Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

Brahma said:

My gloves finally bit it. Snagged some of these. Buddy swears by them. Will see how they feel.

Amazon product ASIN B071156PPK

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These suck ass. Strap is too short. Not comfortable. PITA to do anything else like answer your phone or putz with your Kindle.

One year of rotating John Meadows routines. Health Nutrition Fitness Customized Meal Training Plan Program Coaches Mountain Dog Diet

Juji got jew'd, and I wouldnt be surprised if tom guy is an actual jew by the way he looks and acts.

Failed a 5x set last week for the first time since starting lifting back at the beginning of November, so looked up what to do and it suggested doing a "deload" week, which I am doing now. It feels really lame driving to the gym to do 20 minutes of what's normally warm-up reps.

Hit three plates on squat, so felt pretty good about that. Deadlift is still substantially weaker than the squat (and is the one I failed), so thinking about getting one of the renta-trainers for a day to tell me whether I'm retarded or not. Probably retarded. It's hard to tell, since literally everyone I see doing deadlifts does them differently.

It's kind of hard to figure progress, since the internet gives a bunch of conflicting messages on how fast you should expect to gain strength at the start. It's either soys saying "if you can lift the bar you're stronger than 95% of humans" or trolls saying they hit 1/2/3/4 the day they started.

Current progress at ~6 months for the x5 sets:
Overhead Press: 55=>115
Bench Press: 85=>155
Squat: 105=>315
Deadlift: 115=>260

Kuro said:

Failed a 5x set last week for the first time since starting lifting back at the beginning of November, so looked up what to do and it suggested doing a "deload" week, which I am doing now. It feels really lame driving to the gym to do 20 minutes of what's normally warm-up reps.

Hit three plates on squat, so felt pretty good about that. Deadlift is still substantially weaker than the squat (and is the one I failed), so thinking about getting one of the renta-trainers for a day to tell me whether I'm retarded or not. Probably retarded. It's hard to tell, since literally everyone I see doing deadlifts does them differently.

It's kind of hard to figure progress, since the internet gives a bunch of conflicting messages on how fast you should expect to gain strength at the start. It's either soys saying "if you can lift the bar you're stronger than 95% of humans" or trolls saying they hit 1/2/3/4 the day they started.

Current progress at ~6 months for the x5 sets:
Overhead Press: 55=>115
Bench Press: 85=>155
Squat: 105=>315
Deadlift: 115=>260

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Yeah, deadlift form can vary a good bit depending on your body makeup. People will tend to have bad form due to lack of body awareness and missing that mind to muscle connection that is needed more than you need for more straightforward lifts.

Your deadlift weight seems to be somewhat inline with your other lifts. Your squat just seems really high in comparison.

When I first started deadlifting I had stupid bad form. My non lifting hips/lower back posture was terrible from sitting in a computer chair way too much. I would get whatever friend I was lifting with to film it so that I could actually see a side angle of where I was going wrong (you dont want to try looking at a side mirror while doing it).

I also tried my best to stay at a lower weight until I could consistently pull with form I was satisfied with. If going to heavy is forcing bad form and things are firing off out of sync itll hold progression back.

Being that it works your whole body there can also be a lot of points of failure that could be hindering progress as well. I'm sure you have read a lot of this stuff elsewhere. Just throwing out my own personal experience with um.

Did you fail the deadlift because of difficulty driving up or was it more grip strength? I always hit grip strength walls rather than actual posterior chain strength walls with deadlifts. So I started doing Kroc Rows and those have helped immensely. Farmer carries always bored me.

I’ve recently gotten into rucking and with that I’ve started hitting the gym in an effort to help improve my ruck times. I've always been active and relatively fit, but I've mostly done body weight and cardio related bullshit, so you'll see in these workouts I slowly lean in harder on resistance training.

