Lurker > Seanchan

My weight has been creeping above 150 and I can see it around the stomach. I've got to lose a few pounds, ideally about 5 but I'd be happy with 2-3. Much easier to do in the summer months, when the extra cardio from swimming counteracts my not super great diet. But doable otherwise if I just cut out maybe 400 calories a day.

Had a shit ass squat/leg day at the gym today.

Want to know when the day's gonna be shit? When your lower back is sore. When you're feeling it not in the muscles but the joints. Tried to work through it but my right hip/glute was NOT having it at any sort of heavier weight.

It was one of those days that makes you really evaluate what you're doing. I think I need to quit squats for a while because this hip/glute issue is driving me crazy. Maybe I'll be okay doing some leg press instead. The supplemental stuff (leg curl, leg extensions, lunges, etc.) seemed okay at least. But I simply cannot just continue what I'm doing; it is not working.

iiaattgg posted...

I said I would never back squat again but honestly Im so fucking bored of the front squat that I said fuck it and gave it a shot today. Did a rep at 285 which is obviously nothing to phone home about but I was happy with it considering its been a year since I did it.

I'd love to be able to do a rep at 285 right now, lol.

Even when my back was healthy, I think I was topping out around 300. Granted, I'm 150 pounds, so that's a decent number, but still.

How did you manage to get bloody toes? Was it just a friction thing from feet/socks/sneakers moving or rubbing?

Tweaked my lower back a bit doing deadlifts earlier in the week. Did a squat day today with a bit lower weight and it was okay. I was going slow and really thinking about my form. I felt like I was getting too much on my toes on my right side, as when I deliberately tried to lift my toes that seemed to ease the hip/glute issue I've continually had on that side.

I wanted to do some of these, https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/HipAbductor/CBHipAbduction, as I read that the issue I'm having could be related to an instability/weakness in that inner thigh, but the gym was weirdly crowded.

I've been liking the Zercher Squats. I've added a little bit more weight but they're still a high rep exercise for me, especially as I've been trying to do those "ass to grass", which feels very different than the "to parallel" low bar back squat.

With my continued lower body issues, I took a look back at my numbers this year versus the previous 2 years, and it's comical. Weight ranges where in the past I was getting 10-12 reps I'm now struggling to get 3-4 reps. My max numbers for squats and deads are down like 30-40 pounds. Upper body (bench and OHP) are relatively constant, thankfully. I try not to get too down about it overall and just focus on doing the best I can, but man, seeing it in stark relief is eye opening.

Id love to have a home gym one day. Not possible at the moment though.

I've been experimenting with those Zercher squats at the end of my leg day the last few weeks. Just a few very light, 10 rep sets. It's a really different feeling exercise keeping the bar in the crooks of your elbows. Plus, as someone who otherwise does low bar back squats, it's a much more upright position overall.

I asked to work in a set today and the dude complimented me for a set of weighted chinups I did earlier (11@45, fyi). Felt good, man!

What an insane story! Glad you recovered and it didn't scare you from working out.

I think that story, along with basically everything that's been said the past dozen posts, really highlights that you need to listen to your body. "Fighting through it" only leads to bad results.

KateMarsh posted...

I've been dealing with a digestive issue since sometime between Christmas and New Year's. At first I thought it was just my body adjusting to the kinds/quantities of food I was eating during that time period but we're well beyond that point now and it's gone from an annoyance to a major disruption in my life. I've already seen my doctor once and I'm calling him back on Monday. It's been difficult to work out because I'm on a diet with pretty minimal protein.

OH NO!

iiaattgg posted...

follow up: I think I have a hernia lol

OH NO!

Well, fine, I'll talk about my aches and pains too!

Last few days, my lower back has felt fatigued, especially in the morning. Not necessarily achy or sore, more like feeling it needs a bit more time off than I'd usually give it with squats and deads alternating ever 3-4 days.

I've also got this soreness in my front shoulder area. Both sides though maybe slightly worse on the right. Definitely impacts my lifting, both physically and mentally. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong (lifting shoulders during bench, doing incline bench on a smith machine..., maybe overextending on rows/pulldowns) or just doing too much. But it's basically felt about this level for the last month or so.

Going to go lighter and less volume recovery next week to see if that makes a difference.

I do a 7 day cycle at the moment (Squats/Legs, OHP/Arms, Off, Deads & Rows, Off, Bench/Chest & Pulldowns). Honestly, I feel like I should be doing an 8 day cycle, with an added day off between Squats and OHP, to give my body a little more rest. But I'm having a hard time mentally getting around not doing "Saturday Squats" or whatever.

