thread of getting sw0le

heart problems are common among lifters

i had some heart problems but decided to stop using protein powder and just eat natural and healthy and my heart feels fine now

i can eat a lot of junk food in one sitting and i don't feel full or get fat, granted i continue my exercise routine, but my heart definitely feels it (cholesterol/blood pressure/etc). that's when i know i have to eat cleaner for a while or do cardio -- cardio helps the most for me

w/r/t roids, maybe three years ago in this thread i posted about my little 17 year old cousin who got testicular cancer bc he was taking them. froze his sperm bc he can't have kids anymore

I just ate 1.5 medium pizzas. I am going to be burping on the erg in a second.

i'm a no cardio bro, mainly to save time at the gym. i do about 10 mins warmup stretches tho.

i justify it by telling myself i don't have a car, so i walk everywhere..? kinda lame tho

there is a thing about the intensity of the lifts working your system similarly to HIIT but that's always seemed a leeeetle bit sophistic tbh

I love HIIT workouts. It's like the Kimmy Schmidt show where she says "you can stand anything for 10 seconds" (or insert whatever amount of time for the workout.

When I had to go to physical therapy for my knees it was mandatory that I do 10 minutes of cardio before I started the muscle exercises. I stuck with that.

i am a big dude and all my joints are fucked from years of jiu jitsu so i try not to run too much but i get on the elliptical for 20-30 minutes every lifting day. i crank the resistance to the max and try and keep my heart rate (per the weird hand monitor things) in the 130s for that time. i know there are more effective things (the rower, the bike, etc) but that's about as much cardio effort as i am willing to put in.

had to bail on a squat today for the first time. i set a PR and then got greedy and added 10 more pounds. got halfway up and nope. went back down, rested the bar on the safeties and ducked out. felt like a total dork but nothing ventured nothing gained right.

VENTURZ

GAINZ

Sometimes when I don't want to do cardio I just pretend I am Trump and believe that we have a finite amount of energy and exercise just depletes it.

a few weeks ago i went down with a front squat, light weight, and just totally lost my balance out of the blue, fell backwards. luckily the safety bars were in.

i'm basically always trying to find a balance between these four things: lifting, yoga, running, rest & recovery. i'm almost always adding more of one then consequently doing less of something else than doing more of that thing etc

my diet lately is pretty loose, it could use some improvement i guess. i've never felt the need to get totally ripped. though if i'm eating more and i don't run for a few days i want to get out there and burn some calories. running is a mental health drug for me, lifting is kind of a libidinal obsession, yoga makes me feel refreshed / restored.

I switched from running to lifting a few months back. Was trying to incorporate a 10 minute cardio warm-up but my lunch hour's only an hour and I decided that a few minutes of active stretching was probably enough.

But last week I decided to try HIIT for the first time. It was on Friday where it was like 90 and humid as fuck here in Maryland. So I decided to do a mile run before that to warm up. What was weird was that when I was jogging three or four times a week, I still struggled to run a mile often (I just started all this shit two or three years ago). But on Friday I did a mile without stopping at all after not running at all since January or February. I'm putting that down to the leg excercises I've been doing (goblet squats, dumbbell deadlifts) and maybe just general overall fitness improvements from lifting?

The sprints after that killed me in the heat and I had to pack it in after a few minutes of it, but I'm going to try to work this in once a week now.

Lifting definitely made running noticeably easier for me. Remember that compound lifts like squats and deadlifts are not really just leg exercises, they work most of your body and train it to work as a whole.

well yeah, I was simplifying though because that's really the main exercises I've been doing for leg day so far.

do you guys do like yoga classes or do you have some youtube yogi that you follow or what?

I used to go to yoga classes

But it’s kind of a rip off

My ex had one of those 300+ hour yoga teaching certificates so she taught me the poses

Now i sometimes just use youtube

But once you learn them you can mostly do them by yourself, unless you really want the ambience/guidance/social aspect of it

we have a finite amount of energy and exercise just depletes it.

this is why i walk and do nothing else

(ok a few barbell lifts when i remember i have them)

But once you learn them you can mostly do them by yourself, unless you really want the ambience/guidance/social aspect of it

― F# A# (∞), Monday, May 28, 2018 9:11 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i like doing yoga on my own better cause i can focus on what i need, which is actually the traditional way to do it and makes a lot of sense when u think about it

i went to one teacher's loosely ashtanga-oriented flow classes for a few years and took a few poses from that that i like to do for 20-30 counts at a time, 15-20 minutes or so total before i lift. i hear youtube is pretty good for learning but i haven't checked it out yet.

it's kind of fun doing yoga in the ab area, all the sw0le bros look at you funny, then you go heavier than they do on squats hehe

i've had some good / fun experiences in yoga classes but more often than not the "stuff white people like" cultural aspect of it gets on my nerves.

i'm in a small sort of redneck town right now and the gym regulars are mostly big truck types. but it's also a big outdoor recreation destination so i occasionally see climbers and mountain bikers doing the stuff they do. i've seen this one guy do hardcore ashtanga here, like seriously impressive stuff. it's awesome to see someone just doing that on their own at the gym. my last gym in a bigger city was a crossfit type place that i didn't like as much, felt too homogenous and culty.

