thread of getting sw0le

I am about to travel to the Land of the Canned Sardines and wonder if I should give it a go again after my failed attempt back however many years ago it was when ILX was obsessed with them

i love sardines but i also just got a $14 handmixer when i learned on the web that you can shred chicken with it bc i love shredded chicken hate shredding

i have even been turned on to big ass fresh sardines you can put on the grill

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, December 1, 2015 8:24 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hell yes that spainish life

are those pretty cheap? i've never seen them around though

OK so earlier this week I did this little mini physical fitness test thingie (except for the timed mile run part) as sort of a baseline for where I am four weeks after the aforementioned hystericalectomy. My stats look something like:

squats (unweighted, to fail): yeah whatever I can do some of the

static plank (on toes and elbows--I dunno what is considered a "full" plan, maybe straight arms, like top of a push-up): sure uh huh I can hold this for over a minute whatevs fine

seated sit and reach: blah blah blah I can get past my toes yeah me where's my flexibility award

push-up: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

Dudes (and harbl), I cannot do even a single full pushup, and struggled to do like SEVEN half (knees down) pushups. This seems way weirdly weak compared to what I was able to do on the other tests. What is up with that? Am I doing pushups wrong? It seems weird that I have a decent static plank/squat time but can't get my damn torso (never mind legs) off the ground in a pushup?

Anyhow, it kinda cracked me up that I can't even do ten knees-down pushups. Nowhere to go but up, I guess.

Is there some way to blame the physics of being tall for this. Like a lever arm formula or something

thats why u take the test i guess lol, we are all unbalanced in some way, feel like balance is a good goal in fitness

Just keep doing the knee pushups and building up your number and every so often try to do one full pushup. You'll get there. There was a time when I couldn't do a single proper pullup, which is pretty poor for a guy. Then I built myself up to 5. Then I both gained weight and stopped working out regularly and I was back down to a couple. Now I think I can probably do 5 again but haven't tried in a while.

When it comes to fitness, you're only competing against yourself, so you only have your own numbers to improve on, IMO.

some nba teams have had great results preventing injury via testing and training for balance btw

Meanwhile pushups have never been a problem for me at all, probably in part because they're easy to do at home/in the office/etc so I was always randomly doing them even when I wasn't doing full workouts.

yeah i think the progress will be swift! (ish!)

it only took me a few months to go from not being able to do a single dip (similar muscles to a pushup) to doing a ton of them, with weight

Plank and push-ups aren't all that related even though they feel similar - the plank is about keeping your core (abs/lower back) stable, push-ups are about chest strength and IIRC your biceps and triceps to a lesser extent.

Proper push up position (elbows in tight to the body, not flailing out to the side) is important. All you can do beyond that is a lot of push-ups in easier configuration - some people say don't do knees, find an angled surface and do them on that because you'll learn to keep your body in good form, progressing in difficulty (for instance start on a countertop, then a table then a coffee table, etc.)

thanking u sw0le ppl. I just watched some videos and I think I need to tweak my form on the half pushup. I was being obsessive about straight line from neck to knees, but I think I may need to bring my butt up just a tad to get my arms lined up in the right place--otherwise the angles just don't seem to work at all.

Been thinking about ways I might change up my workouts a bit, any suggestions? This is what I'm doing right now (with slight variations), usually 3 sets of 8-10 reps. Been on some version of this program for like 5 months.

I do a chest day a leg day and a back day each week and try to follow the weights with some abs and/or cardio.

CHEST DAY:
Bench Press (or Incline Bench Press)
Dips (bodyweight)
Cable Crossover
Alternating Incline Dumbbell Press

LEG DAY:
High Back Squats
Kettlebell Lunges (I do the kind where you maintain the lunge foot position and lower and raise rather than moving your feet)
Some third exercise -- often the "supersquat" machine in front squat position
Calf raises

BACK DAY:
Deadlifts
Pulldowns or assisted pullups
Cable Rows
A modified delt raise that I came up with -- basically you post yourself on one of those incline things you normally use to do lower back exercises and do delt raises at an angle -- seems to work both lower back and delts

OH WAIT important consideration in my push-up challenges: BOOBS. I have some. Two, actually. They are not small. They weigh something. More than the jettisoned uterus for sure. Extra weight to push up!

Try just doing bodyweight pushups and add the boobs back in when you get your form down.

firing u as personal trainer

lol

lol

srsly though, boobs and naturally weaker upper body strength are both oft cited as reasons pushups tend to be harder for women (particularly women with boobs). No shame in that IMO.

Started Starting Strength today. I'm doing just pitifully low numbers on the three exercises on day A (squat 3x5, bench press 3x5, deadlift 1x5), but that's to be expected since I'm following the instructions exactly. Contrary to the kind of cultish reputation the book has and the kind of douchey writing style of RIPPETOE (lots of macho horseshit), it really is an excellent set of recommendations to avoid injury. Instead of going to failure or trying to push the number of reps in a set, it's 100% about keeping proper form, presumably with the aim of being able to actually manage the heavier loads later on without crunching my spine like a tube of Pringles.

The starting weight gets calibrated by just doing a set with an empty bar (45 lb), adding a little weight, doing another set, and stopping right at the point where your lifting movement starts to noticeably slow down, which really does feel like the sweet spot for doing the required reps with perfect form. Right now I'm at just 95 on the squat, 105 on the bench, and 115 on deadlift, which is way south of where I was on all three, but the requirements have me adding 10-15 lbs per week so it shouldn't take me too long to improve at a reasonable pace.

