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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
TFPs (tildes fitness pals), I finally ran over 3 miles! I am 100% over my sickness and I ran even better than before I was sick. I walked a couple of times but I felt awesome during it! Heart rate was pretty high, but I pushed myself pretty well to get there. My 3mi time was 41min and I've never been prouder 😤
I've decided to switch to running the afternoons since it's so dark in the morning now, and today was my first day doing it but I didn't plan it super well because I still ended running in the dark lol. I'll be checking sundown times and making sure I have something reflective on when I run.
I hope everyone's fitness work this past week has gone well!
Awesome work on 3 mi under 45mins! Tis the season of little sun, and there's still 90 days of it shortening more. I'm just embracing the beautiful leafs while they're here.
Thank you so much!! Yes, unfortunately the daylight will only get less and less. I'll probably still end up with my run partially at night because of my work schedule but imma keep daylight hours as much as I can lol. I got to run through some crunchy leaves already! It was great.
I got a bike last week and started looking around for ways to track my rides and came across the obvious strava app. It has really cool features but i decided i didnt want the globalists to have my health data so i found the open source OutRun app for ios.
It wouldnt work on my device though since its not been updated in two years :( so i booted up the old mac mini, forked the repository, updated all of the dependencies so that it can build for ios 15 and got it running on my device :) its a neat app with a bunch of useful features and visualizations. Im considering adding a few of my own like the auto pause/unpause when moving thats in strava as ive already forgotten to manually unpause. Someone also mentioned a shoe mileage tracker which sounds simple enough. Nice little project to keep engaged and test out with actual exercise.
That’s cool and all, but I want to call out the term ‘globalists’ and it’s usage as a slur here. This is just one of those low-key dog whistles that thinly veil antisemitism and I would like to keep that of tildes.
It’s perfectly fine not wanting your health (or any other) data out there on a big company server. Totally get it. But to use that term here is not.
Thank you for calling that out. I had never heard that term specifically used euphemistically to refer to Jews/Zionists, but it makes sense. When I first saw that comment, I wanted to call out that word choice but I couldn't formulate my words. Like would they have been fine if an isolationist wanted their health data? So thank you for leaving a better response than I could have given.
That's pretty dang nifty that you can do that! What a fun convergence of fitness and tech. What kind of bike did you get and what kind of terrain do you plan on biking?
Thanks! Just a regular ol' bike looking bike. A garneau urbanite, i think. Its just to ride around town and get a workout in. I used to do some downhill biking in ontario/quebec with my brother when i was younger which was great but a real commitment that im so far away from now technically and fitness wise
I'm about to finally graduate physical therapy after 6 months. My physical therapist told me to start trying to go back to normal gym activities, so they could help me work through any issues I still have there...so I went and did barbell squats today, which I totally expected to go terribly, and it actually went alright!* And I can run again, for a short period, very slowly. So I can start over with c25k soon, I guess.
*Of course, it remains to be seen how alright I feel tomorrow morning getting out of bed and putting weight on the bad leg.
Was supposed to start my bulk today but I've had to push it back a few days. Had an awful 48-hour fever over the weekend, and I still don't feel quite right.
Started cutting in February, and I'm down from 202lbs to 175lbs. (27lbs overall)
I'm 6'4" so 175 is close to the low end for me, though I definitely still had a little fat to go. I've put on a bit of noob muscle during this phase too so it's not all been loss.
I'm planning to bulk for about 40 weeks, which will take me to the start of my son's summer holidays. I won't be able to hit the gym as consistently then so I'll start a mini cut with some home callisthenics.
Currently I do PPL 5-6 times a week, with one 5k a week. Last couple of weeks some life stuff has come up, so I've only managed 2-3 weights session a week.
I was really disappointed last weekend because I wanted to run consistently after my marathon two weeks ago but for various frustrating reasons (including some that were my fault 🙃) I only got to run four times over the last two weeks and for only a total of about 10 miles--I was running 5x and upwards of 30 mi per week before the marathon. But today I had a half marathon that a friend/colleague/coach had convinced me to run and I finished in 2:09. It was basically a victory lap after my marathon so I wasn't trying to run fast, slow, or anywhere in between; I was just letting my body run. I'm pretty happy with that result. I finished first among everyone I knew, I never walked other than at water stations, and I made myself keep going when my reptile brain told me I definitely needed to stop, so I did all right. I certainly didn't need to stop, by the way--I was doing my strongest running at the end of the race...I had to look good for the spectators and especially the cameras!
