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General lifting/fitness/weights thread.

To start the conversation, how are your lifts guys?

The door to one of them in my office keeps getting stuck opening and half-closing over and over

I've been trying to swim a mile and it's going well but I can't kick at a different rhythm than my arms do the rotation so it's kind of slow and looks hilarious. I also run a lot. I was doing SS/SL and extremely enjoying it but my groin got sore doing squats and my upper back can't handle military press (probably doing those wrong l0l).

Not done anything in two weeks because of routine breaks and illness. Feeling sloooow and weaaaaak.

I've really sort of buckled down this school year, lift 3 times a week on Greyskull LP (thanks to @anonomous), and have been trying to start swimming though absolutely atrocious at it. Currently cutting for a vacation this winter to Florida.

Current big 3 are 115/165 (have hit higher but been struggling recently with this)/215.

I was on a dirty bulk for a bit, hit 180 bench, 245 squat, and 340 dead, but I was spending way too much time/effort in the gym and making food and going about the whole process. Plus I hated ignoring cardio like I had been. Now I run a few days, lift a few days, jump rope, and climb rocks (badly).

I'm actually cutting myself off of squats for the time being because I enjoyed them too much. I've always had strangely large thighs, so squatting helped me embrace that and take advantage of it, to the detriment of my development everywhere else. I was so afraid of being taken as one of those "curlbros" that I focused all my efforts on squatting, thrusting myself securely into t-rex mode. For the time being I've stopped squatting to balance myself out again. It's funny how opinions of people on the internet can influence your perception so heavily. Nobody I've met in real life has asked about squatting, or even lifting in general. Big wake up call for me.

yes yes im so glad this is a thread. to paint a picture i had my "ideal" sunday, which was composed of a few ingredients:
1) weight lifting
2) window shopping
3) caffeine and alcohol.

i love working out because i get to be alone. i like being alone. i like doing very difficult things like swimming or lifting heavy because my body takes precedence over my active mind and for a moment my consciousness is dead as my brainstem takes over and all my effort is body-focused. for a little while im an animal.

im a very good swimmer but swimming is the opposite of weight training so (very sadly) i havent been swimming. i did a mud run in the summer and did a lot of crossfit type of things to prepare. now its just weight training.

UNWASHED its funny you say how internet influences you. powerlifting/working out can be as esoteric as drop crotch clothes. no one cares about one rep maxes. then again most people don't care about you either way.

my bench sucks how do i get better at it? in return i can give people tips on swimming.

yohji pants are the best for squatters legs.

Yeah teck, a lot of my pants/clothing choices are based around my legs. I'm more prone to buying bottoms than any other article of clothing, and as much as I love some of the Raf/Dries slim minimalism stuff, it's just not viable for my body type.

Definitely agreed on the solo workouts and the mind-erasing aspect of it. It's purified in lifting but true for a lot of forms of exercise, pitting yourself wholly against a physical objective is immensely mentally therapeutic.

Also, as far as the bench press, I quit benching for months because I was getting nowhere and starting to risk injury. This is the video that turned that around for me. Best opening line ever : "Why don't they just fucking learn how to bench"?



For me it was almost entirely a form issue. Keeping the shoulder blades together and focusing on the chest raised my bench ~40 pounds in a month or two.

teck, dude we need to talk more. Why? 1. cuz you lift weights 2. you bjj. If you notice, my display is of me choking someone out at my first comp. The guy passed out. LOL rjbman chose it for me, so i thought why not.

On your bench question, have you tried asking for a spot? And just pushing yourself. Someone spotting you does great things to how much you can lift. Before i do my bench i check a few things..

1. Arched lower back
2. Squeeze shoulder blades
3. tight lower body (as in the rest of your body doesn't move)
4. bar must touch nipples in each rep
5. Most importantly, BREATHE. inhale when the bar goes down and exhale when the bar goes up.


