All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[Shartnado]

Another attempt at gym today. Pretty much more of the same as yesterday, only lighter. There was no way I was going to do Trapbar today, so I just wanted to get something in.

Started with lat pull-downs with resistance bands and more bicep curls with dumbells on an incline bench. 6 sets overall, with 31's, 35's, 39,5's, 44's, 48,5's and 35's. After each set I did a set of incline dumbell bench with a pronounced full range of motion, stopping at the bottom on each rep. Then I did a set of shrugs with each weight.

More light side and rear delt work, reverse shrugs and semi decent ab work, and I think that was about it for today.

I hope to get a couple of home workouts in before the weekend. I have only two more work days (nights) this year, so home workouts are going to be pretty much all I have for rest of December.

[Shartnado]

Went for a brisk walk for about 45 minutes in the early afternoon and did a brief 30-minute home workout with push-up handles, resistance bands and kettlebells. I should probably do something similar tomorrow as well.

[Technico Support]

Today at the gym: a guy apparently went from the pool or shower straight to his locker without so much as looking at a towel, much less actually using one.  Just a massive puddle on the faux wood floor in the locker room.  I had thoughts of pulling a Slippin’ Jimmy and owning my own gym.

[Contentious C]

So I went ahead with some early Christmas and bought myself a set of Versa Gripps Extremes.  My deadlifts suck and it's as much my grip as anything that fails.  Same with pull-ups. 

But, uh, yeah, I don't like these very much at all.  I'm giving them two workout cycles (basically until Christmas) to break in, or they're going back.

So, in addition to being tall and not particularly heavy, one reason why I have a hard time tipping 200 lbs on the scale is probably my frame itself.  My wrists, specifically, in this usage case, are pretty thin; I ordered the Smalls and could have almost gotten away with the extra-smalls.  So I don't have big bones by any means.  In addition to that, while I'm not as bad off as poor Zimbra's wife, I have this really odd pressure sensitivity to my skin.  I can't do front squats, for example, because resting the bar at all on my shoulders bruises them up - even just the bar, even with pads on the bar. 

How does this relate to the Versa Gripps, though?  Well, for anyone who hasn't used them, they are very aggressively made.  They are clearly built to go through a thermonuclear war, which is good if you plan on Hulking out with them, but for my problems, it means the fucking things dig into my wrists on deadlifts.  And I didn't even go that heavy; this week is a deload anyway, so I was only doing 185.  I'm dreading going back up to 255 (or higher, almost certainly higher) the next time I do them and finding out how that goes.  Granted, the standard cloth lifting straps aren't any better; my grip eventually fails, and they tighten *around* my wrist like a chokehold, so it's damned if I do and damned if I don't.

They were pretty OK for bent-over rows at 115, though, so there's clearly a weight point where my skin issue tips the scale and becomes highly unhappy with me.  Plus, since they're so aggressively made, they can be a little fiddly to put on, so once you have them on, you sort of don't want to take them off and put them back on again a dozen times throughout the workout. 

Not exactly what I wanted to pay $115 for.

[Shartnado]

@Contentious C I assume that my Versa Gripps aren't extreme,, they are so old by now that extremes may be a newer design or material or whatever. I think mine are at least size M, so I can use gloves with wrist-wraps underneath the Versas. I think this has reduced their ability to dig into my wrists/skin. Yours being size S may render that option impossible or very impractical, but that's how I have been able to use them without too much issues. There is also the chance that the extreme versions are just somehow designed worse than the (most likely) regular ones.

[Shartnado]

Went for a 45-minute jog this morning. I felt like dying almost the entire time. Well, I need to keep it up with all this extra free time in my hands. The weather was definitely about as good as it is going to get during winter, so that wasn't really the issue here.

[Contentious C]

The Pro and Extreme versions have longer grips: 6.25" instead of 5.75".  I have big hands, long fingers; maybe I could get away with the standard ones, but I feel better with the longer ones and getting a little more play instead of having to grip the bar & the strap too tightly right out of the gate for any lift.  The biggest difference between the two levels is more the extent of padding & stitching to ensure they stay in one piece over time.  I figured it was only another $40 and that was cheaper than someday buying a replacement set of Pros. 

But, 155 is definitely not too much weight; did some deficit sumo deads that way and didn't really feel them much.  Had a little red pressure spot on one wrist after, but no movement of the strap or pain during the lift.  I hope that two weeks is enough to break them in and get a better sense of whether they were worth the money.  Though looking into it, and I should have known this because it's pretty basic materials science, it turns out almost any leather strap is going to beat a cloth/nylon one because anything woven will eventually give at least some amount of slack under heavy enough loads.  Leather, well, doesn't.  So I probably could have found a cheaper and perhaps more comfortable alternative if I'd done my homework better.  Something for the rest of you to learn from.

[Shartnado]

Trapbar this evening. Also tried the 88lb one arm dumbell overhead press and was able to get 1,5 reps with the right arm but only two half reps with the left.

