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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?
No one else had jumped in so I'll kick us off.
Finished a deload week and I am now 5 weeks out from State USAPL Championship. Next couple weeks we'll hit openers and test second attempt weights. Happy to be in the sweet spot of single indicators followed by heavy triples. My favorite phase of training.
Pretty excited for this meet. My second sanctioned meet and first in about 3 years. Then we'll turn it around and do it again in late April.
I'm trying again. Every few years I try to get into an exercise routine, and I inevitably quit after a few months when I feel like I'm not getting anything out of it or just can't take it anymore. I'd really, really like to stick with it this time. I'm doing yoga every morning from a program I got from Audible, they're between 18 and 30 minutes, I'm doing a twerking class once a week, and now that the paths aren't dangerously icy I'm going to start Couch to 5k again.
Things I think will make me more likely to succeed this time:
Motivation: In the past my only goals have been vanity based. I've never cared about getting stronger or faster. Visible changes happen so slowly that I usually get discouraged and feel like I'm never going to feel good about my body anyway so I give up. This time I actually am concerned about how little strength I have and do want to see improvements there. That, I think, happens much more quickly and those smaller milestones should help keep me going.
Attitude: I get really bad intrusive thoughts when I exercise, and I also just generally don't like it. I've decided to try just aggressively lying to myself. Whenever I think a negative thought, I'm thinking focusing on a good one instead, even if it's not true. For example, if I'm feeling sore from exercising, I'm consciously thinking "that feels really good" even though it feels pretty bad. I'm hoping I can rewire something or trick myself in some way, or at the very least distract myself.
Setting: l recently moved to a place where exercising outside is much more comfortable and convenient.
Time: I have more free time now as j work from home and have no commute.
The things I'm still concerned about as stumbling blocks:
Self-hatred/intrusive thoughts: Wanting to change my body is always the impetus for me to exercise, and feeling like I'm losing a war against it and just wanting to stop thinking about how much I hate it is usually why I stop. I'm heavier than I've ever been and I have no idea how I'm going to handle this.
"Am I doing it right?": I'm not really sure which pains are normal and I'm not even sure how to find out. I've talked to doctors about some of my questions in the past and never got a straight answer . (Ex. When I run, my throat always hurts. One doctor couldn't understand that I didn't mean my lungs, and just insisted that it would get better as I kept running, and another offered to refer me to an ENT but wouldn't talk to me at all about if it was normal or anything. She offered me referrals as a response to all of my questionsthat visit so the offer didn't seem like an answer in itself.) I'm worried that I'm going to damage myself or just not be able to deal with the pain.
Hopefully I can overcome those issues and really stick with a basic routine this time.
I just wanted to say that the mental aspect is a challenge and kudos to you for committing anyway.
You didn't ask for advice so ignore the following if it is unwelcome.
Last one I don't want to bullet point because it's the most important:
Do what is fun. Longevity is going to be better if you like the process. It can help avoid intrusive away and then you can prioritize goals other than just the body weight scale.
Anecdote: I avoid running and fitness classes because those activities just prompt intrusive thoughts. My whole body hurts when running and fitness classes make me feel awful. On the flip side my partner loves fitness classes but feels intimidated in a more free form gym setting.
I always appreciate advice!
I usually avoid classes too, but this one is super small. 5 people and I know them all personally, so I'm not so embarrassed to exercise in front of them. I hate being in a gym and feeling like I'm being looked at. I know everyone says that no one in a gym is paying attention to anyone else, but sometimes guys come talk to me and it shatters that illusion for me and makes me insanely self-conscious. I picked running because, now that I live near the woods, it's something I can do completely alone without having to worry if my face is all red or the way I'm running looks stupid or if my breathing sounds silly. I haven't had a lot of luck finding ways to move that are actually fun, so I'm trying to go for the least un-fun. I'd like to get into rock climbing now that I live near some mountains, but I think I should build some upper-body strength before I start taking that on.
I'm only on week two of this new commitment so I don't want to get ahead of myself. Maybe it'll get icy again and I will want to try a gym. I'll be absolutely shocked if anyone talks to me in a Swedish gym. I'm trying to leave myself open to possibilities.
