All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

So new SSB Squat PR - 146kg, though I did use wraps. Tbh it really wasn't that challenging but no point getting greedy.
Also did 120kg 2 x6 on a deep RDL.

Yesterday I ended up sharing the bench with somebody, which was useful as he let me know my bench was a bit uneven (his form was shocking but that's another story). FIrst time with the wrist wraps on this year, and I went up to 95kg for 6 - but I have to be honest, this is how I got hurt and there's going to be no more of that for a while. I have to simply work lower amounts, and maybe consider some bench press coaching.

Next week I am going to be in the office every day so have decided to do a cardio every day. I might even do a Peloton class lol.

[Technico Support]

I just started doing actual squats and it’s humbling as fuck.

I could do a 1,000 lb one rep max on the leg press machine.

Actual squats?  25 on each side.  Sweet Jesus.

[Shartnado]

8 hours ago, Technico Support said:

I just started doing actual squats and it’s humbling as fuck.

I could do a 1,000 lb one rep max on the leg press machine.

Actual squats?  25 on each side.  Sweet Jesus.

Yeah, but those are such different moves and the support of you laying on your back is so much more than standing on your feet. It will get better in due time, but it is better to not think about the weights on the leg press machine while squatting.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Tbh I am the opposite. I can squat pretty decently but any kind of hack squat or whatever and I'm not that great. I think I have done 650lbs on the leg press for 4-5 reps, but a long time since I tried that. I can do 200kg for like 20, but I don't really think the stimulation-to-fatigue is worth it to go beyond that at my age.

Squat uses a lot more adductor and glute than the leg press, in addition to the back stabilisation.

You can probably novice it up from there for a bit.....though RDLs are probably a decent assistance exercise to be doing (to get more glute and adductor). Believe it or not, I also think Pendlay Rows are good in terms of developing the entire back which will assist the squat. The volumes don't need to necessarily be at Shartnado levels (!), though that can work obviously if you can recover from it.

 

[Contentious C]

I was doing rack pulls today and looked at myself in the mirror in profile, thinking, "Man, my posture still really sucks, I'm all rounded."  But then I thought, "Hey, wait a minute, I am actually sitting up straight for this position!" I'm just getting some of that back depth and some pump to go with it.  No more credit card body around here!

Edited May 20, 2023 by Contentious C

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

above or below the knee? 

[Contentious C]

Just above, it was the lowest setting on that rack, nothing I could do about it (usually go just below).

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Just teasing really. I probably won't do them beyond taking the barbell off the pins to do RDLs, because I like RDLs. But I can see uses for them if you enjoy them, particularly for lower and mid-traps which can be a bit neglected. I don't think I'd use the Eleiko Bars at my gym for them though - some gyms have an old bar for rackpulls.

Edited May 21, 2023 by SprintingFromAmerica

[Shartnado]

On 5/20/2023 at 5:47 PM, SprintingFromAmerica said:

The volumes don't need to necessarily be at Shartnado levels (!), though that can work obviously if you can recover from it.

Shartnado does not advice anyone to do volumes at Shartnado level. I strongly recommend doing volume at YOU level. I have no other evidence that I myself can recover from the volume that I do other than I haven't crumbled into dust yet. Recovery may not be optimal to say the least, but I wouldn't have been able to keep this up for more than a decade now, if I didn't recover at least somewhat properly.

The end of the week was very cardio based. A run on Thursday including the stairs, a long hour and fifteen minute jog on Friday, a shorter jog on Saturday and an hour walk with a little bit jogging and stair climbing mixed in this evening. Visiting the In-Laws during the weekend, so the calorie restriction kinda went out the window. Didn't get too crazy, though, so I guess it will be just fine.

Edited May 21, 2023 by Shartnado
The last jog was today...

[Shartnado]

Very cardio-heavy week so far, as last weekend had its share as well. So far, three gym workouts as well, but today I may take a day off.