Probably a better plan would be to do a 3 day split (haven't done that in a loooong time) but I can't reconcile trying to do 2 of the big lifts on one day. I mean, Push/Pull/Legs is a tried and true.

I've had an Apple Watch for over 2 years now. Super useful as a fitness tool. There's an odd satisfaction to closing my rings every day. Okay, not every day but like 90% of the time... But it still gets me up and moving more than I would otherwise.

Granted, I take the calories burned with a grain of salt, as I think it's just doing some simple math of age, sex, weight, and heart rate. That said, you'll still have an understanding of where you're at. This time of year, I'm usually at 700ish calories burned per day. During the peak of the summer, when I'm swimming a lot, it's closer to double that.

KateMarsh posted...

Brace yourselves... the Jan 1sters are coming...

98% of people who wait for Jan 1st to start something will quit/forget before the month is done. But hey, there's a least a small handful of people who stick with it!

I also find other "gym rushes" around the switch to Daylight Saving Time ("oh shit, sun, time to get in shape!") and Memorial Day ("oh shit, bathing suit season, time to get in shape!").

Started back in the gym yesterday after a 10 day holiday break. Felt nice to feel fresh; I could really feel it in my joints. I need to do a better job of taking breaks like once a month to give my body a better chance of bouncing back.

They do say the ideal temperature for a run is actually in the 40s.

Sorozone posted...

Did my big walk today. 11 miles in 2 hours.

...that's an 11 minute/mile pace...for walking?!?

Are you sure that's accurate? I can walk pretty fast for an hour long walk (15:30-16:00 minute/mile pace). And when I've tried, I was able to get close to a 14:00 minute/mile pace for 5-6 miles. 3 min/mile faster than that is so serious speed walking!

You know when you take a week off from the gym and you get back to it and your body's like "omfg, what the hell are you doing to me?!?" You lift less weight, still feel weak, and have awful DOMs. Just the worst!

But then, you get that 2nd week back lifting and your body's like "yo, we got this, back to normal, last week didn't happen!" Such a great feeling!

iiaattgg posted...

zercher squats

Never seen that before...

Sorozone posted...

What's your age if you don't mind me asking?

Dangerously close to 40. So, young relatively speaking but on the old range for GFaqs.

Haven't posted in a while. I made some significant adjustments to my routines after the lower back/hip issues a few months back. A bit less focus on the big 4 lifts and a lot more supplemental/isolation movements. It means an extra 10-20 minutes in the gym per workout but that's ultimately probably a good thing.

Unfortunately, those hip/back issues have not gone away, which I'm chalking up to getting older...and continuing to persist with much lower weight rather than stopping completely with the lower body stuff. Some weeks it's better and some weeks it's worse. Just before my week holiday break it was pretty bad, though really only with the squats. Then tweaked something in the "normal" lower back area a few days ago but have no idea how it happened! I did do a "welcome back" leg day tonight with lower weight and reps, and went back to the weight belt to give myself some support/confidence, and it went well enough.

Still hitting a wall with overhead press just a bit short of body weight.

Bench I actually did a new personal best, 1 rep at 220, which I was super happy about. The next week I tried 222.5 and failed but I was a little out of sync that day, so it wasn't unexpected. It's always been a long term goal of mine to do a 1.5x body weight bench, and I suddenly feel like it's actually possible (~150lbs, so 225 goal)!

Finally finished watching the Tribal Combat today. Too tired last night.

Not the most surprising result if they wanted to continue to extend this out another 6 months. At the same time, the answer to why, which will likely not be great, is going to be on weekly shows Ive no interest in watching.

Oxygen getting sucked out of the arena with this match...

iiaattgg posted...

did not expect Logan Paul to be great but here we are

He's been in like 5-6 matches now? And it's the same thing every time. He's a genuine star.

Should I be surprised theres no match for Ripley?

Anything noteworthy happened since the last PLE? I assume not.

Really pissed off at my building's gym the other day.

I'm doing other things, but notice one of the benchs was slanted oddly. I walked over and realized that a bolt had fallen out on one side near the seat area.I put the bolt back in but the nut to secure the other side was nowhere to be found. Meaning it'll be fucked up again in about 2 hours because no one seems to give a fuck. Not the residents who use it who can't be assed to wipe down and return equipment, nor management who don't care to fix broken equipment on any decent timescale.

Then, there was some woman in their with her kid or brother or whatever. Kid's probably about 10-12. Sits on the leg extension machine and CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG for about 40 seconds. Mom/sister not paying any mind. I REALLY wanted to walk over and say something but realized there was no good for me to come from it, so I just walked out.