I work as a setter at our local climbing gym and we live near a military base. My favorite thing is when the exxxtra confident, very strong military guys come in and get shut down by climbing. Upper body strength is a component, but it often limits folks because they see it as a panacea. Needing upper body strength to start climbing is a myth, particularly in the early climbing grades. I totally get why it exists, but unless you're a high level gymnast (that has the associated core strength) most folks progress at a pretty even rate. I'd say if you're up for it jump in! It's a great way to get into shape and the culture is usually much more welcoming than a traditional gym.
This is really good information, thank you!
This advice wasn't for me but I'm taking it anyway! These are such good reminders, thanks for sharing. Really agree about trying to find fun exercise activities, that helps a lot with motivation and mental health.
Now, I'm not a poster boy for mental health. But, early on in my weight loss journey (not early on but restarting after a year of fluctuating) I was in tears daily about the way that I looked. I would look in the mirror and call myself a fat piece of shit. Often I was under the influence of THC, but I feel like that fixed my brain in making me look at myself the way I truly was rather than my mind creating a false self image.
I think that helped give me necessary pushes rather than making me feel like I was Sisyphus. Maybe it was just the THC, but I don't necessarily think you have to convince yourself that you love the way you look in order to change. I think it might be better to admit why you want to change, which in most cases it's because of looks, and not be hampered by having the need to feel like you're fine.
I'm not a counselor of any kind though, and everything I said could be unhealthy habits. But, it's what helped me.
I kind of feel the opposite of you. I didn't really have body image issues when I was at my worst, but that was largely because I was being shielded by denial. But when I was at that weight at least my body had shape. WIth all the weight I've lost so far, under my clothes is amorphous bags of fat that shift around whenever I lean in any given direction. I have never hated my body more than I do now. I want to get surgery but it is not only hopelessly unaffordable for me but it is also really inadvisable because I just have so much more weight to lose; I'd only have to deal with more surgery later.
So now it's just a different flavor of stoicism for me. Before, I was just trying to accept it as the way things were. Now I'm treating it as something that will eventually pass. Which is hard considering I don't know when "eventually" is. I'm trying to not dwell on it.
I have a similar issue where I have a sagging stomach now and went to the doctor to confirm that it was in fact mostly skin as opposed to fat (as I was hoping for).
I’ve been told some of it can adjust so I’m hoping that will eventually happen. Though I guess the doctor seemed more optimistic about that happening due to me putting on muscles during my weight loss journey.
But even so I’m definitely much happier with the way I look now. I look at pictures back at my biggest and am in shock with how I look like. It’s incredible how your brain is wire that you can look in the mirror and not look as big as you actually were. I read a study that that’s due to your brain forming your self image based on how you used to look like and I guess it’s some sort of coping mechanism.
Even just having less body fat on my face and being able to have a neck again has been great for me. So I hope you can also eventually see the positives of that, and maybe your body will be able to catch up into a form you’re pleased with.
I'm definately feeling the positives. I have shirts that are like tents on me. I don't have too many pictures of me but I have some particularly unflattering ones that do a good job of showing the difference. More than anything else, just feel a lot healthier and have a lot more energy. The improvements I have made in my diet have been dramatic and the results speak volumes.
The one thing I have been worrying about (besides the flab) is that while losing all of this weight I wonder to myself how much of the weight loss was in the form of muscle. My legs have that "obesity physique", but my arms are fairly weak. I've never really been a workout person before - I never felt like I was getting anything out of it. This changed just a few weeks ago, when I was struck by a strange bout of morning insomnia and anxiety. I took a walk in the morning darkness and watched the sun rise. There was some sort of amazing synergy between the cold and quiet morning, the natural beauty around me, the music I chose to listen to, and for the first time I actually felt more energized during and after that walk than I've ever had before - an energy that lasted all day. It was revelatory. In the past walking always felt more like a punishment than anything else.
I've since invested in an adjustable weight dumbbell and have been trying to invest more time into exercising, but everything else still feels hard. I took a class and spoke to a PT about it in the not-to-distant past, but I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing in regards to resistance training.
