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Fitness |OT| Pumpin' Iron and Spittin' Blood.

God Enel

Member
Wim Hof is legit. He is more about the breathing techniques / outdoor cold training / ice baths than the cold showers, though. If you try anything he suggests, try out the breathing. It's the real deal.

Without going into too much detail, the concept of torturing yourself with cold showers is based on the desire to increase brown fat. This works. I was nearly 300 lbs back in 2016/2017 and had been overweight my entire adult life. Now I hover around 200 without much exercise to maintain.

Try it for a week. You might be surprised how not-cold you feel after a few days. My only safety recommendation is to immediately stop any cold-training activities if you begin to shiver and cannot stop. This is your body telling you it doesn't have enough brown fat maintain the internal temperature.


Thanks Evilore, I'll take a look. I've been making do w bodyweight exercises, a rowing machine (now busted), and a set of adjustable hand weights so this will be a relatively big expansion of my weight equipment (for me) :messenger_tears_of_joy:

One dude in my gym loves wim Hof and always tells me that it works. When I’m stepping into a cold shower I stop breathing. Any useful links?
 
One dude in my gym loves wim Hof and always tells me that it works. When I’m stepping into a cold shower I stop breathing. Any useful links?
Wim Hof guided breathing session.

A guide is not strictly necessary. The rules are very simple: 30 breaths, breathe out and hold out for as long as you can, breath in and hold for 15 seconds, then breathe out. You are finished. Repeat at least twice. You will easily be able to tell it's working because you'll get a light-headed rush.

If you want something more informational, there are plenty of videos online but this one from several years ago is what first alerted me to his idea.

The breathing is the core technique. The cold endurance is what you are able to push as your body slowly gains brown fat and as you feed that brown fat high doses of oxygen via the breathing method.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
In October I had stopped taking medicine for OCD and started taking a nice multi-vitamin. Stopping the SSRI medicine, after going through the nasty withdrawal period they give I found that I don't have the ridiculous sugar craving anymore (It's one of the reasons that SSRI's are known for weight gain). Without the sugar craving I didn't feel the need or should I say urge to drink regular coke. I also found that the narcolepsy symptoms I've been dealing with since I've been a child are also now gone. I have a lot more energy on top of that. Around the same time I had come to the realization of portion controlling and eating slower/actually chewing my food. I realized I could eat less food while savoring the food. Oddly enough one of the things that made me think about chewing food longer was a JRE podcast where Joey Diaz of all people was saying he didn't like drinking smoothies because they go directly to the stomach. I thought to myself that he might not be entirely wrong with his conjecture, there are several enzymes in the mouth that are there for the express purpose of breaking down food to get ready for digestion occurring in the stomach. By not chewing my food long and slow enough, I wasn't giving my body the ability to actually digest the nutrients I was sending in. I've been mostly eating salads with proteins in the morning and lunch now and still enjoy them everytime. I didn't make myself fall into the trap of picking the less tasty salad dressings out of the fake fear of ingesting fat. This makes each salad still delicious even if I use only a little bit of dressing.

I've now lost around 40 pounds since I weighed myself at my parents house on Christmas Eve :messenger_grinning:

I just got over being sick since Sunday night and not being able to eat anything really until this Thursday morning, so I might have lost even more weight since then. I can actually feel my rib cage now :messenger_grinning:

My plan for this year is to combine the things I've been doing right so far with swimming. I saw a recommendation that if you want to swim every day without fatiguing all of your bodies muscles and overworking them, that it is recommended to focus on upper body for one day and then lower body the next and on and on. That way you can swim everyday, working a series of muscles and getting a real workout. For lower body swimming you use a boogie board and for upper body you use this flotation device that goes between your legs to keep your body afloat while you just exercise your top half. From what I was reading the upper body swimming with the flotation also works your core a lot.

DunDunDunpachi DunDunDunpachi Is the Wim Hof technique a lot like the breathing techniques Rickson Gracie uses? I saw the latter's breathing techniques on an episode of the JRE Podcast and was interested in adding these breathing techniques to what I'm doing. My fear is the possibility for the dreaded loose skin which I read is a combination of older age + starting at a high weight and losing weight too fast + losing muscle mass in the abdomen during extreme weight loss. The latter occurs when people lose weight fast which also can eat up the muscle mass in your body which includes the muscle mass in the abdomen region. I was wondering if these breathing techniques, that also seem to utilize the stomach muscles pretty well, would help with this?
 
