All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[Contentious C]

I've kinda sworn off the barbell version of that anyway; I have some combo of shoulder instability and upper back weakness (or the latter masquerading as the former) that made me fail pretty spectacularly a few weeks ago, going for 135 for sets of 6. 

Watched a bunch of Dr. Mike & AthleanX videos on better cues and form for pressing in general, starting doing those...got the 60-lb dumbbells up today for sets of *8*.  If your barbell stuff is 10-15% "stronger", then I'm already beyond what I was doing with the barbell version.  Getting any heavier dumbbells into starting position is going to be the thing that holds me back in the future.

Plus, if you're using the adjustable benches to do things like that, you can find the angle that you like best.  Put me in Team 30-Degree for life.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Contentious C

[Contentious C]

My leg days are getting simpler but killing me more.  Probably a good thing.  I have one day a week that's a teeny tiny bit more quad-focused, so I do Belt Squats & Bulgarians and then figure out what else I want to tack on.  Today it was RDLs and that was enough to wipe me out.  I'm not really doing more weight on anything (well, maybe the Bulgarians, I think the weight I used was 40, which is up from 30, but the writing was gone), but I went up on reps, so, hey progress.

My other leg day is more posterior chain, but I also do actual squats that one day.  I'm taking more time to warm up for those, but I'm not really going up in weight.  Instead, I'm spending more time in each rep, pausing more at the bottom, keeping focused on my feet and my hips, and driving out from that weak point.  I think my arthritis issues are going to make it really hard long-term to go too too heavy anyway.  Then I'll do the elevated lunges, toss in either Nordics or leg curls (I prefer the former but the setup is miserable), and maybe the glute drive if I'm really feeling like I need to murder my own ass.  I think the only time my quads ever felt this rock-hard was when I was cycling 3x a week for 20+ miles a shot.  So, "less is more" continues to pay dividends, as long as you're willing to feel like you're going to die because of the intensity of the "less" you did.

[Technico Support]

On 6/27/2023 at 9:33 PM, Contentious C said:

Getting any heavier dumbbells into starting position is going to be the thing that holds me back in the future.

Yeah, this right here.  I don't care how many videos I watch about how to get dumbbells up for, say, military presses...I just can't do it.  I've herniated disks in my back twice in life and am REALLY conscious of uncontrolled movements, swinging weights, and stuff like that.  Like "oh, just put that dumbbell on your knee and kick it up" and all I can think is that there's definitely a place in that motion where momentum and gravity are in control and I am not, and there's definitely undue pressure being put on my lower back.  So yeah, for overheads, I just put a barbell in the rack and get under it.  On the other hand, dumbbell incline bench isn't so bad...I can sit with the weights by my chest, then carefully fall back and get into position.  But I'm only doing 60s.  Anyway, that's my talk about movement, safety, and being scared shitless about blowing out another disk!  I also herniated one in my neck doing lat pulldowns.  WTF, body?

Edited June 30, 2023 by Technico Support

[Shartnado]

Rest of the week has been very active with long walks, jogs and even running, but even more that, climbing the stairs, a lot. I also went to the gym every day, but since the first night was an extra day off from work, that means 4 workouts, overall. This week I didn't do trapbar and even the squat machine was kept very light due to the extra harsh stair climbing going on.

So, for the three out of four days it was basically total upper-body assault but with different moves. Plenty of dumbells, one move worth mentioning was dumbell row with 88 lbs, doing 12+10 for both arms without rest in between (other than rolling the dumbell to the other side of the bench). Then, I put Versas on and 30 reps for both arms, since I didn't have to worry about the grip.

Ab roller also saw plenty of action this week, doing one long set each time, going past 20 reps early in the week, 27 later on and on Thursday stopped at 32 because I got bored. Ab game is on fire right now.

Other stuff during the week included incline dumbell press, plenty of lat pull downs with resistance bands, skull crushers on an incline bench, drop sets of shrugs with dumbells starting with 88's and working my way down, but not the whole rack this time. There was a regular bench day in there as well, doing 6 sets of 5 with 225 and lighter sets afterwards. Plenty of curls in many forms on several different days. The weights were lighter than they have been in recent weeks.

