All-Purpose Health and Fitness Thread

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

This side of the pond, Bulk Pro Informed Whey Double Chocolate definitely is the yardstick for me in terms of taste and mixability. I'm actually getting two variants delivered (Millionaire Shortbread, Choc Peanut) this week.

The plain 'Milk Protein' from MyProtein is not bad either though, for something a bit slower release. 100% Casein is pretty ghastly in my experience.

 

[Shartnado]

I use Sports Life Whey 80 or Whey 100 Chocolate + Stevia, mixed Sports Life Recovery Chocolate. It is inoffensive at the very least. Best value for money I have found so far. It used to be way cheaper 3 years ago, though!

First workout of the week with dumbell incline bench. 6 sets, first and last with 83,5's and rest with 88's. Did my first set of 10 with 88's with the seat straight up. That fucked up the other sets, though. Getting around 7 reps with others. 3 sets were with the seat straight up, 3 with one notch down. 6 sets of hammer curls with the same weights.

Also did lat pull-downs with resistance bands and some lighter curls.

An OK start for the week.

[Curt McGirt]

For the first time in my life I'm dieting and decided on Keto. I haven't gone a day without extensive consumption of carbohydrates in my entire life. This is gonna be as hard as not drinking, as the first week has proven. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Keto will (hopefully/probably) get easier, though I'm not convinced it plays well with long, heavy training sessions

You need electrolytes.

After a few weeks, in my experience you can get away with a bit more (e.g. taking glucose tablets, I even used to take pre-workout with 11g carbs) but you need to keep it very tight at first.

Typically when I started, I was on black coffee for breakfast, then a lunch shake made of beef protein, green powder and double cream (there was maybe a tiny bit of stevia can't remember), then some kind of protein dinner (maybe steak & broccoli & blue cheese).

It did work, but I'm not convinced I want to do it again.

 

[Curt McGirt]

I'm not doing this to gain muscle, I just need to lose weight. My exercise will consist of the treadmill and THAT will even be the first in a long while. So, pretty different goals.

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Oh my goal was to lose weight, I just somehow had it in mind that you had posted about training on here.

Yeah, treadmill should be fine - it might be voodoo, but basically for fat-burning I understand you want to try to keep to nasal breathing pace if you can.

If you're not doing weight training, then you don't need to worry so much about protein - which is good because ppl do mess up the diet that way. Just stick to 60ish g ideally

Fresh herbs are useful. Eggs have 1g of carbs but they are useful for the vitamin content. Organ meats are good too if you can handle them. 20-25g net carbs is not a lot of veggies.

And when you need to poop, well lol you need to get to it.

[Shartnado]

@Curt McGirt Drink plenty of water, tap or bottled but not carbonated. I would strongly recommend some resistance training to go along with the cardio. Even a slight increase in muscle mass will help you burn more calories during the day.

Black coffee in the morning, green tea through out the rest of the day. No sugar.

These are just tips. Whatever you decide to do, the changes should be such that they don't feel unsustainable. It should be a gradual process. Good luck with project, hopefully it will be successful and long lasting.

[Shartnado]

Heavier dumbell curls, behind the neck two hand, single dumbell presses, and chest flies with resistance bands was on the agenda today.

Last time, I had trouble supinating my wrists with the heavier weights, so I tried a reverse pyramid, to see if I could do it better with a short warm-up and then straight to the heavy shit?

Yes and no. The warm-up was 5 with 39,5's, 3 with 48,5's and one with 53's. Then a set of 10 with 61,5's. Maybe 3 reps were actual curls, with some Body English thrown in, rest were pretty much very high hammer curls, like last time. But the weights were bigger, too! Following a similar strategy, I did as many good reps as possible, then rest as hammer curls until I got to 10 with 57's, 53's, 48,5's. Got 12 with 44's and stopped there.

After each curl set, I did a set of behind the neck presses with 66 to 88lbs. 25 reps from 66 to 75, 22 with 79, 15 with 83,5 and 12 with 88. After one set of these, I did a set of chest flies before going back to the curls.