IMO, lifting does great things to your confidence. Not just aesthetics. Eg. You THINK you can't lift it but (with some technique and a spotter and a pushing) you actually CAN do it. Applies to other aspects of life imo.

im more of a bjj fan now. i haven't really rolled in at least 5 years, and when i did train it was part of a student club in college not a real academy. still love it either way and i'd train if it wasn't such a big time commitment and $$$.

i do love weight lifting. do you also olympic lift? my power clean is ok but i can't jerk with a damn (heyo).

yeah, i olympic lift, but i recently switched everything to dumbbells to concentrate on aesthetics and hopefully come back stronger on compound lifts. I can powerclean 60kg, which isn't a lot! squat is at 130kg 3x5, bench at 80 3x5, deadlift at 160kg 1x5

i dont even bother with conventional flat bench, i much prefer just doing barbell decline and dumbbell inclines. doing pushups in between sets would definitely help, but kind of moronic to do on a busy gym floor.

This all sounds really hardcore.

I go for really long walks. I walk everywhere, which in London is unusual. I do some body weight workout stuff at home, but that's about it.

I did a piece of work around this time last year on the rise of the 'quantified self' trend and went native for research. I had all kinds of wearable tech that told me my heart rate, calories burned, distance walked, sleep cycles and all that good stuff. It was extremely interesting, and had a profound effect on my diet that I feel will be everlasting. It was, however, difficult for me to keep up with once I'd finished my work as I think it requires a more routined lifestyle.

I'm happy with my body and fitness, so I don't feel the need to bulk up/cardio down. I would like to maybe do some yoga, as it's meant to help you with your posture as you meditate.

Walking is awesome. I love the fact that I can walk manhattan. I find it physically and creatively healthy.

Do you have a pull up bar bobbin? Pull up bars are the best if you do bodyweight stuff.

I feel like I hover around the edge of quantified self things. Some of it seems really interesting but almost all of it is too much effort to enter.

Yup. I have one of those ones that fit around the door frame and double up as a pushup aid.

If I was to suggest a way into QS, I'd say that FitBit was the best.

anono switching up to bro lifts/aesthetics can be a good way to work on gains on the big lifts. again i did crossfit for a few weeks and i think it really helped when i went back to just compound lifts. anyone here do crossfit?

let's celebrate bodies. state something you've done physically that you're proud of.

I cut quite hard for my bjj comp a month ago (not as hard as mma fighters) to drop down from middle heavy to middle weight, 190lbs to 176lbs now and i'm seeing a lot more definition than i used to see. My fellow asians think I'm huge compared to them so that's cool too. (I'm not that huge, they're just too small... Size S or XS)

bike-to-work season is basically over (thanks, DST) so now I get to go to the gym in the morning. i think i'm gonna hop back on starting strength to get my numbers back where i can do fun things again and hopefully start low enough on the squats that my knees don't whine, but i imagine seeing the gains come a lot faster up to a point.

anyway, powerlifting mostly sucks and olympic lifting is the most fun you can have in the gym. even with tooling around on SS, i'd love to break 200 on my clean and jerk by the end of the year.

I dropped my 2k (on an ergometer) time to 7 minutes recently. And I swam 900 meters yesterday!

got a good rep comment about keeping muscle movements even. if i do both pushups and pullups, is that good and even? or do i need other exercises too

It all depends on what your goals are. With push-ups and pull-ups you're working chest and back with some abs. If you're looking for full-body work, you could add dips for triceps, pistol squats for legs/hamstrings/glutes, and handstand push-ups for shoulders (this is assuming you want to do bodyweight exercises). You could also alternate pull-ups and chin-ups to get some bicep development.

Handstand pushups are a better complimentary exercise to pullups, and rows are that for pushups.

Set a Squat 1 RM PR (1 rep max personal record) of 285 LB (129KG) yesterday.

After watching unwashed's bench video i tried tweaking my bench technique yesterday. i definitely felt a different but its a bit awkward so far.

the other day i cleaned 165 LB (75 KG), but i think i can def do at least 175 lb.

My chlorine intake per stroke has gone down significantly but my dog chewed through my goggles...

All my lifts are shit because of wrestling season.

Also I suck at wrestling

jcm not sure if you want any advice but a lot of swimming is balance and making as tiny a cross section thru the water as possible. if you're off balance you'll end up dragging and it becomes much harder to breathe, stroke swim. try a balance drill like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYsZn1-zKVg

thug i wish i wish i wish i wrestled in high school but i was too scared. how long you been wrestling for.

i just 1RM dead lift 365, a new personal best. i borrowed my roommates belt and chalk and it helped immensely.