Went back to the incline bench dumbell press and did a 12 with a pair of 57's as a warm-up, then 10 with 79's. Actually got up the pair of 83,5's into position, but couldn't get them up. 79's for another set was a no-go as well, so 10 with 75's and downwards from there. On some of the sets, I also did a set of hammer curls with the weights once I got up from the bench before racking them. Resistance band lat pulldown combos, push downs and chest flies and a bunch of side delt work on top of this.

Next day, I tried flat bench with the dumbells. Even managed a set of five with a pair of 88's, but mostly it was pretty uneventful. Hit the abs with some extra power-wheel sets on top of the usual.

Yesterday it was trapbar time again. After the warm-up sets, I proceeded to do just singles on my way up to the big weights. I managed a single from pretty much floor level without Versas with 494. Then with Versas from this point forward, 1x589 from a slight elevation. 684 went up from the same height as before, but I failed it from one step further. The short distance lifts were 3x727 and 1x768,5. Sadly, I couldn't repeat it, but it's still a record. Then 2x684, 3x589, 5x494, 10x400 and then shrugs.

This morning, I weighed 173 lbs, which is so much ahead of schedule that I need settle down and watch some Dynamite and stretch and rehydrate.

[Shartnado]

Ok, so Thursday was indeed resting and feels like I needed it. This morning it was time for another run/jog, 45 minutes, overall, stairs included.

After a breakfast and a meal later on it was time for one more workout. After warmup, I did a few sets of barbell rows, 4x5x220 and 2x10x132. Then some preacher/concentration curls on a Scott bench, 10x57 with each arm, then two sets of 10 with 53, both arms as well. 3 sets of hammer curls with pairs of 75's, 70's and 66's, respectively. Didn't count the reps, but stopped once they became so partial I was barely bending my elbow. Some extra ab work as well as lat and scapula work with the resistance band to end it.

Good news, I'm getting ripped and vascular af, but the bad news is that the summer is still ways off, so I need to pace myself, because I wouldn't want to be peaking too early. Couple more weeks and I will start to losen up on the weekends.

[Log]

50 minutes ago, Shartnado said:

Ok, so Thursday was indeed resting and feels like I needed it. This morning it was time for another run/jog, 45 minutes, overall, stairs included.

After a breakfast and a meal later on it was time for one more workout. After warmup, I did a few sets of barbell rows, 4x5x220 and 2x10x132. Then some preacher/concentration curls on a Scott bench, 10x57 with each arm, then two sets of 10 with 53, both arms as well. 3 sets of hammer curls with pairs of 75's, 70's and 66's, respectively. Didn't count the reps, but stopped once they became so partial I was barely bending my elbow. Some extra ab work as well as lat and scapula work with the resistance band to end it.

Good news, I'm getting ripped and vascular af, but the bad news is that the summer is still ways off, so I need to pace myself, because I wouldn't want to be peaking too early. Couple more weeks and I will start to losen up on the weekends.

I'm curious. Do you go into your workouts with a detailed plan of what exercises, how many sets/reps, etc. every day, or do you have a general idea of what you want to work and go from there?

I'm actually interested in anyone's response on this. I'm someone who needs to have a plan laid out for a few weeks ahead of me. One thing that I've stopped doing, though, is throwing it all out the window the first day I miss or deviate from it. Now, I'd say I have a plan, but will adjust on the fly if needed.

[Shartnado]

1 hour ago, Log said:

I'm curious. Do you go into your workouts with a detailed plan of what exercises, how many sets/reps, etc. every day, or do you have a general idea of what you want to work and go from there?

I'm actually interested in anyone's response on this. I'm someone who needs to have a plan laid out for a few weeks ahead of me. One thing that I've stopped doing, though, is throwing it all out the window the first day I miss or deviate from it. Now, I'd say I have a plan, but will adjust on the fly if needed.