Weight came back down to 170 during the week and yesterday, after a near two hour jog, it momentarily was at 165,5. I still have one more week to go, hoping to go full fucking blast until the very end, but it's probably for the best if the weight doesn't go below the 165.

 

[The Natural]

Swam yesterday for just the third time in 25 years, first since my operation two months ago and I did it mostly without floats. I do know how to swim, it's building that confidence up. Three people were particularly supportive which was nice to hear. You're about to then pull up. Just got to keep at it. Haven't mentioned Swimming on Facebook yet unlike Gym/Pilates as I'm not ready to as I'm conscious of my body, the self-harm scars and don't want to look an idiot if my friends who can swim want to go with me.

[Shartnado]

Kept up the pace of cardio in volume, but have walked more than anything else, aside from Monday which included a brutal stairclimbing session. The weather turned rainy, windy and cold until this morning, of course on the day I skipped the walk due to watching Dynamite and an upcoming legday later on.

Monday's workout wasn't trapbar, it was a full upperbody stuff with moderate weights, nothing to report, really.

Tuesday was trapbar once I got up to 611 and beyond, it all felt really rough. 684 cleared, but only from the easiest height. I did end up doing three separate singles with 727, but knew better than to go beyond that and spoil my mood. Coming down, I did 684 again, then 5x611 and with rest pause more than 10 (but not quite 15) with 494,5. Then just one longish set of light shrugs with 185, because I was running late.

Yesterday, heavier upperbody stuff with incline dumbell bench press (now with less incline) one set with 66's, 88', 80's, 76's and finally 44's. Each set was once again followed by a set of hammer curls with the same weights. Those went better than the bench, actually.

At some point I did 36 reps of hanging knee raises with a 26,5lb chain across my shoulders and plenty of ab rolling, too.

The weight went back down to 166 lbs but is on it's way back up. That's fine though, I'm just about done with the diet for now. Tomorrow, I'll go have some proper pictures taken, so I will have some proof of this condition in the years following.

...Today's workout was a calf-based leg day with some squatting in there too. I put 150-200 lbs on the machine and did one full rep and at the bottom did ten partial reps before coming back up. Did 3-4 of those per set and 3-4 sets overall. My thighs hate me right now.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Shartnado
Today was leg day

[Shartnado]

Last run before the photoshoot. 1 hour 15 minutes which included 30 minutes of stairs. Afterwards, 20 minutes of sauna and now a breakfast that is supposed to fill me up and empty me out at the same time. I'll do a pump workout before the shoot using the strong resistance band and a shitload of push-ups. Wish me luck, those damn things will be my legacy, pretty much all of it.

Yeah, the shoot went really well and some of the shots are definite New Profile Pic -material!

Edited July 7, 2023 by Shartnado
That shit went well...

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

So my goalkeeping will go down in the annals of history, and I got all kinds of wrist and thumb injuries so am now officially retired! They are yet to completely clear 2 1/2 weeks on but they are improving. Lol.

This mini-cycle (I'll talk about this another time), I decided to actually try to do some shrugs - though tbh I struggle to find some that really feel worth the aggro. Barbell ones work but the lower back fatigue is insane, seated row shrugs are better but don't quite hit the spot, I tried chest-supported ones and it felt like I'd have to use really heavy dumbells to make them work and our big dumbells are really big (I also didn't have the angle right tbf)...so I ended up on the trap-bar yesterday.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of trap bars, but especially not when you only have weights with no handles as it becomes a mare to load the fucker....they generally don't fit properly on a rack, we don't have a jack & it probably wouldn't work anyway. I also don't really like the balance aspect. But I decided I would give it a go, and because of that I thought 'well if I'm loading it up, I may as well do some kind of hip-hinge wth it'. Now normally I wouldn't have dreamt of using straps with a trap-bar but in my current condition I obviously should - and tbh it was actually a revelation because I think a lot of the balance issues go away when you use straps.

I actually used the high-handles, standing on a bumper plate to do RDLs.....and frankly this still felt like an enormous range of motion, perhaps because I had to stand close-stance on the bumper and used minimal knee-bend. Two plates for sets of 10 felt challenging, though I suspect I would ramp the weight up quite a bit on sets of 6. I just did sets of 12 with the shugs, and this definitely feels like the best shrug. So I think we'll be doing a few more of these things, though I'm still not absolutely convinced I would try to go strap-free on heavy trap-bar movements again.

