All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[Shartnado]

Yeah, I don't know what kind of a sick, masochistic bastard has a legday  already on a Tuesday, but that's where I am. Day off on Friday so I booked a sports massage for an hour. So I  have to get the important stuff in within 4 days.

It went pretty well. Same stuff as last week. Starting with the squat machine sets of 10 with 95 (plus the rack and 2 resistance bands), 189,5, 284 and sets of 7 with 379 and 473,5. Obviously, the 473,5 did not go too well, but definitely better than the top set last week. The 379 I was pretty pleased with, actually.

Started the calf raises at 473,5 and did two sets and continued by taking a plate off on each side for each following set. Back at 284, I resumed the squats also, now doing sets of 5. Once back down to 95 lbs, I  just squatted down and did partials at the low portion of the move and came up for air two times. Didn't count the reps there.

After this, I did the sitting calf raises, using an 88lb dumbell this time. I had some time left over to do abs and was able to stretch my legs during the shift, so they feel OK now.

Today, it should be seal row/ regular bench combo. It was just that and it went pretty well. I went up to 259 with the seal row's top set. Started out well, but got pretty ugly by the end. 253 and 242 were a bit better and 220 felt pretty light at this point. Between every set, I did a set on bench, mostly between 242 and 264. Again, started out pretty well and got uglier by the end. Either way, another decent workout!

Edited October 18, 2023 by Shartnado
more info

[Shartnado]

Being intentionally ambiguous with the timeline of my goals sure bit me in the ass. I said "do this and this before there's snow on the ground!" Now, obviously, I THOUGHT that meant at least a month from now. Well, there's ice that looks very much like snow on the ground now, so I missed the other target by mere days.

One goal was to use the 88lb dumbells for sitting overhead press on the incline bench, which happened this week, before the fucking sleet/ice and the other was to do a complete single arm overhead press with 88 lbs on both sides. That happened yesterday, after my shift as I walked past the gym and thought "I need to get this fucking done!" as the ice/sleet didn't melt away overnight, as I had hoped.

Before that, however, it was the trapbar day. I started out heavier than usual, so that may have affected the heavy shit negatively, but it is what it is. Off a deficit, without Versas, I did 5x239, 3x333,5, then from almost floor level 2x383, 2x427 and 1x478. Then, with Versas, off the big blocks 2x522, 2x589, 1x694, 1x738 (these two singles were off the best heights that I have ever gotten such weights up, but that took a lot out of me). Bigger weights than that didn't move even fro the shittiest possible distance, so I scaled it down. At 661, I did singles and twos until I hit 13 reps total. This took some 20 plus minutes. Then 3x587, 12x514 using rest pause. Then shrugs with 419, 324 and 184.

So, that's it for this week, as Friday is an extra day off. My sports massage got cancelled, as the guy came down with a flu or something, so I need to just figure something out by myself. Stretching, foam rolling and massage hammer as well as sauna later on.

This ended up being a really good week. If I'm able to keep the weight up and escape without the flu, by the end of the year a lot of my records should be looking completely different. So far, it looks pretty good.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

So I set a rep PR this week on the conventional deadlift -140kg x 6 (actually arep PR on any barbell deadlift). Actually this was very easy, or it would have been if I hadn't been incredibly sleep-deprived and hadn't tried to stiff-leg it....or if I hadn't eaten Jamaican food 30 minutes before. I did actually bend my knees for the last rep, and I walked it back onto the rack. So I feel like the levelling up is established. However I do feel I tweaked my tricep just a touch though, so I am not sure I am going to pursue this kind of rep work on the deadlift.

I sort of do want a 200kg deadlift by the end of the year, but otherwise I am largely focussing on hypertrophy. I decided to do incline bench instead of flat bench on my first upper day of the cycle, and tbh 65kg was pretty tough for sets of 8 & then 10. But a few months ago incline was very uncomfortable, and where my bench has been janky is a few inches off the chest, with it moving towards the face - and incline is generally considered the cure. I actually think my titties are probably more muscular than ever, given by what I was able to push on a Cybex machine recently (120kg for a set of 8).

Otherwise not *that* much else to say. I think I said this before, but not really planning to try to bench more than 100kg right now - if I am feeling frisky I am might try a heavy single towards the end of the year, but not a massive priority. If anything, I might try to side-quest an OHP PR - but we'll see.