After the workout was done, it felt like I had a decent pump going, so I measured my biceps. The left one was 45,2 cm (fully flexed) for the first time that I can recall. The right one was 44,5 cm, which is funny since my right arm is the dominant one, but hey I'll take it! I guess that would be around 18 inches, then?

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

Those arm measurements are crazy.

I did a 285lb Cybex Eagle Chest Press for 5. This was all I could actually load up on the machine as for some reason the final weight wasn't attached properly. 

Tbh though, I seem to be a little tweaked in the left shoulder and bicep and a bit in the lower back too. Nothing too bad, but enough to take a step back and pause on anything too heavy. Which means I will drop the stiff-leggeds for a bit.

Another complication: it's January. Work gym is, and will be, packed Mo-Th for a while. Basically this will mean certain things are quite busy. 

Fortunately there are some things that never seem to get busy - Hack Squat, Glute-Ham Raise (though I did see someone else do some for once), Plate-loaded chest-supported low row. 

I need some time to get back into the hack squat, so I reverse-banded it and went to a challenging 5 (120 kg), then took off the band and went to 40kg for 3 x 10. Tbh I can go a bit harder but I knew it would give sufficient stimulus.

I actually played with the GHR variation I saw somebody else do which is not to do a full body bend but start from the body being flat. It was interesting - though puts more emphasis on the knee-bend function & I'd already done some prone leg curls (with an extra pad for more ROM like Israetal lol). But as I say, GHR is quiet so more ways to use it is good.

Oh and I actually did abs - not gonna lie 3 x 16 on leg raises almost cramped me which is embarrassing. Abs every session. Every session until Easter.

My fave cardio machine was taken so I actually had to go upstairs to the proper cardio section, and I found an elliptical I hadn't tried - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx6QKLcgp10&ab_channel=TheArenaClub It was great, I knew more than 5 minutes would cripple me. I actually did the arm cycle too as it feels good on my shoulders.

Upper body tomorrow will be interesting. I'm going to have to play with movements a bit, but I suspect I will actually close-grip bench and do single-arm rows for supersets, then JM presses - i.e. take a bench and hog it. Lat pulldowns are out, and I think lateral raises are too for a while. Tbh I will mostly avoid standing movements for a bit.

I am slowly trying to dial calories down, but this is very much a gradual thing and I don't really want to be on a big deficit with tweaks and when increasing cardio. Trying to control fat and increase quality of foods in the first instance.

Edited January 10 by StretchMediatedHypertrophy

[Shartnado]

Thanks, @StretchMediatedHypertrophy , I'm trying! I usually measure my arms not pumped, but always flexed. I would imagine they have to be close to 42cm now, if those were the pumped measurements. But you can rest assured I'm not walking around with 45cm arms on the regular, that's for sure.

Today was basically just seal row. Did 10 reps with 176 and 242, then 10 "reps" with 264. 286 for 2 sets of more than 5 "reps", maybe 2 of which were close to OK.

Unlike normally, I put the Versas on when going back down. I wanted to see how that changes things, although it's usually not the grip that taps out first on this move. Well, I did get more partials  out of each set, but no change in the number of good reps. Sets downwards were 275, 264, 242, 176 and 154. Reps, no idea, but continued until I was barely getting the weight off the ground.

Good week so far, but the thought of a leg day or Trapbar is not appealing to me at the moment!

[Shartnado]

Checked the measurements of non-pumped arms and as I suspected, around 42cm each.

So, Trapbar. My new found gut was getting in way of deficit lifts, so I opted out relatively quickly on those. Just the light warm up.

Got 453,5 off the floor level without gloves. Then with gloves and Versas 548,5 off the half blocks and 643 off the 3/4 blocks. Needed to go to full blocks for 738 and then 2x749.

Had to jump straight to 843,5 at this point so the shoes came off, too. I did 3 singles, all with proper lock out this time. Tried one with the shoes on, but failed that one.