The absolute obliviousness, carelessness, and laziness of other people is sometimes truly frightening to me. It shouldn't be at this point, and yet I continue to be reminded of it over and over again. I really which I had the ability to have a private, home gym.

Pulled back the weight big time on squats. Could feel the hip issue a bit on some bar only warm up sets. Didn't do anything heavy at all and just did 5 sets of 10 @ 115, being very slow, form focused, and going a little deeper than I usually do. I have a feeling that perhaps my form hasn't been good, in terms of setting my heels too wide and foot angle. Maybe. I feel like my left foot naturally flares out more than my right (right side being the one with trouble), so maybe that's causing an imbalance. Might be a mobility/flexibility thing. I tried to focus a bit more on getting my alignment balanced.

Normally I don't do any supplemental work, but I did add on 3 sets of 10 @ 70 lbs for leg curl and extension. Again, nice and slow and controlled. Definitely an easy weight but I was stressing form.

It's so hard not to want to do more weight! But I've got to stay the path!

Seanchan posted...

Anyway, just super frustrated. I'll try to see how deadlifts feel in a few days but I should probably just do the smart thing and severely drop the weights down and build it back up again over time. It's likely that area just needs extended time to heal and my continued insistence on lifting is not helping.

Yeah, deadlifts went as I expected given I've felt the same type of soreness in the right hip/glute/lower back area that I did a few months ago. I fought through/ignored the issue at lower weight, but with the heaviest set I basically got the bar under tension and my body said "no fucking way".

Sigh...it's time to take it easy on the squats and deadlifts until after Labor Day. Give the issue time to heal. I still want to do light weights just to maintain form and muscle memory but that's about it. There's just no other way and I need to get past this problem already as it's continued to be a hindrance for most of the year.

If I'm gonna go off my normal routine, I'll probably add a little more upper body work to compensate. Maybe do a bit more swimming as well. See if I can't get my weight down a few more pounds.

Wow, 225x8 and 280x1 are impressive, especially given you're what, 175ish, pounds?

Just been an awful last few weeks for lifting.

Took a vacation, came back and had some sort of sinus/congestion type of thing. My lifts have continued to be down across the board, even factoring in the small reset I did for squats and deadlifts.

Today I go to the gym for heavy squats and there's some little stick inside the squat rack that looks like he has no clue. I do a bit of stretching and easy cardio and I'm looking to see when he's done. What's he doing, you might ask? Oh, just biceps curls with 10lb weights and some weird shit where he picks up the bar and....fuck I don't even know. But nothing you should be in the rack for! I finally go over and ask how much longer and it's "one more minute". Fucking jackass with no gym etiquette. I don't care how much weight you're using if you're squatting, benching, or whatever, but don't hog a resource if you don't actually need it.

And then my squats go terribly, as the right back/hip pain from a few months ago just came back with a vengeance. For my heaviest set, I struggled my way to 1 shit ass, half-ish rep but it basically a no-go. Not something I could push through, at least at heavy weight. Lower weights I could feel the issue but could power through, being careful.

It honestly feels like something is just slightly out of place/alignment. Like I want to just be able to "crack" my hip like you other joints and BAM everything would be better. Should probably see a chiropractor or something...

Anyway, just super frustrated. I'll try to see how deadlifts feel in a few days but I should probably just do the smart thing and severely drop the weights down and build it back up again over time. It's likely that area just needs extended time to heal and my continued insistence on lifting is not helping.

Huh...I'm not sure I've tried to go all out at 135 bench before. I'll have to give that a try in a few weeks when I've got a light week. I suspect mid 20s would be about my limit but who knows.

A few months back I tried to max out body weight pullups on a light week to see if it differed a lot from doing the same thing at the end of a normal, heavy workout. Surprisingly, didn't seem to make much difference (1-2 reps) but maybe I just wasn't feeling it that day. Think the number was around 16-17, which was a bit disappointing as I expected to be able to get to 20.

With bench, Ive heard one way to think about it is to imagine that youre pushing yourself into the bench. Also, to feel like youre squeezing your pecs together near/at the top.

I dont do much isolation work anymore. I mostly concentrate on the big compound lifts, since I figure those are working the smaller muscles a bit anyway. Also, just time; I try to get out in 30-40 minutes.

On bench day Ill throw in a set or two of weighted dips. On OHP day Ill do some pushdowns or extensions. But I try to keep to a high 8-12 rep range.

I have done more strenuous isolation work in the past. No idea if I had more success with OHP and Bench at those times.