DunDunDunpachi DunDunDunpachi Is the Wim Hof technique a lot like the breathing techniques Rickson Gracie uses? I saw the latter's breathing techniques on an episode of the JRE Podcast and was interested in adding these breathing techniques to what I'm doing. My fear is the possibility for the dreaded loose skin which I read is a combination of older age + starting at a high weight and losing weight too fast + losing muscle mass in the abdomen during extreme weight loss. The latter occurs when people lose weight fast which also can eat up the muscle mass in your body which includes the muscle mass in the abdomen region. I was wondering if these breathing techniques, that also seem to utilize the stomach muscles pretty well, would help with this?
Never heard of Rickson Gracie so I had to watch/read a bit before I could answer. Yes it seems like the same idea (I watched this video and noticed a lot of similarities to Wim Hof's stuff). The breathing is such a low-effort add to your routine, you may as well try it and discard it if you don't think it works. It's not like you're buying a new piece of exercise equipment or whatever.

You should be able to lose weight without a ton of excess skin, but I was worried about the same thing. So I took krill supplement (omega-3), raw cacao powder, and fish collagen during my weight loss as those should help with skin health. It also made me impervious to sunburns. Fasting appears to help keep your skin tight because the process of autophagy targets excess skin, fat, etc instead of muscle. Meanwhile, fasting also appears to increase certain hormones in the body that build muscle mass. That muscle still needs calories to be built so a rhythm of fasting > training > eating > fasting > etc worked really really well for me.
 

rykomatsu

Member
When I’m stepping into a cold shower I stop breathing. Any useful links?

This is a natural reflex response by the body - a lot of open water swimmers jumping into cold current ocean water run into this. Just be mentally conscious of your breathing, don't panic, and take long deep breaths - the important part is you're aware that you've stopped breathing and you force yourself to breathe.
 

God Enel

Member
This is a natural reflex response by the body - a lot of open water swimmers jumping into cold current ocean water run into this. Just be mentally conscious of your breathing, don't panic, and take long deep breaths - the important part is you're aware that you've stopped breathing and you force yourself to breathe.
I know but it’s still cold 😄 the problem is to calm yourself down and breathe “normal”
 
I'd like to offer more unsolicited opinion for RingFit on Switch. This is what I'm impressed by so far:
  • Good mix of aerobic, type 1 (slow) muscle, and type 2 (fast) muscle exercises. I don't think there's enough tension in the monkey-ring to build a lot of muscle-mass (I could be wrong!) but it will likely help someone lose fat and maintain a healthy runner's/swimmer's physique.
  • The game is smart enough to know what exercises you've done in the session and it tailors your post-session stretching accordingly. For instance, if you completed some levels with a lot of arm/shoulder techniques, the game will give you several arm/shoulder stretches at the end.
  • I like how more moves (like, a lot of moves) are gradually added to your list and you can switch them in and out. Simpler, easier moves give way to more complex ones which do more damage to enemies and/or hit more enemies at a time. There was some thoughtful design that went into this. The game wants you to work your way up to harder stuff.
  • The RPG mechanics are rudimentary and a bit silly but it offers much better window-dressing than what Wii Fit offered.
  • It's easier to adjust difficulty than most exercise routines. Specifically, it's easier to crank it up and make it harder on yourself. The game will push you if you tune it appropriately (yes, I've gotten a bit winded on some stages :messenger_grinning_sweat: :lollipop_anxious_sweat: )
  • If you check your pulse after a session, it gives you a nice post-workout summary. You also receive (meaningless) trophies when you do 400 squats or 200 leg-raises and so forth. All this stuff is tracked on your profile. For someone like me who never enjoyed tracking sets, tracking routines, etc this is very convenient. It will be neat to look back after a year and see how my heart-rate has improved, how my endurance has gone up, etc.
If anyone in the thread has given it a whirl, I'd love to hear other impressions.
 

Drake

Member
I took fish oil and raw cacao a bunch when I did my weight loss from 325 to 170, also did intermittent fasting, and didn’t have loose skin.

Damn dude, I had no idea you were that big. Every pic I've ever seen of you you have been in good shape. How long ago was that?

Unfortunately for me I do have a bit of loose skin on my stomach. Not a lot though. It's really only noticeable when I am in the pushup position. I guess it comes down to genetics. I'm only about 7 or 8 months out from hitting my goal weight though and I hear it can take up to 2 years for skin to tighten up (if it ever does).
 