On the way back down, I did another 2x749 then 3x698, 4x654 and 7x559,5 off the 4/5 blocks with shoes on.

Two sets of shrugs with 359 and 249. This went better than I figured it would. So yes, good week. No work tomorrow, so that was it for me.

Edited January 11 by Shartnado
checked for redundancy

[Contentious C]

Despite basically tapping out on Leg day on Tuesday, I got through Push yesterday kinda OK and had a pretty good Pull day today.

My bronchitis bullshit has forced me to start thinking about other possibilities.  Namely, that I should quit being something of a slob and clean my apartment more.  Could be at least partly that, especially since I still live with one four-legged mess-maker.  Additionally, people with chronic acid reflux (like myself) can often have that irritate their lungs in much the same way as I'm experiencing.  So, to my chagrin, I'm cutting all the soft drinks and diet lemonade I drink and just trying to go back to water.  FML.

I also started taking extra hits off the albuterol inhaler: not beyond what it calls for, per se, but I was only using it immediately before the gym.  I started using it when I wake up, too (about 4 hours before hitting the gym anyway), so getting that second set of puffs seems to keep away some of the most severe limitation.

But today was OK.  5x5 of bent-over rows @ 165, with maybe 9 on the last set.  Then pull-up negatives for 25-30s each (4 of those), then pulldowns.  Our gym got some of the fancy wing-looking bar grips that are all the rage among bodybuilder types, so I got to try those out.  They're pretty good, but not a sea change all by themselves.  But I will probably only use those instead of the standard bars; the clearance for your arms (especially for tall MFs like myself) is handy.  Then a couple of sets of Kroc rows for each arm with an 80-lb dumbbell.  14 back sets = toast. 

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:32 PM, Contentious C said:

Our gym got some of the fancy wing-looking bar grips that are all the rage among bodybuilder types, so I got to try those out.  They're pretty good, but not a sea change all by themselves.  

Generally MAGs and their imitators are at least little easier on the grip, and some ppl like doing the reverse grip where it sort of acts like an ez-bar curl. But there are like 8 official ones with different widths & grips, so YMMV with regards any individual one.

I've somewhat voluntarily cut back on the soft drinks as well last couple of weeks, though I still drink a lot of fizzy water. Trying to make better choices- again not really seeking a big deficit whilst banged up but setting the table for a cut.

Had a couple of sessions of close-grip bench supersetted with one-arm rows (I like a wide stance and have my arm across the body for a stretch at the bottom), trying to keep the rest times long enough to catch my breath but where I'm out of breath afterwards. Yeah it sucks, but probably what I need. My benching kinda sucks too, but I'm used to that after forsaking flat bench for a piece - the issue is that I'm not feeling close-grip in my chest at all anymore; it's all front-delt. I'll probably complete the 3 week wave and then move to a slightly wider grip but it's weird - I honestly have had no problem in the last couple of months feeling at least upper chest on incline even with a close grip.

Confession: I did not infact do abs last gym workout as I was shattered after doing my previous supersets. I did do my leg raises at home today though, along with kb swings & other minor work.
I've been doing bent-over raises and they've actually felt really good - not something I've done a lot of but they're the right exercise for right now imho. I actually did some lateral raises at home today with a 4KG kettlebell and I think they were ok though there is definitely some stuff working itself out on the left side still. The burning has gone touch wood. 

I did a little bit of SSB squatting the other day, just went up to 80kg for a challenging 6 but it was ATG with a pause so I'm good with it. Probably not planning on anything too heroic with regards free squats anytime soon, but I know I should do it so I'll probably try and go 90kg then 100kg for reps over the next couple of weekends.

As for the SLDL and OHP work I was doing before, probably I'll come back to that in February. Truthfully less sure about the hack squat, I may have decided I hate it and not in the right way. But we will see!
 

