thread of getting sw0le

It looks like NYSC has vinyasa a couple times a week at times I could do. I think I need to upgrade to $60 or $70 a month to get the classes, but maybe I can get them to cut me a break. Not an outrageous price and I could also try some other shit like boxing or whatever.

yeah u can always talk them down or just look for deals online

consistent boxing + any kind of yoga where you sweat is like a cheat code for general fitness (i.e. not sw0le but lean/fit/lookin' and feelin' good)

also learning to wrap your hands and getting your first pair of gloves is fun :)

Ya'll talking yoga with goal of swole is o_O to me but idk I'm an iyengar person aka swole is not goal.

well yoga is primarily basked on gymanstics so it makes sense

so i took a wing chun class and now my forearms are beat to shit

well yoga is primarily basked on gymanstics so it makes sense

^ talking like Popeye to make his forearms feel swole

lol

my forearms are p swole tbh

More than the crowds rn it's the sheer amount of excuse making I hear and the sheer number of people doing shit they should not be doing

* asks for "liftoff"on a dumbbell press

i support all fitness aspirants on their journeys but i do hate when the gym is crowded, i studiously avoid peak hours at all times of year

is there any particular reason why I should not lift weights barefoot in my small spare room luxuriously appointed home gym?

I mean I would never go barefoot in a gym gym, but this is my house that I am barefoot in all the time anyway.

I would think as long as you are on a surface with a little bit of grip and you're not lifting super heavy, probably fine. And don't drop the weights on your foot.

I'm not lifting super heavy. My preferred lifting shoes at the gym were Chucks, so really not much better than barefoot should I have dropped a weight on my foot!

Shoes just interfere with your foot's natural dialogue with the floor maaaan

No reason at all, if you aren't slipping and sliding. At most a shoe is just going to trap some blood and make clean-up easier if you drop a weight on your foot.

at my "home gym" i go barefoot on my yoga mat or some type of matted flooring.

alternatively i use, like i mentioned upthread, my old running shoes with extra cushion.

if you're on hard flooring and lifting heavy, yeah, you don't want to use something like the frees or something

Deadlifting barefoot is great

Exercising at home led to my abandonment of a proper shirt (I just put on a sports bra), then progressed to the abandonment of shoes, and has now resulted in the abandonment of proper pants/shorts. I keep the curtain drawn, obv.

yeah! same here.

i wear loose speedo-like shorts and they are so comfy and it's good for checking alignment.

Doing some class called "bootcamp" tomorrow just for a change. Gym folks said I could do a membership with classes (one club only) for like $40/month, but they only have a couple yoga classes a week and only one vinyasa that I can realistically do (they also offer Hatha -- that's like easy bs yoga right?)

typically, vinyasa is more centered on matching breathing with motion and hatha is more about finding the pose. either option can be strenuous or either option can be lackadaisical depending on the teacher and what you bring to the mat. in other words, try stuff.

all the yoga is good and fine

Thought the bootcamp class was bullshit. My main problem was that it was v full and the dude set us up with literally EIGHT different stations, each with a circuit of two different exercises, and we were supposed to move from station to station and remember what all the exercises were. I wound up leaving because I couldn't remember what all the exercises were and the dude wasn't helping out. Figured I was better off working out then standing around figuring out what to do.

Other problem was the emphasis on pace over form -- the strength aspect gets lost that way and it just becomes glorified aerobics. First half of the class made a good warmup for lifting though.

Can finally bench my body weight.

nice

Congrats!

http://doggifpage.com/gifs/39.gif

B-)

i think i might try to clean if anyone has any tips my plan so far: watch youtubes, try it w just the bar, practice the constituent motions seperatly

BTW what is the deal w/ reverse incline bench? Like is there a reason to do it? I do incline bench sometimes assuming it works upper chest/shoulders more.

Supposedly reverse grip's better for your upper pectoral muscles.

lag∞n cleans are def my fav thing to do. just bar yes . I would work on hang cleans first just to get the turnover fluid and comfortable finishing in the front rack. plenty of youtubes out there tho

I find anything with cleans almost impossible to due to lack of wrist flexibility which I guess is something I should probably work on...

do you have to drop the bar at the end of a clean? because I don't feel like my gym is a good place to do that

No hang cleans it starts and ends mid thigh.

cool ty carne, shd mention ive been doing some front squats and have developed some minor comfort w that form

@Alex in SF, w.r.t. cleans and racking the bar, it shouldn't really be a matter of wrist flexibility unless you have injuries or the like, since if your elbows are properly forward/up, and the bar steadily on your deltoids and the very tips of your fingers, then your wrists aren't required to bend very much at all...

so more than wrist flexibility, I'd work on your rack position, getting your arms relaxed and the elbows REALLY up and the bar on the very tips of your fingers. If it's a mobility issue, it's more likely in your upper back, shoulders or triceps.

