All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[Shartnado]

Continued last night and did the actual incline dumbell press. First a set of 7 with a pair of 66's and then two sets with 88's, getting 12 and 9. Third set I got into position but failed to get up, so I did a 9 with 83,5's instead. This time, I did a set of shrugs after each set with the same weights. Then I put on Versas and did more shrugs as a dropset starting from 88's and finishing with th 66's. Did some standing dumbell bicep curls as well as the usual ab work.

It also occured to me that I should approach my sitting overhead dumbell press goal from two different sides, as in trying to use the slightest incline possible and still using the 88's if possible. I guess I'll try that next week. I guess I should be doing some leg work this evening.

[Shartnado]

Yeah, didn't do legs on Tuesday. Opted for more of that elevated barbell row and some front delt work instead. My friend called that move C-Row (if I heard correctly, probably not Sea-Row?), so maybe that is what it's called, I don't know? Sets were 88, 154, 176, 187, 187, 176, 154, 88 with the rep range of 5-10 and holding the last rep off the ground as long as possible. My lats felt it the next day.

Yesterday was trapbar and it was a mixed bag. Anything off the floor level is going terribly, and actually even worse than previously, but some of it I blame on the rows on Tuesday. I did use the biggest blocks and did 4 separate singles with 695 and 2x600 from a shitty range and then 8x505,5 from a slightly better range, went back to shitty range and did 5 reps more. Then some more shrugs.

I also saw my friend do a standing single arm overhead press with 88lbs (one rep with each hand), so I had to start reaching for that as well. I did 2x66 with each arm and then 1x70,5 with each arm. I think 75 at least is doable. I'll give it a try next week.

My schedule changed suddenly, so I won't be going to night shift tonight, but instead I'll go in on Friday morning, no time to stay for a workout afterwards, so that's it for this week. There may be a run happening on the weekend, though.

[Shartnado]

A 50 minute run this morning. It went a lot better than I thought it would with the regained mass, but obviously I wasn't pushing it too hard. Yesterday was quite the refeed day as I actually tried to get a meal in every 2 hours during the waking hours. It probably helped the run as far as energy is concerned.

Ok, and this was combined with a 50-minute workout in my brother-in-law's carage while listening to dark country playlist. So this ended up being a very active week, after all.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Shartnado
more activity and it's not even noon.

[Technico Support]

Totally unrelated, but if you’re filming your workout with a tripod, I WILL walk through your shot.  

[Shartnado]

On 9/25/2023 at 6:33 PM, Technico Support said:

Totally unrelated, but if you’re filming your workout with a tripod, I WILL walk through your shot.  

Yeah, because fuck you, that's why! Is that what would be called workout bombing? In a gym where there is a bunch of people, filming of any kind is always somewhat questionable.

I have a decent week going at the moment, but still two more to go and I'm feeling wrecked as is. At the end of my Monday workout I did do a record of some sort, as I tried a standing barbell overhead press and got 3x154 lbs, as anything beyond 140 I have had trouble locking out my elbows. No other real improvements on the press movements, but I'll write more about those maybe on Saturday morning.

[Technico Support]

I ran 9.33 miles the other day (that's 15K for my bros outside The Colonies).  Friends, I think I may have a problem.   

Edited September 28, 2023 by Technico Support

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

On 9/25/2023 at 4:33 PM, Technico Support said:

Totally unrelated, but if you’re filming your workout with a tripod, I WILL walk through your shot.  

Tbh it depends why, from my perception, they're filming. Some ppl may have coaches and need to film at least some of their work.

In other news, I have covid so yeah having to have a break. I may play with my kettlebells at the weekend. I get enough semi-forced deloads that I don't really need another, but not much to be done about it.

[Contentious C]

4 hours ago, StretchMediatedHypertrophy said:

Tbh it depends why, from my perception, they're filming. Some ppl may have coaches and need to film at least some of their work.

In other news, I have covid so yeah having to have a break. I may play with my kettlebells at the weekend. I get enough semi-forced deloads that I don't really need another, but not much to be done about it.

OK, well, my head canon for your member title is now, "Plays with his kettlebells at the weekend".

