Board 8 > Yearly weightlifting topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hi everyone hope you all are well

where is everyone at lifting wise this year?

I got my ass handed to me by the coronavirus and lost a good amount of weight and muscle over 3 weeks or so. But Ive been doing much better over the past five months ish and am in one of the best shapes of my life

main lifts, bw is 177 rn
bench: training at 215-255, max at 280
overhead: training at 135-165, max 190
squat: training at 275-375, max is 425
deads: training at 315-405, max is 495

physique is doing well as I have actually gone for quality in my bulk as opposed to just stuffing me face. Been lifting at 3am every day and getting to bed at 6pm which has done wonders

Been lifting a few weights I bought at Target every other day. I dont know all the terminology, though. I dont feel like theres any meaningful difference.

Anagram posted...

Been lifting a few weights I bought at Target every other day. I dont know all the terminology, though. I dont feel like theres any meaningful difference.

Thats awesome man! What are your goals? What would you describe your routine as?

It doesn't get any easier as you get older, that's for sure. I continue on my slow but steady routine.

Bench / Weighted Pullups
Squats / Abs
Overhead / Weighted Chinups
Deads / Abs

I do a lot of swimming over the summers, and that REALLY kills my numbers. Like just slice 10-15% right off as soon as I start swimming 5-6 times a week. Then it takes a cycle or two to get back to where I was again. And then it's the end of the year and the holidays muck everything up.

One big change I've made is to take 15-20 minutes to stretch first thing in the morning (i.e. within 30 minutes of getting up) every single day. It's been a major benefit to my flexibility and helps with the soreness.

Barely been getting out of the house, including to the gym.

I bought a treadmill during the early part of the pandemic, which I walk on a bit, especially during these colder months when I don't want to go out. That's about it for me rn, though.

i can definitely see how swimming would do that. But I imagine it translates to great fitness overall.

I still struggle with the stretching thing. I literally plan to do it and write it in my workout but I get distracted by the shiny weights and do like a minute of foam rolling and a couple sets of band work instead of the actual amount I should do I wish I could change but I clearly cant

I've been doing great this year.

Started taking creatine, installed a heavy duty pull-up bar in my garage, been following jpgcoaching as my new lord and savior.

Definitely seen a lot of improvements. Goal is to get from 225 down to 190. Currently at 215.

iiaattgg posted...

i can definitely see how swimming would do that. But I imagine it translates to great fitness overall.

I still struggle with the stretching thing. I literally plan to do it and write it in my workout but I get distracted by the shiny weights and do like a minute of foam rolling and a couple sets of band work instead of the actual amount I should do I wish I could change but I clearly cant

I typically only swim freestyle (i.e. front crawl) and, despite what you might think, it's the legs that are most affected. Squats and deads really go to shit during that time. But I love the feeling after a good, long swim of being both exhausted and invigorated at the same time. My weight stays pretty constant throughout the year but at the end of the summer is usually when it drops that few extra pounds.

With regards to the stretching, that's why I do it in the morning, separate from lifting. It gets the blood flowing early and genuinely makes me ready to tackle the day.

Before a workout I'll do maybe 5-10 minutes of warm ups (jumping jacks, push ups, body weight squats) but I don't go nuts. And I don't really do anything afterwards because usually at that point I'm just physically and mentally done.

Absolute shit lift this morning lol. My car alarm randomly went off in the middle of the night which messed up my sleep. And Im already past due for a rest day so it just added some to some reduced strength and endurance

but I progressed on some stuff. Hit 225 on lat pull down for the first time. Some other rep PRs on accesory lifts that were easy and expected but still happy after how bad the primary ones were

iiaattgg posted...

Thats awesome man! What are your goals? What would you describe your routine as?

No specific goal beyond just being a little more muscular. Routine is 100 reps of pulling the weights up in front of me, 100 of pulling one up behind my head, and 100 of pulling them up my sides.

Ive been doing three workouts every four or five days. One day is biceps and triceps. One day is upper and lower back. One day is chest. I mix in abs as much I can.

Weight is 145ish.

