My day job involves entering people's basements, and I run into an unused treadmill about once a week. I finally got up the gumption to ask for one, and I managed to snag it and bring it home using my work van. (My car isn't big enough to move this kind of shit around, which also made it difficult for me to grab a free treadmill from craigslist.) I was hesitant to spend money on a treadmill because I worried that it would suck, I wouldn't use it, my spare money can be better used for mutual aid, etc., but I've been wanting a treadmill for years. Sometimes the weather sucks (freezing rain, for instance) and I don't want to go running outside, but thanks to the glories of this random treadmill it's just also so easy now to head into my basement and walk for an hour while fucking around on my phone. It's also helped with my sleep issues a lot.

Just wanted to advocate for this in case anyone else is in a similar situation.

Got sick mid October and when I came back to the gym, the 10% deload was still too much, so I went all the way back down to 100kg and now I'm here. I remember being really scared of 117.5 kg (as you can see on the graph), this feels crazy.

So I use an app for tracking my lifts and it uses that data to show me a few different graphs, including my estimated 1RM. However, this calculated 1rm is based on each individual set, not on all sets - for example I did a set of 4 at 60kg for OHP, but that was my last set, I did 2 more at the same weight for 5 reps each before that. So, yes, it might be accurate to say on the last set, my 1rm was around 65kg, that says nothing about what my 1rm is while not fatigued.

At the moment, I'm just curious what the numbers would be, but I know some routines depend on your 1rm to determine how much you should lift and I'd like to try those at some point. Is this something that is just going to waste a workout session in order to figure out?

Yay

I've really tried with this movement I think. Looked up videos for help with form, but it seems like every one I watch has the back at a different angle. Doesn't matter what the angle is, it's uncomfortable and starts hurting my back if I do it for too long. In fact, it feels more like a lower back exercise than upper back, where I don't feel it at all. The weight is either too light and I don't have to focus on form, but it doesn't feel like I'm hitting the muscle groups I want, or it's too heavy and I'm unable to maintain good form at all. There is no in between weight here.

Additionally, and most importantly, it doesn't feel like there's a way to really struggle through the last few reps. I'm not sure how else to put this, but with squats or other movement I'm comfortable with, the last few reps get really hard but I feel like I can go all out and try really hard to finish them and it actually gets me exhausted. This doesn't happen with rows - the last few reps my form just gives out and I'm just like "whelp, done with that" with none of that sorta satisfying exhaustion I feel from other movements.

This changed yesterday when I went for one handed chest supported machine rows instead and I actually felt that "oomph" at the end. I actually feel a little soreness in those spots I was trying to hit with rows today because of that.

I guess I'm asking if it's ok to just say fuck Barbell rows and go for similar movements with machines instead.

I'm in potato shape and haven't exercised in quite some time. Anyone got some useful advice to prevent me from hurting myself and keeping motivation to get fit?

Yay

I'm an amateur runner and yesterday I finally managed a 5K at a decent pace. 28 minutes 9 seconds. I was never fit at all when I was younger and I still think I'm pretty lazy, but I have numbers I can point to that indicate improvement!

I just wanted to brag a lil since I've heard under 30 for a 5k is pretty decent

Yim yum horchata !meow-fiesta

Mix four scoops in a shaker cup with !soy-cutie and baby, you got a stew goin' !lady-doge

also it's !vegan-vegan

Really happy with this, big recommend

Would drink as a regular beverage or meal replacement shake even if I wasn't looking for high protein supplementation for gainz

For your health! !professor-helper-wave

I'm on the fence of buying a rowing machine once I get my own apartment. I see a few on amazon going for under $200 with over 4 star reviews and think it would be a good intro to cardio/basic whole body muscle building but don't want to waste money on cheap crap. The main downsides from the reviews aren't the build quality but the top level of resistance.