[Shartnado]

Monday was the attempt to get further in my incline press/sitting overhead dumbell press. Getting one set with 79's sitting straight up, one set with 83,5's with one level more incline and one set with 88's with one more level incline. Then going down to 83,5, 79 and 75. Hammer curls followed each set.

Tuesday was a bunch of curls, plenty of lat pulldowns and pushdowns. It was either here or Wednesday when I did that 3x154 standing barbell overhead press.

Wednesday was mostly C-Row day, getting up to 209 lbs (starting from 110, 154 and 198 before that) and going back down and then doing one set of curls with 110. Between the sets I did some front and side delt work.

During the week, I tried the single hand dumbell press and got up to 79 first with only right arm but later in the week I managed to do it with left arm as well.

Thursday was a legday (!!!) Calves and squats on the machine. Starting squats from 110 (plus the rack and two resistance bands on each set), 205, 299,5, 394 and 438. Started the calf raises at 438 and then back down to 110 alternating with squats and calf raises with each weight.

Today, as a shitty birthday present for myself, I did trapbar. Well, the present was using the blocks pretty much from the start. The real work started when I did ten single reps with 684 within 15 minutes (it may have been 9 or 11, but not much less or more than that. Once I went back down in weight and had done the shrugs, I attempted the single arm overhead dumbell press with 83,5 (I had tried it at the start of the workout, getting it above my head, but not a full rep) and cleared it pretty easily with each arm. So I guess that was the present?

I have been eating a lot more than usual this week, but I started the week at 189 and this morning was at 185. Looking pretty solid at the moment. There are still plenty more of birthday calories to go, so next week probably starts above 190.

[Technico Support]

Old woman at the gym next to me wearing so much perfume I almost took my bandana off my forehead and put it over my face Arthur Morgan style

Edited October 2, 2023 by Technico Support

[Contentious C]

30 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Old woman at the gym next to me wearing so much perfume I almost took my bandana off my forehead and put it over my face Arthur Morgan style

So you could heist and/or bushwhack her for her valuables?

[The Natural]

When I swim I tend to go back and forth in my session but today did a full length four times including twice at the end I struggle at. Did well to say it's my first swim in a month. Saw an old school friend to in Manjit who I haven't seen since we finished school. I've seen so many people in 2023 by chance for the first time in years. Mathew, Martin, Asma, Bec, and Terry to name a few.

Edited October 3, 2023 by The Natural

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

On 9/11/2023 at 8:47 PM, StretchMediatedHypertrophy said:

SHOCK COMPLETELY UNPLANNED PR: Semi-Sumo Deadlift 185kg. Woohoo!

 

I got 187.5kg for a struggle session single on the conventional deadlift today. Fuck you Covid!

I was pretty happy as I was really tired and full of way too much free Dominos pizza eaten Tony Mareno-style. Oh yeah and I had sore quads/abs from volume bodysquats and leg raises on Sunday. Lockout was weak though, need to work on that.

I've started doing the GHR with a thick resistance band around my neck. Tbh this tells me that I probably should have a better deadlift than I do, so maybe I really just need to pull a bit more than I infact do.

[Shartnado]

3 workouts this week, starting on Wednesday. Sitting dumbell overhead press with the bench straight up 5x66's, 5x83,5's, 5x79's, 6x75's, 6x70,5's. Hammer curls after each se plus one wih 88's. I was able to do the single arm overhead press with 88 on the left arm, but not the right one. Tried it throughout the week and only made it once with the left and zero times clean with the right.

Thursday was C-Row with even more elevated bench for longer stretch on the way down. After a warm-up of 12x132, I did 10x198, 6x220, 5x231, 4x231, 5x220, 5x206, 7x198 8x165. Then I did standing "curls" with 132. Well, it was "Introduction to Body-English vol.1", but I did get it up 4 times and tried to lower it down slower. Some resistance band chest work and abs to finish.

Today it was Trapbar. After the warm-ups, I put up the big blocks and did 2x599, 1x643 from a not quite so shitty distance and then the short distance ones as follows: 3x685, 2x727, 1x780, 1x788,5 and 1x821,5 (yeah, that's 373kg), then back to a better distance for 13x484,5 in a straight set with no rest-pause.

I guess the extra 2 days off from the gym paid off?

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Board ate my post.

100kg bench first time this year, for 5 reps. Getting covid was tedious, but If the Gods are fucking you, you find a way to fuck them back. I ate a lot this week.

