thread of getting sw0le

did bad plate math and accidentally added 15# to my squat (which is still much lower than my pre surgery best tho)

Saw my first altitude mask dude, on the treadmill.

those are so stupid

I only knew about them previously bc of Infinite Elgintensity videos.

young kids are not allowed in the weights area but 4 of them escaped from their guardian and were playing on everything, mostly not hurting themselves though i felt the need to keep an eye on them. i was deadlifting. one said "can you seriously lift that?" i said yes. i was only warming up lol. i did it and he said wow you're strong. then he asked me how much i weigh.

kinda felt like that kid yesterday when the guy opposite me was squatting 405#

I don't even want to be able to squat 405, or at least I don't want to develop the kind of mostruous thighs one seems to need to do so. I'd be happy to just get to two plates for reps.

i bought a belt!

https://www.andersonpowerlifting.com/Anderson-Powerlifting-Single-Prong-Belt-p/kla-single-prong-4in-belt.htm

felt pretty good. not necessarily easier but... different. i think it helped a little but it'll take some getting used to, for sure. if you're not in good position, it digs like crazy. so there's that. my squats are still woeful so i'm hoping for something to change my habits tbh.

my gym has a supply of belts available, and when I was lifting heavier i thought they were really helpful!

thinking i might invest in proper shoes before a belt, though

erg'd for an hour today, feels good man

also: very much endorse Strong.app at this point

Is a rowing machine a good workout if you wanna bulk up a bit? I'm thinking about getting a rowing machine

i don't think it is but on the other hand you probably will get fit as fuck

it's not really good for bulking up

rowing machine while it works lots of muscles the resistance from pulling/pushing is not enough for strength training

it's a good cardio machine

yeah I was wondering if it would work that back muscles a bit. It's a calorie burner for sure but bulk is the main concern for me

are you trying to strengthen your lats? or bulk up in general?

if you are currently not very muscular or, like, not "toned" or whatever then yes, it actually should add some bulk --- cf cycling/running where even without any add'l resistance training your legs will hypertrophy and get defined. see also nordic skiing.

if, though, "bulking up" means a LOT of mass, then you'll want resistance training.

i'm doing it at relatively low intensity for long periods of time to help train up my fat metabolism and aerobic endurance.

i mean you guys have to consider the fact that most hypertrophic/body-building programs are generally programmed around high reps to failure

a long, slow steady-state rowing sesh will generally train your metabolism and do a bit for hypertrophy/definition

if, though, you pull a lot of watts in short intense interval sessions, that's really no different at all from doing a couple sets of deadlifts with high reps

I'm skinny and have some lean muscle on me, but it's a struggle to add any mass. Toning what I have would be nice, but most of what I do at the gym is for bulk (bench presses, that sort of thing), so rowing can be a nice break from that. I also like the aspect of just checking out for a half an hour, instead of having to calculate what set of what I'm going to do next

there's truth to what gbx says, and it sounds like it could apply to you evan

but if you're working out the rest of your body, you will plateau with rowing

however maybe for you at the point where you plateau you don't mind that size you'll be at and your proportion and it'll all be fine

you'll see cyclists have massive thighs and cows because they focus on the bottom muscles and they'll go uphill, downhill, etc -- in short, they're out there in the wild, which is the best workout, because you are getting challenged by all sorts of variables when you are placed in a real world environment, so your chances of plateauing are reduced, unless you cycle on flat grounds, the same way to and from work, etc

rowing machine gives you limited movement and the environment is very controlled

the reason i asked about lats vs bulking in general is because i wanted to recommended swimming if you want to bulk in general. you're out in a more natural environment so there are dozens of ways your muscles are challenged and you can focus on your back a lot if you desire

i've had to stop running as a cardio workout cos of recurring hip pain, so I swapped to rowing and I'm certain I'm seeing good results so far. No, not a bulking thing, but I've lost weight and I'm sure certain core muscles feel a lot stronger

one additional nice thing about rowing is the data: it can tell you how many calories you've burnt (more accurately than estimations of say running), which is helpful if you're trying to lose or gain weight

also, significant bulking isn't gonna happen if you're in caloric debt, so it might be helpful to check out cronometer

I should try to give swimming another shot. Man that works a lot of muscles. It's very exhausting.

I joined a more expensive gym in part because it has a pool, but I never use the pool because it's such an ordeal, showering, changing, navigating the germ-ridden locker room floor like it's hot lava and my feet will immediately rot off from athlete's foot if it makes contact

finally back up to pre surgery weights in the squat and DL, which is nice

neiss.

what did you have worked on?