I usually know what body parts I'm going to (or supposed to) be doing on any given day. Mostly based on what I did previously. Plans change if I'm not feeling upto what my original workout was supposed to be. As far as sets and reps, it could be anything, until I run out of time or steam, which ever comes first. I try to do longer sets, unless the weights are super heavy. In that case one rep will be enough, but there needs to be a shitload of short sets in that case.

At this point, pretty much everything works fine for me in the terms of keeping what I have and fuck all works gaining anything I don't have, unless it is strength, maybe.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

To be clear, my reference to volume a week or so ago wasn't meant to be a snark. I don't think the average schmo trying to not be a ball of inert lard probably doesn't need huge amounts of volume to gain muscle, but clearly Sharty is in a different place. At an advanced level, making gains of whatever kind is going to be heavily individualised and context-dependent.

I was watching this Dr. Mike video yesterday - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1n_jZOUJEQ

And it's interesting that he poo-poos the Trap Bar Deadlift. Now I sort of think he's sort of wrong for a couple of reasons:

1) If Bradley is basically untrained, the TBD is going to produce hypertrophy just fine if done for reps 3+. I think squats are probably better for novices in terms of overall muscle building and stim-to-fatigue admittedly, & better not to do them off blocks but that's another story for another time.

2) TBD is probably not that good for stimulating large amounts of hypertrophy in advanced lifters, sort of for the reasons he says. But, in addition to possible strength gains,  they will probably help maintain muscle reasonably well. Which, if you're not specialising in lower posterior chain at the time, might actually be quite useful. And they probably do it with somewhat better stim-to-fatigue than actual deadlifts, though I don't think they have particularly good carryover to the conventional or sumo deadlift if you care about that sort of thing.

Segueing onto me, although I hadn't actually watched the video I was doing a leg day I really didn't want to do yesterday. I have been adding in cardio and my legs were fatigued. So basically I ramped up on DB RDLs supersetted with Bulgarian Bag step-ups for sets of 10, then I decided to do a couple of sets on the Sumo Deadlift - ended up being 2 topsets of 4. I didn't think these Sumos were going to put me on the fast track to gains or anything, but I figured they would at least give me a good bit of heavy weight across the quads and posterior chain and support efforts to retain muscle. Realistically, I'm not going to make lower body gains when introducing cardio. And anyway, my quads are almost bursting out of my pants as it is. I did also wail on my lateral delts in between sets though, and I do think I can probably make gains here as they're a much smaller muscle and not really directly targetted by cardio work.

That was Friday, on Thursday went back to OHP for the first time in a little while. Did 50, 55, 60kg x 5, then 3x10 at 40kg. Felt a bit rusty but generally good. I think I will finally buy some micro-plates to see if I can eke out some linear progression as I think relatively high-weight jumps is one of the biggest problems with this movement. Did some upright rows for the first time in a long-time and they felt a bit awkward...I think I might actually try the trap-bar for this next time.

I then did a pause DB Larsen Press with 15kg for sets of 20 - I actually put my feet on another bench. Given my shoulders were fatigued, I actually felt my pecs quite a lot - but again, probably not looking to make gains in this area right now. Larsen Press is a bit of a meme lift, I think it probably is safer with dumbells and without your feet floating off the bench.

Tuesday I was inspired by posts above and actually decided to do some leg press! I actually put on my wraps for the plate-loaded machine, and ramped up to 300kg for a set of 6 - though tbh my ROM was oticeably better at 250kg. I did 1 backoff set of 16 at 200kg, and then actually moved to the cable leg-press and took the wraps off. I then did sets of 2-3 sets (I forget) of 20 at 140kg, but the foot pad is a lot wider. So I was able to go wider and I think I do like the cable variation more. I also did a lot of GHRs and Reverse Hypers (also did the latter Friday).

Back in the gym on Monday!

On Monday, I still felt my shoulder/bicep tendon from the previous bench session AND I had golfer's elbow in my right arm so my main movement was a 15 degree DB bench sets of 12 at 22kg. I also did some DB flyes, which tbh I don't think I like, and some rare (for me) front raises.

