thread of getting sw0le

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

Also realized I've been cheating on my bench (not going all the way down) and that may actually be stalling progress. Took the weight down a little and focused on form. Also got a good tip from a video not to go straight up and down because of shoulder impingement (a problem for me with my constantly tight shoulder) but to have a slight diagonal bar path. Helped a lot.

Didn't honestly notice a huge increase in lunchtime gym usage today, but it may have been the cold keeping people in their offices.

bench is my weakest lift. I've been working on different variations stuff like close grip, 2 count pause an inch above the chest and bringing it down on slow 5 count .

i bench like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlSxM05J7eM

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/673160000282476544

lol also:

https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/672754555382325248
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/674373235182460928
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/675720831322988544

pretty much everyone could use some yoga imo

― (•̪●) (carne asada), Tuesday, January 5, 2016 9:53 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

and double dutch

I did my first Bikram yoga class last night. 90 minutes, 105 degrees. I've literally never sweat so much in my life.

does bikram yoga get you sw0le?

No, if anything I felt deflated afterward

https://thenib.com/bikram-addict-242333de3483#.5qfxxc4zv

no yoga will get you swole but ashtanga will get you strong

idk ive seen some p swole yoga bros like not huge but def good muscles, prob depends on yr natural proclivity for swoleness, wld think bikram wld be better than most yogas for that cause its more intense

anyway yoga and lifting is really a match made in heaven imo

Bikram seems to have less upper-body strength poses than other yoga practices I've done. That works for me, b/c my routine probably overemphasizes chest/back stuff anyway, but it means I wouldn't want to make it my primary exercise

idk ive seen some p swole yoga bros like not huge but def good muscles, prob depends on yr natural proclivity for swoleness, wld think bikram wld be better than most yogas for that cause its more intense

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 6, 2016

oh yeah. find the right class (the closer to ashtanga primary series the better) and do it 4-6x a week and you will get lean and strong without even trying ;-)

imo bikram ain't it tho, for the reason evan r mentions above. the standard bikram series really neglects the upper body, and most of the intensity comes from the room heat vs physical exertion.

genuine ashtanga is hard to find and hard to commit to (early morning hours, serious daily time requirement including getting to the studio, showering etc etc) but the vinyasas between poses are where it's at. sneaks a lot of pushups in and develops a lot of core strength as you move into the lift-offs and arm balances.