I'm the most out of shape I've ever been, haven't done any sports or real consistant exercise in years and am wondering if a lower end rowing machine would be a good way to start. When I was super active my main sports were first baseball then skateboarding and snowboarding so I've never had a lot of arm or upper body strength, mostly leg and core. I'm 5'10'' and weigh like 180 now, not trying to get swol ASAP just be healthier and build confidence and establish a routine to eventually get more fit.

also how hard is it on your knees? I'd like my gf to be able to use it too but she has some bad knee issues that flair up which make me think a stationary bike might be a better choice but I like the idea of more of a whole body work out than just cardio

don't tell me to run I HATE running. my gf wants to buy real bikes but the weather where I am sucks 8 months out of the year so while bikes would be more fun they would take up more space in a small apartment than a machine we could share. plus I know we wouldn't be riding bikes together in a way that would be better exercise than say 30 min on a machine with consistent resistance.

there was somone here who was all about rowing machines and I looked them up to DM them but they're banned now lol

There are no windows and all the equipment is from the 90s but it's all sturdy so it doesn't matter. I am excited because it's cheaper than PF, closer to my house, and also has boxing lessons. Wop wop wop wop.

Gotta convert all my dumbbell weights to barbell now tho.

I've been running regularly since August, gradually upping the distance, getting faster, and learning how not to obliterate my hips, knees, legs and feet. Although it took longer than I had hoped I finally managed to run a half marathon yesterday in the town of Aomori, Japan. It just so happened that the start line for their half marathon course was outside my hotel so I thought why not just go for it.

I set out with 2 running gel sachets and a bottle of water and started pounding down the coast road. 8.5km to the outside of the city, turn around back to the start, then over a road bridge for a few more Kms before returning home. I managed to PR my 10km, 15km, and 10miles and got a 1:51:03 for the half marathon.

I'm super stoked. Insanely pleased I got sub 2 hours on my first attempt, and I can't believe I finally did it.

My legs feel fine today, a little sore but nothing terrible.

Next milestone is the 30k. Let's fucking go!

!

I’ve been trying to summit Mount Diablo since I was a teenager. I don’t live in the bay area but I have a lot of family that does so been there many times. Got farther than ever before so I consider it a success. About a 1/2 mile from the top we came to a stretch with a skinny path and a 1000 foot drop and I just couldn’t do it. About 50 ft in I got down on my hands and knees and the people I was with laughed at me and said yeah that’s not gonna work we should just go back so we did. If I lived near mountains I would do this every week. Got a mild fear of heights but as long as the drop offs aren’t too severe it's a lot of fun the views are amazing and a great workout.

!

!

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I finally live in a house and am going mad with the possibilities unfolding around me.

So I am going to sign up for a 15 mile race 7 months from now. The entire race is at high altitude and a lots of elevation gain. I've only done 5ks before and I always have a lot of trouble with hills. I'm wondering what level of training I'm going to need to do to get better at hills, trails, and altitude. So far my road record for distance is 6mi and my trail record is 4mi.

Am I making a mistake or not (I'm doing this either way)?

Been working out consistently for about 3 months now using a beginner plan (Grey skulls lp) and I think I'm hitting plateaus just using linear progression. I'm up to:

DL: 120kg

Squat: 120kg

Bench: 75kg

OHP: 55kg

And I've had to deload all those weights twice, so I think now is a good time to find a different routine. I was looking at 5/3/1, but I'm not really sure I understand it well and there's a lot of variations (reddit also seems vague on details cause they want you to buy the books or something, idk). The volume also looks kinda ridiculous and I don't wanna spend more than an hour and a half at the gym everytime.

So yeah, sorta progress update, sorta asking where to go next.

Build your strength in whatever way you may but remember to properly repair and recover. Get your rest, keep your diet on point, that you may train again and go even harder. Keep training friends, let us all become our strongest selves (in every way one can be strong).

What's practical and effective for self defense?

Anyone here do tough mudders?

