Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

Why would you ever do them at all. I'm gonna start doing squats where I bend my knee the opposite direction. Fuck anatomy, gotta get some good hammy work in

Dabamf_sl said:

Why would you ever do them at all.

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To work on scapular retraction, depression, and downward rotation. Which isn't a bad idea for those with immobile shoulders that have limited and/or painful range of motion. Wouldn't go heavy and make a strength exercise out of them though.

24 days since shoulder pain set in. I dropped everything down super light and cut out any shoulder use. The squat & deadlift drops were probably unnecessary, but I finally decided to be cautious instead of constantly pushing.

Squats: From 200 (pre-knee pain) to 165 to 135, now going up 10 a week.
Deadlift: from 300 to 225, up 20 a week.
Started rotator cuff exercises last week
Started cleans again today, from 165 to 135, up 10 a week.
In a week I'll try out some insanely low bench & press, probably 95 and 65, respectively, and going up 10 a week from there. I figure in another month I might be safe to increase faster till I get to my old weight. If I get any kind of pain, I'll stop and wait another week to resume. I'm not sure about this, but it seems like press would be easier on the shoulders because the scapula is free to move around, whereas with bench it is locked in place. Is this correct?

The shoulder pain is almost all gone. I can still feel it get a tad sore every now and then, like today doing cleans, but I think it will be fine if I take it easy. I stopped the daily ibuprofen I've been taking since like November, as I'm worried about long-term effects. It did help a lot for inflammation, so I hope I can still keep that at bay. One lesson I'm gonna take from this is not to always go heavier once succeeding at one weight. I remember squatting 185 and it being a big milestone, and feeling like I should stay there another week or so, but listened to general advice I've heard from multiple places to keep pushing the weight. Probably good advice for most cases, but my body is clearly not well suited for lifting. I don't know if that contributed to getting hurt or not, but I'm not in any hurry, I have no competition or serious sport, so I might as well progress slightly slower while decreasing chance of injury.

Been lazy with breakfast, eating these whole grain organic bagels (420 calories) every morning with a spread of cream cheese and fruit (usually strawberries, pineapple, or cantaloupe). Think I can get away with this? And when I say cream cheese spread, I mean spread, not fucking globs of it all over. I mainly put it to slow down the absorption of the carbs, same idea with the fruit.

You'd be better off eliminating the bagels all together and going with a shake or something. The fruit is adding a lot of carbs, too.

Shake won't keep me filled until lunch, not even close.

And carbs from fruit isn't a big deal really since I don't really eat anymore starches for the rest of the day. The only carbs I get are from vegetables and fruit aside from that bagel.

Well, you're not doing too bad then, but you should really look into options outside of the bagel. A lot of it is mental...a homemade shake loaded with berries, some protein powder and a yogurt base should be able to hold you for a few hours.

What exactly are you trying to do?

Adam12_sl said:

Well, you're not doing too bad then, but you should really look into options outside of the bagel. A lot of it is mental...a homemade shake loaded with berries, some protein powder and a yogurt base should be able to hold you for a few hours.

What exactly are you trying to do?

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I'm doing strength training with low intensity cardio and HIIT on off days. Basically, trying to dense the fuck up BRO. But yeah, basically cutting fat while trying to retain as much muscle as is humanly possible.

This is a decent idea. Can I use frozen fruit? I know one of them is terrible... is it dried fruit? Canned fruit?

Frozen fruit is fine, and necessary during off seasons. Just try to use berries as much as possible (better nutrient/carb ratio), and use regular greek yogurt. You can add flax seed oil (better to add it straight than use tabs) if you're into that, too. 1tsp is plenty.

Itlan_sl said:

Been lazy with breakfast, eating these whole grain organic bagels (420 calories) every morning with a spread of cream cheese and fruit (usually strawberries, pineapple, or cantaloupe). Think I can get away with this? And when I say cream cheese spread, I mean spread, not fucking globs of it all over. I mainly put it to slow down the absorption of the carbs, same idea with the fruit.

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I wouldn't touch a bagel if you paid me. Scramble 4-5 eggs add a meat of your choice add some veggies and call it breakfast.

I guess I'll update you guys while I am here. 3 1/2 weeks post surgery and moving along nicely. I have full 35 degree range of motion, lock to lock, in the brace they fitted me with and I have a couple weeks before I head back to the surgeon for a check up. I was able to un-rack, squat and rack the bar yesterday with no problems so I have some pain free flexibility now, I couldn't do this at all last week when I tried. Still eating and supplementing like a fiend, onward and upward.

Was wondering if you guys could give me some advice, I'm 6'1" 165 lbs with a tall skinny frame. Since summer is almost here, I would like start working out and get into shape, but I'm clueless about a workout routine. The only real experience I have with working out is doing P90X for a few months. Should I just stick with a P90X routine or do something different? I do have a workout bench and weights, so something that I could do from home would be greatly appreciated.

Need more information. Mostly, what is your definition of "into shape?" P90X is glorified cardio. So unless you're fat (and you're not), I recommend going a different route.

Also, the sooner you get it out of your head that you can make any significant changes before summer, the better. Body recomposition takes a lot longer than 1-2 months. Start thinking in years.

I was planning on running and biking to get into "shape" for marathon running. Mainly, I want muscle building help, I know I won't huge because of my sucky genetics, but I would like build muscle and maybe gain a little weight in the process. And I understand this will be a new lifestyle change, the point of starting this in the summer is because my semester is ending soon and I don't have the time at the moment to get into a regular routine.

Keep in mind if you're doing running and biking to prepare for a marathon you're going to have to eat aTONof food if you want to still build any noticeable amount of muscle. Generally marathon training and weight/muscle gain do not go together.

Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and tell you to pick one. Train for marathons, or train for building muscle. You ever notice marathon runners are sickly looking? There's a reason.

Also, don't use genetics as an excuse for not being able to put on muscle mass...lots of muscle mass. Yeah, sucky genetics may mean you won't be a 250 pound bodybuilding competitor. But there's no reason you can't become bigger than 99% of the rest of the country. Most men of average height should be able to get to 200 pounds at under 12% body fat with enough effort. It won't be easy, but it's feasible.

A few friends wanted me to train with them for a marathon in a few months, but I would rather do weight and muscle gain. So if they don't go together I'd skip the marathon training.

Go find a novice program. StongLifts 5x5 and Starting Strength are both good. I did Starting Strength myself. Find out your maintenance calories and eat about 500 above that. Keep linear, weekly progression until that stops working. That should last you 1-2 years (not necessarily on those programs, but stick with a novice program for at least 6 months). Make sure you get 8 hours of sleep a night.

Do that, and you can pack on 20 pounds of muscle by the end of the year, possibly more.

Do Starting Strength for however long it takes you to plateau on novice-level programming (3-6 months or more?), then decide what your goals are (body building, more strength, etc) and adjust from there. I think at this point, that is the undisputed beginner program. Even if you decide to start training for a marathon in a few months, I'm betting those months of massive strength gains are gonna come in handy, even if you do end up losing most of the weight through your marathon training. I've noticed since fixing the bird-leg problem that what was previously a somewhat difficult hike became insanely easy despite being out of shape cardio-wise, because each step just takes so much less energy.

Thanks guys I will start reading up on them so I can start here soon.

FWIW I trained for a marathon 3 years ago, I was up to 20 mile runs twice a week and a couple weeks out from the marathon when I strained my Achilles. Basically I trained too much even though I was following a training program that I have been doing for months. I was eating around 4000 calories and still lost a lot of lean mass and ultimately looked and felt like shit. People kept telling me I looked ill. Running is a great way to lose lean mass.