[Technico Support]

10 miles, personal best.  Suffering from runner’s nipple halfway through but pushed on.  

[Shartnado]

8 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Suffering from runner’s nipple

What's this, now?

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Despite emoticon, no laughing matter.

[Technico Support]

6 hours ago, Shartnado said:

What's this, now?

Painful chafing from your top getting all sweaty and rubbing your nips.  It sucks!  Lots of possible solutions, most work about 3/4 of the time.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

[Shartnado]

15 hours ago, StretchMediatedHypertrophy said:

Aaargh! I don't even want to think about such a thing! Oh fuck!

[AxB]

This is why Deathmatch wrestlers don't do serious cardio. The last thing you want is chafing, when you've got half healed cuts all up your torso.

[Shartnado]

Another 5 workout week with some good stuff in there. I was able to repeat the 88lb single arm overhead press on Monday, before work, when passing by the gym. During the workouts, throughout the week, despite several attempts, I could not repeat it after that. So: Either my working clothes are magical OR the worker Shartnado is more of a badass than the gym bro Shartnado is? I can't tell you yet, which one it is, but I'll let you know once I figure it out!

On Monday, after work, I was able to do one set of 5 with 88's with the bench straight up this week and other sets were either with slightly less weight or slightly more incline. There were hammer curls, though.

First time in a while I did single arm concentration/preacher curls on a Scott bench, 3 sets for each arm, using 58lb, 53lb and 48,5lb dumbells. The inside of my left elbow and forearm gave me some trouble, but the right side was mostly fine. The reps were like 4, 6 and 10, respectively. This was on Tuesday.

Wednesday was a leg day. Best set on the squat machine was 7x434, which actually got better and lower as the set went on. I did only calfraises with 467, as I didn't want to ruin the mood with some ugly partials.

Thursday was regular bench/ incline seal row. I was able to go up to 264 with the seal row. 5 "reps", two of which were actually pretty good and rest was crap, but I still moved it. The lighter sets before and after went pretty well. At the end, I did more than 15 reps with 154 out of which maybe 13 were just non-stop movement. On bench, I went all the way to 291 getting one rep and a quarter. Luckily my friend was there to spot me. The 264-281 sets went surprisingly well, too. Maybe the incline dumbell bench and sitting dumbell overhead press have helped?

Friday's trapbar didn't start out very auspiciously, but it ended up going really well. I started out heavier than usual and off a bigger deficit (standing on two blocks). I did 5x261, 3x371, 1x466 without Versas (and the 261 set was even without gloves), then with Versas, off the floor, 2x510 and off the blocks with Versas, 3x538,5, 2x582,5 1x633 off a decent height, then 1x684 and 1x738 off a half decent height and 1x732, 1x790, 1x832,5, 2x790, 5x695 and 10x599 off the shortest distance. I decided to stop there and just do some shrugs, because this had already been a "holy shit"-workout. Well, I went and ruined the mood a little bit by failing another attempt at the 88 single arm OHP, but that was a minor setback.

Crazy week, in many ways. Today and tomorrow, there will be calories. I already stuffed myself yesterday, but I will continue down that path until Sunday evening.

[Shartnado]

To say that I had a crazy workout week is an understatement, as everything except for Sunday evening went exceedingly well. Sunday, I arrived a bit too late before the night shift and probably hadn't yet recovered from Friday's workout. The 88lb single arm standing overhead press didn't happen here, nor could I complete it at any point during the week. I managed one set of 5 with the 88's on the seat straight-up incline bench OHP, but every other set was lighter. Sets were as follows: 75's, 88's, 83,5's, 79's, 75's, 70,5's, 66's. Reps were around 5-6 per set. Hammer curls after each set but two sets with 88's, due to failing one attempt at OHP with them. Not much time for anything else before work.

Monday I continued with the actual incline dumbell press. It is crazy how much easier it is to get the dumbells into the position, when there is room to lean back properly. With the two notches incline on the bench, I did 5 sets with the 88's starting from 12 reps and last two being 7. After each set I continued with shrugs and between sets I did a set of resistance band lat pull downs. Also some light shoulder work and curls afterwards. Tried to work my abs extra hard at the end due to having no time for them on Sunday.