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/picture10_8.jpg

i'm trying new things in the gym and having fun. also i'm trying to shed some of those winter pounds. by winter i mean the past 6 years of always having the same weight just because. like 10 lbs only, i'm not a total whale.

i had ACL surgery in January, which precipitated some pretty significant atrophy* in my right leg, particularly of the vastus medialis (the teardrop shaped lump on the inside of your leg, above the knee). lifting has been beneficial in many ways, but one that i did not anticipate was simply being able to track recovery. knowing that my numbers are where they were the week before surgery suggests we may be fully functional pretty soon

*interestingly, this is actually not the result of a lack of activity, but can actually be thought of as muscle ~wasting~. the surgeon said it was thought to be a physiological response to the surgery itself, and that it wasn't well understood why it happens. pretty neat.

i did some rowing today. i try to do more.

I'm thinking about hiring a trainer just to like talk to for an hour or so about goals n stuff? It was a totally negative experience last time, but I think I just need to be clear about what I want, which is for someone to look at my torso and be, like "ok, you need to develop this muscle group, here's an exercise to do it, don't do too much of this other one or you'll look unbalanced, come back in three months". Does that kind of trainer even exist? What would they be called?

i also did some rowing today, it was hot as hell, it felt good and also bad

my feelings exactly

gravel, i don't know. i'm just interested to know what's wrong with your torso.

gp if u do compound lifts your torso will look 💯

hi Gravel!

hihi DL! How is your search for swole going?

Tracer I do mainly compound stuff and I'm not dissatisfied! I'm a gym idiot and I've had to figure out a lot of stuff through google to complement what I was doing - like two months ago I worked out I managed to mentally translate "like the shoulder? but like the kind of indefinable nonspecific bigness of the shoulder?" into "rear delt" and it was a big breakthrough, so I'm after more stuff like that I guess.

What body part

I'll try to up some scans from my muscle parts book

don't believe him gp he always says he's going to up the body part scans but then after like 5 days you get like one elbow flexor

Lol

Damn baby y u play me like dat

was challenged by tracer so had to put up or shut up

this ones 4 u T

raw dawg

http://imgur.com/a/DYgYW

that is a cool book. what is it? my favorite muscle is the trapezius.

Strength training anatomy by frederic delavier

Some of the advice is outdated but it's a book that at least some people used in some bio classes in vancouver, canada because it has all the muscle and bone names with illustrations

There are other books similar to it if you look for human kinetics

Oh meant to post the link as well

https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Training-Anatomy-Frederic-Delavier/dp/0736092269

i ordered it because i have no discipline on amazon. i rowed again. i think i'll do this 2x/week. i did 200m hard/2 min rest 5 times last time, 6 times today, i'll try to work up to 10x then try some other interval. i try to keep similar splits and i have been pretty successful at that. 6 was a lot harder than 5 but that's after a long day of work and stuff. it was very satisfying.

I don't know if it's something you are interested in but he has a women's version out too

Not sure how good it is but it's geared towards how a woman's body's muscles are distributed and what movements women can or cannot do with either lesser or greater difficulty

Strength training anatomy goes into some of that but it's pretty much either neutral or geared towards men

I bought this book a very long time ago so haven't read it in detail in a while but at the time I was working on building stronger triceps and one bad thing this book recommends is doing tricep dumbbell kickbacks which is totally not okay and what i think did some minor damage to some of my joints/ligaments around that area

lol i like how the women's version says "your illustrated guide to shape and tone -abs -back -legs -buttocks" and the men's has none of that. i just wanna look at the pictures. i got all the same muscles. mostly.

i will never do a triceps kickback

Haha that's when i first started lifting

I was a total n00b and thankfully didn't make too many horrible mistakes

i also rowed today

i just did ~45min of steady state (HR under 140), with one minute at the end of all-out and 3min of cool-down

because i am a nerd for data i've been using an app, PainSled, which connects to the concept2 via bluetooth and then uploads yr sesh to an online logbook

it's taken a while (~1.5mo) but it's gratifying to see my average wattage (a slightly more precise rendering of 500m split) at a ~135bpm HR slowly tick upwards

i'm the only person at my gym that does long steady-state workouts, though, so i sometimes feel like a weenie grinding out 45-60min of 90-100W while some crossfit monster gets on the machine next to me and pulls 2-3x that much, even if it's only for short intervals

also the oly lifting gang was practicing together and it's a little chastening to see these guys (who are, granted, very experienced and v sw0le) snatching what i deadlift

my favorite things lately are dead bugs on the bosu ball and jogging on the curved manual treadmill. 10 minutes of the latter completely kicks my ass and if the readings are to be believed burns 300 calories.