thread of getting sw0le

if you're mad at lagoon saying "machines are bad" 10247 times just say so. machines are fine fyi.

i will not have this thread impugned!!!

Ok. Lagoon's advice on this thread is, generally speaking, fucking wack. Others on this thread have been as wack; more have been far less wack. You like?

personally, i never would've gotten near the squat rack without going to a trainer first --- i had three sessions instructing me on the most pertinent safety issues, and then i felt comfortable enough to get started on my own

if i could afford one on a regular basis, i would probably look for a sport-specific coach instead tbh

The buff dude at your local LA Fitness and the couple that took a weekend seminar to open their Crossfit gym are not going to save anyone from injury. They're also going to needlessly complicate working out (and from what I've seen/experienced of both, push you quickly to exhaustion so you feel like you've been worked out) to justify their existence and cost.

I'm also coming at it from the POV that the average person doesn't need to be doing technique-heavy Olympic lifts and super-heavy squats, unless they're training for a specific goal (weightlifting/powerlifting comps, a relevant sport). Starting light and doing what feels comfortable isn't going to put you in a lot of danger with the simple lifts.

"The buff dude at your local LA Fitness and the couple that took a weekend seminar to open their Crossfit gym are not going to save anyone from injury. "

Absolutely right. A bad trainer is worse than nothing sometimes. That's not even close to what your choices are actually limited to. Gyms and trainers want your money, so can actually shop around and talk to trainers and get their credentials and stuff -- and the best trainers are almost never at the fanciest, most expensive places, and absolutely never at the THIS NEW TECHNIQUE IS THE SECRET FOR EVERYONE!!!! places. The best training, in my experience, is at places that have a physical therapy or bodybuilding focus.

Starting light and doing what feels comfortable won't mess you up, but you can't stay there and see results -- you will get discouraged and quit or get bored and try something out -- a weight, a new technique you saw on the youtubes -- that can mess you up

You can definitely see results doing that. My number one recommendation to people is the revised 'Power to the People' template - two compound exercises at a 1x5-3-2 rep scheme. (i.e. some kind of deadlift/squat and a press. Deadlift+bench, front squat+OHP, etc. allowing you to mix and match).

Increase weight every time until you don't make one of the sets then dial back and move forward. It's quick, simple and you're not breaking yourself down so you still have the energy to hike/play basketball/whatever) but you're also progressively adding weight and you can put up good numbers.

If at any point that kind of progression completely stalls, you're at the point where you're willing to spend a lot more time in the gym and you can get into something more complicated.

The Internet's fascination with Starting Strength is kind of weird to me, though - it's a program that's based around wanting to put mass on young men to play sports. Putting on mass is the opposite of what most adults I know are aiming for with fitness.

the thread title is misleading

i'm so sorry you were misled by this totally sincere title

anyway, this was a fun, positive thread about things that are good for you and fun and interesting and now it became shitty. mostly because of dudes. no offense.

are any chixors other than harbl & yours truly even on this thread

i want to put on mass

I am doing Fitness Blender's mass program (cheap but also free if you want to put in a bit more organizational time) and redoing a small but workable spare room (aka Stevie D's room) as my lolhomegym (don't worry Stevie, it will still be your room whenever you like! No machines or anything weird like that, plus way cool WALLPAPER and fresh paint and art and shit).

Anyway all I can say is I didn't have any sustainable working out success until I tried a couple of things, and it turns out putting in at least 30 minutes at home works for me. So another cosign to the idea that whatever you can stick with is way better and more effective than whatever intimidating awkward controversial complicated whatever plan may theoretically be.

I am team harbl as far as this thread goes. Ilx's inability to read my posts as anything but 100% literally true and robotically humorless really confuses me sometimes.

The complicated thing about my program was developing it, not doing it. And I didn't develop it -- the guy who owns the gym did it, for free, when I bought the membership, and he updates it when I ask him to. There are gyms like that! They are not the super fancy expensive chains! There are many paths! I just think dudebro powerlifting internet style is one with a bunch of risks.

i am so confused. anyway i'm taking tomorrow off so i can go to the gym and interview for a new job. i'm eating a lot today to be str0ng tomorrow.