I got my max bench up to 225 last week, my all-time max is 240 about 10 years ago. I just started benching again around one month ago though.

I dont squat or deadlift or anything. I do a lot of running/biking to make up for my lack of leg workout days.

Anagram posted...

No specific goal beyond just being a little more muscular. Routine is 100 reps of pulling the weights up in front of me, 100 of pulling one up behind my head, and 100 of pulling them up my sides.

so lets chat homie!

being a little more muscular is a super realistic and attainable goal. Two main foundations of that are 1) consistency and 2) whats called progressive overload. Meaning doing a little more of something each time you work out. Whether thats a heavier weight, more reps, more sets, less rest in between, making the reps more difficult through tempo changes/angles/etc. always make things slightly more difficult in some manner each time you work out

when you say weights, what are you talking about? Traditional dumbbells? Weight plates (like flat circle things)? Resistance bands? Kettlebells?

I think I know which exercises you are talking about. It sounds like you are doing front raises (will work the front of your shoulder), overhead Tricep extensions (Tricep, obviously), and lateral raises (the side of your shoulders). All of those are fantastic for building muscles, especially visually appealing ones that people will notice. I would encourage you to look up exercises you can do with your weights that also hit your lat muscles in your back, which will help you get muscle there and make you appear in better shape overall. They are mostly called rows, and have a lot of variations

proud of you for doing it man!

Moonroof posted...

Ive been doing three workouts every four or five days. One day is biceps and triceps. One day is upper and lower back. One day is chest. I mix in abs as much I can.

Weight is 145ish.

I got my max bench up to 225 last week, my all-time max is 240 about 10 years ago. I just started benching again around one month ago though.

I dont squat or deadlift or anything. I do a lot of running/biking to make up for my lack of leg workout days.

225 for 145 is pretty great

As someone who's in the 145-150 lb range, 225 bench is my goal (1.5x body weight), so kudos to you! Goal for squats is 2x (300), deads 2.5x (375), and overhead 1x (150).

My best numbers at the end of last year were:

• Bench - 2x @ 205
• Squat - 6x @ 265
• Overhead - 1x @ 145
• Deads - 2x @ 320

Decent enough but plenty of room to improve. I drop my numbers down a bit to start the new year, so it'll be a while before I lift that heavy again.

My heavy deadlift set for today was 13x @ 255. I'm was pretty gassed trying to get those 1-2 extra reps.

iiaattgg posted...

when you say weights, what are you talking about? Traditional dumbbells? Weight plates (like flat circle things)? Resistance bands? Kettlebells?

Two dumbbells.

And thanks for the advice.

Seanchan posted...

As someone who's in the 145-150 lb range, 225 bench is my goal (1.5x body weight), so kudos to you! Goal for squats is 2x (300), deads 2.5x (375), and overhead 1x (150).

My best numbers at the end of last year were:
* Bench - 2x @ 205
* Squat - 6x @ 265
* Overhead - 1x @ 145
* Deads - 2x @ 320
Decent enough but plenty of room to improve. I drop my numbers down a bit to start the new year, so it'll be a while before I lift that heavy again.

My heavy deadlift set for today was 13x @ 255. I'm was pretty gassed trying to get those 1-2 extra reps.

shit you could probably hit the double at 300 if you are banging out 265 for 6

Unfortunately, I find there's not a linear progression to the reps versus increased weight. As I get near my weight limits the reps start to drop off quick.

Like the 13x @ 255 for deads extrapolates to an almost 390 max. My max for deads from a few years back, for a single, was 345. I didn't get a chance to really try pushing that further but my feeling was that, at most, maybe 355-360 was possible.

Thats how I am for overhead press lol. Sharp drop offs around 12-10 and also 6-3

squat for me is fairly linear at multi reps and theres probably 30-40 lbs range where I can knock out 1-2

my fitness feels like a disaster lately. i go to the gym a lot more rarely now - just really difficult to get up in the morning. but i think my endurance is also an issue; can't get as much done at the gym because i'm resting a lot

did 295 for 2 or 3 on the bench today. still not where we used to be, but benching is one thing that i can still do fairly consistently. squatting absolutely obliterates me, so i should probably stop being a coward about avoiding it

Had a crazy experience recently that I thought people always exaggerated.