[Shartnado]

Another 4 day work week, so 4 workouts. Monday was incline dumbell bench and hammer curls. Was able to do another set of 10 with the 88's bench straight up, followed by an 8 and a 5. One notch down I did 2 sets 10 and 8 with 88's and 83's respectively. Every set followed by hammer curls and a set of resistance band lat pulldowns.

Tuesday I did regular bench and more resistance band lat pulldowns, but this time using a loaded up EZ bar for grip (bar +22lbs and +44 lbs). On bench, I decided to do sets of 5 until I couldn't complete one. So, I got 5 with 164, 208, 230, 252, 263 and 274. Then 3 with 285 and 3 shitty partials with 290,5. On the way down I did one more rep with 274, and 2 with 263, then something, and remember doing 12 reps with 224,5. Around 9 with 208 and 15 with 164 followed by additional 4 with rest-pause.

Wednesday was Seal Row. Went up to 297, did one set without Versas and two more with Versas. No clean reps in sight, but quite a few partials. Also did a few sets of skullcrushers on the incline bench, using the EZ Bar from Tuesday (so 64lbs). I decided not to do Seal Row with lighter weights but do deadlift off the small blocks instead. I did singles with 297, 341, 385,5, 429,5, 451,5 and 457. I stood on a small block that was only two or so inches below the blocks that the weights were resting on so these were pretty damn close to actual deadlifts, by the way.

Thursday was Trapbar. Started with the deficit lifts (using two blocks) 5x139, 2x249, 1x359 and 1×453,5, then using the higher block 1x475,5, using lower block 1x498, then 542 off the floor. Then off the half blocks 1x636,5, off the 3/4 blocks 2x659,5, off the 4/5 blocks 1x698 and off the full blocks 2x749. Tried 843,5 with shoes on, but nope. Took shoes off and got a F'n 2. Then 1 more after a rest. Shoes back on and 2x754,5, 5x659,5 and 10x554 off the 4/5 blocks. 3 sets of shrugs followed with 453,5, 359 and 249.

This was a rough week, I'm ready for some rest now.

Edited January 18 by Shartnado
Added info

[Contentious C]

Maybe it's somewhere buried in this enormous thread, but what's the story with the resistance band lat pulldowns?

[Shartnado]

26 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Maybe it's somewhere buried in this enormous thread, but what's the story with the resistance band lat pulldowns?

The lat pulldown machine at our work gym is not all that good. Also, it's been a year since the move to the new facility and the damn thing still isn't bolted to the wall/floor, so heavy weights are out of the question. I have solved this by using two strong resistance bands by looping them to the attachments of the squat rack. We have a bench that I can use to get enough of a distance from the rack to make the resistance quite heavy. I also like the slow eccentric part of the move that the bands allow especially well. I credit the resistance band work for the fact that I was able to get some extra thickness on my lower lats that definitely was not there before I started going to town on the resistance bands every week, sometimes on several different days. One part necessity, one part preference, I guess?

[Shartnado]

Rough week so far, with 3 workouts in. Started the week on Sunday evening. Did the incline dumbell bench/ hammer curl combo with nothing but 88's. Warm-up was a set of 6 with the seat two notches down, then put it straight up for the next 3. Got 11, 8 and 7 reps. Then, one notch down for two more sets, 9 and 7, I believe. A set of hammer curls after each one as well as a set of resistance band lat pull-downs.

Regular bench on Monday evening. 12 sets overall. Starting from 164 to 269 and back down to 154. Did sets of 5 going up and various different number of reps (between3 and 10) on the way down. Did regular dumbell curls and lateral raises to the side between bench sets, along with pushdowns and slow reverse grip curls with EZ Bar. Some ab work for the finish.

I knew that tonight had to be leg day or bust, so calf raises and squats on the machine it was. Started with the squats doing 5x139, 5x234, 5x278, 5x372, 6x416, 7x467 and 5x467. The set of 7 with 467 went surprisingly well, the 5 after, didn't.