To help find the spot, and stretch your shoulders/upper back, you can take a rack position with the bar and have someone GENTLY! push your elbows upwards (while you make sure you don't lean backwards or collapse your back to compensate).

(I could be wrong and maybe you really have exceptionally stiff wrists, but it's usually getting the rack position wrong that makes people think the problem is with their wrists)

how much are you supposed to drop down when you get under the bar? i extend my hips enough to get under and rotate but somehow it feels like i'm not dropping enough.

I've been having trouble with cleans too... I'm at the point in Starting Strength where I'm supposed to add power cleans- well past it, actually, but I missed a full week for the holidays and my squat progress has been slow as hell so I gave myself a little more time- and I'm just a goddamn mess. I'm trying to break it down into three parts and practice them individually as in the book, but I'm stymied by my freakishly long monkey arms. The top position is difficult to achieve because even if I have my hands almost perpendicular to the floor I'm still jamming the bar way into my throat. Has anyone else dealt with this?

i tried hang cleans w just the bar today and this cld take a while lol didnt really feel like i was getting it at all, think maybe putting a lil more weight on there might be more informative as its so easy to just lift the bar up w yr arms i cldnt really tell if i was even doing anything

they have a whole olympic lifting area at my gym as well as some weird ass crossfit-y jungle gym thing but i think ive only seen ppl doing olympic lifts a couple times

First leg day in chucks. Depth is definitely better.

@mattrresslessness, you're meant to catch it at the height to which you pull it. you'll end up going lower naturally as you increase the weight and your technique becomes more efficient, but since it isn't a competition lift, there's no set depth you need to reach.

what you DON'T want to do is to drop lower than you pulled it and let it crash onto your shoulders.

look at Dimas; since it's easy for him to pull that weight high, he also doesn't drop much to catch it.

@lag∞n, it definitely helps to try adding some weight to the bar for cleans, since with an empty bar you can just curl it and it's hard to get a sense of the proper mechanics.

@Telephone thing, the simplest thing to facilitate your long arms would be to take a wider grip. If that doesn't help, there is something else wrong with your technique.

Can you take a front squat rack position without the clean part? imo you should practise that -it helps to do front squats, like just light ones after your regular ones or something- if it's giving you trouble, rather than trying to learn the rack position as part of a clean where you're thinking about so many other things at the same time. it's also a lot easier to learn to clean if you are comfortable with the final rack position first.

the more you get your elbows forward and up, and the more the bar is held only on your fingertips, the more of a shelf your shoulders will create for the bar and the less you'll have to bear it with your neck.

also, can you hold the bar in the rack position on your shoulders if, rather than keeping your fingers on it, you extend your arms forward without holding on to the bar, like this? if not, learn that, then come back to the normal front squat position. if yes, try the wider grip.

i was just shown this as a youtube ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oW3su_6ots

was able to get my deadlift up a little to 245x5, but grip is still a huge issue for me -- couldn't complete more than one set of five because the bar was just slipping out of my hands.

Sw0le yogin, do any of you try to hold the bandhas (locks) while lifting heavy weights? Does it feel safe and helpful?

I imagine it wouldn't work very well, since I usually feel I have to brace my core very strongly to feel safe doing squats & deadlifts. It takes a LOT more energy than holding the bandhas. Also, I do not really breathe steadily while lifting, but use it to help me with the explosive parts of the lifts. (e.g. before squatting I fill my belly with air, hold it in while squatting down, then breathe it out while standing up.)

I've yet to recognize the point of the root lock (the pelvic bandha), but that at least seems like something I *could* hold while lifting normally. I just have no idea if it would do any good.

Relatedly: I just tried a handstand for the first time in a long while, and did it better than I ever managed when I was actively practicing it. Pretty sure I have the yoga to thank for that!

After years of avoiding it like the plague, I have taken the plunge and signed myself up for the free facility in my new office building. My main objectives are a) maintaining/improving cardiovascular health, b) shedding some spare tire fat, and c) slowly turning into a short, black Hulk. Any resources/workouts that you guys recommend for someone without a trainer trying to remember his way around a gym could use to make the transition back into working out easier? (I haven't toured the facility fully yet so I am not sure if they have free weights; they definitely have machines.)

Basically I'm looking for a starting point that I can adapt to the environment I'm in.