The only yoga I find good to do in classes is Bikram. Besides needing a heated room, being in the class is the only way I would do 90 minutes of that torture. It's a little addictive.

the current 30 for 30 podcast series is entirely about bikram yoga

i'm sort of morbidly curious about it

I tried to do 30 classes in 30 days and I couldn't do it. It's such a commitment because classes are 90 minutes but you really should get there 10-15 in advance to acclimate to the room. And they really don't want you to leave the room at all during. You really really have to make sure you eat and drink right beforehand or you will be miserable. But as far as stretch, balance and core strength it's super good.

its such an intense workout doing it every single day is prob not actually the best

It's been a thing though, the 30 classes in 30 days challenge. I could see doing it, if I wasn't working or drinking and it was winter.

Was able to squat 225 x 5 with good form relatively easily yesterday, felt good to see the progress.

yeah i know its their thing and im sure itd overall be beneficial (if you didnt get injured) but i bet doing it 5 days a week wld be even better xp

also my daughter's friend told me I have a baby in my belly

lol

you don't really need that much protein

I responded, "Yeah? And how much can you deadlift, huh?"

the real question is how much can the fetus deadlift, dont want to be giving birth to a spindly twerp

i like to get super high and do yoga its nice i really get into it then maybe lift after

xpost, yeah I could only ever get up to 20 times a month. Real life takes over. I feel like I never even came close to injury and my posture was banging.

For some weird reason I always thought that dudes that lift and don't do cardio look like Alex Jones. I now see I am wrong.

sixpacks are made in the kitchen, but I don't know the recipe

VENTURZ

GAINZ

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, May 28, 2018 10:01 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

I've added some mass and lost some inches, I'm feelin good and clear

do you guys do like yoga classes or do you have some youtube yogi that you follow or what?

― adam, Monday, May 28, 2018 9:02 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I used to go to yoga classes

But it’s kind of a rip off

My ex had one of those 300+ hour yoga teaching certificates so she taught me the poses

Now i sometimes just use youtube

But once you learn them you can mostly do them by yourself, unless you really want the ambience/guidance/social aspect of it

― F# A# (∞), Monday, May 28, 2018 9:11 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya if you want to get started w yoga wld recommend going to as many classes as you can until you get a feel for it, then if you want to do it on yr own u can, using a video at home is def a heavier lift for beginning

feel like yoga and lifting are similar where the entry level understanding is getting the form right but then a more intermediate level is how to actually engage yr muscles within that form

I have definitely told people more than once "lifting is a lot more like yoga than you would expect" because so much of it is about form, breathing, concentration and engagement of your muscles in a specific way

Also I have found through trial and error that taking a meditative approach is more effective than trying to get aggro/hyped up

I've been back at the gym for 2-3 months at this point and have been v disciplined abt being consistent and not making excuses to skip days, and proactively rescheduling gym days on nights I wanna do stuff. My weight is the same, which I expected more or less, but I def feel like parts of my body are getting meatier. It also feels really good to do things with ease that I could barely complete 2 months ago with 5-10 lbs less weight. It's still laughably small stuff (like, I'm benching 85, shoulder pressing 30, deadlifting 85) but it feels cool to notice improvements and I'm also happy that after doing this for several years I've become confident in what I do and no longer insecure abt, like, "will ppl notice i'm doing this incorrectly or with too little weight"

I think my goal next is going to be being much more mindful abt my diet, like eating more nutritious things, maybe tracking calories and protein instead of just winging it with making a vague effort to eat more meat and having a 25g protein shake after each workout

That’s awesome!

Fwiw I never ever judge anyone for using low weight bc everyone starts low. I do sometimes judge people for form just because either they are not getting benefit from the way they are doing it or they are risking injury.

I think low weights are pretty acceptable now too because of some people being into high reps/low weights and also who gives a shit ( no one knows your life). I like during my boot camp type of classes that almost every swole dude having to drop their weights in the middle of an interval because they just can't finish.

Keep going Stevie! I'm also a guy starting with relatively little muscle, but I've been working very steadily the past few months and noticing the changes.

Also you never know if someone is working up to a higher weight. I had a weirdo get snobby working in with me on bench press because I was only at like tens on each side. But that was my warmup and I was doing a gradual ramp. My last set was more than his (in spite of him having prettier and more defined muscles), and he was doing like half range of motion.

the absolute number of weight doesnt matter just as long as its heavy to you, then lift it with perfect form, also if you want to gain weight the easiest way is to eat a bunch of pizza and ice cream unfortunately, or so ive heard ive never been in the position to want to gain weight, tho i have eaten a lot of pizza and ice cream and can attest to its efficacy

I am in that supposedly lucky category of an easier gainer who doesn't even need to eat a bunch of pizza and ice cream. The downside of that shows in my belly.

i feel like over all people focus on things like weight and reps when they cld be focusing on having perfect form

yeah def