 

[The Natural]

On 7/7/2023 at 9:35 AM, Shartnado said:

Last run before the photoshoot. 1 hour 15 minutes which included 30 minutes of stairs. Afterwards, 20 minutes of sauna and now a breakfast that is supposed to fill me up and empty me out at the same time. I'll do a pump workout before the shoot using the strong resistance band and a shitload of push-ups. Wish me luck, those damn things will be my legacy, pretty much all of it.

Yeah, the shoot went really well and some of the shots are definite New Profile Pic -material!

Noticed the change in profile picture. No wonder. Well done xxx.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Yeah the pic is really sick. Assuming you are actually natty, I think there's a lot of bodybuilders who would not want to share a stage with you. You should probably do a show tbh.

[The Natural]

3 minutes ago, SprintingFromAmerica said:

Yeah the pic is really sick. Assuming you are actually natty, I think there's a lot of bodybuilders who would not want to share a stage with you. You should probably do a show tbh.

I get mistaken for Shartnado. I'm bigger ;).

Edited July 8, 2023 by The Natural

[Shartnado]

2 minutes ago, SprintingFromAmerica said:

Yeah the pic is really sick. Assuming you are actually natty, I think there's a lot of bodybuilders who would not want to share a stage with you. You should probably do a show tbh.

The fat burner I'm using for the past 5-6 years has something that shows up in tests for two weeks, apparently,  but as far as steroids,  HGH, TRT and stuff of that nature, I've never touched and likely never will.

[The Natural]

38 minutes ago, Shartnado said:

The fat burner I'm using for the past 5-6 years has something that shows up in tests for two weeks, apparently,  but as far as steroids,  HGH, TRT and stuff of that nature, I've never touched and likely never will.

I will break you!

Any chance I get to use a Batman reference, I have to.

[Shartnado]

1 hour ago, The Natural said:

I will break you!

Any chance I get to use a Batman reference, I have to.

That's cool and what is also funny, is that if you replace "will" with "must", then it becomes Rocky IV reference as well and that's right up my alley!

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

On 6/30/2023 at 3:35 PM, Technico Support said:

Yeah, this right here.  I don't care how many videos I watch about how to get dumbbells up for, say, military presses...I just can't do it. 

Yeah me neither. I'm not even that great at getting them in position for flat bench and I don't really enjoy it. The only way I really like doing them is on a decline when I can lock my legs, though incline is okish for high reps.

To be honest, I don't think overhead presses are particularly necessary for hypertrophy anyway. Which isn't to say I don't do them, but I increasingly favour seated presses in a Smith Machine, or machine press - though I think it is advisable to switch grips/positions rarely frequently to prevent overuse (if you have access to one of those angled Smiths, I think this is potentially good too though I am yet to try).

My work gym on Sunday is quiet (not empty, but quiet), so I do sometimes go and today was one of those days. Primary of choice was 60° Incline Smith Machine Press which I worked up to 70kg + 8kg bar  - I looked it up) for 3 sets of 8. Tbh this lift was a bit weird, as it wasn't quite a bench press but not quite an overhead press either, I think I prefer 70-75 degrees - but the range of motion was excellent & there's no doubt that you can bang out reps on the Smith that you are not going to get on a barbell. This is about as much weight as my wrists fancied, but at least I was able to use the wrist wraps without my left thumb complaining this time.

I super-setted these (yay quiet gym) with some neutral (fairly) narrow-grip lat pulldowns. I never really did these until recently until the Natural Hypertrophy guy turned me onto them - tbh I don't like them *too* narrow but we have a good handle I like at the gym and have pushed these - I did these superstrict for 70kg sets of 10. I suspect I will have to begin using a bit of body english on these. My back is bigger, my shoulders are bigger and now I can wear a 3XL t-shirt and it fits the upper-half of my torso.....which is erm interesting.

My lateral raise game remains laughable tbh, but I know how to set the height up on the cables now and I have been using wrist attachments - again necessity is the mother of invention, these are way better this way IMO - you can just really concentrate on leading with the delt. 

