thread of getting sw0le

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.

oh i had plantar fascitis but now it's better, yay! really stiff inserts and cutting way back on frequency worked. it also forced me to start running right (on my toes) and now cramping doesn't happen nearly as much.

wait what is wrong with a tricep kickback

one thing i'm looking forward to w/r/t The Move Across Country is that there are two (two!) gyms within walking distance of my apartment, one climbing one "lol black iron", that, together, will cost less per month than my current spa-style fancy gym (which i can only afford due to an institutional discount)

oh i had plantar fascitis but now it's better, yay! really stiff inserts and cutting way back on frequency worked. it also forced me to start running right (on my toes) and now cramping doesn't happen nearly as much.

I have plantar fasciitis that turned out to be caused by a tear in my plantar fascia, part of the litany to things that suck about my feet and have only presented as I got older. We should have a thread to complain about the rolling onset of decrepitude (gout, cholesterol....)

wait what is wrong with a tricep kickback

― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Tuesday, June 20, 2017 8:04 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it depends what your goals are and how much strength and muscle you have in your arm already

kickbacks focus very narrowly on a small part of your tricep that engage it only when your forearm is close to a horizontal position. this isn't bad i guess but it is limited and what i found was that my mobility and stability when doing kickbacks was very difficult to maintain/control, and though i was getting results, i was forcing my arm to move in a way that felt unnatural to me. i felt little support, because i was standing with knees slightly bent or when half of my body was resting on a seat while the other half was being exercised. i think if you already have strong arms, you can do these and not feel any issues, so they'd be good to maintain strength and muscle

when i started doing tricep extensions, specifically while lying down, like skull crushers, i felt that i had more support and that more parts of my triceps were being worked out, so i felt like i had more control. there was also the added advantage that because of this, i was gaining size across more muscles in that group, so i just felt stronger

I'm finally starting to make progress on my lifts again after a solid month out of the gym (between a very sick cat who needed nearly round-the-clock care, followed by two weeks of first me, then my partner getting miserably sick) had me spinning my wheels, but I'm going to be without access to a proper gym for almost a month starting July 8 while doing a study abroad program :(

I need to figure out what to do instead but I have no idea; I'm gangly enough that classic body weight stuff like pushups is unreasonably hard compared to comparable free weight exercises

it also forced me to start running right (on my toes) and now cramping doesn't happen nearly as much.

― The times they are a changing, perhaps (map), Tuesday, June 20, 2017 7:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

forefoot strike is good but not the only way to run correctly, right?

another way is midfoot strike because the impact is absorbed at the most stable part where it can diffuse the impact evenly

a heal strike is bad because it is the weakest and hits your ankle (weak) and runs up to your hip and spine

when i was training for a half marathon i used a midfoot strike then changed to a forefoot strike to gain speed. nice thing about forefoot strikes is that they work your calves the most out of all three strides. going on a hike with some incline and doing a light jog with a forefoot strike is an awesome work out for the calves

how did i miss PainSled! lol awesome

dude it's the best

(...if you love logging data, which i do)

i think my gym's ergs are all PM3. i could plug into usb but nah. i completed 7 repeats today. it was hell but i could have done another prob.

i did 8 today. that one on 6/24 was my last until 7/16 because i got a cold then i went on vacation. it is entertaining but also horrible how much harder each successive repetition is. i'm going to do 8 again next time, then move up to 9, dear sw0lemates.

i take picture
https://i.imgur.com/wkf6Lww.jpg

The former World Champion in Powerlifting Squats pointed me out as an example of correct form while I was working out today. OK, I was doing bicep curls and what the hell does a squat guy know about those, but still...

moving has completely disrupted my regimen, so it's been a month(!) since i've lifted (though i've been to the climbing gym a few times)

apparently i'm a ten minute walk from this place, which i guess is super legit, in addition to being super affordable

prolly gonna check it out this week

that looks awesome!

Yeah, that's exactly what you're looking for -- if the vibe is right, do it.

that place looks dope!

think i'm gonna go check it out today!

I did the unthinkable and left my headphones at home when I went to the gym Tuesday. Then I did it again Wednesday. Now I think I kind of like it? You can get a lot more done, sometimes, when you aren't fiddling around with the endless library of music on your phone

harbl those are good times. you must be tall

lol i am tall but i also have lots of experience on these demon machines

pretty sure i had a dream i was randomly in albuquerque and sheepishly asked gbx if i could go to the gym with him

i probably have said this every year of this thread's existence (don't ctrl+f me) but this year i was going to do a chin-up. i have only started working hard on in in the last month by doing flexed arm hangs and negative chin-ups. much like the time i figured out overhead pressing i feel like i had an epiphany today. at first i got so sore in my abs for days, and i had trouble not swinging too much from the bar after jumping up (i use a big box thing and jump the rest of the height to get up) and contracting my abs hard enough for a long time but boy do you get better at it fast. also it helps to combine them. if i just try to do a negative chin-up right off the bat i hang on my elbows too much. if i hold for several seconds then slowly descend it's much cleaner. i have to think of pulling myself more sideways toward the bar, not up.

i think i get a free guest, so cmon down

so far the new gym seems Good

i might be intimidated by a place like that tbh! are dudes yelling "GRAHHH!" and throwing the weights down and shit?