thread of getting sw0le

Congrats on this prestigious award!

Did you give an acceptance speech, that might have been a good time to work in some anti fanny-pack-guy rhetoric.

haha. i can't tell how the gym staff feels about him. he is always talking to them. and he attempts to talk to me. that day we had the sleet and freezing rain event but it had ended around 10 and the roads were totally fine a couple hours later. when i got there he was like "did you drive here? how are the roads?" i told them they're fine but thought wtf guy have you been here since 7 am or is this just the dumbest question you could think of? he is always making tons of noise lifting more weight than he should be like RARRRRRRGHHHGHGHGHGH and then making a little "woo!" when he's resting. i'm bigger than him. lol. and why the fanny pack? why why why?

i went 14 times between thanksgiving and now. or was it 16? then i got bronchitis and had xmas travel. i never like to go to the gym in january but i guess i'll go tomorrow.

i mean i got bronchitis starting like a week ago and was working too much before that too so i haven't been in two weeks now!

i was the 5th person in the gym today. i still don't have full lung function. it was hard. in 2017 i really am going to do a pullup. and i'm going to bench 50 lb dumbbells for 3 sets of 10. that one's not really so far away i think....maybe.

goals for this year:
215 incline press max
20 consecutive pull ups (this may be impossible)
225 squat max

Maybe I will do a full push up this year, but probably not. Why the fuck are they so hard for me?

for me too. tall ladies problems.

except for the guy with the fanny pack that i am trying to plot how to ban from the gym

misread this as "the guy with the fanny pack that i am trying to plow"

trying to plow with a snowplow, not trying to have sex wth

with, but also wth

The gym is always so crowded after the new year. Especially at one of the gyms I go it, it really stresses me out. I hate feeling like I have to fight to use a machine or weight

how is everyone doing in this crowded season

shouts to the middle-aged dude -- in pretty impressive shape, mind you -- lifting in kidskin gardening gloves

i went swimming today

Not crowded in my tiny spare room where I do things (not pilates) myself. I also work out in my underwear and barefoot because why not.

I have decided I hate all mat pilates stuff and I'm just not gonna. At all. Possibly ever again.

i have been 5 times. it hasn't been too bad. except this one guy showed up saturday morning. i have never seen him before. things were quiet and then he started running around like a caveman and throwing weights and going RRRRRRRRARRR HRRRRRGH *clunk* GGGGGRRRRRR. very rude imo.

i don't think i'm going to accomplish my goal of 16 times in january. at most 14. i have been 10. that's still almost 50% of the days! i got sleep deprived and busy last week and worked for 8 hours yesterday so i failed. i'm doing a good job though. very sw0le.

i am doing a cobbled-together 2-day version of the 5/3/1 system, with a lot of low-weight assistance reps (the BBB or "boring but big" variation). i'm starting with weights really very low on some of the major lifts, trying to give an uncooperative hip and hamstrings a lot of work without crazy shocks or strains. it's been fun so far!

hi sw0le, every 6-8 weeks I need to switch up my gym routine (right? this is how it works?), and I basically have someone give me a list of things to do.

What is a good quick way to learn about and understand how all of this works so that I can easily develop e new routine that will work w/ the limits of my body (extremely limited range of joint motion due to medical condition, etc)? Don't say Starting Strength.

There's no reason to change your gym routine until you're not making progress on what you're doing.

I'm not making progress AND I'm also using too many machines and want to work more towards free weights.

I mean re: 'every 6-8 weeks I need to switch up my gym routine' - a beginner can set a routine and probably not deviate for at least a year (whether free weights or machines, if the machines go high enough).

I can't really help re: range of mobility but I think something like this is useful: http://danjohn.net/2014/09/five-movements-that-will-make-an-impact-overnight/

Specifically the '5 movements' idea. You can take that and fit whatever exercises you can do into it.

Carries - literally just carry two dumbbells or kettlebells for a set amount of distance/laps, increase weight as you get better at it
Squat - you don't have to barbell back squat - bodyweight squats are good, goblet squats (squatting holding a dumbbell to your chest)
Pull - rows - whether inverted where you pull your bodyweight up to a bar or traditional barbell row; pull-ups are also one obvs.
Push - overhead press/bench press
Hinge - deadlift/KB swing are the major ones

Pull and push are the easiest to do on a machine and for mobility compromises I don't think there's anything wrong with pressing and rowing on a machine (esp. if your gym has the plate-loaded Nautilus/Hammer Strength style)

I get the 'no Starting Strength' thing - IMO, unless you're a kid wanting to gain mass to play football, it beats you up too much, specifically barbell squats. For more detail and to get someone to fit a program to your abilities/compromises, you probably need to find one good trainer in your city to spend an hour going over things and designing a simple program.