Shartnado's lifts are borderline Bugenhagen at this point. 

I think in terms of display strength, days off definitely help. A lot of powerlifters do taper their training down 2 weeks before they compete, especially on squat & deadlift. Whether it helps long-term goals I am less sure, though sometimes I think giving some of your muscles a few days off can help to get that extra 10lbs on your working weight. Whilst I'm not really a bro split guy at heart, I think relentlessly hammering a body-part 2-3 times a week can potentially have diminishing returns, though I think it is probably good to do that sometimes too.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Oh what's that *another* deadlift PR? Oh yeah, this one is brought to you by Western Fried Chicken - home of the double chicken fillet burger. Sucked down two of those bad boys on the way.

190kg 2" deficit deadlift (yeah straps, but also beltless). Was thinking of just trying to get the 190 off the floor, but the warm-ups with the deficit went well went well so I was like 'to hell with this'. I misgrooved 180 and it moved fwd but I was able to pull it in with my lats, & I knew if I fixed my barpath I'd get the 190kg. My upper hamstrings got lit the f**k up tho.

Gym was quiet so I actually had a 2nd barbell setup for OHP and I actually did a parallel training max on it - haven't done *any* OHP in months. 65kg got stuck twice, but I got it up. I think I've hit 72.5, maybe 75 Idk..but not since the injury.

Having done those lifts, and a quick 170kg non-deficit to walk it back on the rack....well I was more than a little gassed-up. So in some ways the PR was slightly counter-productive (180kg would have been a PR for that deficit), but screw it. No more of this for a while though, hypertrophy & conditioning for a couple of months now.

[Contentious C]

On 10/6/2023 at 11:14 AM, Shartnado said:

 

Thursday was C-Row

What exercise are you calling C-row?  Google seems to eat this and garble it into fifteen other things that may or may not be remotely correct.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Given it involves an elevated bench, I imagine it's an incline seal row.

[Contentious C]

Ah, those.  I already have about eleventy horizontal pulls that my body seems to love, don't necessarily need one more.

Or at least, my body would love them if my heart weren't beating out of my chest with little provocation lately.  I stand up and get winded.  I walked 2 mph on the treadmill and my heart rate was fucking *120*.  I'm starting to wonder if I didn't get a bout of myocarditis or pericarditis from the COVID booster I had a couple of weeks ago.

[Shartnado]

22 hours ago, StretchMediatedHypertrophy said:

Given it involves an elevated bench, I imagine it's an incline seal row.

C, seal, pretty close anyway! I had no idea what the move was called, but I'm guessing my friend was saying "seal row" all along and I just misheard/misunderstood what he was saying. But that's probably it.

[Log]

I just came off my longest layoff in a while. Nothing wrong with me, I just got lazy. Had zero desire to even attempt a workout.

Anyway, started back this week going lighter on the weight and higher on the reps. Holy balls, am I sore after only two days! Oh well, that's what I get.

Fun thing is, during my layoff, my son got super into working out. So, I've been showing him some stuff he can do. Mostly body weight or super-light dumbbells. He's stuck with it really well. With my new workout, it's really all stuff he can do, too, so we're working out together. He gets a little bored doing multiple sets of the same thing, and he's waaaay more into upper-body stuff than legs, so I try to give him some freedom to improvise. At this point, I just want to encourage his interest in it while making sure he's doing it safely.

Yesterday, he joined me as I was at the end of my workout (he'd been playing outside). I finished up, and he wanted to keep going. He asked if he could play his own music now. I play music on the Amazon Echo in our gym. I said sure, and the first two songs he fired up were "You're the Best" from Karate Kid and "Hearts on Fire" from Rocky IV. Poor kid was born in the wrong decade. He loves his 80's montage songs.

[Shartnado]

Yeah, this was quite the week. Full five workouts and every one of them with decent weights, too! Nightshift week, so I get a start on Sunday evening. I bought a new pair of compression sleeves and tried them on here. Overhead press on an incline bench straight up, a set of 8 with a pair of 83,5's was the best I could manage. I got the 88's into the position, but couldn't get them up. I did do the hammer curls with those too, however. Around 5 sets overall with 70,5's being the smallest pair used. I tried the single arm overhead press with 88 throughout the week and got three partial reps with both arms by Thursday evening, but not a single clean rep with either one.

