thread of getting sw0le

also from a youtube video perspective the power lifting guys are so wack compared to the olympians, having a bar released from hooks w 20 guys spotting u how embarrassing

training footage is oddly mesmerizing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL79TztUK-g

ts really interesting what a full body motion it is too i can feel it hitting weakness/imbalances in my body which is informative

― lag∞n, Thursday, May 23, 2019 3:18 PM (forty-nine minutes ago)

yeah also the effects practicing those explosive movements really had me feeling in great shape for sports and activities . the stresses on the nervous system are crazy too but you're body is better for it and obviously the flexibility aspect which is huge

pro tip - proper lifting shoes really make a difference

i dont think im ready psychologically for lifting shoes but if i keep it up maybe ill get there

re sports etc yeah it kinda feels like its the best exercise there is

as someone who dabbles in many types of exercise ive been of the opinion for a while that lifting is all things considered generally the best exercise which is not to say its the one i do or like the most and i think olympic lifting might be the best lifting

I just ordered some Adidas Powerlifts on account of my persistent ankle mobility issues with squatting fwiw, they arrive tomorrow. Lately I've been using plates under my heels but I feel like that creates its own problems and may be fucking with my lower back.

as someone who dabbles in many types of exercise ive been of the opinion for a while that lifting is all things considered generally the best exercise which is not to say its the one i do or like the most and i think olympic lifting might be the best lifting

Lifting is great but it takes a toll on the body.

kinda meant lifting the best bang for yr buck exercise fwiw tho maybe not exactly that or only that, ashtanga is great too i was doing a lil bit of it recently, feel like yoga is something ive told myself i shd get more into for like 15 years

I think I’m done with low bar squats. With the lifting shoes added in I feel like I’m falling forward and my lower back is collapsing at the bottom. The mechanics of having the bar that low on my back with a shoe pushing me forward just makes no sense to me. I’ve been increasingly subbing in sets of goblet squats and I think I’m just gonna do that and start adding high bar at low weights until I’m comfortable.

Lower back and hips generally feel worse since I went low bar. It seems more like Rippetoe’s lughead idea for how a less mobile guy can lift more weight rather than an actually healthy movement.

ya u can lift a tiny bit more w low but who cares high bar is a more chill movement

Also started a low carb diet and cutting off eating after 9. Got fat from trying to eat for lifting. Reality is I’m not training for a meet here.

i get paranoid I'm going to crunch the bar into a vertebra on high-bar

what i would really like to do is front squat but the few times i tried it were like whoa

you gotta keep trying. i was high bar squatting a bit but the truth is i just hate doing it. i, too, have to keep trying, but i'm long

i am going to front squat tomorrow

Today is the start of my second week on the new program, also with high bar squats, so I don't have a ton of data to add to this but it sounds like my experience was largely the same- core stabilization issues while being able to break parallel easily meant that I was putting most of the stress from the low bar on my lumbar spine and hips. And hip hinging is important in the movement but the larger muscle groups that are supposed to be doing most of the work felt like they weren't active at all. Moving to high bar, it was suddenly all ass and quads, which is what I'm trying to do in the first place, so hopefully this turns out to be sustainable/something I can progress.

high bar is so nice u can make a shelf for the bar to sit on by pushing you shoulder blades way back then you barely have to use yr arms to stabilize the bar at all it just sits there, that setup also goes a long way towards making yr core good and tight for the lift

front squats feel like a more contrived form w the bar all up in yr throat space and elbows forward etc

i have been doing them tho because of the clean n jerk

one downside of the c&j is sometimes u nail yrself in the adams apple w the bar

I've just sat so much for so much of my life that all kinds of squats feel like making my body speak a second language.

i consider it a project, i figure out new weird shit my body is up to all the time

ive decided i dont ef w the bench anymore the bench is for cowards

u mean bench press or squatting to a bench?

anything to do with the bench i dont acknowledge the bench anymore

huh, interesting

what do you do for chest then?

its just like whatre u doing lying down on the job?

i only do the clean and jerk and related lifts front squat rows overhead press, i never liked the bench really

anything to do with the bench i dont acknowledge the bench anymore

― lag∞n, Wednesday, May 29, 2019 4:14 PM (three minutes ago)

gotta use the bench for those bulgarian split squats tho

i dont even know what that is im just a simple man who hates the bench aka the cowards apparatus

lol look it up it's a great exercise and you only use the bench to stabilize your foot

but bench press is for lames . when do i ever need to press something away from my body like that with such force, idk?

i might start doing a lift that involves throwing the bench out the window

I lying-down-press my kids all the time, they love it

the true functional strength

for real like 90% of the functional strength in my life is some form of throwing/swinging/lifting my kids.

