thread of getting sw0le

it's what they tell me! but i just find myself rocking back on my heels. possibly a flexibility thing as i've had painful hips for a while now that's exasperated by something i do at the gym. i just can't keep my feet flat

not everyone can keep their knees behind their toes due to skeleton. can you goblet squat? it will work on your flexibility and having the weight in front will keep you from rocking back.

yes that is a good idea!

really think about spreading your knees as wide as possible too -- narrow knees will push your butt back (try squatting with your feet/knees planted together for illustration)

my gym relocated to a different part of the building in order to expand and hoowee

there are eleven (11!) squat racks now

this morning was the first time i'd been back in yonks and i've lost like 40# on my squat :((((

it'll come back quick, do not stress

it was a lil demoralizing though i gotta say

Dog Latin: first of all, be patient and persistent. Squat form can take a lot of time and practice to get, even on a basic level. Second, using flat shoes (chucks) and eventually switching to socks only made a huge difference in my stability, although I fall forward rather than rock back.

It snowed therefore only like 3 people in the gym. I’ve been doing my best squats ever. Squats without frontiers, rows without tears

lol

I bench pressed 100 lbs finally. Sad!

Thanks for the tips guys. Every time I think I've mailed the squat, someone seems to come along and say 'no no you're doing it all wrong, here let me help's and it just puts me off. I'll be persistent and keep trying. Yes goblet squats seem a bit easier

hold the kettlebell/dumbbell right against your chest and it's almost impossible to have the wrong form

105 lbs. i have been getting so stronger this month. new gym has helped immensely. 3 flat benches and 4 squat racks = i have never ever had to wait or been rushed. let's see how it goes after january 1.

while i was benching two dudes came to squat and one was talking about how his knee is fucked up so he can't really squat. it was just posturing. these were the worst squats ever. i thought they would both snap their spines in half. i keep thinking about how males are given this veil of expertise about lifting and how women are harmed by always being taught they can't do it, ask a man. one of them brought his gf and she was trying things and he was giving her the worst advice. every time i see a girl trying to learn from her boyfriend i feel sad. yesterday a scrawny guy was helping his girl leg press and he told her "i can do like 600 pounds." i want to whisper in their ears "don't listen to him, he doesn't know shit."

Yeah, any dude impressed with himself for his leg press numbers has no fucking idea. FWIW I see a lot of women at my gym who are beast at lifting.

The other day I saw a dude doing these weird half-squats where he went up on his toes at the top of the squat. No idea whether that's a real thing or not but it looked kind of funny.

I recently (sorry to be gross) had a cyst drained that was next to my shoulder blade. It had become quite large and inflamed. Ever since that huge lump is gone my lifting is much better, hadn't realized how much it was impacting my mobility. Today got my deadlift back up to 305 x 3.

sometimes i browse ilx and get nostalgic for fannypack stories?

i kno harbl is better off in this other place but still

the women in my gym who do lift are better at it too. there was another girl in the corner after them and i was like wow perfect.

i often daydream about seeing fanny pack on the street and him asking me, "where did you go?" and i say "oh, i switched gyms, too many people were talking to me at the y all the time" and he'd be too un-self-aware to get it.

ha classic fanny pack

Overhead press is back to 135 x 3, and I got my squat to 205 x 5.

So I’ve been torn for a while between strength gains and fat loss. Since I started lifting I’m up from about 170 to 193, and while a lot of that is muscle I haven’t lost fat and may have even gained some. It seems like it’s prerty hard for a guy in his late 30s to lose fat and build muscle at the same time. One thing I’m thinking is just to get my lifting numbers up out of the “novice” range and to respectable “intermediate” numbers, then just focus on maintaining my numbers and losing fat — more HIIT or whatever, less lifting.

eat right, that is the only trick, everything else will fall into place. don't worry about the insane amounts recommended by gomad bros

Maybe so, but I find it very hard to eat enough to gain while losing fat. IIRC we are different body types and I'm starting out from a tendency to have a gut, whereas I think you're a naturally thinner dude.

you can eat a lot it just needs to be good real food iirc

i may not be the best guide though because i have kind of given up "gains" as a goal and am just working on lifting more weight.. the two are not unrelated obv and my progress is slow but i'd rather go a bit slower and not have to worry about some weirdo bulking regimen. i do eat more than i did before but it's p much all good food, no shakes, no calories for their own sake

Met a trainer today and he basically said I could gain strength and lose fat, but not gain muscle mass and lose fat. I figure that's a good goal for a while, since I feel like my body fat has gone a little too far, not to mention the whole "slippery slope" of fat gain. I have room to improve in my lifts without needing more muscle mass. He also said I should be eating like 200g protein (I weigh 195) and I'm just not sure how to achieve that except multiple servings of whey powder per day. Guess I need to keep some at the office.

He also checked my overhead press, squat and deadlift. Squat he had me switch to low bar and it was a revelation, so much more comfortable for me. Deadlift he got me to fix my form pretty much instantly -- brought my feet closer together and the bar closer to my legs and was able to convey how I could tighten my back more and lock out better at the top. The whole thing about "dragging the bar up your legs" is right.

My overhead press is pretty much fine according to him, and that's also my best lift, the only one where I'm getting pretty close to "intermediate" standards.

