorful vegetables to that diet. Tomatoes, onions, peppers, greens, etc. Probably some unsaturated fats as well.
What you've described screams to me of lacking vitamins, minerals (especially Iron), and fatty acids.
My diet will be very different from your's. I am not concerned with weight loss. The biggest thing I focus on is first getting the vitamin-rich vegetables, then enough lean protein, and then filling in the gaps just listening to my body. I am aware this works better for me than many other people.
I struggle to get enough food in so I tend to go for calorie dense foods. To be honest, I need to eat more veggies. I take a multivitamin and vitamin D and some other stuff each day to help but I'm trying to be better.
Been dealing with some food poisoning over the past five days or so. Still got the runs a bit, but I'm least able to eat now. I went two days without eating, just drinking water, and I dropped 6 pounds. eeek. Good time for a cut, right?
Dr. Mike put out a really interesting video with another super knowledgable guy. Minimal tangents, good info on basically half reps, but on the stretched part of the lift.
I take a multivitamin as well, along with turmeric and vitamin d.
Today I stepped on the scale and it read 178.8. I breathed a big sigh of relief. I've been obsessively checking and re-checking what hole I'm using on my belt and trying to reassure myself that the waistline on my uniform trousers isn't getting snug there's just a huge variance in the sizes. I know it's not exactly healthy but, this is what being the fat kid, the fat teen, and the fat adult has done to me. If I don't obsessively monitor my caloric intake and activity level I begin to expand. Bulking is insanely easy for me, even if I lift and do ridiculous amounts of cardio five or six days per week. All I have to do is eat when I'm hungry. That's it. It's maddening.
I'm kinda the opposite, I'm never hungry and I get distracted really easily. If I eat when I'm hungry I'll probably eat two meals a day, haha.
pheller said:I'm looking for a good app that gives me a challenge every day. Eventually building into workout routines.
Something like at the beginning it says:
"Do 5 pushups." "Were you able to complete this?"
Months later, it might say:
"Do 20 pushups, 10 squats, these yoga positions, and go for a 5 minute run." "Were you able to complete this?"
It'd be even better if such an app would tailor workouts to preferences. Like "I like to ride bike" so I'll get more workouts that include that. Or "I'm flexible" and "I like weightlifting" so it'll say, suggest squats more often.
Bringing this back up.
Apparently there are a few apps that do this. My interest in them is growing as it seems lately my schedule results in me having access to different equipment, time, or even my body not fully cooperating.
I'm curious if anyone has any experience with them? I'd pay a fair price for something that will challenge me differently every day - taking into account recovery from previous workouts, and available equipment. Some days its planet fitness, some days its a hotel room, some days a single kettlebell, some days a half-rack with barbell.
ProDarwin said:pheller said:I'm looking for a good app that gives me a challenge every day. Eventually building into workout routines.
Something like at the beginning it says:
"Do 5 pushups." "Were you able to complete this?"
Months later, it might say:
"Do 20 pushups, 10 squats, these yoga positions, and go for a 5 minute run." "Were you able to complete this?"
It'd be even better if such an app would tailor workouts to preferences. Like "I like to ride bike" so I'll get more workouts that include that. Or "I'm flexible" and "I like weightlifting" so it'll say, suggest squats more often.
Bringing this back up.
Apparently there are a few apps that do this. My interest in them is growing as it seems lately my schedule results in me having access to different equipment, time, or even my body not fully cooperating.
I'm curious if anyone has any experience with them? I'd pay a fair price for something that will challenge me differently every day - taking into account recovery from previous workouts, and available equipment. Some days its planet fitness, some days its a hotel room, some days a single kettlebell, some days a half-rack with barbell.
Couch to 5k for running. You could easily combine that with a few 90 day challenges.... 90 day push-up, 90 day squat, 90 day plank... and viola. None of that really ever worked for me. I have to find a fitness related event I want to do and sign up for that. As a teen I played the usual stick and ball sports. Once you are too old, too slow and too small to continue those, motivation was hard. I now find things to sign up for and do.
Today I rode my bike to the gym and, despite my foot being a whingey turd, I ran a modified version of Murph. I swapped out the 1-mile run (I have been using a treadmill for this) for 1.5 miles on an elliptical. I also tried playing around with the rep counts of the exercises in an attempt to shave off some time.
It went something like this:
1.5 miles on an elliptical
Pullups = 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 20, 20
Pushups = 40, 30, 30, 30, 35, 35
Squats = 50, 30, 30, 40, 50, 50, 30, 20
1.5 miles on an elliptical
It seemed to work okay. I probably *could* have trimmed at least one set off of all of the exercises by increasing the reps but, I didn't want to burn out. I realize that the time it took me to do this iteration of Murph is not comparable to the two previous times I ran it but, I was still trying to beat my time of 46:40. I didn't quite make it; it took just over 48 minutes.
As I was leaving the gym I spotted my youngest kid waiting for me with one of their friends. They were riding their bikes around the gym parking lot. So, naturally, we went on a 13.5-mile bike ride. :)
It was a VERY good workout and my legs are smoked!
I really like Murph. I've been thinking of substituting super light OHP for the pushups and super light Hex Bar deadlifts for the squats, just for something new.
In reply to The_Jed :
I love riding bikes. I'm going to get back into it pronto.
This week was cardio-lifting workouts for me. I kept the same format all week. I appreciated mixing it up from my normal routine. Its also nice that they are high intensity and allow you to get a decent amount done in 30 mins.