There's no reason to pay someone to continually change your program up. Build a foundational program around that stuff and you'll be on the same plan for a year.

in January i've managed to go from attending gym an average of 2-3 times a week to 4-5 and I'm already feeling/seeing results. it's time consuming though and while I'm enjoying it more than ever, I don't know how easy it'll be to keep it up, especially when the summer comes and there'll be more impetus to go to a pub garden in the evenings.

still, it feels good and I'm pretty proud of it. I weigh less than I have done in probably about 10 years and I'm actually noticing a little muscle appearing.

not sure if there's anything I should do outside of workouts to help things along. I eat fairly healthily anyway - protein / vegetable rich diet etc. my workouts tend to last about 90 minutes - mostly machine weights, squats, coreball exercises for now with a bit of cardio thrown in for good measure.
I'm still quite far off what I'd like to be health-wise. I'm down to about 181lbs fr about 190 last year. it's only really recently happened too. I didn't used to be able to run for any length of time but now I find it increasingly easy and my endurance is getting a lot better but I still find about 10mins of constant running fairly exhausting.
some weights are getting a lot easier and I am slowly increasing the weight on those exercises.
weirdly, some things are just as difficult as ever and some things actually feel harder than when I started out. bicep curls for example (I use a machine) I end up failing on on the third set whereas I swear it never used to happen. triceps are much easier.
I also hurt my back about a week ago. I wasn't working out, I was cleaning my trainers in the bath and felt a twinge and ended up having to take the next day off work.
I wonder if I'm doing enough to strengthen my core. my posture has always been dreadful which is half the reason I started going to the gym in the first place, but I only know a few core exercises which I've been doing for years and years anyway.

failing sooner may mean you need a couple days of rest, imo. i find curls to be pretty hard though. i don't really progress on them. my ceps get bigger still.

men explain things to me: gym edition

was it fanny pack man

I wonder if I'm doing enough to strengthen my core. my posture has always been dreadful which is half the reason I started going to the gym in the first place, but I only know a few core exercises which I've been doing for years and years anyway.

maybe try planking every day. set a time record for how long you last and keep trying to beat it. it might be worth seeing a personal trainer for 4/5 sessions - just to give you ideas about how to work. they aren't necessarily really expensive.

it was not fanny pack man because i purposely go in the morning now on the weekends just to avoid him :)

Unabashed newbie req: seeking app recommendations to help generate routines/tracking. I can not afford personal training and also am still a pretty big novice.

(and by "pretty big," I of course mean scrawny)

look!

https://theawl.com/the-awlcast-returns-4385f425d20f#.za30c4pow

i like the swole woman but the dude on that podcast needs to not be there. annoying. speaking of annoying, i made the mistake of going later in the day yesterday and fanny pack was there and despite my best efforts to avoid him he kept talking to me. he was like "how have you been? haven't seen you in a while!" i was like i've been going in the morning [intentionally, because you're not there in the morning]" then he was asking me if it's hard to get used to going in the afternoon after going in the morning. no. i know i'm a rude person but why can't people understand when you aren't interested in talking to them? i was watching him decline bench as his butt lifted off the bench and his fanny pack kept going up and down.

as i try different times though i realize it's impossible to avoid being in the gym at the same time as whatever man feels the need to make tons of noise and drop weights on the ground for no reason. there are 4 of them now.

i want to be the boss of the gym and ban people who break my arbitrary rules

i need to figure out how to get swole while my dumb leg is in a brace

i know i'm a rude person but why can't people understand when you aren't interested in talking to them?

this is a key question, about life

sorry about your leg gb :(

Still terrible at squatting, but pleased to note that over an interminable 6-ish months of slow cutting I lost about 20 pounds. It's to the point where my squat has deteriorated noticeably and my other lifts are starting to slip, so I'm going back to eating a surplus again and trying the Texas Method- I get the impression that there's no "best" intermediate program, so I might as well pick one that seems to cater to my issues with consistent day-to-day levels of effort. Light day! YAY

it must suck to be a woman at the gym. despite mine being really busy, one of the added bonuses for me is that it's time where I can be left alone with my thoughts and don't have to talk to people. from what my female friends tell me, this isn't really an option for them

in other news I had a pt session last week (rare, because as I say, I don't like having any interaction with ANYONE at the gym if I can help it). anyway, I got shown the triangle method of trying fewer, much harder reps in a set, and it's worked wonders. even my bicep curl seems to have improved overnight. using the barbell to squat too, whereas I was doing goblet squats before.

that is something about life in general as a woman, not just the gym. and i should note that the vast majority of people at my gym do leave me alone.

yeah it's only because someone I know specifically mentioned the gym as a place they get a lot of 'social interest' being displayed, but she said it in such a matter-of-fact way ('some people see the gym as a social club') that it through stuff into perspective as that's absolutely not my personal experience. I do notice it happening around me though - there's always a lot of chat around the rowing machines for some reason

*threw

thx goole

i have been cleared to use machines while seated, which offends my sensibilities, but i'll manage

machines?? i'll need to see some sw0lthorization for that

i'll grant a waiver

it's only temporary i swear

*crosses arms like mr clean* can you at least stick to cables

the gym was HORRIBLE tonight. it's really warm and humid right now so it was extra hot in there. it didn't help there were like 900 people there including my second least favorite screaming nutcase. last week i gave him the stinkeye and i think he noticed. my stinkeye is extra bad. also a guy was there with his girlfriend and he took the barbell off the bench press and got on the scale with it to weigh it. i wanted to just tell him but i felt it might embarrass him more.