Tuesday was legday, but my friend/co-worker was doing rack pull (or standard deadlift off the blocks) and when he was at 463, I also gave it a go and did a set of 3. Squat machine sets went as follows: 10x205, 8x249, 7x343,5, 7x387,5 and 8x444. Then 3 sets of calf raises with 482 and then starting to go back using most of the same weights as going up (I think I skipped 387,5 on the way down, though). One set of sitting calf raises with an 88 dumbell on top of my knee and that's all that I had time for.

Wednesday was incline seal row/ regular bench combo. Top sets for seal row were with 270, sandwhiched by sets with 264. Again, first couple reps were pretty good and then started to get much worse. The sets with 243 and 220 went really well, though. And the finishing set with 154 was more than 20 reps overall. Bench went well, too. 3-4 reps with 280, up from 1 and a quarter with 291 all the way to one and 3 shitty partials and 1 plus two shitty partials with 295. Going back down, the reps were pretty ugly until around 252, but I was moving more weight than I had on regular bench in quite a while so, I gave zero shits about the quality of the reps. At 154 I did wider grip and stopped each rep on the chest for a bit. After 12 reps like that I did a few sets of 3 with 10 second rest pause in between, until I could only do 2 (that was maybe 3 or 4 sets).

Last night was trapbar and that was pretty nuts. Started with 5x305 without gloves standing on two blocks (the bottoms of my shoes roghly at low handle level) then with gloves 2x399. Then, from slightly lower 1x466 and with Versas 1x493, lower but still off a deficit. Then 1x539 off the floor. Then moving onto the blocks, I did 1x582,5 off a decent height, then 1x684 off the same height I have done in recent weeks. Then 738 off the same height as last week, then took my shoes off for 790 from the same distance (minus maybe inch and a half from the shoes) and got it up once. Then, with the shoes back on, but nothing but the floor beneath my feet I managed to get 832,5 up again. I also got it up on a second try after a decent breather, but couldn't lock out, as I felt the velcro on my left Versa starting to give out, so I quickly put the weight back down. Then one more rep with 790, but from the shorter distance this time and 4x695. After that it was 13x600 using rest pause and 13x505,5 off a better distance also with rest pause. Then one long set of shrugs with 410 and I was done. Feeling pretty bad ass after that one. Not bad ass enough to attempt the 88 single arm ohp, though.

The last couple of months of the year will be a bit different, as I'll be having more time off from work. 6 of those days will unfortunately be unpaid time off, but I'm still welcoming the extra recovery. On top of those 6 days I'll have about 15 paid days off (plus weekends) by the end of the year. Can you say "dirty bulk"? I'm looking forward to it. This afternoon, I weighed 190,5 lbs, looking very solid. I will try my best to reach 200 again for a few hours by Sunday evening!

[Contentious C]

Tonight might be the first time in 6+ weeks that I go to the gym on back-to-back days.  This bronchitis shit is still awful, but at least it's about a 2/10 instead of the "stand up and get winded" garbage it was this time last month.  I get to find out just how much Pull day relies on my lungs; haven't decided if I'm going to try to deadlift or not.  I probably will.  Maybe just do my Religious Experience workout and leave it at that.

[The Natural]

Went to the gym for the first time in a few weeks today as my third abscess this year has done me in. Did 20 minutes on the treadmill, biceps/triceps 60lbs/27kgs 2x10 (10 reps twice, have I written that right?) and leg press 70lbs/32kg 2x10 (10 reps twice, have I written that right?) I know I definitely have BEEP at least for a year so from January 2023-January 2024 giving me unlimited gym/swimming/gym classes at a reduced rate. I think you can a year or two after. Bloody hope so as it's really helped me mentally and physically in 2023. Gym for the first time in 15 years, Swimming for the first time in 25 years and Pilates for the first time ever.

[The Natural]

On 10/22/2023 at 1:11 AM, Technico Support said:

10 miles, personal best.  Suffering from runner’s nipple halfway through but pushed on.  

Can relate to that when I used to run. Barely run now, replaced running with indoor cycling. I have a mini bike under my desk at home. That really shed the pounds.