I did arm work and back-work (usually unilateral) every work out so my gain areas right now are 1) shoulders, 2) upper back, 3) hamstrings maybe. More or less everything else I am realistically trying to maintain and that's it. I have begun tapering off calories a little bit, and once the cardio is bedded in I will look to cut them off more - in Summer I have a reduced appetite so as long as I can stay away from 2L bottles of soda and big-tubs of ice-cream this is probably my best time to drop-weight so we'll see. 
 

Edited May 27, 2023 by SprintingFromAmerica

[Shartnado]

I for one can attest to the fact that Trapbar Deadlift carries over fuck-all for your traditional straight bar deadlift. I have barely done it in the past 5-6 years anyway, but my capabilities in that regard haven't improved for shit while doing heavy trapbar basically weekly for years now. In fact, it was slightly worse the last time I tried it (last year, maybe?)

[Shartnado]

4 workouts and 3 runs/jogs (first of which was on Sunday, actually) in this week and the weight has been going down slowly, but surely. When it was time for incline bench dumbells this week, I made sure I won't wear myself out before going for the big weights, so yeah, this time I was able to do a set of ten with a pair of 83,5's. Same day, I also did a set of hammer curls with a pair of 88's.

On the leg day yesterday I did 3 sets with more than 200kg (440,5lbs) on the squat machine. Only the 201kg set (443 lbs) went well enough, but I slightly moved 485 and 473 a few times as well. The lighter sets went pretty good and I wasn't crushed by the big weights, either. And I still went for a run to the stairs in the evening.

Today I did conventional bench and it sucked as it has for a while now, but I got a semi-decent pump nonetheless.

The weight went down to 170,5 lbs but it has come back up to 172. Still, a few pounds ahead of schedule. After this weekend, I will ease up on the upcoming weekends as far as calories go.

Tomorrow I should still go for the trapbar.

[Shartnado]

Oh yes, I did do the trapbar. I only used upper halves of the blocks at most and started lifting from a deficit as has been usual recently, but this was not my week! The without Versas part of the lifting stopped at 413 lbs, as I jumped up to 508 and trying it from a deficit, as well. Yeah, didn't work. Not even from a floor level, until I put the Versas on. Got one. Yeah, that's not good. I did the one three more separate times by adding small blocks beneath the weights and then moved up to 602,5 with higher blocks and did two very difficult singles. Then moved back down doing singles until I got down to 500 and got 3. A set of 10 with 413 and then some shrugs with 308 and 195.

Yeah, I guess that's one workout too many this week. Maybe some walking before an evening sauna, but that's it. More on Sunday evening, maybe. Monday afternoon at the latest.

Edit. OK, the walk turned into 40 minute run/jog, but definitely no stairs this time. The sauna was also very nice.

Edited June 2, 2023 by Shartnado
Ok, so it wasn't a walk...

[Shartnado]

The weekend was filled with sugar and simple carbs, but no alcohol. Sitting on a train for hours on Saturday and not enough sleep meant that I started the workouts on Monday, instead of Sunday night. I did make up for it by running for nearly an hour and a half, including stairs. Monday night I also got the pair of 88's up for a set of 10 on the incline bench dumbell press, so yay! Did 7 sets overall and did a set of hammer curls after each bench set without releasing the dumbells in between.

Tuesday I went for a walk/jog that also included the stairs. I left a bit too late to the gym, so that night it was mostly just lat pull down combos and chest flies with the resistance bands. During the night I was able to stretch my legs out nicely between working.

This afternoon, I went for a walk that turned into a run by the end of it, but I didn't go to the stairs. After fixing lunch during dinnertime I left for the trapbar workout.

The important notes from that are: Using the high blocks again, I did 4x684 and then 1x779 (that's over 350kg) at 170,5lbs (77,4kg) which would be more than 4,5 times my current bodyweight.