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EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Damn dude, I had no idea you were that big. Every pic I've ever seen of you you have been in good shape. How long ago was that?

Unfortunately for me I do have a bit of loose skin on my stomach. Not a lot though. It's really only noticeable when I am in the pushup position. I guess it comes down to genetics. I'm only about 7 or 8 months out from hitting my goal weight though and I hear it can take up to 2 years for skin to tighten up (if it ever does).

Thanks. It was back in 2009. Bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyle running GAF full time caught up with me all at once. Yeah, things were a little loose around that area for me too in pushup position, but it sorted itself out eventually. Filling out with some more lean mass after you hit your target, if feasible, helps too.

It's a small price to pay for getting fit, either way. Life changes so dramatically.
 

God Enel

Member
Today was leg and core day and I was kinda okay with it. I’m not squatting 150kg or something like that but I’m getting better at pistol squats. And I am not changing the leg after each rep like i did before. So I did 4 with one leg 4 with the other and then 2 and 2. I’m happy :)

what are you guys up to?
 
Sorry I've been so silent guys. It was a tough holiday season after putting my son back in a new group home. The great thing is that they seem much better equipped to care for him than the last one and he is really doing well.

All this war and Iran talk has me really in the dumps too. Trying to detach and focus on getting healthy and listening to Jocko a lot. I can't control all the bullshit in the world but I can control my appetite and my workouts.

I ran 4 miles on Saturday and 2 on Monday. I have been trying to do more of the bodyweight workouts too. I was 208 this morning after ballooning to around 215 through the holidays.

I'm feeling pretty good about my direction but need to stay disciplined and focused. Happy hump day GAF!
 

God Enel

Member
All this war and Iran talk has me really in the dumps too. Trying to detach and focus on getting healthy and listening to Jocko a lot. I can't control all the bullshit in the world but I can control my appetite and my workouts.
All this war and Iran talk has me really in the dumps too. Trying to detach and focus on getting healthy and listening to Jocko a lot. I can't control all the bullshit in the world but I can control my appetite and my workouts.

I ran 4 miles on Saturday and 2 on Monday. I have been trying to do more of the bodyweight workouts too. I was 208 this morning after ballooning to around 215 through the holidays.

I'm feeling pretty good about my direction but need to stay disciplined and focused. Happy hump day GAF!

dont think too much about politics and all this shit if you’re not directly involved. You don’t have any influence so focus on the things you have an impact on.

Don’t quit brah and you will improve. Workout by workout you will see progress. 👍🏼

holidays are always kind of a fucked up season. I ate so much bullshit during those days and and the 2ndday of Christmas I went to the gym As I felt like I have to do something and I have eaten enough :)
 
dont think too much about politics and all this shit if you’re not directly involved. You don’t have any influence so focus on the things you have an impact on.

Don’t quit brah and you will improve. Workout by workout you will see progress. 👍🏼

holidays are always kind of a fucked up season. I ate so much bullshit during those days and and the 2ndday of Christmas I went to the gym As I felt like I have to do something and I have eaten enough :)

Thanks man, you're right. It's hard for me because war is my "thing". What I mean is that people vote based on their ideologies often and instead of abortion or LGBT or immigration, my thing is war. I realize it is sometimes a necessary evil but more and more that just feels like an excuse to continue the warmongering. I will vote for whoever I think is the least likely to put my brothers and sisters in harms way.

I am a vet and have a really soft spot in my heart for anybody that had/has to go through that hell. I got lucky (although I often feel guilty for it) and served during relative peacetime although I did get deployed to Hungary to support the Bosnian conflict in '98.

That all said, I am going to let myself stay up to date on things but try to stay detached from the emotions that they bring. It will be a good practice for me.

Great job hitting the gym after Christmas! The holidays are always rough and the older you get I think they can get tougher as memories of loved ones who've passed and times have changed can easily bring us down. i have to tell myself that they wouldn't want me to be sad but man, emotions are a hell of a drug. 😭
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
So.. confession time. I've got a bit chunky. I've tended to average around 11st 5lb for a sensible BMI but after Christmas I hit 13st 0lb for a BMI of 26. Fat as fuck. Time to do something about it. So, got the rowing machine out, got the weights and I'm cracking on with getting back where I should be. Goal is to lose 2 stone. My fitness has gone to absolute shit. Used to be able to do 1000 strokes on the rowing machine (it's shit and only has a stroke counter, not much else) and I'm down to 260 ffs. Hitting weights I'm working with 12.5kg at the moment aiming to work back up. It's an absolute shitshow and I've got to get it sorted. Too much good food, too much chilling and not enough discipline has got me here, along with a hint of middle-aged spread (I'm hitting 40 this year - booooooooo). Time to fix it.
 

