9
votes
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?
Ran my marathon this past weekend. Beat my previous time by over a half hour and easily broke my target time that I really didn't know if I could achieve. I accidentally started out at my target pace instead of a bit slower and then still sped up through the race, so that's cool. I don't know if I can say I feel proud, but I do feel accomplished.
Congrats! That's really awesome you were able to beat your previous time by so much!!
Congratulations! Chicago?
I don't reveal too much personal info on this account ;)
Hello TFPs! I've had a good fitness journey this week. My pacing for running keeps getting faster, and I've been (slowly) losing weight and achieving some recomp. It feels vastly wonderful to fit well into some of my clothes again and that's always been the best Hallmark of change for me. I feel better in my skin and I am enjoying pushing my physical limits!
I went on a hike this weekend, and have a meetup hike planned for end of October which I'm excited about! Same area, just different trails. I'd like to be able to do sunset hikes and sketch or draw at the top but I don't have anyone to do that with and I was given flack by my therapist for going on my own before lol.
I am slowly conquering the kitchen, and my relationship with food. If I go out to eat, a lot of the time that's my meal for the day. I've also been trying out yoplaits protein yogurt and I think I'll keep that on as breakfast or afternoon snack.
So overall, good well rounded week!
EDIT: Guys stop commenting on my throwaway line about my therapist.
Just don't swing too far in the other direction. That happens a lot. One of my rules that I adopted while trying to lose weight while training for my marathon (something that can be dangerous if not managed properly) was that if some food fit into my nutrition goals, I could splurge on it. But it really had to fit in. Calories and protein at the very least had to be right.
My splurge rule also meant that I could get special yogurts...low sugar, no sugar, fat free, full fat, etc., to fit into how I wanted to use that food within my nutritional goals for the day. I especially love skyr more than most traditional yogurt.
It's a fine, hard balance to strike! I'm being watchful at least. But I'm also 5"3' so it's really easy to hit minimum caloric goals. If I want to lose a pound a week, I'd be at like 1350/1400 calories a day lol (I don't want this, it's way too hard. I did it in college and it sucked).
I like your framing of if it fits your nutrition goals, you splurge on it. I think that's a great mindset to have, thanks for sharing. I'll have to check out skyr!
Yes, I will admit it's probably easier to eat what I want as a 6'2" male.
In what way did your therapist give you shit? That feels a little strange to me, but my therapist's style is extremely supportive and encouraging.
She chastised me for going out on a hike on my own. She told that you need a minimum of 4 people, in case something happens to someone then you have one person to stay with the injured, then two people to go out.
I take it with a grain of salt. She's also a much more accomplished hiker than I am and it's a basic safety precaution.
Are you going on major hikes or just like walks through the woods?
That seems wild, hiking alone on tough trails is a PNW pastime. Unless you're rock climbing just tell someone where youre going, when you're leaving and when you expect to be back.
Use alltrails and its almost impossible to get lost or be unprepared. Also, i have genuinely never heard of anyone considering 4 people the minimum number of people to go hiking.
Note: im not saying your therapist shouldnt be listened to cause i have no idea what your situation is (maybe you live in the arctic and there's polar bears everywhere), but im offering an alternative perspective from someone who goes hiking 2 times a weekend with nothing but a dog during the summer.
I'm building a road bike. I raced CX in college and have built myself a couple bikes before this from used parts on a budget. The various delays and unexpected expenses (both supposedly supply chain related, plus recent inflation) have me quite demotivated.
I figure I have the money, and I've ridden enough miles in my life to have earned a nice bike. But the bike I have is perfectly good enough and I've fallen off with my regular riding partners and I'm just starting to regret the splurge.
I had a bad weekend last weekend. Beer and pastries are my kryptonite and i basically somehow ended up with a croissant in one hand and a beer in the other several times. I was surprised at two things: how little it took to get nearly blackout drunk after having lost all the weight i have, and how bad it made me feel in the days after. Ive never been hit by post drink depression so bad. I think it was partially because i couldnt bring myself to go exercising so it was like a one-two punch.
I did bring myself to do it midweek and went back to bouldering/climbing at lunch but my performance wasnt my best, really took a lot of effort to stretch my climbing muscles and i couldnt do problems i had done last week. So i decided id go swimming in the evening and did 2k! It took 1h5m so now i have a swimming goal to beat too. I went back the next day and managed the 2k again but let me tell you... i was not at all ready to do that two days in a row.
I think my exercise routine has become so baked into my life that missing those days clearly throws me off, im still deciding on whether thats good or bad.
Has anyone paid for and used the program at barefootstrength.com?
If so, please let me know how you liked it.
I am gonna go out on a limb here with no research whatsoever, and say this is probably a bs fitness scam.
How is a shoe gonna make you more barefoot than barefoot?
How is a barefoot shoe any better than just a simple ~0 padding flat shoe (like Chuck Taylors or Onitsuka Tigers)?
IMO the whole barefoot lifting trend is kinda bullshit. Even if you do barefoot deadlifts or squats, you should be doing them on a platform, or in a rack. Either one will have wood or rubber flooring with very slight give. Unless you're gonna be the guy who lugs everything over to the one random empty concrete floor section in the gym, and then proceeds to destroy both the floor and the plates?
Also paying for fitness plans is silly. There are plenty of free ones, or coverage and explanations of un-free ones that you really don't need to pay for anything except maybe a good lifting tracking app.
Get some cheap flat shoes, pick a program, go lift, track everything, and use progressive overload. There is no magic pill.
I personally recommend GZCLP to beginner/intermediate lifters, and Jacked n Tan 2.0 to intermediate/advanced lifters (info on both freely available online).
Edit: Just checked the program link on the site...$80 bucks is a scam. Just learn to do barbell squats safely, and progress slowly. Your hip and ankle mobility will automatically improve given time.
Alan Thrall and Brian Alsruh on YT have good how to squat videos. Also note, if someone has 30+ videos on bicep curls they are an algo abusing scammer.
Source: My passionate distaste for scummy personal trainers, fitness influencers, and fitness programs.
The barefoot running industry is largely based in lying to customers, so I would suspect it is in lifting, too. That's not to say you shouldn't do either one, just that you shouldn't believe any of the claims coming from the industry.
Say more? What kind of lies? I know nothing about the "industry" but have been using "barefoot" (thin, zero drop, very wide) shoes for almost a year now, combined with toe mobility exercises, and my calf/foot strength has exploded. It has made a huge difference to my agility in kendo, and also eliminated my lower back pain. They have also changed my gait to be much less duckfooted.
They make a bunch of claims about how the shoes themselves will heal your injuries, make you run better, etc. But have you ever noticed how popular vibram shoes were for a while and how they now just make soles for trail running shoes? That's because they got the shit sued out of them because they claimed they would cause fewer injuries but they ended up causing more 🤷
They do work different muscles than conventional shoes, but they're kind of snake oil. If they really did the things they claimed, you would see pro runners using them.
In what way?
My only problems so far is that you get much less shoe for much more money.
The companies make it sound like a magic pill, but there are YouTubers, like barefootstrength, who emphasize that you have to do the work of rehabbing/habbing your feet to make it work.
You got your answer right there.