Anyway, here’s my workout the past few weeks:

Friday 02 April:
Saturday 03 April:
Sunday 06 April: Rest
Monday 05 April:
Tuesday 06 April:
Wednesday 07 April: Rest
Thursday 08 April: Rest
Friday 09 April:
Saturday 10 April:
Sunday 11 April: Rest
Monday 12 April:
Tuesday 13 April:
Wednesday 14 April: Rest
Thursday 15 April:
Friday 16 April:
Saturday 17 April:
Sunday 18 April: Rest
Monday 19 April:
Tuesday 20 April:
Wednesday 21 April:
Thursday 22 April: Rest
Friday 23 April:

I want to fit squats in here but I'm not sure where they'd really fit without reducing my performance in some other area. Right now I think I can keep adding about 10lbs to my deadlift and 5lbs to my bench every week for a few more weeks while I enjoy newbie gains. I want to at least deadlift 320 for a few reps and I'd like to bench 200 for 5 reps eventually.

My overall PT plan is about to turn into
Monday: Weights
Tuesday: 3 mile run, 3 mile ruck
Wednesday Rest
Thursday: Long Run (4 miles this coming week, adding miles every week or two up to a max of about 12 miles)
Friday: Weights
Saturday: Long Ruck (at 5 miles now, working up to as long as 27 miles @ 65lbs)
Sunday: Rest

I'd like to ultimately run a 5 miler in about 36 minutes and be able to ruck at a 10 minute pace w/ 65lbs indefinitely.

Add longer rests between sets if you thinking adding squats will hurt your performance. Or try rotating lunges and squats. I’d also split up doing 4 compound lifts in the same session. That’s a lot on the body to handle. I’d do bench/OHP one day and DL/squat the other.

wormie said:

Planks are kind of shit for ab work too. Shit like landmine twists, russian twists, leg raises, rope climbers and windshield wiper are where its at imo.

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Yeah I don’t feel like I get much out of them aside from being able to hold a longer max plank. Unfortunately it’s part of my PT test for work so I have to deal with it.

Today was my long ruck day, results as follows:
Ruck with 30lbs
11:56 for mile 1
12:00 for mile 2
12:57 for mile 3
12:14 for mile 4
Total time 49:07

7:16 seconds faster than last Saturday with 26lbs

I am going to try replacing lunges with 5x5 squat this week and see how it goes.

Deadlifting today, did a set at 235, two at 245 one at 255 (PB) and then I was feeling good so I threw it up to 260 and on my second rep I felt a strange pain right in my perineum. Immediately sat the weight down and called it since it was my last set anyway, but I’m still feeling it. Feelsbadman.

Benched 165 today which was nice, not as high as my younger years but I am getting there.

Louis said:

Yeah, deadlift form can vary a good bit depending on your body makeup. People will tend to have bad form due to lack of body awareness and missing that mind to muscle connection that is needed more than you need for more straightforward lifts.

Your deadlift weight seems to be somewhat inline with your other lifts. Your squat just seems really high in comparison.

When I first started deadlifting I had stupid bad form. My non lifting hips/lower back posture was terrible from sitting in a computer chair way too much. I would get whatever friend I was lifting with to film it so that I could actually see a side angle of where I was going wrong (you dont want to try looking at a side mirror while doing it).

I also tried my best to stay at a lower weight until I could consistently pull with form I was satisfied with. If going to heavy is forcing bad form and things are firing off out of sync itll hold progression back.

Being that it works your whole body there can also be a lot of points of failure that could be hindering progress as well. I'm sure you have read a lot of this stuff elsewhere. Just throwing out my own personal experience with um.

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Took the filming advice and had a friend film me doing it at various weights, was able to get some help from the gym owner using the film without having to shell out extra, so that was helpful!

My squat's probably pretty high from a lifetime of being a fatass Came to weightlifting with those useless nerd arm-noodles, so my legs were probably the only thing getting worked before that.

A lot of what I ended up having issues with were largely leg and hand orientation/placement. I was starting with the bar too far forward, because my legs were too far apart, so the only way I was grabbing the bar was by leaning my arms out past my legs while my knees were out.