I super-set those with a super-set - which sounds like a giant set but it's more of a nested super-set (!) of JM Press and then wide-grip bench presses with t-shirt touch pause. Similar to Contentious C's squat game, I'm very much about juicing low weight on bench for all its worth. I actually did pretty heavy machine chest press on Friday, so I am doing enough to maintain overall but admittedly my priorities are elsewhere. My triceps are my favourite muscle though so they always get hammered - and the strong JM Press press game ensures that when I get back to benching for real that I only really need to worry about getting it off the chest.

We have a really challenging reverse fly and last week I could barely manage 20 reps on 15kg and then I had to go back to 12.5kg for a 2nd set then call it. Today I got 3 sets of 20, though the last set was very tough. Couldn't quite get the 3rd set of 20 on my 12kg pinwheel curls, or rather I couldn't be bothered to cheat at that point to be quite honest. I did some push downs and reverse curls as finishers....and I now have the worst arm cramps I've had this year. A result I guess lol!

I have a leg day tomorrow but then for various reasons I won't really have a full workout until Sunday. I may do some home stuff but not always easy to get motivated in this heat. So I guess I get to enjoy a deload.

Edited July 10, 2023 by SprintingFromAmerica

[Shartnado]

On our way to a trip for most of next week, we stayed at an Airport Hilton, which had a pretty decent gym. The dumbells went up to 44lbs so they were usable for plenty of stuff. Nice cable/fly multi purpose machine too. An hour of this and I was able to get the pump I was trying to go for during the photoshoot. I guess resistance bands can't compensate for everything?

We plan on getting some running done during the trip and the band is obviously packed too, as always, but this will mostly be serious refeed-time for me! Well, I'm 10 lbs up already from the photoshoot weight, but I was dehydrated something fierce at that point, so it hardly counts.

Looking forward to the calories, in any case!

[Technico Support]

Strained a muscle in my lower back doing rack pulls last week; now it's sore again after lifting yesterday and today.  I think I'll take a few days off and just run 3-4 miles per day until it feels better. 

[The Natural]

30 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Strained a muscle in my lower back doing rack pulls last week; now it's sore again after lifting yesterday and today.  I think I'll take a few days off and just run 3-4 miles per day until it feels better. 

Get well soon, bud xxx.

[The Natural]

Fourth swim yesterday. Did the most lengths so far in my little section, granted nearly all with a noodle float. Last length I went forward and back without which felt good. Swimming is bloody tough. I felt bad halfway through as everyone else makes it look effortless and I'm the only one with floats but I did a reality check, this is only my fourth swim in 25 years and my CP making it four times harder too so cut myself some slack. Bloody ache today, though.

Edited July 12, 2023 by The Natural

[Contentious C]

Got 65s up on my dumbbell inclines last night, which is literally the heaviest pair of dumbbells I've ever lifted for an exercise that wasn't a deadlift, shrug, or farmer's carry.  8/7/7 with a real nasty damned fight for that last rep in the last set.  I think I'm going to toggle back and forth between the 60s and 65s each workout to see if I can get the 60s more grooved in and explosive.  Once I'm hitting higher numbers on the sets with 60 (like 12, or doing a strong 4th set), I'll probably jump up another 5, or try to, because DAMN getting 70s into position is going to be a problem.  It's both a little deflating and also sort of awesome that I failed (and flailed) so hard with doing 135 on a barbell but 130 with the dumbbells was doable and a good stimulus.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Contentious C

[Technico Support]

57 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Fourth swim yesterday. Did the most lengths so far in my little section, granted nearly all with a noodle float. Last length I went forward and back without which felt good. Swimming is bloody tough. I felt bad halfway through as everyone else makes it look effortless and I'm the only one with floats but I did a reality check, this is only my fourth swim in 25 years and my CP making it four times harder too so cut myself some slack. Bloody ache today, though.

Just do your thing, man.  I'm in my late 40s and never learned to swim.  I'm slowly teaching myself.

Edited July 12, 2023 by Technico Support

[The Natural]

15 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Just do your thing, man.  I'm in my late 40s and never learned to swim.  I'm slowly teaching myself.