I'm using the preacher curl bench as a place to hold my bar as I switch between that and like a behind the back forearm curl thing. Mid-set a dude comes over wanting to use it and gets right in my face and asks if I'm using it. I have head phones in so I have to put my weight down and turn off my music to finally see what he wants... And my answer was a... "Uhh yeah I'm currently using this..."

Some people man

Ugh, don't get me started on gym etiquette...

I don't even go to a big gym. It's just a community gym. And I see it all the time where people don't wipe down the machines. All the time where people don't unrack the weights and put shit back where it belongs. Like, are you too fucking lazy to take the 45s off the bar on the one squat rack in the fucking place. No one seems to give a shit.

Then there's this one guy who walks into the gym and likes to work out right behind the one squat rack, even though there's all the space in the world, as if to say "get the fuck off it, I'M here now". And this is when there's no one else there! How about a "how many more sets you have"? How about go walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes and wait for the space to open. Annoys the shit out of me, so you can bet I took my sweet ass time, taking full rest between my sets.

Haven't been doing too great with going to the gym in the new year. I've just been super depressed lately and my lack of progress really isn't helping my motivation either. :/

Really struggling to do squats or deadlifts because of a lower back injury, so haven't done it in awhile. At this point just a shitload of cardio and upper body work.

200 lb bodyweight.

Bench press 225 for 16 reps.
Curl 45 lbs for sets of 15.

It's okay, I'm small as hell so you can't even tell I have skipped leg day for a year. Going to try getting a trap bar to deadlift at home since my gym doesn't have one and I get an annual bonus around this time of year.

Took my rest day finally. Fell asleep at work yesterday so it was just a tad needed

Figured I'd post my current routine. Cardio is daily, the rest is every other day. Bench I do a 5 minute rest period, everything else is 1 minute.

Spinning Bike for 30 minutes
Or
Jogging 2-3 miles

Superset for 3 sets:

Bench press
Dead bug

Standard Curl
Tricep extension

Reverse curl
Dumbbell row

Hammer curl
Overhead press

Skull crusher
Lateral raise

Like I said before, planning to get a trap bar to get back to deadlifting since it's less stressful on my back. Probably just going to superset that with another ab exercise, because I feel supersetting those big compound lifts hurts my numbers, and what's the point of lifting if you don't get to see the numbers go up?

225 for 16 reps is not small lol.

Strength wise, but I am a naturally lanky person for 6 ft, and my arms are like 14-14.5 inches cold, so I'm just at the point where I don't look ridiculously skinny. It's all relative I guess, and I have kind of just accepted that I am a lot stronger than I look. Or at the very least that it will take a year or two for my arms to get where I'd like them to be.

Decent session today.

bench 205x10x2 185x10x2
overhead 165x2x2 165x1x2
incline db press 80x8x4
weighted dips 40x7x4
db overhead 55x8x4

other bullshit

imthestuntman posted...

Strength wise, but I am a naturally lanky person for 6 ft, and my arms are like 14-14.5 inches cold, so I'm just at the point where I don't look ridiculously skinny. It's all relative I guess, and I have kind of just accepted that I am a lot stronger than I look. Or at the very least that it will take a year or two for my arms to get where I'd like them to be.

what is your progressive overload like on your arm lifts?

I am a big believer in do what works for you and what makes you happy (hell I overtrain like a motherfucker and I know it reduces my potential gains, but it makes me happy and keeps me in the gym), so Im by no means saying definitely change your program, but if bigger arms is a goal of yours I think examining your programming could really amplify and speed up your track there

Ive been shortening my rest periods, throwing more reps at it to take lifts to failure, and adding in a couple of new lifts lately to try and push it. I've gotten pretty good results out of it relatively speaking, it's more so just the keep doing what I'm doing now. For a few years I was just doing what I was doing and getting great results on the bench numbers and nothing else, but just assumed the gains would come with the strength.