After that I did 2x662, 2x611 and 15 (or so)x495,5 and then some shrugs.

If I keep this up for long enough, I may end up being in the best shape so far, also this year, 3 months removed from turning 46. Feeling pretty good about that!

[Control]

Today was shoulder day. For me, with shoulders, it’s easy enough to get to a weight I can’t lift, but it’s difficult to actually burn my shoulders out, if that makes sense. 

[Chaos]

I broke 200 miles logged running for the year yesterday. In using an app to track the distance, I believe this is the earliest in a calendar year I have achieved that goal.

My next run should put around 20 miles for the month, so getting there in the first 10 days of a month isn't too shabby either. 

I am choosing to take a rest day today.

[Shartnado]

4 hours ago, Control said:

Today was shoulder day. For me, with shoulders, it’s easy enough to get to a weight I can’t lift, but it’s difficult to actually burn my shoulders out, if that makes sense. 

I know how that feels! May I suggest starting (after a brief warmup) from about two-three steps below of what you can't lift, hit as many reps as you can and then drop sets with lighter and lighter weights until you see a white light shining in the distance and dead relatives calling your name! That usually burns mine out after a couple of rounds.

[Log]

@Shartnado is fucking 46!?!?

My excuse for not being as in-shape as him was figuring he was a young whipper-snapper and now I find out he's actually a year older than me! Dammit.

I am finally feeling on the right track with my training for the first time in like a year. I'm creeping back up to working out in the low-300's on squats and mid/high-300's on deadlift. My bench has been moving nicely toward 250 for reps, too. And, on top of all that, I actually feel good. That's the biggest thing. A while ago, I was moving up in the weight I was lifting, but felt shitty. I like this better.

[Shartnado]

8 hours ago, Log said:

@Shartnado is fucking 46!?!?

In less than 3 months, yes. But if I cover my face well enough, you wouldn't know it. But the loose skin tells a story I'm not willing to hear, let me tell you!

...and about yesterday's workout, I did go for a pretty intense run and then upper body assault in the gym. More shrugs with dumbells, light overhead dumbell press,  standing double bicep curls with dumbells and reverse grip curls with EZ bar. Some reverse shrugs (bodyweight only), more resistance band lat pulldown combos and chest flies. Then one set of behind the neck overhead press with 86 lbs on the EZ bar and then "ran the rack" doing tricep drop sets starting from 88 lbs down to 8 lbs (with 4lbs decrease each time) for the entirety of EMINEM's 'Til I Collapse. I didn't collapse.

Now I'm back home after night shift, I ate well before going to bed and hope to go for at least a walk and then enough of a pump workout at home to hopefully get a new profile pic for this year.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Shartnado
I'll edit the rest of the week here, too!

[Contentious C]

12 hours ago, Shartnado said:

I know how that feels! May I suggest starting (after a brief warmup) from about two-three steps below of what you can't lift, hit as many reps as you can and then drop sets with lighter and lighter weights until you see a white light shining in the distance and dead relatives calling your name! That usually burns mine out after a couple of rounds.

My go-to for this has been the cables: one set of 8 lateral raises with the cables crossed in front of me, immediately followed by a set of 8 with the cables crossed behind my back, 3 sets of supersets.  By set 3, I usually can't finish them, even with my traps jumping in, without some rest-pauses. I'm not a maven about putting my arms straight out to the side; I much prefer letting my scapulae travel in whatever natural arc they're going to go, and that usually means letting my shoulders flex past parallel to the floor, too.  I tend to feel it more in the connecting spots - very bottom of the muscle 1/3 down the arm and very top near the clavicle - than any other shoulder exercise.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Contentious C

[Contentious C]

Another shoulder buster for me is Pike push-ups.  They light me up way, way different than OHPs, which I find to just be grindy for my joints and bad for my upper back.  Plus, I can never do many, so they're humbling as fuck, too.