Cheers, mate. Learned to swim as a kid and stopped until this year. Originally with the BEEP scheme this year, I was just going to do the Gym and Yoga/Pilates but Julie from the Hope Team talked me into Swimming or I wouldn't have. Looking forward to seeing Julie this Tuesday. I haven't seen her since the 2nd of May when two days later I needed my emergency surgery.

Edited July 12, 2023 by The Natural

[Shartnado]

6 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Just do your thing, man.  I'm in my late 40s and never learned to swim.  I'm slowly teaching myself.

Here's another one who is barely adequate at swimming. Like Eric Cartman, I too can only do doggy-style. People keep telling me it's called doggy paddle, but just like Cartman, I still keep calling it the better name.

We went running on run on Tuesday morning and dipped into the tiny pool outside our apartment. I have done a bunch of push ups and some resistance band every day. Today we drove some 50km to a little lake district place. We took a brisk walk around the lake and up a bunch of stairs to a castle.

On our way back from the car rental we stopped by a fitness store and I bought a new pair of gloves and wrist wraps for relatively decent price compared to Finland.

Now we sitting pool adjacent, drinking local wine, listening to a classical concert coming from the city centre mixed with apparently current dance music listened by the 20-somethings currently hogging the tiny pool. Could be better, but not by much.

[Shartnado]

Yeah, the trip is drawing to a close and very early tomorrow morning we'll travel back home. I have eaten a metric shit-ton of calories in many wonderful forms, but I have also gone running (and swimming) one more time.

I've also had long walks (some of it uphill) every other day except Thursday during which it rained heavily basically the whole day. I've done more than a hundred push-ups each day, on a couple of days, maybe a few hundred. Resistance band has been in use 1-3 times a day, but not very long sessions.

When we get back home, I think I will need some more rest, but also try to keep active when I can. Stretching my legs properly is on the to-do list once I get a good chance.

It's going to be interesting to see how much I weigh once I get back home and can use a scale again? Aesthetically, it doesn't seem too bad at all yet, but I bet it's a lot.

[Contentious C]

Y'all need to learn how to swim.  Really.

But anyway, I started doing Smith Machine OHPs last week to try to increase my shoulder volume on Push days (and in general, really).  But the issue, of course, is I've got whatever fucking strange, severe pain in my shoulder that eventually flares up.  It's not my biceps tendon, because that's more towards the outside of your humerus, and this is something more toward where the pec & front delt connect with the inside of the humerus, under the clavicle.  I would like to Lego myself and have that rebuilt.

But anyway anyway, the OHPs.  I mentioned before how I was going to alternate between 65 & 60 on incline dumbbell, meaning today was a 60 day, so I decided to program them after the OHPs.  I did those with 80 for sets of 8/8/7 and that felt mostly pretty good, but the real surprise there was the ROM was super good for actually feeling my upper pecs activate a bit as I began to push.  So when I got to my inclines, sets of 10/8/6 with a 7-second descent/hold on the very last rep to squeeze out everything, my chest BLEW UP.  Suffice to say I will be sticking with this programming on my Upper days (inclines get the heavier load and priority on Push day).

I also switched my protein powder, which is kind of good and bad.  Good because I'm phasing out Splenda/sucralose after that fairly damning research paper that came out a few months ago.  When you have 3 different lines of evidence that a by-product of your compound damages DNA, well, you're better off avoiding that shit just in case.  Bad because the old stuff tasted AMAZING and the new stuff tastes like very-watered-down cake batter and has Stevia, which has its own gastric-distress issues for some people.  But in the long term, the stevia *should* be safer, and it isn't punishing me so far.  Plus Costco had this stuff massively on sale: cake batter may not taste good, but saving $10 a bag sure does.

I also started in on the RXBAR brand of "protein" bars (which are really "everything bars").  I like these for a very specific reason: they are...decent.  They aren't gross like some of the generic types, but they aren't phenomenally tasty like some of the others I've had either, so I can easily limit myself to 1-per-day after a workout and not overindulge, and therefore waste them as a snack.  But they are pretty damned pricey, and it's a good thing Costco *also* had them massively on sale, so I stashed 4 boxes.