LokusAbriss

Member
So.. confession time. I've got a bit chunky. I've tended to average around 11st 5lb for a sensible BMI but after Christmas I hit 13st 0lb for a BMI of 26. Fat as fuck. Time to do something about it. So, got the rowing machine out, got the weights and I'm cracking on with getting back where I should be. Goal is to lose 2 stone. My fitness has gone to absolute shit. Used to be able to do 1000 strokes on the rowing machine (it's shit and only has a stroke counter, not much else) and I'm down to 260 ffs. Hitting weights I'm working with 12.5kg at the moment aiming to work back up. It's an absolute shitshow and I've got to get it sorted. Too much good food, too much chilling and not enough discipline has got me here, along with a hint of middle-aged spread (I'm hitting 40 this year - booooooooo). Time to fix it.

Great for you man! Getting back into it is never easy. My workout after a weak of holiday eating and drinking was not great, but it got me back on track. I neglected cardio myself for quite some time. It bit me in the ass with some additional belly-fat and less endurance. I love running hills and doing them after a long pause, is hell. But after a couple of times, my body gets used to it.

Losing weight is definetly a good goal. But losing bodyfat should be a higher priority. Your weight flactuates a lot during the week, so I wouldnt spend too much time watching that number. Doing cardio, eating healthier and doint weights, should get you in shape easily.

I always had a different problem, to gain weight. When I started to work and was less active, my back started to hurt and so on. Being 6,4 ft tall I need to eat good, do enough cardio and do weights to sit at a healthy weight. Now around 220 lbs and my goal is to go up to 230 -240 lbs. In my late teens, I was like 185lbs and with zero muscles. Felt like shit. Started working out in my early 20s and went up to 253 lbs, because of really bad diet and beeing lazy.

Now 30 and it sucks to feel your body aging. Knees weak and they wont last forever. Joints are not what they used to be.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Great for you man! Getting back into it is never easy. My workout after a weak of holiday eating and drinking was not great, but it got me back on track. I neglected cardio myself for quite some time. It bit me in the ass with some additional belly-fat and less endurance. I love running hills and doing them after a long pause, is hell. But after a couple of times, my body gets used to it.

Losing weight is definetly a good goal. But losing bodyfat should be a higher priority. Your weight flactuates a lot during the week, so I wouldnt spend too much time watching that number. Doing cardio, eating healthier and doint weights, should get you in shape easily.

I always had a different problem, to gain weight. When I started to work and was less active, my back started to hurt and so on. Being 6,4 ft tall I need to eat good, do enough cardio and do weights to sit at a healthy weight. Now around 220 lbs and my goal is to go up to 230 -240 lbs. In my late teens, I was like 185lbs and with zero muscles. Felt like shit. Started working out in my early 20s and went up to 253 lbs, because of really bad diet and beeing lazy.

Now 30 and it sucks to feel your body aging. Knees weak and they wont last forever. Joints are not what they used to be.

It's annoying tbh as I used to be in pretty decent shape. Hell at one point in my 20s I had legs like fucking tree trunks due to a job I was doing at the time. Even 3 years ago I was 2 stone lighter and a hell of a lot fitter so yeah it needs sorting.

The weight needs to come off as most of it is fat. I'm sensible enough to not place too much importance on the exact number but shifting 2 stone is feasible, but on the other hand if I look fucking ripped I won't give a shit what the scales say. Last time I did it all on the rowing machine, no weights, so my cardio was excellent, I was in pretty good shape but perhaps lacked the muscle bulk I'd have liked. This time I've got the weights so I'll hopefully get a decent amount of muscle bulk to make things interesting. Diet isn't too bad - in my younger days I ate a lot of crap, but these days I eat well, though I have acquired a snacking habit which I'm dropping.

I had the same problem when I was younger. In my early 20s I was about 9 stone and could eat and eat and eat and still not get any god damn weight on me. That problem ended at 25 literally like flipping a switch and by 30 I only had to look at food to put on weight. I managed it well, but the last few years I've let it slip, and moving out of town so I have a commute every day has taken away a lot of time I would have spent in the morning exercising. I'm having to get up at 5:30AM to get it done at the moment, and once stamina builds up that's likely to go to 5AM! Not fun at all!