For context: there was a time several years ago where I went 3 days a week doing a lifting routine. I think my heaviest dead lift was maybe 140lbs.

Two kids later, hernia surgery, and a change in position at work that has me sitting way more (used to do solo IT work for multiple buildings, now I have a team and do mostly back end admin work), and I've lost all my gains and put on about 20lbs.

Kids are more manageable now solo, and I'm looking to hit the gym every Monday I can.

How do I maximize this time?

Thanks in advance comrades!

This kind of a public self-reminder, but I just want everyone to remember that fitness is literally a journey. It may not feel like to today or tomorrow, hell not even next month, but you're going to see positive changes and improvement. I mean this in the least "hustle culture" way, but keep grinding everyone.

My squats passed 112.5 kg (250 lbs) on my last workout, hitting 3x5 was hard and I'm a little scared of going for 115 kg next time. Still managed 7 reps on the last set though and I was fucking sweating for it lmao. This is also the only major movement I haven't had to deload yet.

Making progress on OHP is ridiculous - someone here said they've hit 230 lbs on that and I have no idea how, you must be a monster. Like the last time I worked out, I'm hitting a wall around 50 kg (111lbs and also 3x5) - I failed the last attempt at that weight and I've reached that point again, which I'll be attempting later today. I will say that learning you have to activate your core during the lift helped a lot, but that advice kind of goes for all major lifts.

And finally, I can do a full 3 sets of pull-ups unassisted now, albeit with great effort. Overall feeling good about it and I can see my body getting kinda beefy now, but that's also because I've been eating so much food now.

!im-vegan !jerma-herbivore!palestine-strong

I swear, every time I find the perfect brand of minimalist shoes for running with my flat feet, they get popular, then to appeal to the growing crowd slowly morph into more of an Air Jordan bodyplan. It happened with Sauconys way back in the day and now I'm watching it happen again with Altras. I'm a bit too poor to buy my running shoes in bulk. If I'm lucky maybe I can get an older model off of Ebay for cheap.

And yeah, I love my toe shoes, but those are more for trail running or just doing errands.

Title says it all, I have a friend willing to go on runs with me and get into a habit of being more active! It was a mix of running & walking today but I think I did pretty good for being a couch potato!

Simple and fun workout: Do push ups while following the song's instructions. When it says Sally up, push up, when it says Sally down, go down. Don't lay down entirely but hold in a hovering down position. How long can you make it?

Doing a progressive overload routine and finally failed a deadlift set at 117.5 kg - even the deload is around the max I was at before (over a year ago or so) so I'm actually pretty psyched, even though I failed the set.

I think I was a little too scared of the weight the last time I was working out, but my form seems good now. Only issue I'm going through is the bar scraping my shins and knees, especially while lowering the weight.

I remember a while back on here someone was asking how to get to a standing ab wheel rollout and today this video came into my timeline and it has some things I personally used along with some ideas I think are pretty inventive, especially putting a band around yourself.

I'd kill to look like that but I assume drugs are involved.

Also I'm 35 and waaaaay out of shape (like walking up stairs or fairly short distance gives me sore muscles the next day lol and im over 350 lbs of almost all fat) so idk if like the timeline age wise would be bad.

i do! !sweat

Source

Hello everyone,

recently, I've started using Liftlog to monitor my gym progress. And I'm liking it so far.

There is a feature where you can post your workout for your followers and you can see others workouts as well.

so if any of you are using it feel free to add me here is my link :

https://app.liftlog.online/feed/share?id=xmpyp50n9qh1&name=p0wer

and if you're not using it and you are searching for an app for gym I highly recommend you give it a try.

These aren't my maxes (idk how to even find what that would be), but the weight I've reached following a beginner 3x5 program. My bench has always been weak and whenever I worked out regularly in the past, I'd stall/fail past 60 kilos and get demotivated.