I am going to race a 5k next week. It's a charity race but the charity doesn't show up in any records of nonprofits and the charity's description is that they're trying to set something up, so I'm a bit concerned that it's really just some kind lady who is accidentally committing fraud. I know she can't be embezzling too much--it's the cheapest 5k I've ever signed up for and it has a cash prize! So I'm going to go all out and see if I can't win it (I have a feeling there may not be any fast runners...including me).
I found a cross country 5k the next day that's really cheap and is intended to give adults an opportunity to try the sport out because it's usually only for students, so I'm really tempted to sign up for it! I've never run cross country before so it sounds fun. But I'm afraid that would be too much racing!
It's so difficult to shut off that brain don't run too much, too hard message. My brain usually tells me it's okay to slow down and walk for a bit.
P.s. I came here to read about fitness goals and have left far too invested in this potential embezzling story.
So that friend/colleague/coach met the lady who runs the charity (or whatever it is) at last year's race and she doesn't think the lady would be capable of anything like that I believe she said the lady's son died of an overdose or something like that so the charity provides a place to live for addicts or at-risk kids or men with behavioral disorders or something. Sounds great.
But the charity's website says it's trying to set up a home, this is the 15th annual race, and I found a newspaper article from several years ago that had the exact same description of the charity attempting to set up a home. So I don't know if the charity actually does anything. It's also not listed on the local nonprofit registry as far as I can tell.
The first payment information about the 5k is how to pay by check, so I I think it's probably just some lady who doesn't really understand how these things work who is trying to provide a service to the community. I'm assuming she is doing her best but legitimately just doesn't understand enough to know that she's barely doing anything and even that isn't done properly.
The race is in six days so I guess I'll find out more on Saturday. Maybe I'm wrong and it's totally legit. Maybe I'm wrong and it's all a scam. For the time being, I'm not too concerned about it. The cost to run the 5k is so cheap that the price could easily double without losing registrations. I would pay triple what I paid for a charity 5k without a second thought. So when I read that there's a cash prize and I saw some pictures of people who I know are slow wearing what I assumed to be more than just a participation medal, I knew I had to try to win. Either because this might be my only chance to ever win a 5k or because I need to take money from someone who is trying to scam me. Either way, I win!
So I finally found the charity in a list of not-for-profits. I had been looking at nonprofits because it seems super weird that a small charity that is trying to provide a home for young men with substance abuse issues would be set up in such a way that it would even be allowed to profit.
Well that's a good sign, wonder if they have any houses registered with the state department of health or something
Nope, the lady said they're still trying to get a piece of land. It felt legit when she was speaking though. It was actually a pretty decent event. Unfortunately, within probably the first 50 meters, somebody passed me and I knew the race was over lol he finished 5 minutes ahead of me. I still got my PR, which was nice. And then I won a free one-year membership to a gym in a random drawing, so that was also nice.
I’m in a rut. Not getting out there consistently. Somehow, after running an event, I usually have this motivational breakdown and make excuses.
Ran my first sprint distance triathlon mid September and hadn’t really done anything since then. I was actually satisfied with my times (500m swimming in 12min / 20K on a trekking bike in 45min / 5K running in 3min) for the amount of training I did.
So I am posting this here in the hope to spark some action and hold myself accountable to go out there and do some training.
I have a couple fitness questions. I want to build some upper body muscles, as I'm skinny/underweight. Gaining weight is very difficult for me, as I don't have a huge appetite, nor can I eat much in one setting; my life is a constant battle between losing weight and then working to regain the weight. Given that, some questions:
(1) is it even possible to gain upper body strength if you're eating at a calorie deficit? Or is the exercise work essentially "wasted"? (I don't want to get ripped... just basic strength.)
(2) are there other useful health reasons to work out my upper body (other than building muscle)? Because then at least it's still good to do.
(3) I'd love to know if anyone has suggestions on affordable resistance bands. I thought this would be an easy way to start. But again, are they even useful if I can't eat enough? I do not have access to a gym, and I have tendonitis, so I am looking for something simple to start with.
By the way, I do realize there are some "tricks" to eat more calories and gain weight, and I do utilize them, which is how I manage to gain back weight that I lose. (I do drink high calorie shakes, and most my diet is very calorie dense foods.) Unfortunately I simply struggle with appetite and getting full very quickly. So even with "tricks" it is difficult for me to put on weight. I see a doctor and dietician about this, which is how I found tricks.