Getting old sucks. My knees aren't great either (they never were tbh) so stuff like running on pavements is generally a bad idea for me, hence choosing rowing, not too much impact on the knees and it's a pretty good all-over workout, plus I hate exercise (it bores the shit out of me), so rowing is the most efficient way to get shit done and get it over with. It's definitely harder to keep the weight off as you get older, and I do worry that I might not get it off - I better work hard on that exercise!
 
So.. confession time. I've got a bit chunky. I've tended to average around 11st 5lb for a sensible BMI but after Christmas I hit 13st 0lb for a BMI of 26. Fat as fuck. Time to do something about it. So, got the rowing machine out, got the weights and I'm cracking on with getting back where I should be. Goal is to lose 2 stone. My fitness has gone to absolute shit. Used to be able to do 1000 strokes on the rowing machine (it's shit and only has a stroke counter, not much else) and I'm down to 260 ffs. Hitting weights I'm working with 12.5kg at the moment aiming to work back up. It's an absolute shitshow and I've got to get it sorted. Too much good food, too much chilling and not enough discipline has got me here, along with a hint of middle-aged spread (I'm hitting 40 this year - booooooooo). Time to fix it.

Consider working progressively with barbell weights instead. As an alternative, you can substitute rowing with variations of the barbell row. It hits the same muscles groups plus more. There's a sea of decent training programs out there which consist of the big 3 (squat, bench, and deadlift).

Btw, your stored fat isn't all bad. You can benefit of it if you choose to go keto. Actually, if you're just looking to lose weight you might as well go with a diet like keto.
 
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God Enel

Member
Today I wanted to go to a body pump class as it was a “release party” with new moves. The shit was full as hell yo so I said fuck that. In the Room have been about 1637483838362616192047 people and all of them had weights except me and two friends ( we entered last - so yeah fuck).
So we did a 40 minute CrossFit training session consisting of: 20box jumps 24’/30’, 20 front to back lunges (10 each leg) with a 20kg weight on the back. 12 dead lifts 80kg (my body weight) bosu ball one leg dead lifts to Courtney squats 3x each leg followed by 20kg kettle bell swings. 40sec of uhmm.. battle roping and as the last exercises hanging leg raises. The dead lifts fucking killed me. We did 3 1/2 rounds and I was sweating like a pig. It was great :)
 
4:30 AM: First below freezing run in a while!! I got to test out my new cold and night gear though!!

x3PsWVs.jpg


I love my little Foxelli head lamp that I got for Christmas.
 
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Blond

Banned
Anyone here ever do DDPYoga? Been doing it for the past 6 months and while I don't how much weight I've lost (It's kept me from watching the scale) I can tell you I'm shrinking everywhere I want and have dropped from 46 > 40 in pants, nearly 38 (my 40s are starting to fall off my ass) and I'm no longer in 3XBs and can pick up whatever 2x shirt I want from just about everywhere, still want a smaller ass though but i'm enjoying my shrinking gut even more.

Also, gonna start a couch to 5k program so I can hopefully run a marathon this year. Goals I guess? Lol
 

betrayal

Banned
Hey guys. I'm lifting weights (natural) for several years now (4 times a week) and recently switched from push pull (t/t/n/t/t/n/n) to splitting the exercises over four days so that every body part is trained at every workout. So it is not a classic full body workout 3-4 times week consisting of variations of squating, dead lifting and benching + some isolation movements. At the end I unintentionally increased the volume just because i took the exact same exercises out of my push pull plan and evenly distributed them over my four training days in a way my legs, back and chest get hit every day.
I have no problems with regeneration in general, even after very heavy lifting (< 5 RM) so i thought i might go for it. For now I already noticed that the quality of the reps and sets increased, because the volume is more evenly distributed, which means i planned with the same numbers of sets, reps and weight, but the new plan allows more potential volume aka progress, just because I'm not doing 2-3 exercises for my back on one day, but on two, which automatically increased my volume. Of course while doing it i'm not lifting very heavy and most exercises are in the 10 to 12 rep range, because strain of the tendons etc..