Two sets of calf raises with 467, two with 416 and then one with each of the other weights used with squats. A better ab work session in the end and this is where we are at the moment.

Theoretically, two more workouts to go.

[Contentious C]

Today's Gym Douche is the guy who sees me set up to do T-bar rows in the corner (only location, I can't go anywhere) next to someone using a bench that's in my peripheral vision, and then has to ask me if he can use the ENTIRELY MOBILE Bulgarian split squat stand RIGHT NEXT to me on the other side.  My exact response was, "You know, you can use that thing literally anywhere in the gym, dude," and he had to be a snitty little asshat about that response.  Just be an adult, don't fucking ask, look for some open space, and pick the goddamn 10-pound piece of equipment up and move it.

Of course, he's also the same gym douche who breaks his arm patting himself on the back for doing 5 plates on hip thrusts but also wonders why his deadlifts suck (it's because hip thrusts don't do shit for your glutes like you need, dumb fuck; do some fucking lunges), and spends the ENTIRE workout talking when he isn't lifting (if you have enough energy to talk that much, you aren't going hard enough, dumb fuck), and also asked me once if RDLs made my low back hurt (they don't, maybe if you didn't ego lift 225+ when you're the same size as me *and* have shitty range of motion, yours wouldn't either, dumb fuck).  Oh, and he couldn't figure out how to adjust the stand anyway, so he just used a bench (untwist the posts, pull them and adjust pad height, twist back to tighten them in place, dumb fuck).

Edited January 23 by Contentious C

[StretchMediatedHypertrophy]

It looks like my plans have changed. It seems like I'll be finishing up at my major television client in a few weeks - this means bye-bye work gym, and probably hello old gym. So I am pretty much focussing on stuff I don't have in the old gym.

So I decided to try not hating hack squats again. I dug around my stuff and found what I think is the right band for it - I've tried not to use one but then I saw Mike Israetal (who advises against it) hang out at the EliteFTS gym and they had REVERSE BANDS ON THE HACK SQUAT. So had a session without bands on Saturday and with the band today. If I go to heavy it strains my lower back a bit so just going to get what I can from it over the next few weeks.

On the GHD I normally do setting 4 with no shoes, or 5 with shoes. Today I did 4 with shoes and it was tougher. Also did a set with the band. I don't think I'll do much else but GHR variations for hammys for now. I supersetted with the hack squat which was interesting as there is some glute activation in both.

My old gym does have a chest flye/reverse flye machine, but it's not great plus the gym was v. busy tonight and this is a machine you can hog and superset to death so lol yeah had to be done.

I really like the chest-supported plate loaded low row, and have been finding new grips to play with: Saturday, supine grip which felt like a Yates Row. Today high-up on the neutral handles, which really seemed to hit the low and mid-traps - very cool sensation actually. I will miss this machine very much.

I also squeezed out a couple of sets on the plate-loaded shoulder press machine, & that was ok but not much more than ok. Now I think about it, I think I may have tweaked myself going heavy on the cable-stack shoulder machine in my old gym over xmas chasing higher and higher weights. So yeah, probably will leave shoulder press machines alone for a while.

On Saturday, I actually played with the reverse grip bench press, utilising the 'talon grip'.  Stole it from Alex Leonidas.....yeah it's interesting. Didn't fall in love but may play with it again, but maybe not until I get to the old gym. 

[Shartnado]

Seal-Row day with some conventional deadlift thrown in this evening. Skipped the light stuff and went to 264 straight after 154. Then 286 and 3 sets of 303. When coming back down, I did a set with 297 and 286, which went surprisingly well after the 303's, which obviously weren't clean. Then one more set with 264, then onto deadlift. Legit off the floor level, I did singles with 330 and 374,5, then 2x440,5, which is a record, I have only got one a couple times before. Then I  used half blocks for a single with 484,5 (also a record), then one more 440, 375,5 and 330.

So yeah, that was nice.

