Fitness Weekly Discussion

Ah, it's been a while since I've exercised regularly. I still try and do it as much as I can manage, but, being unable to go to the gym (both because of coronavirus and financial situation), it still being quite cold and showy outside, ergo slippery, not having a routine that is fit to exercising outside without the equipment that I'm used to, working out has been hard.

I'm hoping I could get back on track once the show comes off the ground, but at the same time, I fear that I might not have enough time being busy with school. I definitely wanna do more and more stretching to make my body more flexible, and, in theory, I could do that at home, but it never worked out for me, since the home atmosphere never really calls for exercise, it's the relaxing place, sleeping place, not work out place.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how my new diet with hardly any meat will do. I realized that I relied too much on meat, chicken and eggs for protein, and I wanna get most of it from plant products. Which isn't as hard as I would've imagined! I'm still gonna have to see just how well it goes, and I have one day a week where I cook myself food with meat, and one where I cook myself food with fish. I think it's important since I'm not taking any supplements, and I don't know enough about nutrition to develop a real meatless diet, so my plan is basically to eat everything so I never miss anything, lol.

I mentioned it in my post on this weeks "What did you do this weekend?" post, but I'm working on a simple program to start with getting pushups. My main goal is basic fitness because I'm looking to enter some strength competitions for fun, and am faced with the coming certainty of having to go back to work. My programming is based on Al Kavadlo's Pushing the Limits! which is a basic guide to progressive calisthenics with no equipment. I don't have enough juice left for grip training after this, but I'm getting it in with rows and pushups against the bar, my forearms feel like I've been bouldering.

The simple program:

M/W/F, I'm doing 4x5 incline pushups against my dip station, 4x5 assisted rows (a pull to complement the pushing exercise, even after the first day I could feel the imbalance), 4x10 bodyweight squats, and 4x15sec shoulder bridges. I'm bad at programming, so I don't know how to increase my numbers before progressing to other movements (proper pushups, hand bridges).

T/TH, I'm going for walks around three miles to keep the legs working and re-develop those muscles, which are different groups/uses than squats. I don't intend to run until I'm below 250lb again, which is generally the recommended threshold for that because of the force involved.

I totally recommend that dip bar, it folds down for easy storage, but if you're doing pushups against it like I am, put some rubber under it, the bar directly on the rubber (not the feet), some weight on the side towards you, and have fun. It's got a slight wobble, but you're not going to be doing any large, fast movements on something like that anyway, it'll be more likely to fall over like any dip station than to collapse under its conservatively estimated 330lb load tolerance.

I'm also surprised at how good I feel after these exercises, especially since I'm fasting on those days. I'm coming away feeling noodley and spongy, but after a day off, I can come right back for the same punishment, finish feeling better than the first time. I need to measure my feet's distance from the bar for consistency, but can also sort of figure out where I need to be by how my arms are loaded.

My fasting seems to have reached a weight loss plateau at 10lb off (got like 60-80 to go, lol), but since I've been working out for two weeks, it may also just be muscle development in the short term, which has happened before.