Monday evening I did 4 sets with 88's with a larger than usual incline and that was pretty easy. Each set was around or more than 10 reps. I did shrugs after each set. Between the sets I did lat pulldowns with resistance bands and decent ab work at the end.

Tuesday evening was an actual leg day. Squat machine and calf raises for everyone! I did sets of 5 while going up in weight and tried to go as deep as possible and even stopping at the bottom on some reps. On top of the rack and a pair of short resistance bands, the weights used were 44, 139, 183, 277,5, 321,5 and 416. The 416 set didn't go particularly well, so I didn't try to go any higher. The 321,5's went nice and deep, though. I started calf raises at 416 and alternated between those and squats on the way down, using the same weight in reverse. After the squatting was done I did some seated calf raises by placing a 66 lb dumbell on top of my knee and changing to the other leg once getting fatigued. I did this for a few minutes. Afterwards, it really looked as if my calves were actually pumped. Thighs, not so much. But the DOMS by the early morning hours told me I had done something with those, too!

Wednesday evening I did the baby seal clubbing row (I hope I got the name right this time) and regular bench combo. I used some extra padding this time, so the rows wouldn't crush my sternum, but it was still pretty painful. I went up to 243 and the first set went ok, the other two not so much. But 220 and 209 after that went well. Between each set I did a bench set with 252, which went well until closer to the last sets.

Thursday was trapbar. I tried to load the weights differently this time, to see if I could get more weight on the bar than usual, but found out that the way I previously loaded it was the optimal way. After the warm ups, I put onnthe big blocks and did 2x528, 1x626,5, 1x700 (from the best distance I've ever done it, which is not a good distance, but still), 3 separate singles with 753 from the shitty distance (although with my shoes on, so not the worst possible), then 5+3 with 689 using rest pause, then 12x595 with rest pause again, then from a better distance 13x500 with a slight rest pause. After that, shrugs with 405, 295 and 185. No abs afterwards, but I did some rolling and hanging upside down.

Hell of a week. Now I just need to eat everything in sight in order to recover from all of this.

[Shartnado]

Sunday evening, before bedtime, I weighed 195lbs. In the morning, it was down to 190, but the weekend was successful.

The workout week also started promisingly, as I was able to do two sets of sitting overhead press on the incline bench straight up with 88's for 8 and 6 reps, respectively! Before that, I did 5x53's on a bigger incline and 5x75's straight up. Afterwards, I did 6x83,5's, 7x79's and then on a bigger incline 10x66's and 10x70,5's. Hammer curls after each set and some light curls and lateral and side raises for shoulders. Then some abs in the end. This was one hell of a start for the week!

[The Natural]

Went swimming today. I was in two minds whether to. Glad I did as I had one of my best sessions. The highlight was see Cathy/Katherine on lifeguard duty, she hasn't seen me swim since my first two when I was using a float. I see her on reception telling her the progress I've made and it was great that she actually got to see with her own two eyes, she was impressed. I can now do either 3/4 of a length of a full one. I did well too as water got in my eye but I didn't stop and finished my length.

Went to Italiano's after swimming. I haven't got one for a while.  I normally go for the 12". I wasn't sure whether to go with the Bolognese pizza or the Chilli pizza, my two favourites so I went with the Combination pizza when you can choose 1/2 of one and 1/2 of the other. As I was walking home I spotted my bus stuck in traffic so I sprinted to my stop which was next and got on it. I had to navigate getting on and off a packed bus with a 12" pizza but it worked out. For the first time ever, I ate a 12" in one sitting and I'm stuffed. Cheers!

Edited October 16, 2023 by The Natural

[Technico Support]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:55 AM, Log said:

I said sure, and the first two songs he fired up were "You're the Best" from Karate Kid and "Hearts on Fire" from Rocky IV. Poor kid was born in the wrong decade. He loves his 80's montage songs.

Need to add "No Easy Way Out" and "Burning Heart," both superior tracks from Rocky IV, IMO, to that playlist.

I ran 8.5 miles today.  Was seriously considering stretching it to 10 for a personal best but I had to get back home in time for a meeting.  Love that hybrid work environment.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Technico Support