P.S. Thanks for this thread, because I have been wanting to ask this, but did not want to make a thread for it. Much easier to ask here. Maybe though it would be a useful topic for others?
A lot of people are "hard gainers." I'm sure you're familiar with calorie tracking, but have you tried macro tracking? In particular concentrate on protein. I hate counting calories but tracking macros bothers me much less. For myself having a schedule keeps me on track. I also get full pretty quickly and easily end up in a deficit (though my body loves holding on to weight).
"Yes but no." If you are essentially untrained then you will see technique, adaption, and some hypertrophy gains in a deficit. The majority of strength increase you see will be from technique and adaption though. Also, training will increase your caloric expenditure so your deficit will only grow. You may find that your appetite increases though. Fundamentally, being at a deficit is contrary to the goals you've laid out.
Yes, a lot of benefits: increased bone density, stronger stabilizer muscles will decrease injury risk, many people address tendonitis with light weight recovery work, you'll see minor conditioning benefits as well.
The best way to start is however you feel comfortable. I highly recommend resistance bands for cheap at home training. I bought mine off Amazon. At a glance I see many good options at the $20 mark. I recommend a set that comes with some handles and a "door stop" (I don't know what it's actually called, but it looks like a little strap with a foam wheel on one end, you put a band through the strap and close a door with the wheel in the doorjamb). I did 80% of my Covid workouts with a similar set up and had a lot of success.
And don't forget about your lower body. You can do a lot with bands, maybe consider a kettlebell. Start easy and build up over time add a rep each week. Then occassionally a set. After a couple month reset and use a heavier band. Repeat. Don't hesistate to swap out exercises if something looks interesting.
Good luck. If you have any questions feel free to reach out.
Thanks for taking your time to share your knowledge with me. The idea about macros is very smart, I hadn't thought about that. Honestly, I probably get 30g protein max daily, that is with my protein shake. I only ever think about calories, so this hadn't dawned on me. Perhaps I just do not consume enough protein. So if I understand - if a person is getting enough protein, then even on a calorie deficit, they could gain muscle?
Thanks for the advice about the bands. I did see many options online, I didn't know what was good and what was bad. I had been looking at this set - does it look decent? I'm not certain if the black thing on the bottom of the picture is the door stop you are referring to (they say there is a "door anchor" - I'm assuming that's the same thing).
Think about it as energy in, energy out. If your body isn’t meeting it’s baseline energy needs then is has to burn fat stores. Consequently there isn’t much energy remaining to build muscle. So you will see some growth as your body adapts but it will slow. If you can at least eat in maintenance you will see recomposition but recovery will be more difficult. Being in a deficit is only beneficial if you are trying to lose weight. Hitting protein targets will help in a recomp but what I’m trying to say is at least hit your maintenance calories. It’s better for your overall health.
That set of bands looks good. I think they’ll work well!
Thanks for taking the time to look at them. I will grab a set.
I don't want to seem like I'm saying a calorie deficit is a good thing. Especially if you are already underweight or bordering on underweight, it's not good and it batters your body. Unfortunately it just happens because my capacity for eating is so small, and oftentimes I just have no appetite. It's not something i would wish on others because being underweight causes its own health issues, like shit awful issues, and I have surely suffered those issues.
Very interesting that increased muscle mass (or strength training itself?) can possibly impact appetite! I was unaware of that. The other cool thing about muscles is that there's more room for glycogen, I would think. One issue I have is hypoglycemia, I get it daily and it's a shit thing. My endocrinologist wants me to gain more weight, but I also wonder if just gaining more muscle would help, because there's more glycogen to help regulate your blood sugar. I will ask him this at my next appointment.
What a week. Got hit with cold type thing. Ended up losing about 6 pounds from 238->232 over three days. But I have a barebones set up in my basement and was able to stay on track with my program.
Squats are moving well. I held the weight constant for several weeks while my coach was ramping volume. Starting to add 2.5-5kg a week.
Bench is seeing a ton of volume. Really focusing on my stability under tension, at least 1.5-2 second hold with the bar brushing my t-shirt on every rep. It's hard and haven't been able to increase the weight much. But it is getting easier which counts as getting stronger.
Deadlift is still giving me a hard time with my set up. My leverages make it difficult to get my torso upright and my shoulders end up in front of the bar, causing the lift to be a bit hard as the bar wants to drift away. Had a bit of success this week finding a better position.
Another couple weeks of volume left. Starting to look forward to a strength block soon though.