Squats and deads went great today. Then hit the leg press and about 3 sets in something popped/crunched/cracked/idk what that demonic noise was in the groin/inner thigh area on the way down and I got the fuck outta dodge. It feels weird but no pain currently. Tomorrow morning will be judgment day.

Did some volume work on the bench at 190 which felt great all around

chillin at 170 for some heavy singles on the overhead

incline dumbbelled 70s for four sets of 12, was excited for how smooth they were cause Ive never been good at dumbbells but thats when I realized I did 70s and not the 75s I was programmed for lol. Oh well.

dips 42.5 four sets of 7. Easy stuff, can definitely do more but sticking to the program of 2.5 more lbs a session.

Pec decked in the low 2 hundo

other stuff: weighted pushups, Tricep pushdown/cable kickbacks, lateral raises, db Ohp. Some block work on the bench

groin feels fine which is a relief

Ah yes, the old "man I just KILLED it, 2 reps better than I expected" or "damn, I must be feeling good, that felt light today". Then you go to take the plates off and "fuck, those were 5s instead of 10s..."

The other day I was benching 225 for reps without a spot and was feeling fantastic on my 15th rep. Like I thought I could get a new pb and get 17 good. I'm not exactly sure what I did, buy somehow the bar just came up weird and got hooked under the rack (what the hell are the things the barbell rests on called) which for some reason had a lip on the bottom.

In the 5 seconds it took me to get the bar free (because I was too dumb just to do a half rep) I blew all my stamina and couldn't even get the rep. Got to do the fun activity of rolling the bar down my body to get free.

They are called the J clips

and yeah, that sucks man. Have definitely had some shit fucked up before due to weird alignment of stuff. One of the racks at my gym often gets crooked cause people rerack the bar with a shitload of weight on squats and stuff by violently slamming it back in a it pushes it a tiny bit on the side it impacts each time

Just hanging out getting fat enjoying my baggy hoodies. And goldfish crackers

neonreaper posted...

Just hanging out getting fat enjoying my baggy hoodies. And goldfish crackers

My favorite season in life honestly.

today was another eh lift. The overtraining is starting to get to me for sure as well as a lot of exercises are getting close to their max of the cycles.

weighted pull-ups at 55/65/35, sets of 5-6
rows at 205, sets of 7
barbell curls at 65 for 30/24/18/12/6
lateral raises 30 for 16x3
lat pulldown 165-235 1-5 reps
cable rows at 100, sets of 8
cable curls at 60, sets of 14
db pullovers at 70, sets of 12 (fuck this shit in particular)

some other stuff that i cant remember all the way: cable rear delt flies, hammer curls, one arm pull downs, weighted chin ups, I think that was it

tomorrow is more high volume deadlift. 325 for sets of 10-12. Not really looking forward to it

iiaattgg posted...

They are called the J clips

and yeah, that sucks man. Have definitely had some shit fucked up before due to weird alignment of stuff. One of the racks at my gym often gets crooked cause people rerack the bar with a shitload of weight on squats and stuff by violently slamming it back in a it pushes it a tiny bit on the side it impacts each time

I noticed today using the same bench that one of the j clips was like half an inch plus farther forward than it should've been, so that definitely happened here.

Anyone else notice that if you lift weights daily the difference in arm size between cold flexed and pumped flexed shrinking? Normally the difference for me is at least half an inch. This morning I measured 14.75 cold then after a lift was barely over 15.

iiaattgg posted...

tomorrow is more high volume deadlift. 325 for sets of 10-12. Not really looking forward to it

My maximal effort set today for deadlifts was 11@270. After that I did 5x10@170.

Your volume and the number of exercises is absolutely insane. I would be dead, even after proportionally lowering the poundage.

I look to be in and out of the gym in 30-40 minutes. So when it's deadlift day, it's deads and that's about it, other than some ab work. I'll be plenty sore enough the next day or two as is from just that.