Some of that sounds like it’s the way your body fat is distributed. Because I don’t know what you look like I can’t say if it’s distributed in an unfavorable matter, but I think potentially as your body fat percentage goes down you’ll start seeing your body shape better.
In terms of weights I just do machines. Most of them got directions on the machine to follow. Pairing that up with a high protein diet has seemed to work out pretty alright.
My struggle here is that I'm not sure my body image goals are actually healthy or realistic. The only time I really liked my body was in college when I couldn't really afford food and was eating between 1400-2000 calories every other day while being very active. I was healthy based on the BMI scale (20), but obviously the way I was maintaining that was not. I tried to replicate that once a few years later and I just don't have the willpower, which I think in this case is a good thing.
The last time I actually committed to an exercise routine long term I stuck it out for two years. I also kept very strictly to 1600 calories or less each day. I did see a lot of change in my body, to the point where some of my loved ones were worried about how fast it was happening, but I still felt like I was pretty far away from something I would be happy with when I ultimately fell off.
I think I just have to put my aesthetic goals as a very distant priority. I have to say that it's okay to not like my body, and still want it to be able to do the things that I want it to do. I can be excited about seeing changes in it, but I need to have other goals to meet so that I'm not devastated if I'm not seeing those changes. Every time I've tried to lose weight in the past, I've had days that I've spent devastated because the scale wasn't doing what I expected it to do. Once, I forgot to eat for most of a day and came in under 300 calories, and the next day I weight 2 pounds more than before. It felt like the fundamental laws of CICO were being subverted just to keep me feet, and I couldn't really think about anything else or mentally function until the number on the scale came down. That day the numbers were extreme, but that's a pretty typical reaction for me during a fitness kick. I'll feel like I'm doing everything right, but nothing is happening - or worse, I'm going in the wrong direction - and I'll just completely spiral. I know that muscle weighs more than fat and water is a factor and blah blah blah, but that only helps for so long.
Essentially I think I just have to remove that from the equation as much as I can.
For that 300 Calorie day, your scale was likely not very precise and, more importantly, water weight fluctuations can be quite large. It's possible to be heavier after running a marathon. That's why it's important to ignore the number on the scale; it can be almost totally meaningless.
Yeah, this time around I'm just not weighing myself. It doesn't give me any useful information, it just scrambles my brain when it's not going the way I expect.
The traditional advice for dealing with intrusive thoughts is to learn to let them pass by. Don't fight them, don't engage with them, just acknowledge the churn of thoughts in your mind and let it flow away. You can practice this through mindfulness meditation.
The brain does all sorts of things that the mind isn't in control of. Dividing the two, mind and brain, and assigning roles and behaviors to each has been a useful tool for me. The brain is like the body of the mind. It can get out of shape and mis-behave. It's merely the current structure of your neural wiring. But the mind is the bit that races across the wires. Don't blame the mind for falling into traps set by the terrain of your brain. Just pick it up and place it back where it should go.
This advice might not transfer well. But on the bright side - that's no failing of yours. Good advice is hard to give.
Tried the garage gym for a year because I hated how few bench presses and squat cages they had at our rec center. Basically stopped lifting once highs were consistently in the single digits Fahrenheit (basically the last 2 months or so it seems). And only bought a pair of 110 lb dumbells and an adjustable bench to start. So I'm back at the rec center as of Monday. Since the last time I was there they added an additional bench and an additional Olympic lifting area. So I think I'll stay here a while.