The trainer at my NYSC was great actually, really nice guy, very focused on proper form and lifting safe.

I think the whole "machines can cause a muscle imbalance" thing is probably only going to be true if you're training super hard on the machines. Just a guess though.

if you're not training super hard how you gonna get sw0le bro

There are machines and there are machines. I have seen crap machines in nice gyms. Machines do not eliminate the necessity for technique entirely, and they have to be adjusted correctly to fit your body and (sometimes) form. That's hard to do by yourself on the fly.

Been doing more stretching at the end of routines and some mobility stuff, especially working on my ability to just be in/hold/move in an ass-to-grass position without weight. Friday gonna try back squats again with lighter weight and see if I can improve form.

lighter weight? Fuck that shit . go heavy or GTFO this thread

Springboarding off of these convos, I could use some advice. I've plateaued. I work out four times a week, mostly weights (sometimes yoga or something else rotated in), and I haven't made any noticeable gains in two years. I'm naturally skinny, so bulking up is hard enough, but since suffering an AC injury (basically a soldier injury caused by overuse), I've taken the weight down to focus on not aggravating the injury, and concentrating more on my form.

It's working in that my soldier is finally feeling better, but I don't feel like I'm making the most of my workouts at all anymore. If I'm working out this much, I should be seeing gains, right? "Use more weight" is usually the answer to this question, but I'm usually using about as much as I feel safe using without re-aggregating the injury. Is there anything else I'm missing, or anything else that might work?

what has your program/progression been like? and at how advanced a point are you with your lifts?

it may help to change to a different progression (or take up one if you haven't yet) and maybe even begin working out less along with that, for a while at least. for some people, two hard lifting sessions a week is adequate and four is too much. also, maybe you can focus on different lifts for a while to work around your shoulder injury and allow it to heal properly?

You're not a professional trainer what are you doing giving advise here?

that question isn't necessarily one requiring a professional trainer. depending on how advanced Evan is, the answer may be very simple. if he is stalling because he lacks a consistent progression (which he did not specify yet) we don't require a pt to tell him to go on one.

then, we can point him to reading which will probably be more helpful to him than the majority of professional trainers.

if you are referring to the pointers on power cleans i gave above, i am not a competitive lifter but i have had my technique assessed by people competing on a national level. i know how to do those. people on the thread had problems with simple fundamental errors, and the advice was accordingly very basic and uncontroversial. most pts would be completely useless for those lifts, anyway.

xxxp - by gains do you mean muscle? regardless of what else you do, that's going to require eating more (with a reasonable amount of protein - like 1g per pound of desired lean mass or so)

xp this was totally a joke. There's context up above.

ohhh, i'm so dumb~

Oh damn sorry Yeah totally a joke. You're advice is completely welcome here as far as I'm concerned.

Your not you're obv

Thanks for the help, Hiisi! My inability to even answer your question probably says a lot about my stagnancy. I don't know what a progression means. Is that just the amount that I increase the weights by?

Ironically, I'm starting to wonder if I do need to see a trainer. Maybe I've gone as far as I can on my own? I've had some friends who know what they are doing correct me along the way, and I did Crossfit for a while (though my own workout sessions aren't nearly as intense or lift-minded as all that; I don't do too many clean and snatches or jerks or whatever those weird Olympic-style weight lift moves are called).

uh oh, I'm giving advice on the sw0le thread, I hope nobody dies

Evan, working on lifts that don't stress your shoulder is a good idea, but I would also suggest that you try to rehab your shoulder as thoroughly as possible. Often people get a persistent shoulder injury and just keep working through or around it, but unless it is clearly getting better over time (i.e, it doesn't affect your posture, you can move it through the normal range of motion without pain, its strength is steadily becoming equal to the strength of your other shoulder) you could be looking at a chronic problem that is not going to heal very well if ignored. If that is the case, you can do a lot to fix your shoulder in a relatively short period of time, but continuing the same workout is probably not part of the solution.