Thursday I basically had zero sleep despite all the trying on a few different occasions. No workout tonight. I did get an extra 15 kilometers on the bike today so there's that. I will do Trapbar on Monday, if I feel recovered enough by then.

Edited January 25 by Shartnado
No Workout Thursday

[Shartnado]

Side note, this was the first five day work week for me in a couple of months now and this afternoon my weight went below 200lbs for the first time this year at 196,5. Abs are slowly making their reappearance.

[Shartnado]

This week started, as usual, with incline dumbell bench/ hammer curls, instead of Trapbar. 7 sets, between 6 to 9 reps (mostly 8), two sets with seat straight up, three with one notch down and two with two notches down. 7 sets of hammer curls, everything was with a pair of 88's, like it has been for a couple of weeks now. The resistance band lat pull downs and chest flies were also involved, along with some light curls on the incline bench and lateral raises to the side standing up, but using the same light dumbells as with the curls. Moderate ab work for the finish.

I'll stretch my legs and get a meal in and then I'm off to do the Trapbar today.

[Shartnado]

Well, the Trapbar went some parts very good, others not so much.

Started with the deficit lifts 5x255, 2x365, 1x459. At this point I ran into trouble and next lift was 481 off the ground level with Versas. Okay, that sucked, so onto the blocks and straight to 3/4 blocks at that. 2x581,5, 1x654, then off the full blocks 2x749. Shoes on, the 843,5 failed, shoes off, got one. In total, did 4 singles with 843,5, then 3x749, 6x665 and 12x570,5 using rest pause. Then two sets of shrugs with 459 and 359.

I tried to go for a second rep on two of the 843,5 singles but failed both times.

So, some lifts went better than last time, others not as well as last time.

Not sure what I will be doing tomorrow? Bench, maybe?

[Shartnado]

Yes, regular bench today, albeit a bit shorter workout than usual due to work. Started with 12x164, then 7x252, 6x263, 5x269, 3x274, 3x280 (one clean rep and two decent gym bro level), 6x252 and 52 reps with 164 within 4 sets.

Between sets I did some standing double dumbell curls with 26,5's, 31's, 35's and 39,5's. No time for abs.

My union will be on strike for the next two days so that's it for the week.

Edited January 31 by Shartnado
missed one more set there

[Contentious C]

Leg day was quad-focused-ish and went pretty well.  5x6 on squats with 195, which is the most I've done in over a year, more calves (actually sticking with training them for once), then 290 on the hack squat for 3x15 for some real pain.  My knee isn't great with them, it's basically perma-fucked now, but it's a lot better than attempting leg presses.  Then some leg curls until I tapped out.

Push was pretty easy - 5x5x160 on bench with 8 reps on the last set, and that was maybe an RPE 8-9, so my bench is moving in the right direction again and feels less janky.  I don't think I'm that much stronger with the movements (maybe a bit from all the upper pec focus) but I think my back has caught up so much that it's better at stabilizing.  Lots of shoulder stuff (maybe too much for my also-fucked left shoulder that hasn't really stopped hurting for a month), some Smith machine military presses, which I'd much rather do than standing OHPs, and flys.

Today was a little different, because I can feel the need for a deload coming on, so Pull wasn't as gonzo as it could have been.  It would have normally been a T-bar row day, but I did some pull-ups first instead.  Took enough weight off with the assisted that basically everything I felt was lats and grip, so there's probably something to working at that weight (about 130-140 of my own BW) since those are areas I'd like to improve.  More Kroc rows with a 90-lb dumbbell, 3x11 (1 more rep than last time, which was 2 more reps than the time before that).  Reverse grip curls, upright rows as long as they don't make my shoulder worse, a couple of sets of underhand lat pulldowns with the narrow MAG grips, and 4x10 on the reverse hyper deck (gonna have to bump that past 50 lbs soon).

I *probably* should start deloading on Friday, but I think I'm going to be stupid and try for some near-term PRs the next 3 days, then start deloading next Tuesday.

Edited February 1 by Contentious C