I'm starting my old lifting patten. I'm 36 but I'm still hoping to hit 300 bench and 500 dead in my life. I used to have goals for squat and overhead press but squat basically makes it so I can't ski or bike the following weekend and OHP just feels kind of dangerous to try to really max on. I was hitting 165 on OHP for a bit which I was pretty proud of, but there's no way I would ever hit 200
Getting to 400 on squat would nuke my quads i would basically have to stop skiing and backpacking. Went 6 reps at 225 on bench. Started very slow on dead, also forgot my chalk and belt so I'm not posting that number publicly.
any workout is better than no workout. Even if you feel like garbage, get in there and do a couple of lifts.
need to do some intentional cardio. My weekend activities are cardio heavy, but they're not enough.
overall need more variety. Right now I'm thinking a 2 day push/pull split to focus on bench and dead, respectively, while doing accessory work to hit vanity muscles like bis, tris, lats, shoulders. Either need a third day in the gym, or need to go to one of their group fitness things like cross fit or spin class or yoga.
why are high schoolers in the gym? Don't they have a gym at the high school that my property taxes pay for? Need to be finished with my workout by around 3:45 before they get there. It's like a swarm of locusts.
Push
Bench 5-3-1 pyramid. Max weight for reps on 1, twice. +warmup and cooldown
weighted dips 3x8 max weight
alternate incline/decline dumbell bench. 4x8-12
Tricep. Rope pulldown, kickback, or overhead extension. 3x12-15
overhead press 5x5
half medicine ball pistol squat. 3x15 each leg or side lunges
Pull
Dead 5-3-1 pyramid. Max weight for reps on 1, twice. +warmup and cooldown
weighted pull ups. 3 sets, minimum 8 reps. Alternate grips each week, military, parallel, etc.
Bicep curls 4x8-12. Alternate seated/standing, inward/hammer/standard grip. Sometimes rope curls on machine.
Bent over row or good morning. 4x8. Alternate barbell, ez bar, s bar.
Trap bar shrug 3x12.
half medicine ball RDL 3x15 each leg
I have have a 4 week repeating progression of low, mid, high, super high for bench and dead. I just go for reps on the last one each time. So this week it was like:
Bench 135x8 (warmup) 185x5 205x3 225x6 225x1 135x8 (cooldown).
Next week it'll be
Bench 135x8 (warmup) 195x5 215x3 235x<max reps> 235x<max reps> 135x8 (cooldown).
Although this is based on before I went garage gym so even though 225 used to be my low week, it will likely have to be my high week for now.
Nice plan and great goals!
I tried the garage gym thing too but just struggle to keep up the habit if I'm primarily lifting at home. What I've found is that it's helpful in keeping me consistent. A crazy week happens and I need to adjust my schedule? I can cram a couple days of compound lifts together and get them done in my basement. Keeps the momentum which giving me the ability to keep a flexible schedule.
My current split is LULULU which is another accommodation for work stress; 2 hours 4x a week was hard to recover from with the volume I have so we've split the work into 4 half days and 2 full days.
I think the garage gym is an awesome backup if getting to the real gym is impossible that day.
I saw your other comment, that's awesome you're competing! What are those meets like? Is it always scored on the three lift total (bench/squat/dead) or are there individual competitions / podiums for each lift?
They're a lot of fun. I volunteer at them frequently as well either loading/spotting or scoring table. I plan to become a judge but need to wait a bit since I took a break (need a year of active participation.) It's fun, very supportive environment. Lots of comradery between athletes.
Three referees pass/fail each lift based on standard of execution. A head referee gives the athlete start/press/rack commands to insure safe lifting to standard as well.
Everyone is split into classes weight/gender/age class (there is an MX class for athlete who don't use M/F or are on medication for transitioning). Age classes are split into junior division, the open (23-39, you can compete in both the open and your age class), and master's divisions.
Within a class, the top 3 totals constitute the podium. Ties are broken by who ever achieved the total first. Most meets will also award "best lifter" which uses a coefficient score. There are several coefficient scores but DOTS is the most popular (WILKs is an older coefficient which has fallen out of favorability). It's a normalized score to compare athletes across classes. Some meets will also award medals for individual lifts.
Overall meet directors have a lot of latitude in what they want to award. Sheffield is coming up in a couple weeks. The most elite competition in raw drug tested powerlifting. Scoring there is based on % of current world record.
If you're dropping squats because of skiing, you could maybe replace them with leg blasters.
Yeah I think the bodyweight stuff is the way to go. Sometimes I'll throw in a lightweight squat with deadlift day and I try to get on the Peloton when I can.