Started with the deficit lifts, standing on two blocks. Warm up without gloves with 185 and 305, then 422. Then ran into trouble with 466 and had to put on gloves AND Versas to get it up from a smaller deficit. 500 off the smallest deficit and then it was off to the blocks.

Didn't try anything from the floor level. 610 off 3/4 blocks, 689,5 off 4/5 blocks and 742 off the full blocks. Then even the shoes came off for 789,5 and during my time off I came up with a way to  add another 11lbs on the bar, so I went for the record. 843,5 with a slightly questionable lock out, but I did get it up.

Going back down I did 1x749, 3x654 and 7x559,5.

Then shrugs with 464.5 and 370, then I was desperately out of time.

[Technico Support]

I broke the cardinal rule in the gym the other day, doing CURLS IN THE SQUAT RACK.  In my defense, your honor, 1) I'd just done squats and upright rows 2) the gym was not that crowded 3) I just wanted to be efficient and 4) my gym has 8 squat racks.

Also, doing curls with an Olympic bar and weights makes me feel like Brock Lesnar curling a lighting truss.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Technico Support

[Shartnado]

Tonight was incline bench dumbell / hammer curl day. Started with the bench straight up and did a set of 5 with 79's. Then 2 sets with 88's, 5 and 6 reps, respectively. Then increased the incline of the bench by one notch and the seat one notch more upright and did 2 sets with 88's, 10 and 8, respectively. After that, I increased the incline by another notch and kept the seat at previous position. I did another 2 sets with 88's, 8 and 8 reps. There was also 7 sets of hammer curls one with the 79's and the rest with 88's. By the end those were looking pretty lame, considering what my forearms went through with the Trapbar last night. I also did 5 sets of narrow lat pull-downs to the front with resistance bands. Reduced version of ab work at the end.

Most likely that was the last "real" workout for me this year although I will try to do my best keeping up with home workouts and some cardio.

I will keep you posted on when I will fail to qualify as a cruiserweight, so far 204 and change has been the highest I've seen. Depending on what I will make for lunch/dinner for the rest of the week, it may not take that long.

[Technico Support]

I’m just happy to have gone from super heavyweight (310ish) to just heavyweight (250s) since March and am deathly afraid of jinxing it!  

[Contentious C]

I did upright rows with a barbell in the squat rack yesterday too, and that just felt weird.  I think it's less the weight and more the stability demands with the weight spread out so far.  Clearly my left shoulder is a special sort of total garbage.  May just have to stick with doing them with the EZ curl bar and my hands all the way out past the knurling. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by Contentious C

[Technico Support]

13 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I did upright rows with a barbell in the squat rack yesterday too, and that just felt weird.  I think it's less the weight and more the stability demands with the weight spread out so far.  Clearly my left shoulder is a special sort of total garbage.  May just have to stick with doing them with the EZ curl bar and my hands all the way out past the knurling. 

I have no idea why I've never considered using a different bar.  LOL.  I just use the barbell with my hands maybe 8-10" apart.  Do different bars hit the target areas differently for this exercise?

Edited December 13, 2023 by Technico Support

[Contentious C]

Probably not.  I think it really is just my lack of shoulder stability that makes the barbell harder, more specifically harder on the joint.  Granted, I've also found that individual barbells vary a lot thanks to grip thickness and how that plays with my hand size or, now, how I've got the Versas locked in.

On the other hand, it's not like you really need to go heavy on uprights, so the EZ bar is kind of built for it, and my gym has 3, and it's simpler to lug those into a corner to do the movement away from other people.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Contentious C

[Shartnado]

54 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

I have no idea why I've never considered using a different bar.  LOL.  I just use the barbell with my hands maybe 8-10" apart.  Do different bars hit the target areas differently for this exercise?

Well, EZ bar is supposed to give you the supination of the wrists, so that should work on the inside of the bicep more. From recent experience I can tell that the wide grip on a barbell definitely feels different, but I am not sure how it hits the bicep differently?

[Technico Support]

All this just reminds me that my gym has ONE weird nonstandard barbell floating around.  It looks just like the 20KG ones upon cursory glance, but it actually closer to half that.  I hate that fucking thing and how its existence makes me have to check every bar before I load it up.  Ridiculous.

[Shartnado]

48 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

All this just reminds me that my gym has ONE weird nonstandard barbell floating around.  It looks just like the 20KG ones upon cursory glance, but it actually closer to half that.  I hate that fucking thing and how its existence makes me have to check every bar before I load it up.  Ridiculous.

Reminds me of the fucking barbell at work which was 17kg instead of 20kg and it fucked over by bench results for YEARS without me realising that until earlier this year. Now we have each one marked, so that can't happen again. Also, I think the guy who bought our old bench for his garage gym later bought that particular barbell for himself too.

[Shartnado]

Ran/jogged for about an hour this morning. It was rough, but not as bad as the last time.

Yesterday evening I did a short workout of resistance band and elevated push-ups.

As it turns out I need to go and sort some stuff out at work some time next week, so I promised to stop by and get a workout in while I'm at it. If it's just one shot next week, I'd need to go with as many big moves as I can!