I haven't started any kind of carb counting yet; just moved from my temporary two weeks OH GOD SO MANY PAPERS AND FINALS ALL IS LOST EAT WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT stress mode to just watching my carb intake, dropping sugar and making sure to eat lots of meat & veggies.

i eat a lot of yams and rice. carbs are good.

q i have so much to say about pushups but the main thing i would like to say is: i can't do them and it's embarrassing but i have started working on it lately

iirc we have pretty similar body types, i.e., the worst for pushups. but i believe they are possible.

i am gonna work on my planks. i sag in the middle and as a physics enthusiast i know that keeping a non-saggy form is going to make me able to do a pushup. i have been improving my pressing a lot lately. not necessarily a lot of weight yet but better form and engaging the middle of my body more.

i love to overhead press have i mentioned that

also i am working on the hollow position and i do a lot of deadbugs which has helped my ribs stay down when i do stuff because i have sticking out ribs, if i wasn't kind of flabby at the moment

i don't find knees down to help at all. not even a little. a long time ago i was working on it and could do like 50 knees down pushups but 0 regular. you gotta do incline pushups and negative pushups.

I did overhead bar press for the first time the other day and I was shocked at how hard it was for me actually -- I think the shoulders might even be the weakness in my bench press I had mentioned above. I was only pressing like 65 lbs and I felt like "yeah, this is enough."

i do dumbell thrusters its fun

I'm kind of dreading barbell presses on Friday- I've never done them before and it just seems like the kind of thing that could go disastrously wrong.

Just don't overload the weight and build up gradually to test your limits. I'm actually a guy with a lot of irrational lifting anxiety -- I always think I'm gonna squat and not be able to get back up or drop a bar on my neck or something. But it's easier to get the bar back onto the rack than you'd think even when you can't complete a rep, plus as long as there are people around in your gym it's pretty easy to call for someone to help with the bar (not that I have ever actually had to do that).

i do dumbell thrusters its fun

― lag∞n, Wednesday, December 9, 2015

haha my work itt is done!

lol did u recommend those

I been fn w some dumbells/a kettlebell to expand my apres run routine which is usually pullups and maybe some core/yoga shit its p cool

if anyone has some nice ideas abt exercises to do w these things im listening

― lag∞n, Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:19 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

turkish get-ups ftw

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:20 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also: dumbbell thrusters

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:21 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk abt turkish getups seems like u wld drop it on yr face and die

― lag∞n, Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:28 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thrusters look nice tho thx

― lag∞n, Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:28 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Push-ups are one of those where I think the argument to progress from bodyweight to barbell is backward. Easier to progress a bench press until you're strong enough to do real push-ups IMO.

nice thank u namaste xp

feel like they r a nice warm up for squats too

yeah i am a lot more interested in bench pressing more weight than i am in pushups. but someone like myself should be able to do one and they would be good to do at home like.

i used to struggle to press just the bar overhead once now i can do it a lot of times. love it. body position helps as does making sure to eat enough that day.

Dear gymbros, I'm sorry for misusing the equipment, but you were all using the squat rack for crazy exercises, so you forced my hand.
I did squats in the benchpress rack.

It was awkward.
Sitting on the bench, scooting under the bar, sitting up straight with the weights on my back, then scooting back and standing up. Then step back to squat out on the floor, getting in everyone's way. For gainz!

you could have just made them proper box squats with that set up

Perhaps, though I've never done box squats before, so I wouldn't really have known quite how to go about it. Also, it's a rack that has the bench welded to it, so I had to keep my legs a bit too far apart for a comfortable squat. It probably wouldn't work out.
It was pretty clumsy, so I did switch over the moment the squat rack was free.

Have any of you guys done Jim Wendler's 5-3-1? I'm thinking of going for that over the winter, since I need a new program, and need a kick in the ass to get stronger again.
I might look a bit more though, as I'd kinda like to try something that included cleans, or clean and jerks, since I've had no experience with those lifts. (I have toyed around a bit with the front squat though.)

totally here is a nice template i stole from someone https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1Rofabo2fBnd3FCbzV0bmhlV2M/edit

Ah, that's great, thanks!

i'm excited to go to the gym today

me too

Had my first ever close call with injury yesterday. I was squatting and went over and to the right a little just as I was going below parallel. I was OK since I had the safety bars in the rack, but it was still scary as hell. The culprit was most likely sleep- I have a lifelong history of poor sleep and spent most of yesterday either hoofing it around Manhattan or trying and failing to sleep on a bus, and it was a weight I'd handled on Monday with no problems (an imposing 115 lb).

Other factors apply as well. I'm still trying to work on my squat form, since I'd been doing it pretty badly up until now; I'm not used to having my knees out at the proper angle or squatting with a low bar, and I'm one of those people built such that squats are harder than they should be (long legs, narrow pelvis, short torso). I got a full night's sleep and I'm working with a trainer today with an empty bar and maybe a half load to try and fix my form before going back in on Saturday.

And no, it's definitely` not diet-related; I've been eating carbs like a motherfucker :(

get some sleep!

does anyone else here find front squats considerably harder than back squats? the form seems trickier to get right, and my wrists in particular are seemingly impossible to contort into the right puhzish --- they kill after a single set. i'd be inclined to just say fuck front squats forever and only do back squats but everything i've read would suggest that fronts have more applicability to the kinds of activities i lift weights to support

it's all about the flexibility in the front rack position. It takes time and work to feel comfortable with it and honestly some people will always struggle to some degree. The benefits from it are significant imo as far as full body workout and core strengthening.