Edited November 7, 2023 by The Natural

[Shartnado]

Two workouts in so, and the only things worth writing about are that I was able to do 2x8 with the 88's on the straight-up incline bench on Monday. 8 sets overall ranging from 2x66lbs to 2x88lbs with hammer curls after each set (actually 3 sets of those with 88's, as one attempt to get them into the ohp position failed).

I continued on Tuesday with the actual incline dumbell press and did 6 sets with 88's, but getting at least 2 reps less overall than I did last week with only 5 sets. Did shrugs after each set and also some side and rear delt stuff, lat pulldowns with resistance bands and some light curls.

Now I need to figure out what will I do today and tomorrow, as it is very unlikely that I will get an actual gym workout in on Friday. Today has to be one of the two leg day variants, in any case.

[Shartnado]

I decided to do trapbar today, so I can pick squats and calves or bench and seal row tomorrow.

Started with 2x371 without gloves, standing on two blocks. Then with gloves 1x466 off the same deficit. Then 1x494,5 off of one high block. Those took a lot out of me, so 560,5 off the floor was a no-go, even with Versas, so I switched to blocks. Getting 2x560,5 off of one block-level, followed by 1x582,5 and 1x604,5 off the same.  Then 1x684 off the 1,5 half block level and 1x727 off slightly less than full two blocks. Off the full two blocks I did two or three singles with 789,5, I'm not sure. I knew enough not to go for 832,5 this week, but I did 1+2 with 768,5, then 3x684 and 5x674. No super long lighter sets this week, I did 3x585 and one set of shrugs with 295 and said that's it.

I felt really good about the early lighter lifts off a deficit, those had to be among the best I've ever done. The floor level isn't where I want it to be, but otherwise it was really good. 15 reps overall with 300+ kilos and roughly half of those 330+ kilos. Can't complain.

[Contentious C]

3 days of workouts in a row.  Almost, almost feeling normal.  Still hacking and wheezing more than I should from whatever, but bordering on functional.

Leg days are another matter.  I still can't do anything too taxing that's both legs at once, but as per usual, the leg press is fucking up my left knee so much that I'm going to have to go back to belt squats whether my cardio system can handle it or not.

[Shartnado]

So yeah, I said I get to choose which workout I would do today, but while watching Dynamite this morning, it occurred to me, why choose, if you can fucking do them both!

So, bench, squat-machine, seal-row and calf raises it was! Bench didn't go as well as previous weeks, but I did 8 good to half decent reps with 262 but around 270 to 285 stuff got way worse. On the way back down it was fine, though.

Best set on the squat machine was 8x423, but I liked how deep I could get with most of the reps, especially towards the end.

The top sets on seal-row were with 286 and 275, but I'd be lying if I claimed to have gotten even one full range rep with those. The first or second rep with 264 was pretty full range on both of those sets and the lighter ones were fine. Did something like 30 reps with 154 at the end, 20 first of which were non-stop.

Calf raises were with the same weights as squats, nothing to report. It was OK.

So, 5 days of workouts in 4 days! I think I deserve some wine on the weekend. Booked another sports massage appointment for tomorrow morning. I hope it actually happens this time!

Edited November 9, 2023 by Shartnado
forgot the calf raises...

[Technico Support]

Today's workout stats

• Time: about 70 minutes
• Number of different exercises: 13
• Sets per exercise: 3 plus a drop set
• Farts released on the hip thrust machine: 2

Also, there was a dude doing deadlifts the entire time I was there. He ended every fucking set by dropping the weight to the deadlift platform from 2-3 feet and letting it loudly bounce haphazardly.  Honestly, if you can lift it, you should be able to put it back down.  Then again, if you can lift it, you should also be able to re-rack it, and we know how that always goes.

[Shartnado]

3 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Today's workout stats

• Time: about 70 minutes
• Number of different exercises: 13
• Sets per exercise: 3 plus a drop set
• Farts released on the hip thrust machine: 2

Also, there was a dude doing deadlifts the entire time I was there. He ended every fucking set by dropping the weight to the deadlift platform from 2-3 feet and letting it loudly bounce haphazardly.  Honestly, if you can lift it, you should be able to put it back down.  Then again, if you can lift it, you should also be able to re-rack it, and we know how that always goes.

Putting the weights back down is the only shit I do properly!! Fuck everyone who doesn't!