So what's the catch (if regeneration is not a problem)? Most studies tend to favor frequency for naturals, but not that much. Others don't see a statistical significant difference. But for me the quality and therefore the volume increased, which was not possible with the same potentional work load during the push pull split. Do you guy have any personal experiences regarding strength and hypertrophy with higher vs lower frequency?
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
Hey guys. I'm lifting weights (natural) for several years now (4 times a week) and recently switched from push pull (t/t/n/t/t/n/n) to splitting the exercises over four days so that every body part is trained at every workout. So it is not a classic full body workout 3-4 times week consisting of variations of squating, dead lifting and benching + some isolation movements. At the end I unintentionally increased the volume just because i took the exact same exercises out of my push pull plan and evenly distributed them over my four training days in a way my legs, back and chest get hit every day.
I have no problems with regeneration in general, even after very heavy lifting (< 5 RM) so i thought i might go for it. For now I already noticed that the quality of the reps and sets increased, because the volume is more evenly distributed, which means i planned with the same numbers of sets, reps and weight, but the new plan allows more potential volume aka progress, just because I'm not doing 2-3 exercises for my back on one day, but on two, which automatically increased my volume. Of course while doing it i'm not lifting very heavy and most exercises are in the 10 to 12 rep range, because strain of the tendons etc..

So what's the catch (if regeneration is not a problem)? Most studies tend to favor frequency for naturals, but not that much. Others don't see a statistical significant difference. But for me the quality and therefore the volume increased, which was not possible with the same potentional work load during the push pull split. Do you guy have any personal experiences regarding strength and hypertrophy with higher vs lower frequency?

No catch to it, other than I don't think you'll see any significant size/strength gains from it. It really depends on your goals of course. Personally, I've had my best results with lower frequency/higher weight. I lift 3-4 times a week and hit specific body parts. The higher weight, lower volume is what stimulates growth for me, but oddly enough, certain parts of my body respond better to higher volume. It's all about experimenting and finding what works for yourself though.
 
I did another 2 miles on the same route last night after work and cut my time down significantly. 18:43 for my time and felt great. I’ve slowed on the body weight exercise because I feel I still get the most impact on my fitness from running and everything else I try to add interferes in some way or another. I’m still going to do some maintenance stuff but I’m gonna keep it light. I’ve realized that having an established run routine is most important for me.

Once I feel like I have a stable run routine I’m going to look at ways to add back in good strength training again.
 

Kev Kev

Member
welp, after 2 -3 solid years of working out hardcore, i jumped off the bandwagon about 4-6 months ago

here are some of my favorite pictures at various points in those two years...

pCk6qYR.jpg
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kRoDopm.jpg
4iec4tk.jpg


full time school, full time job, studying and practicing multiple hours a day on 2 different instruments (sometimes 3) left me mentally and physically exhausted, and i just gave up on trying to go to the gym. before then i was working out 4-5 days a week for over 2 years straight. i was running like 2.5 miles almost every morning. i was pretty strong, looking and feeling great. but sleeping only 4-5 hours a night and waking up at 3am every morning just became too much, and i was getting super stressed out. so i decided to finish up my AA this semester, and get back to it in the summer.

Thing is, i really dont want to wait till summer bc its honestly stressing me out just as much (if not, more) that i dont have the gym as an outlet for my emotional/mental health. so if i plan and wake up early enough, i know i can atleast get an hour at the gym, 3 days a week. it's not much, but it's better than nothing. so im gonna give it a go starting monday, when school starts back up.

im kind of into power lifting, but being a vegetarian and not having a whole lot of money or time for high protien vegetables and/or vegetable based protein powder, my progress will be slow, and my numbers will be low. still, ill post my numbers and see what i can do. im posting in here in an attempt to have something written down to hold myself accountable for going every week.

wish me luck!
 
Thing is, i really dont want to wait till summer bc its honestly stressing me out just as much (if not, more) that i dont have the gym as an outlet for my emotional/mental health. so if i plan and wake up early enough, i know i can atleast get an hour at the gym, 3 days a week. it's not much, but it's better than nothing. so im gonna give it a go starting monday, when school starts back up.

I relate to this so much!! I need to run right now to lower my blood pressure essentially. Really to lose weight but the blood pressure is pretty bad these days. I can physically feel it.

I’m focusing on self affirmations (just telling myself I am safe because my fight or flight response is getting triggered a lot), deep breathing (thanks DunDunDunpachi DunDunDunpachi for sharing!) and the two most important, diet and exercise.