Over and over again, my best OHP is basically 1x bodyweight. Maybe once or twice I was able to get a single rep +5lbs more but that's about it. I think to do any better than that would take some serious dedication and specific training, at least for me.

Failed to hit my reps on deadlift today. I've officially reached "swimming is killing my strength training" season. Time to reset the numbers a bit and hopefully put myself in a position to hit some personal bests in the fall.

GTM posted...

reddit has gone malicious compliance and a lot of subreddits are now about john oliver

r/Art
r/Aww
r/videos
r/evilbuildings

among others

r/wellthatsucks is now vacuums
r/Steam is now actual steam

r/interestingasfuck is now very nsfw...

Had "one of those days" today. Got to the gym and reached into my backpack to discover my water bottle had popped open. Thankfully it only had my belts in it so not the worst. But I did have a nice wet ring around my shirt when I used the belt...

I can't imagine that had much impact but I had nothing today on my heavy squat set. Had to bail out without getting a rep at a weight I should have been able to get 3-5 reps.

I'm going to blame my usual summer swimming season. From Memorial Day to Labor Day I'll swim 1+ miles 4-5 times a week and it really does take it out of you, especially in the lower body. And it's not like I swim hard or anything, it's just the quantity that catches up to you.

Hypothetical question. Don't think about all the details too much, just gut reaction. Which would you rather have happen?

• Student loan forgiveness
• Medicare for all / single payer health care

It's of benefit to society to have an educated populous. That's how we advance. And yes, education also includes more vocational training as well.

Unfortunately, one political party has decided that it's better to have uneducated society that votes based on FUD. And thus, education and learning becomes political.

Recognizing it's a crazy amount, she was always going to have to pay that at some point, right? Take COVID out of the picture with the delay it brought and she'd still be responsible for that.

Someone jog my memory if there were any attempts by Congress to do something about student loan debt.

I'd imagine it's the Rs plan at this point to have payments come back (whether with bullshit back interest payments or not) because they can just blame it all on Biden. Not that the actually give a shit about the people affected. If anything, they hate anyone who goes to college, so it's a win-win to them.

Bunch of MCU movies got delayed due to the writer's strike, except for Deadpool 3, which is now coming May 2024:
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/disney-star-wars-delays-marvel-avatar-sequel-release-dates-1235642363/

Underleveled posted...

In other news, I'm doing a 100 push-ups a day challenge for June. From the 1st through the 3rd I did 5 sets of 20, and today I did 4 sets of 25. Goal is to do one set of 100 on June 30th.

You do those sets throughout the day or with just a bit of rest in between?

A single set of 100 sounds insane! I think the most I ever did in a row was maybe around 50. To do double that number would take some massive endurance.

You know when you take a week off and then you go to the gym and you feel weak as shit and then the next day you have DOMs like you've never worked out before? Just the fucking worst.

It's like, "if I lift consistently weights, I will get stronger" and yet the same idea of "if I consistently stretch, I will be more flexible" takes way too long to sink in. It's easy to see why, because lifting is more "fun", despite it being objectively less useful (as long as you have a baseline of strength) for most people than being flexible and pliant.

Have had a shitty time the last few weeks. Constantly coming up 1-3 reps short of what I expect/want, with the weight feeling heavy. Trying to fight through whatever lower back/upper glute issue I've been having was probably not the best idea, even if it's been feeling better.

Also doesn't help when my golf game has been pure trash too during that same time frame. Just an enormous amount of aggravation when a thing I otherwise love doing is causing me undo stress.

At least 1 more workout to get through this week, then I'm taking a good 7-10 days off to rest physically and mentally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRpUOcRdzgA

Stretching is sorely underrated! I take 15-20 minutes every morning to go through a routine and it always helps me feel better than before I started.

Who's Echo again? The deaf lady from Hawkeye? Showing a lot of support just dumping all the episodes at once...

Wait...are you saying this is all about...MONEY?!!??1!?

Musk stepping down as Twitter CEO:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/elon-musk-says-hes-stepping-down-as-twitter-ceo-will-oversee-product.html

red_sox_777 posted...

Of course Trump can appeal. But honestly, he's probably pretty happy with how low this verdict is. Given that he is supposed to be a billionaire, the jury could have opted for much higher punitive damages. There is apparently no punitive damages cap in NY, so it would likely only be capped with the national guideline SCOTUS gave a long time ago - that it can't be more than 10x compensatory damages. So Trump could have been looking at close to a $50 million judgment.

He appealing: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/politics/trump-appeal-e-jean-carroll-lawsuit-battery-defamation/index.html