A trainer might be able to help with this. Better still, see a sports-oriented physical therapist; a few visits could change your shoulder situation completely.

Or take your life in your hands, do some Googling on "shoulder injury rehabilitation" and "shoulder mobility," experiment until you find a few non-weighted exercises that feel good, and do them on your own. I was complaining about Kelly Starrett upthread, but it's worth looking at his YouTube videos about shoulder mobility and exploring some of his recommended exercises. A physical therapist is a big help in a situation like this because he or she can show you what to do, coach you to do it well, and give feedback on how it should feel, but if you are careful and patient and use good judgement about the difference between discomfort and pain, you can accomplish a lot of rehabilitation work by yourself.

There are all kinds of other workouts you can do while you are getting your shoulder right.

Keep talking shit & I'll turn this into a picture thread, including befores. You'll die from choking on vomit.

If you haven't had a doc look at the shoulder, it might be worth a visit and some PT. Friend (Crossfit guy) who had persistent shoulder pain for over a year finally went in and it turned out he had a torn labrum and needed surgery.

Yeah, I saw a pair of orthopedists about the shoulder two years ago; the smart one who diagnosed it wasn't overly concerned about it. He told me the exercises to avoid (presses, especially at certain angles); so I started doing lots of flies instead. Gradually I've worked more press-type exercises back into my routine as the shoulder as gotten better. It took a long time (AC injuries aren't nearly as serious as other shoulder issues, but man, they linger), but it rarely ever bothers me anymore, so mostly I'm being cautious.

I'd like to work dips back into my routine, because I felt I saw results from those, but I think those are especially bad on the shoulders. Haven't found a good replacement for those.

I feel like honestly I just need to ramp up the amount of weight I lift by like 20%, because I could handle that, but I am a little nervous about injuring something.

does your gym have one of those helper foot lever things for pull-ups? a lot of those have middle set of bars for doing assisted dips

Yeah I used to use that machine all the time for pull-ups and chin-ups; now I use a pull-bar to sort of simulate the same moves without actually lifting my whole body. Maybe it's time to get back on that machine and see how it feels.

I also used to use the tricep press machine (which was essentially like a dip machine), and I was always able to do A LOT of weight on that one, relative to ppl much bigger than me. I miss that machine; I was good at it.

The Nautilus assisted-dip machine is really good, if you happen to have a Nautilus-equipped gym nearby.

I believe general recommendation for pull ups and dips is to use bands rather than the machines for the assists since you building better supporting muscles in that fashion, but I am not a professional weight lifting advice giver.

Most dip machines are pretty bad -- the current Nautilus model is an exception that's easy to find around.

I don't know what brand our pullup/dip assist machine is but it's the kind where you put your knees on a flat platform and I really hate using it (I do unassisted dips but my pullups are not very strong). Something about putting your legs/knees in that position seems to inhibit the movement/posture you want for a good pullup and probably for dips as well.

Something about putting your legs/knees in that position seems to inhibit the movement/posture you want for a good pullup and probably for dips as well.

OTM in ime . I worked on those stupid things forever and it really didn't help with my PU or Dips much at all.Not until i started using some bands and doing a lot of negative work was i able to get my first PU .

They are definitely better if you are overweight-but-not-weak, but I have also left those machines behind.

also good for building PU strength are Ring Rows with like TRX straps/rings

Inverted rows on rings or a TRX--style thing are pretty much my favorite upper body exercise.

I do lots of those! Do they give you good results?

Right now I'm looking for some good arm exercises. I want bigger arms.

dips + pullups

I have found the lifter wisdom to be true that if you want bigger arms, just do your standard pulling/pushing exercises (dips, pullups, bench press, pulldowns, rows, etc). No need for separate arms work.

pullups are the best

unfortunately i can only do like five these days. i've been meaning to try a weighted pullup routine, outlined here, as it is supposedly very, very effective (or so the authors claim).

I haven't done a curl or a tricep press in many months but my arms are bigger than they ever were when I did that kind of stuff.