I’ve been struggling with anxiety and anger a lot and I know they are directly related to my own weight gain over the last year.
 

bronk

Banned
So I randomly decided I want to start running again. Im in good general shape as I workout quite a bit and play lots of softball. Well day one I ran 10 miles, day two I ran 6 miles and day three 6 miles. This on sidewalks to my gyms and back. Well.....both the bottom of my feet hurt like crazy bad. Behind my right knee is shot out and front of left knee is killing me. It feels more than sore. Im an idiot and go overboard on everything. Im also excited to keep running when this pain goes away.

Also reading through the thread alot of you guys seem super smart about fitness so I'll ask if need be. Im just a dumb meathead who throws weights around. I know an ok amount but not a pro about the sweet science. Anyways keep pumping gym bros. 💪😤
 
Getting my self mentally prepared for squats and deadlifts today. I haven't yet insulated my detached garage (home gym) and I checked it an hour ago.

-12 °C (10 °F)

But today is a good day for inspiration. Rogue is streaming the Arnold Pro Strongman USA Qualifier from Santa Monica at 11:30 AM pacific, 2:30 PM eastern.

Events include:
400 LB farmer's walk
775 LB deadlift for reps
380 LB log for reps
Sandbag throw over bar
Sandbag load

This event is a qualifier for the 2020 Arnold Strongman Classic in March.

 

Kev Kev

Member
Getting my self mentally prepared for squats and deadlifts today. I haven't yet insulated my detached garage (home gym) and I checked it an hour ago.

-12 °C (10 °F)

But today is a good day for inspiration. Rogue is streaming the Arnold Pro Strongman USA Qualifier from Santa Monica at 11:30 AM pacific, 2:30 PM eastern.

Events include:
400 LB farmer's walk
775 LB deadlift for reps
380 LB log for reps
Sandbag throw over bar
Sandbag load

This event is a qualifier for the 2020 Arnold Strongman Classic in March.



are into maxing out/power lifting? what are your numbers?
 
are into maxing out/power lifting? what are your numbers?

The past 8+ months has been chaotic and emotional with a long distance move and change of life/career and it did cause a disruption to my gym routine. I'm working my way back up, and I'm at about 85% of my former numbers, despite cutting.

Previous max lifts in early 2019 while bulking:
Bench 265
Squat 265 - yep, same as bench :messenger_frowning_
Deadlift 365
OHP strict 155

I'm built more like a marathon runner: long and lanky with a slight frame.
 

Kev Kev

Member
The past 8+ months has been chaotic and emotional with a long distance move and change of life/career and it did cause a disruption to my gym routine. I'm working my way back up, and I'm at about 85% of my former numbers, despite cutting.

Previous max lifts in early 2019 while bulking:
Bench 265
Squat 265 - yep, same as bench :messenger_frowning_
Deadlift 365
OHP strict 155

I'm built more like a marathon runner: long and lanky with a slight frame.

Hey man those are still great! I wish I was back up there, I’m super weak rn. A lot of life shit got in my way too. I’d be surprised if I could put up 185 on bench at the moment 😩. Starting back again next week. My dead lift was never that high though, thats impressive!

Good luck to you!
 
Hey man those are still great! I wish I was back up there, I’m super weak rn. A lot of life shit got in my way too. I’d be surprised if I could put up 185 on bench at the moment 😩. Starting back again next week. My dead lift was never that high though, thats impressive!

Good luck to you!

Thanks for the support. I actually had a nice squat today. Did 190 for 6 reps x 4 sets. But on those last 2 sets, I was taking long pauses between reps.
No way I'm gonna try 1 RM any time soon, it's too damn cold for that, and my calories are too low (and keto).

Got myself some stall mats and a mirror since my last pic post.

DYZvypZ.jpg
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
So.. confession time. I've got a bit chunky. I've tended to average around 11st 5lb for a sensible BMI but after Christmas I hit 13st 0lb for a BMI of 26. Fat as fuck. Time to do something about it. So, got the rowing machine out, got the weights and I'm cracking on with getting back where I should be. Goal is to lose 2 stone. My fitness has gone to absolute shit. Used to be able to do 1000 strokes on the rowing machine (it's shit and only has a stroke counter, not much else) and I'm down to 260 ffs. Hitting weights I'm working with 12.5kg at the moment aiming to work back up. It's an absolute shitshow and I've got to get it sorted. Too much good food, too much chilling and not enough discipline has got me here, along with a hint of middle-aged spread (I'm hitting 40 this year - booooooooo). Time to fix it.

Progress report:
- 5 lb shifted
- 440 strokes on the rowing machine
- 20kg (bicep curl and bench press - 3 sets of 12 reps)

Getting there.
 