FWIW yesterday I accidentally bench pressed 10 over my prior best by accidentally adding 35s on the set where I meant to add 25s. I had previously done 195, hit 205.

yay!
i have a cold
i was in line at the fancy costco today and a guy (older) told a kid (~22?) who had whey protein in his cart about how milk is a KNOWN CARCINOGEN and it's DOCUMENTED and he would never do that to himself or his family. i didn't hear how this conversation started but i know the kid did not ask him. what an asshole. i hate that costco because i keep going there because it's bigger but they never have what i want somehow. like this one replaces the conventional things with organic. howard county, md. so special.

sorry abt yr cold harbz

kid at work tried lecturing me abt milk too (he overheard me saying i drink 1gal of milk a week which doesnt seem like a lot to me anyway)

then im like

dude you fucking smoke cigarettes on your breaks

what a dickweed

forgot to update on my sw0leness

had a failed attempt a week and a bit ago so just kept stretching

then this last weekend i lifted (legs) and felt good. no pain while lifting and felt a little 'tickle' once the day after around the groin area

will start back on the rest of my body next weekend. definitely feel weaker and lost muscle mass bc i cut down on foods

which talking about that

man alive

200g of protein seems like a ridiculous amt

ime its very easy to overeat

ive heard guys skipping a meal once a week but eating whatever on the weekend

i dont skip meals but when im not lifting i definitely eat way less, i also dont eat simple carbs mon-thurs, but fri,sat,sun i eat whatever i want

removing simple carbs (breads, pastas, potatoes, white rice) from my weekdays has reduced my gut by a lot

if im lifting and i feel tired during the week ill have one day where ill have simple carbs of my choice and just the right amt

u kinda have to kno yr body to kno how much simple carbs to eat and preferably eat it earlier in the day or a few hours before a workout

i also dont drink sugary stuff, unless its a beer (1 if its a weekday, on weekends i might have 2 or even 3 but thats rare). i eat lots of fruits though

losing fat and building muscle mass is very hard so i say that aligns w my experience

muscle building is a slow process anyway though

good luck

i don't believe that 1 lb per gram thing is true. i believe you should eat a lot of protein and it makes me feel better about life when i do but see how much you are regularly eating before you go nutz on it. i'm not a professional just some idiot on the internet. if i have 2 scoops of protein powder, 50 g (about 40 g of protein i think?) it's easy for me to get 150g though.

at the most i was consuming 125g and eatings eggs like a mf'er

honestly my body felt weird and i had weird pain around my pelvis i wanna say?

protein is very harsh on your pancreas so just be aware of how your body feels i say?

but ya im no expert, just kno what feels right for my body

1.25-1.5g per kg imo

what are kg

I had read (a long time ago) it’s usually kg (kilograms) of actual muscle mass not total body mass

That was kinda my guide til 125+ grams of protein started making me feel like crap

FWIW I’ve lost like 3lbs this week with no effort to actually reduce the total amount I ate and just focusing more on lean protein and vegetables/fruits and cutting back on simple carbs. I ate three or four eggs each morning instead of two but no cheese and had roast chicken breast with vegetables each time I had to eat fast food lunches.

i just did a sw0le dab in your honour

it's like a normal dab but stiffer because of the big guns

Kiss them guns hun

best of luck to all of you going to a gym in early january!!

lol yeah i decided to take a few weeks off from lifting for the occasion. might hit up a yoga studio a couple times though just to stay loose

i moved cross country and we had a baby in october so i popped my first squat in ... almost a year? last week. i was holding the baby (16b) in a goblet squat config. i think i would have got down below horizontal but i heard the rip in my jeans growing so turned around. that's my exercise story for 2017. have to wait until march to get back in the gym though.

caek had baby omg congrats!

also lol at baby goblet squat

lol caek

i went today. it was not bad at all. i was surprised. most people were going to classes. i went upstairs to the "cardio deck" to use one non-cardio thing and i was like oh that's where you all are.
in january harbl's homemade plan is i will focus on squatting good then i am allowed to do 3 other things that i want to do in no particular order then i must leave.

lol, just today I performed the "toddler lunge," which is where you have to hold your crying toddler while also getting down to the ground to pick up her blanket. Lifting has really made me a better parent.

hoping to get better at lifting and pulling heavy things this year

post-xmas hips so tight :/

I have a crowdsourcing request: I need an (unintentionally) ridiculous inspirational lifting meme/poster image, plz make suggestions

Man, switching to low-bar squat definitely set me back a little on weight while I get used to the form, but OTOH the movement is so much smoother and more natural for me now.

One issue I'm having is that it seems less easy/natural for me to keep the bar pinned to my back, like it's going to fall if I don't hold it tightly against me, which takes more energy at higher weights. Should I be leaning forward slightly at the top to create a "shelf" for it?

yeah there is a definite lean forward. try to keep your head looking straight-(ish) ahead and chest big. it's totally okay for your elbows to be flying backward. they sort of have to. something i still struggle with is trying to keep my wrists straight with my arms instead of bent back supporting the bar. they should be pinning the bar to the little shelf you've created by pushing your shoulders back. it took a long time for me to get flexible enough to bring my hands in enough (to help create the shelf) but still keep my wrists straight. my hands are still maybe a little wider than i'd like but it's nbd.

see the little lean forward here - https://squatuniversitydotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/low-bar-position.jpg