Khane said:

Did you fail the deadlift because of difficulty driving up or was it more grip strength? I always hit grip strength walls rather than actual posterior chain strength walls with deadlifts. So I started doing Kroc Rows and those have helped immensely. Farmer carries always bored me.

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Grip strength is definitely an issue for me with the deadlift. Before I switched to doing hypertrophy-level amounts of accessory work I basically never felt tired or "burn" in my legs/butt, it was always my hands hurting/going-discolored by the time I was "done" with the straight 5x5 style "lift the heaviest you can" sets. The lower weight and higher reps/sets on 5/3/1 has helped a bit, as my hands don't seem to tear as much at ~10-15% less weight, but I definitely feel like I need to find some accessory to do that increases hand callusing/grip-strength. I tried out the kroc rows this week and they seemed good.

Weirdly, my traps are the only upper-body muscle that was actually visible/developed before I started working out (at the 6 month mark I can now actually see other muscles when I flex, so that feels good, even if there's a flap of flab hanging from the underside of the muscle shelf). I assume that's from hauling around piles of books, computers, and 5000-count cardboard boxes all day for years like a good little nerdling.

escrima said:

One year of rotating John Meadows routines. Health Nutrition Fitness Customized Meal Training Plan Program Coaches Mountain Dog Diet
View attachment 342239

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Nice work, congrats! I had never heard of John Meadows but there's some really good material at that link.

Over the past several months, I've been using the Juggurnaut Method and have seen some really nice gains. Keep in mind that you don't actually 1RM (I will take a week off at the end and do this just because) in this program, but do have a lift at the end of each phase where you do AMRAP so can get a fair estimate of where you max is.

Thus far...

OHP - 165>205
Bench - 295>360
Squat - 405>475
Deadlift - 475>525

Working out with higher volume has given me much better neuro-muscular coordination. My squats (and to a degree DL) were very quad-dominate and became considerably easier once you learn to 'feel' the hip hinge. Overhead I had weak traps and external rotators and de-loading has allowed them to catch up making the lifts considerably easier and safer (my left shoulder doesn't click anymore). I've tried tons of stuff over the years and maybe there is something to the 'old-man strength' myth, but I think maybe I've historically over-trained and this schedule has slowed me down enough to realize the stimulus I was putting my body through. Especially with the larger compound lifts, it seems recovery is critical.

John Meadows is a fucking monster. His workout programs are well regarded. He has a really good YouTube page too.

Those are some nuts numbers dude keep it up!

Just saw John passed away today. Dude was only 49, sucks.

Scoresby said:

John Meadows, Renowned Bodybuilder And Coach, Reportedly Dies At 49

It has been reported that John Meadows has died at 49 years old. He passed away in his sleep on Sunday, August 8th, 2021.

generationiron.com

Just saw John passed away today. Dude was only 49, sucks.

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Big time bummer. I really liked his stuff and seemed like a genuinely nice person.

So I have totally changed my routine, diet and general philosophy on going to the gym.

My philosophy was I MUST be the strongest in the gym. To be honest I usually was. No roids, just protein and creatine.

I'm done with that. No more heavy strength regiments. No every day lifting. No shakes, no creeatine.

Since the beginning of the year I have gone from 305 in weight, down to 235 as of this morning. I feel like I'm 20 years younger!

I do lifting for 3 sets of 15. Maintenance weight. Like last year I was curling with the 55's. Now I use the 20's. I do this 4 days a week. 3 days cardio. Whether bike/elliptical/stairs. 45 minutes, and end it with usually ropes or burpees.

I JUST started stretching...I might still skip this. This is a PITA time wise.

My diet. I stuck it out a month, and ate MUCH smaller portions, now it's the norm. I would say have a whole chicken after the gym. Now? A leg. Now my appetite is so, that I'm forcing myself to eat that leg!

I must admit...I feel like a bitch now though. See those fuckers I was laughing at for their weights and gains...damn near doubling whatever it I do now.

I also look like a crackhead. BUT I feel soooo much better.

I met my goal in weight. Had to type this out!