[Technico Support]

I literally re-rack stuff I didn’t even lift if it’s near me, just to balance out the assholishness in the world.  

[Contentious C]

Yeah, that's one of my "feel superior to everyone else" things in the gym as well.  We have the belt squat & hip thrust I mentioned in prior posts that were new this year, and they came with their own different, rubberized weights.  And none of the hapless fuckwits in my gym seem to understand how to rack weights.  I want to make them all take a goddamn test so they have to answer, "You only put one kind of weight in one spot, so when you want to use that weight, you don't have to dig through others to get it, even if it means one side is all 25s and the other side is all 10s" and sign their fucking names to it.

I also had to correct some fools - the same college kids I've bemoaned before - because they were trying to use ankle straps to do lateral raises and they couldn't figure out how to hook up the cables.  It's like, duh, motherfuckers, the force is down, the cables pull down, the connections are down: you're gonna have to spin the metal hook on the straps DOWN relative to how you're lifting.  That takes me about 0.4 CPU cycles of brain power to glance at and figure out and they half-assed it.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Contentious C

[Technico Support]

Dude, my current gym has a class that younger kids need to take if they want to work out.  I’m like shit, they need to make everyone who joins go through a gym etiquette class.  So much ridiculous bullshit.

On the plus side, I ran 8 miles today, finishing 8 straight days of alternating weights and cardio since last Saturday.  I think I’ll take tomorrow off.  

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Gym people are the worst. Whoever broke one of the handles on the GHR machine ought to be sterilised for the good of mankind. Noone even uses it except me!

Ok, so been about 3 weeks since I posted. Last week for life reasons, I only had 2 lunchtime workouts scheduled.....and then I got a cold on Wednesday. And it's funny, Sam Sulek (lol) recently said something about a viral infection not stopping you from working out 'if you have that dog in you'. And yeah I do know what he's saying, & somehow someway I went in and did my Thursday workout, which was mostly stiff-legged deadlifts of all things, and felt great afterwards. And then on Friday I felt knackered grocery shopping. 

So I'm sort of experimenting with a technique I picked up from a 531 critique; Fazlifts 853. Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEpNjc9nKwU&ab_channel=Fazlifts

So basically right now I'm doing this for 3 exercises, & for now this means 3 x 8 adding 2.5kg every time: stiff-legged deadlift (105kg today), overhead press (42.5kg), hack squat [low foot position, essentially emulating my narrow squat stance] (55 (+ 48kg for the carriage according to Reddit) - I suck at hack squat).

Last week, I actually just did the hack squat (& extra feet-fwd hack squats &  low row machine, plus hammer curls) on the Tuesday and the SLDs (& Chest Press, plus some cable arm work) Thursday.

The Friday before I did all 3, and the same again today - I also did the 2 sets of accessory feet-fwd hack squats, plus GHD (once I worked out how to jimmy the mechanism), plus 1 set of lat pulldowns (erm I don't seem to be getting on with those rn), & 2 sets of pushdowns. The feet fwd ones I can do for more reps (12s for my 8 rep weight on the primaries) but man they work the core a lot - I was borderline pukey by the end. I managed to get the ohp down to my chest today though, which I had been struggling with so I was very happy with that.

As per above, I seem to have tweaked something in or around my left lat. Vertical pulling feels bad, & is now off the table for at least a few weeks. I'll try some dead hangs maybe, get my gf to wield the massage gun. Partly for this reason I am using a slightly wider than optimal grip on my SLDs, going narrow seems to really activate the lats for me but if anything I'd rather load the traps anyway as I don't really like doing trap isolations very much.

I'll probably end up in a different gym in December with no hack squat, so I will probably rotate these out in favour of SSB squats. The OHP should obviously stall out quicker, though my current gym now has microplates so that opens up some possibilities (though tbh I am expecting them to get nicked even if it is an office gym). SLD should take a while to cycle through though, and I may decide to let it become a normal deadlift as the weight keeps going up.

Wednesday will be a much more hypertrophic-focussed workout, mostly upper body but maybe some leg extensions. I haven't flat-benched in weeks, and I'm not sure that will change. Probably Friday I'll try to do the SLDs, hack squat machine & OHP again with added weight.

45 tomorrow!

Edited November 13, 2023 by StretchMediatedHypertrophy