Saw a guy benching 405 for reps at my gym. He looked like absolute shit. A good reminder that I’d be fooling myself to say I only work out for strength.

treat lifting like yoga imho

on a more keeping it positive note, on thursday i went during the day and found a 45-ish woman trying to rearrange the entire dumbbell rack. i am always going NUTS over people who put their dumbbells in odd spots, which results in others putting theirs away separately. she said "i can't be the only woman who hates this!" lol. i am not a neat person but putting weights back incorrectly really grinds my gears. but by today it was all messed up again. they did get a bunch of 2.5 increment dumbbells though.

― forensic plumber (harbl), Saturday, February 23, 2019 7:20 PM (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a short time after this, perhaps because she or someone else complained, they put labels on the rack. i believe this may have made things worse. or more accurately, my perception of the dumbbell chaos is worse. you literally cannot put a dumbbell back in the correct place because it took no time at all for the chain reaction of wrong placement to fuck everything up. this includes people who decide to put, for example, one 60 lb db where a second 25 should go, and the next in the adjacent place for a 30. every time i try to put something back in the correct place i need to move on average 3 sets of dumbbells, and sometimes i just quit because i can't find the original wrong in that chain, if that makes sense. today for fun i moved around 55s, 65s, 85s, 20s, 25s, and 30s, just to put away the 40s i had used. people may think i am insane but i think this is RUDE. why would you put an 80lb dumbbell in the top rack where like a 15 belongs!?!?!?!?

that cld be yr workout

intensely relatable

I'm down 4 lbs and .7% bodyfat, woot

I've kind of had it with the powerlifting approach to lifting weights. I love powerlifting, but I just don't know if it's for me anymore. It's been a long erosion of my enthusiasm stemming from setbacks caused tby injuries - mostly suffered while doing heavy (close to max) lower body movements. I started lifting when I was in my late 30s, made great progress with Starting Strength, Texas Method, and 5/3/1. I think after the first 18th months or so, I suffered my first back injury. That put me out of business for two months or so, and set back my progress, but I went back even more determined to defy age and all of the people telling me I shouldn't be subjecting my body to that kind of punishment. I'd get back up to where I was before, pushing new 1RMs, get hurt, go back, and repeat. My lifting log is a chronicle of coming back from injuries. My form is good. I've always been a student of form - the beauty of a precise movement is one of the things I enjoy most about lifting. I'm an experienced lifter who has been lifting consistently for 8 years. I've had experienced lifters and coaches evaluate my form and and give glowing feedback.

In the last eight months or so, I've noticed nerve discomfort down my leg. I'm pretty sure it's sciatica, probably caused by a herniated disc which would explain a lot. I've scaled back - almost entirely gotten rid of - squats and deadlifts. Have been doing a lot of hill running, some sled pulling stuff as well.

Anyway, yesterday while at the gym getting read to bench press, I threw out my back putting on my fucking shoe. When you can deadlift 2x your bodyweight and throw your back out tying a shoe, the universe is telling you to take up yoga.

That was a good post for me to read right now. I've been having persistent mild pain in my lower back and right thigh lately (sort of down the side), and I've had more trouble bending. Deadlift has also taken a huge hit lately -- starts to get uncomfortable after I hit two plates and I've been doing a lot less weight as a result and doing it less frequently. I'm turning 40 this year and I'm not sure whether the combo of my sedentary lifestyle and powerlifting is going to be a good one well into my 40s. But I would really want to find something to replace it with. Maybe yoga ain't a bad idea.

yoga and weightlifting are very complimentary imo/ime, im glad were talking about this because it allows me to introduce one of my pet exercise theories, i think powerlifting is great it uses natural physical motions and by putting them under the stress of a lot of weights really gives you a good workout BUT using those same natural motions over and over again only strengthening along those axes introduces imbalances that can lead to injury ie making some aspects of yr body strong while others remain weak, yoga really makes a point of using yr muscles/connective tissues in all sorts of different ways twisting stretching contracting expanding and so forth, yoga is really effective at neutralizing imbalances / activating muscles that you havent been using due to those imbalances

also the experiences of yoga and lifting are very similar, if u like working on lifting form youll prob like working on yoga form

they both have the similar pitfalls of getting too ambitious leading to injury, imo theres no real point in trying to max out how much weight u can lift or getting super flexible in yoga, think its better to regard more as an opportunity to activate yr body and work on alinement/slowly work yr way through physical imbalances

they both have pretty ridiculous prob not totally healthy cultures around them tooooo

ive prob said this here before but imo injury prevention shd be the #1 goal of any exercise because if youre injured you cant exercise

be especially careful w the neck stuff that often comes towards then end of yoga class, thats where everyone gets bad injuries, lot of those poses straight up maybe just shdnt be practiced even tho theyre often considered the whole point of the practice

https://i.imgur.com/AYRd656.png

and then why not do a lil running, just run 3 miles, running form is fun to work on too

yeah, ideally I'd really like to both lift and do yoga. Hard to schedule.

Also def getting to the point where I feel like maxing out weight is diminishing returns. If I can lift 155 lbs over my head, what is the value add of getting that up to 165?