For time (30 min cap)
20-18-16-14-12-10
1: BB Hang clean (95), BB Push press (95), 7 cal row between rounds
2: Bench Press (135), KB Curl (53) ,situps
3: 1 arm KB squat (53, alternating sides), 1 arm KB bent over row (53, each side), Halos (35, alternating)
4: 1 arm KB reverse lunge -> oh press (53), BB curls (45), ab roll out
The Ab roll out on the last one was pretty brutal. 90 roll outs has left me *really* sore 2 days later
In reply to ProDarwin :
90 an roll outs with the wheel? Ouch!
I need to do abs more. I should try some ab roll outs. My issue is my lower back; basically any ab workout I do, by rep 10 my lower back is screaming at me, like the muscles are at full muscle failure. I hope one day a doctor can actually tell me what's wrong with the muscles of my back.
Had a great chest/triceps workout today. I'm still not improving on flat bench like I feel I should be. Maybe I just need to push myself harder(?). I dunno. But my upper chest has been responding really well to incline presses. I've recently noticed that I'm really starting to build some muscle on my lower triceps, right above my elbow, so that's cool.
Tomorrow is back/biceps, which is always an interesting workout for me. I enjoy working my back/lats, it's my strongest and best muscle group. I don't really enjoy biceps. I always thought of them as a showy muscle, and when I was younger I always saw super douchey guys doing endless biceps curls, so I have a sort of mental block to doing hard biceps workouts I guess. So now my biceps are undersized in comparison to my triceps. I need to just force myself to do a certain number of sets. Although there's a rack of dumbbells in the basement at work, so I could always do a back workout in the morning, then on my lunch break at work do a thorough biceps workout.
Got too tired from running around yesterday to even attempt the gym at 7pm, so I'm going tonight instead after work- and then Wednesday too perhaps, if I feel good enough after my 12s. Just gonna play this week by ear, it's shaping up to be pretty busy in the good 'home improvement' way.
Also seconded on working abs more- I've put them first and foremost in my plan now, because I have a nasty habit of doing them last after all my sets but running out of time to do them. So far I do woodchoppers Monday, crunches wednesday, and then I'm either doing leg raises or ab rollouts friday; something to hit the lower ab and not the upper. Might change woodchoppers to Wednesday to give them more time to relax.
Been watching some of Dr. Peter Attia's videos lately. He mostly focuses on longevity and ways to stay healthy even in old age, exercises that can help with stuff like that, etc. I'd like to pick up a copy of his book. Anyways, a guy had him on his youtube channel and I think it's a great video that I wanted to share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPGaBFjH_JI
That's his 7 tips for longevity.
I've been having issues with eating enough lately, I've posted about it plenty. I think I found the problem/solution. Eating 4 huge meals per day sucks and I'm always stuffed. However, eating 3 huge meals with a snack between each is remarkably easier. I easily ate 3700 calories yesterday. Score! 180 pounds here I come.
infinitenexus said:I need to do abs more. I should try some ab roll outs. My issue is my lower back; basically any ab workout I do, by rep 10 my lower back is screaming at me, like the muscles are at full muscle failure. I hope one day a doctor can actually tell me what's wrong with the muscles of my back.
Do you do any better with leg lifts rather than crunches or ab wheels? What about dead bugs?
You could also try gymnastics rings. Just working support position is surprisingly difficult. It is very easy to ramp up the intensity by rotating your hands outward.
...
My appetite has decreased lately. Especially noticeable at breakfast. My normal breakfast has been two slices whole-grain toast, 2 eggs, 1 chicken sausage (Trader Joe's), and a heap of homemade salsa. I used to just wolf that down, and be hungry for a snack by 10. Now, I cut it down to 2/3 of a sausage and 1.5 pieces of toast (same eggs and salsa). The last bite was like, "Well, I don't want to waste food..."
In reply to infinitenexus :
Another one of Attiea's good contributions is a health documentary series on Disney+, done with Chris Hemsworth. It's worth sitting down to watch.
In reply to Beer Baron :
The days I decide to stop being lazy and actually work my abs, I generally do leg lifts. I can usually get 10 reps before my lower back starts bothering me, sometimes all the way to 12. What tends to work best is if I hold myself upright on gymnast rings, uhhhhhhh how to describe it. Like my arms are down by my side, hands in the rings and I'm holding myself up by my hands, then I lift my legs up as high as I can and hold them there. That gets really tiring really quick. I need to do that more. Like in this photo.
I tried to up the ante a bit today. I have skinny legs, genetically, and I'm trying really hard to build them up. I can't squat heavy at all with my back so it's a challenge. I think I've been going too easy on them, so this morning I started with ham curls, warmup then 2 heavy sets, then 1 max set to muscle failure, stripped the weight and did more reps at 3 different weights until I could hardly walk. Then i went to the leg extension and did the same thing, then went over to the leg press and did 2 heavy sets, then 1 heavy set with slow negatives, as close to failure as I could get. Then I actually did some squats on a smith machine, which turned out well. On a smith machine I'm able to mostly take my lower back out of the equation. So, with my thighs already exhausted, I did a couple high rep sets to failure. After that, 15 minutes on an exercise bike. Good stuff. I think next leg day I'm going to try walking lunges as well.
In reply to infinitenexus :
Real bike big hills.
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