[Contentious C]

My gym is allegedly getting a hack squat machine.  They said something about the poundage rating in front of me, so I think I know what machine they're getting, which is hopefully good enough to have another solid quad option.  Or maybe I can skip the leg press altogether if the hack squat is better for my knees. 

Push day yesterday really sucked with my left shoulder being so junky.  But at least I see a path forward with a good dynamic progression on a couple of lifts.  I'm still sort of prioritizing DB inclines, but I may get back to doing flat bench if I can find a couple of small tweaks to simply make the lift more comfortable.  It's (again) usually my shoulder or shoulders that bark the most after, other than that pesky broken rib from last May.

Leg day the other day was pretty crazy, though.  3x7x185 of squats, followed by 4x8x165 of deficit RDLs.  Then capped it with front foot-elevated lunges and wanted to die.  3 sets of those per leg had me close to Puke Mode, and I thought about calves, but I knew I couldn't do them (so I did them yesterday instead of Wednesday).

Pull day today...I haven't 100% decided.  My hammies are still pretty lit up from Wednesday, so maybe deadlifts aren't a good idea, but then again, maybe I'm just being a huge baby about it, and once I move around, they'll feel better.  But definitely bent-over rows off the smallest deficit step in the gym: did 135 on deload day with the Versas, so I think I can shoot for 155 for working sets.  Then probably some Kroc rows, lat prayers, curls, rear delt flys...then I'll see if I feel the deadlifts or not.

[Technico Support]

17 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

My gym is allegedly getting a hack squat machine.  They said something about the poundage rating in front of me, so I think I know what machine they're getting, which is hopefully good enough to have another solid quad option.  Or maybe I can skip the leg press altogether if the hack squat is better for my knees. 

My gym has one.  It's pretty sweet.  Please amaze everyone with your knowledge of ancient pro wres and olde tyme strongmanism vis a vis telling them the story of who it's named after.

I'm buying some cold weather running gear this weekend.  Perfect timing as Tuesday's high is 36 F.  I'll leave it up to my non 'Murican bros to convert that to Rest of the World Measurement.

[Ryback Hates Bullies]

A good hack squat machine is very useful. I'm still pretty useless at it tbh. They're better, or at least more versatile, if they have good set-up for reverse bands in my opinion.

I got flu 3 weeks ago, and then I was bronchial af. My upper days are fine, but I still don't really feel I'm back to 100% on lower stuff.

I am back in Hungary for 3 weeks or so. Yesterday I was back in my former old-school iron kingdom - I have not been recently on shorter visits bc there was another gym with a cheaper day rate & better aircon, but it's a bit limited in terms of space & equipment (though it has some good stuff). So yesterday I was back on a Cybex Eagle pin-loaded chest press I haven't used in circa 6 months and it feels so different to plate-loaded machines. But I actually got up to 275lbs for 5 (failed on 6th rep), which is one away from the full stack and a PR for this machine. I am thinking maybe I can do the stack in a couple of weeks, which would be fun but lol we'll see.

I'll be back to training with my gf mostly. She has been trying to lose weight but has plateaued at 70kg, so we're going to mini-bulk her to try and raise her metabolism - it's xmas anyway so why not? So probably we'll do more butt stuff on lower day tomorrow lol.

[Contentious C]

10 hours ago, StretchMediatedHypertrophy said:

So probably we'll do more butt stuff on lower day tomorrow lol.

TMI!

[Shartnado]

15 hours ago, Contentious C said:

TMI!

Yeah, I was going to say it's good to know @StretchMediatedHypertrophy is going to have good times planned! But, as usual, I do no comedy.

[Ryback Hates Bullies]

To be honest, I don't really consider the abductor machine to be particularly fun but your mileage may vary!

I was back on the hip thrust machine for the first time in 6 months too. I like the machine because the axial loading is low to zero (weight is underneath you), but it is 'heavy in the short' which isn't completely ideal so we played with a further-out foot position and slow eccentrics with less weight and I think this helped improve the ROM though it did maybe push a lot of tension to the hamstrings. I think next time we may bring the feet in but raise them with plates.

I don't like Smith machine squats. I've tried before and again today. No they're not for me, at least with the straight up&down bar path. Tbh my gf's ankle mobility seems to have improved and I think we're going to try her on some heel elevated SSB squats on Thursday. 

When we next workout together it will be upper day and we'll be on the assisted pullup & dip machine, but we'll probably do glute pushdowns too.

I forgot my Fo8 straps, so tbh I probably will drop my SLDLs for the moment. What I may do is during the holiday period is play with some mixed-grip work and see how it goes, as ultimately I should probably move away from relying on straps.

As for my press, well my gf is elsewhere now doing family things so I may return to the gym and do arm day in 3 hours.

 

 

[Shartnado]

Short walk and a short resistance band workout yesterday and another short resistance band workout this morning. I hope to get that real workout in tomorrow. I booked a sports massage for Tuesday.

Today, I had a pizza for lunch and made a small (3 lb) holiday ham and some potatoes and sweet potato in the oven and had a bunch of that for dinner. As a result, I now weigh in at 207 lbs. Damn!