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Today was my tenth official run this month. I looked back through my run history and the last time I ran that many times in a month was January 2018. It feels good to be building my base back up and establishing a routine again. Now its time to tighten up the diet.

For contrast, my best month running was probably June 2011. I was preparing for the Portland Marathon and ran 18 times for a total of 93.88 miles. I crashed and burned in my training in July and I blame this crazy bachelor party my friend threw but I really just self sabotaged. I ran 1 in August and 6 times in September before the Marathon but they were short (2-3 miles) and slow.

Since I had paid for the Marathon I went and ran as far as I could (10 slow grueling miles or so) before limping the last 16 miles to the finish line. It took me 7.5 hours and although I finished I have never been proud because I know I fucked it up. My goal wasn't crazy, just hoping to do it in 4 hours or less. That was 9 years ago and next year will be the 50th Anniversary of the Portland Marathon. I think it's time to do it right.

Remember food is fuel not reward you fat fuck
 
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God Enel

Member
Today no training for me as I have to go to another city for work. Fuck me. Friday and Saturday was the same shit. And I hate breaks longer than one day. After two days my body starts his lazy mode and training is always awful like yesterday. Where I did some pull ups and tore my neck a little. Now I can’t move my head fully to the right side. My own fault as I didn’t do any warm up and just went straight into explosive pull ups. I was so unmotivated when I arrived at the gym. Fml. Tomorrow is leg day and I’m gonna destroy them. #noexcuses #lightweightbaby
 

God Enel

Member
Leg and core today. For core I Did some windshield wipers, leg raises on floor and hanging, trx plank to handstand??? (Like am upside down L dunno what’s it called), band side twists. For legs I did box jumps, weighted sumo squats, stiff leg dead lifts, uhm.. dunno what’s it called raised leg rotations 30seconds rotating in one direction and 30 in the other. Then switch legs. I did this exercise when I was kickboxing. In the end i did some pistol squats and they’re way harder when you’re already exhausted so they haven’t been so great and clean. But whatever. Did 4 one leg and 4 on the other one. Some handstand training and yeah that’s about it. 30 explosive pull ups - but after each one a 10-20 second break to ultimately achieve the muscle up. And it’s getting better. Though I have to work on the technique in the upcoming days 😴 we’ll see :)
 

God Enel

Member
So what’s up guys am I the only one working out regularly?

Was bouldering, had legs and core workouts went to a body pump course , did a machine round the last couple of days.

it’s time for Tesseract to return.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Progress report:
- 5 lb shifted
- 440 strokes on the rowing machine
- 20kg (bicep curl and bench press - 3 sets of 12 reps)

Getting there.

Progress report:
- 9 lb shifted
- 760 strokes on the rowing machine
- 25kg (bicep curl and bench press - 3 sets of 12 reps)

Getting there. Finding that the weights are getting easier so I'll be going up another 2.5kg next week, and the rowing doesn't tire me out any more. Fitness is coming along very nicely. Muscles are showing some sign of improvement, but the belly fat is still there. That'll be harder to shift.
 
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I've been taking care of my wife who has been sick for almost 2 weeks now and I just got sick this last Sunday. I have been feeling like I have been coming down with something for a while and I tend to avoid running if I have chest and throat shit going on. My goal is to get 10 solid runs in this month once I am able to get back out there.

Hopefully it's not the Wuhan Bat Flu! Thanks Trump!
 

God Enel

Member
Progress report:
- 9 lb shifted
- 760 strokes on the rowing machine
- 25kg (bicep curl and bench press - 3 sets of 12 reps)

Getting there. Finding that the weights are getting easier so I'll be going up another 2.5kg next week, and the rowing doesn't tire me out any more. Fitness is coming along very nicely. Muscles are showing some sign of improvement, but the belly fat is still there. That'll be harder to shift.
Abs are made in the Kitchen. 😞

Today chest and triceps. Though I’m not sure if I’m gonna change it to skill work, i.e. handstand, headstand, arm balances in general, human flag. And shit like that. Feeling a little bit sore and as I don’t have much time today maybe having fun is the way to go.
 
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hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
Abs are made in the Kitchen. 😞

Today chest and triceps. Though I’m not sure if I’m gonna change it to skill work, i.e. handstand, headstand, arm balances in general, human flag. And shit like that. Feeling a little bit sore and as I don’t have much time today maybe having fun is the way to go.

I've cut out all the shit in my diet so it'll get there eventually. It's just a matter of time.
 
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