I'm just trying to get back into the habit of working out regularly. I'm super lazy and never feel like working out so I have to trick myself into it every time. I tell myself "I'll just put on my workout clothes, won't go to the gym." When the outfit is on, "I might as well walk to the gym but no commitment to actually exercise." When I get to the gym, "Well I'm here already, I can do 10 mins on the treadmill then leave." And so on until I end up spending an hour and a half actually working out. And then I enjoy the post-workout happy hormones! It makes such a difference, I really feel good afterwards.
On days when I really don't have time I tell myself, "A little bit is better than nothing." It can be some stretching, 10 squats, or a walk around the block.
The specific movement I've been working on the past few years is the pull-up. In 2020 I finally got to do my first pull-up after a couple years of working up to it on and off. I've been trying to get more reps in since then but it's still extremely challenging for me to do any number of consecutive pull-ups. The most I was able to do was 5, sometime last year, but most days I can only do 2 max then need to rest a bit before going again. I'm still happy I can do them at all though, I feel they've been so helpful for my back and wrists!
My go-to gym workout when I'm really feeling unmotivated is just walking on the treadmill at an incline. I don't have to think, I just walk. I walk at 4.1kmph at the highest incline while listening to a song, about 3 mins, while keeping my arms raised above my head and my torso slightly leaning forward. Then for the next song, I go back to 0 incline and walk backwards (for joint care and coordination). Then back to the incline on the next song, etc.
Well, I've had trouble fitting in runs some days recently, which isn't encouraging for my 55k race coming up a month from today, but I did hill repeats yesterday and felt faster than I've felt since high school, and today I was doing a two-part tempo run and during my second part, I was having trouble keeping my speed up, but I switched my watch to show my power (Watts) instead of my speed, and I guess because I didn't feel the need to check my speed, I was actually keeping my Watts about 10% higher than I had intended and I accelerated pretty consistently and ended up running the second half significantly faster and now this run-on sentence is over and done.
Damn, I wrote that whole thing as just one sentence. I'll keep it that way as a testament to my hubris.
Anyway, I've been making the most of the >40°F temps the past couple days and had some nice runs outdoors in shorts after I think I ran exclusively on the dreadmill last week. Tomorrow it's supposed to be rainy and 45°, so hopefully it will be warm/dry enough that I can run outside without dying of hypothermia. Dress My Run seems to think I should be okay with just a long sleeve shirt and a hat...we'll see. My run will take me over an hour and that's pretty miserable indoors with no air moving around, so I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Otherwise, it shouldn't be too cold Saturday morning for my weekly long run, which will "only" be 11 miles this week. I'll probably head to some trails about a half hour away and try out some previous year trail/ultra shoes that I got got for some huuuuge discounts. That would be the longest trail run I've ever done, so that should be fairly fun. I tried out one pair on Saturday and it felt fairly dead, so I'm looking forward to trying the other shoe I got that is intended for ultramarathons. Worst case scenario, the third and final deep, deeeep discount shoe that I bought has been insanely comfortable so far, so I think it should be good if the other shoes don't work out.
I love swimming! A friend of mine got me into open ocean swimming last year and it's become the highlight of my day. We've even started incorporating days without wetsuits (water temps are usually ~50F) and I'm getting even more excited for those days. I still get pretty freaked out on murky days or when we swim really deep (we had 3 great white attacks in the cove where I swim from 2 years ago), but I've found my groove in about 20 feet of water. I've also finally convinced my friend to join me in the shallows. Overall it's been awesome. The most recent addition to the swims have been the large families of otters that will follow us and come check us out. Luckily we haven't had any territorial behavior but swimming with them (or away from them) is an exhilarating mix of apprehension and excitement. They are so much bigger than I would have expected from shore! But 10/10 so glad I jumped in!
Huge props! The idea of open ocean swimming sounds awesome. The interactions with wildlife, being in nature, the tranquility of the ocean. But I'm not sure I have the hutzpah.
Thanks! Honestly I think everyone probably has the hutzpah, it just takes having someone to guide you into it. Otherwise staying shallow and seeing the bottom is a big help!