I used to do more isolation movements but I found it would eventually take away from the bigger, more important compound exercises. So I started cutting them out. My philosophy at this point is "less is more". You do bench, overhead, squats, deads, pullups, and dips over the course of a week, you're hitting everything. And at this point in my life, that's good enough to look and feel healthy without feeling like I live at the gym.

You never change up your routine?

Yeah Im definitely well past the line of overtraining. I would absolutely get better results (not that I dont get good ones) and would be at less risk for injury if I toned down the amount for sure

But the thing with me is that being at the gym for this amount of time and style is the only thing thats kept me right. Some of you who knew me when I was more active on this board might remember that I always had a pretty serious drug addiction. The courts couldnt get me clean, hitting rock bottom couldnt get me clean, the overdoses/narcanning couldnt get me clean, losing relationships/family/belongings/jobs/respect/everything couldnt get me clean. The only thing thats ever worked, and its worked for four and half years straight now, is lifting. And the only thing that seems to keep me consistently in the gym is by being there three hours a day. Doing it for 1-1.5 instead of 2.5-3 makes me lose interest, even if Id be stronger and healthier. Doing it 4 days a week instead of 6-7 is the same. Its the only thing thats ever worked, and at this point theres no getting off the train.

Btw heres how I was in November, still messed up post illness and trying to get some semblance of strength back https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/3/AAbg9iAAC5xv.jpg

Glad I found this, hopefully serves as motivation to get back into my routine. I've worked out off and on for the past 20+ years now, never really, really stuck with it until Covid trapped us all at home and I developed a really solid routine.

I just recently moved, and that along with work kicking my ass has derailed me the past week. Also got off to a slow start in 2022, as I got super sick for almost 2 weeks.

Anyway, my max bench was at about 180, but that has dropped since I was sick and never really gone back up due to lack of workouts. I also need to get a new bench in order to support more weight. I digress, happy to be here and hoping this was the jolt I needed before I completely lose the progress I've made the past almost 2 years now.

And then late January, back in business boys !

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/5/6/AAbg9iAAC5x8.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/5/8/AAbg9iAAC5x-.jpg

Zenithian Legend posted...

Glad I found this, hopefully serves as motivation to get back into my routine. I've worked out off and on for the past 20+ years now, never really, really stuck with it until Covid trapped us all at home and I developed a really solid routine.

I just recently moved, and that along with work kicking my ass has derailed me the past week. Also got off to a slow start in 2022, as I got super sick for almost 2 weeks.

Anyway, my max bench was at about 180, but that has dropped since I was sick and never really gone back up due to lack of workouts. I also need to get a new bench in order to support more weight. I digress, happy to be here and hoping this was the jolt I needed before I completely lose the progress I've made the past almost 2 years now.

Today you made a big step progress wise just by talking about it!

whats the next step you think you can take?

Like you said earlier in the thread, it's whatever works for you. I'm glad you're time is well spent and fulfilling and helps you stay away from bad habits.

I try to keep my gym time short. But I love to go on 5-6 mile walks. I listen to music/podcasts and can sort of zone out.

Waluigi1 posted...

You never change up your routine?

Oh yeah, it's changed many times over the years. The routine I'm doing now I've been doing for around 2 years. It's a 5/3/1, so it's designed for the big lifts. I originally added on a bunch of isolation stuff but, as I said, I've continued to scale that back over time.

More recently, I decided to drop curls, extensions, and isolated arm work and instead focus on weighted sets of pullups/chinups/dips. It's faster to complete and hits more muscles. Am I going to be able to curl as much as I used to? No, but I don't care.

iiaattgg posted...

Today you made a big step progress wise just by talking about it!

whats the next step you think you can take?

Quitting my job haha.

Honestly, having the move settled (just finished moving in a week ago) should help a lot. I was working out 3-4x per week for awhile there, 2-3x minimum from Apr 2020 - Dec 2021, with only one significant pause of roughly 3 weeks due to a shoulder injury.

Once I get the ball rolling again here, I'll be good. In fact, if I didn't have a meeting in 45 minutes, I'd go start lifting right now!

Damn dude, you're looking great! Your traps are crazy haha.