thread of getting sw0le

That doesn't seem expensive at all. That's like 25/month

no, i agree it's ridic cheap. it's also a crowded, single floor gym with minimal equipment. happens to be a block away though, so no real excuses except old tired lazy.

Missed an entire week of workouts thanks to holiday travel :(

Get a couple resistance bands - easy to pack. Do circuits of those and body weight exercises. You can also mix in the nytimes 7-minute workout, which I find pretty effective if repeated a couple times through and/or mixed with other things.

its ok to miss a week sometimes

Been thinking about switching from a Leg-Chest-Back rotation to an A/B rotation, which might make more sense given my schedule (since work has made it harder for me to have 3 lifting days every week, it'd make sure I hit every muscle group regularly).

Was thinking of sort of combining the legs/chest stuff into one day and then doing back and abs on the other -- does this make sense? I also thought it might have the added benefit of being able to move from exercise to exercise more quickly by alternating muscle groups within a workout.

I guess it would look something like:

A: barbell squat, bench press, weighted lunges (or step-ups), dips, incline dumbbell press, machine front squat, cable crossover, calf raises
B: Deadlifts, pulldowns, cable rows, some fourth back exercise (dumbbell rows, delt fly, etc.), and a circuit of ab exercises (usually some combo of plank, side plank, leg raises, russian twists with medicine ball, etc.). Maybe would also do my stability platform stuff on this day if time.

i bought a jump rope

https://giant.gfycat.com/JadedIgnorantCollardlizard.gif

https://giant.gfycat.com/MerryForthrightBoubou.gif

going to b fun getting in touch with my inner oaf
xp lol

i bought a jump rope a while ago totally forgot abt that

I like jumping rope at the gym for a few mins at the end of a workout.

that is exactly what i'm going to start doing

can't be hard i used to love double dutch

It gives me a quick rush/sweat at the end and feels like I'm "sealing the deal" somehow.

going to use "sealing the deal" as my jump rope mantra, ty

i used to love jumping rope so much, esp double dutch, omg

matt do you want to start a gay double dutch league w/ me?

would i ever

huge rush just thinking about it tbh

lol

Did six of the eight exercises in my new "a" workout and p much felt like I was going to puke. I think I have a new workout.

happy sw0le year. i don't believe in resolutions but i resolve that it is preferable to lift once a week consistently than it is to go 3x/week and stop when work gets too bad then get anxiety about taking time off and not go because of that. i also resolve to get a new job or at least the same one closer to my house.

also kinda hurt my back a couple weeks ago so i purposely took some time off to heal it. i go tomorrow morning.

oh man, the lacrosse ball on the glutes thing is unspeakably painful, too much so to be useful for me.

the only thing i lacrosse ball is the bottoms of my feet. feels nice.

The rule I made for myself when I started lifting about 5 months ago was that I would only use work as an excuse if I had an actual deadline immediately pending (like was expected to finish something same day/by next day). I have "too much work" to go like 50% of the time, but going makes me do the work more efficiently.

yeah but i literally have 10 billion clients and my schedule is unpredictable so there is never not a deadline :/

https://twitter.com/amandapeacher/status/683741037207007232

loool

Sw0le goals for 2016!

Back Squat - #350
deadlift - #400
Overhead press - #200 (probably unrealistic)

happy lifting in 2016 everybody

When people state goals like that are those one-rep maxes? I've never actually tested mine for anything.

yeah for me those would be 1RM

Right now I'm basically at the following weights:

High Back Squat: 155 for 5-8 reps
Bench Press: 145 for 8 reps
Deadlift: 225 for 5 reps

Progress is slow but I really don't mind the slowness. I'm 36, married, kids, this is a real body with curves nah mean.

My midsection has started to feel hard though, which is a cool feeling. It still has a layer of fat on it but it feels tighter than it ever felt.

that works too. Basically just so you have a baseline to test any progress. Dude i'm turning 40 in a week and i don't have a long history of lifting. I had a lot of quick gains early on but now they come a lot slower. xp

Even those I don't think are my max though bc I do them for multiple sets. So never really tested my max, guess I would want a spotter there.

my Y just reopened after renovation (we were in a temp location all year). i was worried they'd have only limited free weights, given what you hear about gym priorities, but i was blown away. they have an olympic platform! bumper plates! brand new squat racks! i haven't used any of it yet, the open house was just yesterday, but i'm pretty psyched.

i went to a Y in another part of town yesterday; younger and more upscale. saw a guy doing 135 lb squats on a bosu ball. ohh lord pac.

my sw0le g0al for 2016 is to lift my new set of completely ridiculous-looking (but well-regarded) weights in our very small spare room I mean luxuriously appointed home gym.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83nEQAO_U9k

I'm kind of liking this guy's videos -- he's a little long-winded but convincing.

omg the gym is paaaaaaaccckkkkkkkeeeeeeddd

lol I was thinking about that today but didn't go. Fuckin rezzies.

i held off till a little later tonight and it wasn't as crowded. smelled like ass to the ass though

they have an olympic platform! bumper plates! brand new squat racks!

that is awesome. happy lifting in 2016. bumper plates are so crucial. octagonal plates should be outlawed.

Back on the horse as of last Wednesday- I had to move Friday to Saturday because of some holiday or something? but things are going well. I'm up to 130x5 on the squat, which is hardly great, but at least it's going up, albeit slowly. Still benching more than I can squat, which obviously won't last, and still basically not struggling with the deadlift at all and going up 10lb every workout.

Finally got the hell over myself and started eating more (shooting for 2500-ish calories a day); I've been kind of struggling with that since pretty much 100% of the reason I want to take care of myself is to just be smaller, for whatever special-snowflake gender presentation baggage bullshit I have, and the thought of bulking up just skeeves me out. But fuck it, I started doing this because it's the only way to lose excess fat and keep it off further down the line, so if I'm sabotaging myself and getting worse results anyway by not eating enough I can at least reason myself past that little mental block.

Still not trying any ketogenic diet shenanigans until I'm well past the intro phase of Starting Strength and comfortably adding pull-ups into the routine.

Also considering a yoga class since they're free at my gym and I have a shoulder flexibility issue that's affecting my low bar grip. Maybe worth a try?

pretty much everyone could use some yoga imo

watch a frighteningly gray joe montana teach you how to do shoulder passthroughs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtvugDP-jrI

Was able to do sets of 185x5 on high back squats today, feels like I made a leap.

https://medium.com/bull-market/sweaty-january-and-how-gyms-make-money-7d682ff5eeaf