I have passed 100 kilos on Squats and DL before, it's about the point I got to before I got injured a year or two ago. The exciting part is I'm at this point after a little over a month of consistently going to the gym, whereas before it took about 4 to 6 months. Only thing I haven't caught up on are my Pull-ups, which have also always been difficult for me - moreso than bench actually.

No questions to ask this time, just content with my progress for now and wanted to share.

Hi all, I have been having persistent hip pain in roughly the circled spot for a few months now. I want to do something about it before it gets worse but I don't know how. It feels very tight and unpleasant when stretching and I also get pins and needles very quickly when sitting on my sit bones or a hard chair.

Another clue to the location of the discomfort: the stretch that feels best is sitting crisscross with my right foot on bottom and leaning away from my hip with my leg grounded to the floor.

I can feel my body compensating and stiffness is slowly starting to travel up my lower back.

Only recently finding out power cleans are an "essential lift" and the reasoning makes sense - developing "explosive" or sudden, high power muscle movements. I'd like to develop my sprint power/technique, so this is appealing.

However, I really doubt my gym would be ok with me doing power cleans in a rack spot, which are the only barbell spots in the gym. Additionally, it looks scary; I've injured myself working out before and it's a major concern because it will kill my consistency, which will also kill my motivation (I'm actually just starting to consistently workout again after I injured myself the last time, a whole year afterwards).

So what are good alternatives? Anyone have good experiences with these alternatives? I've heard db squat jumps aren't too bad, anyone use these in their routine?

A lot of guides online suggest some hard to get or not widely available foods (idk where to find tempeh and quinoa is a bit expensive, for example). But I'm kinda doing the math in my head and having a hard time meeting protein intake goals (probably about 150g per day at least). I did get a protein supplement and it will help I guess, but im not great at meal planning. For anyone who lifts and is vegan, what do you do?

If I have to hold a position (planks) or do some exercises (Dips, pullups), the associated muscles shake a lot. Is this normal? It's kind of been something my body has done my whole life when I tried to workout, but I'd like to fix it cause it's annoying.

I have been bothered by some mild sciatica for the past week, probably brought about by two days of long-distance driving during a recent family vacation.

I have sore spot on my right side close to the spine that sometimes sends jolts of pain when I walk. I've had it before and seen a doctor about it who confirmed it to be harmless although annoying.

Do anyone have some good examples of good stretches to do in this situation? Most of what I could find online targets the muscles slightly below where my pain is located and doesn't seen to reach the spot that hurts.

And now for the rant:

When using Google to find information, the results were full of SEO optimised links to physical therapists and chiropractors trying to sell me stuff. Among all the bullshit I managed to find a page about it on a public healthcare site where very little effort had been made to make the text pop up in search engines.

The text was written by a named specialist and cited sources. It said that there's little to do about mild sciatica besides keeping active, improving workplace ergonomics, taking OTC painkillers and waiting for it to go away by itself. It was honest about that most of the time it was impossible to explain exactly what mechanism causes the pain. It said that there's no documentated effect of heat or cold and explicitly advised against lumbar support bandages.

I then visited one of the commercial sites, hoping to find some stretches to do. And what was the first thing I saw? Without giving any sources they claimed that cold packs and lumbar support bandages are effective and tried selling them to me.

The individual private physiotherapist might be good at their job and able to help people but the profit motive incentives them to upsell people snake oil and quackery. This in turn makes everything they say less trustworthy. It might very well be that you can benefit from some product they are selling in some situations but you can never be sure whether they're advising you to use it because they want your money or because it is actually going to do you any good.

Meanwhile medical doctors, who almost all operate within a single payer public healthcare system around here are one of the most trusted professions since you know that the likelihood of them having ulterior motives is very low. (Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of problems with classism, racism, sexism and God-complexes in the medical profession but at least your GP is not trying to inspect your wallet)

I already run, but I would like to incorporate some total body strength training. Just to stay health and build enough strength to be able to stay fit and limber. I’ve got that “Homemade Muscle” book that seems to be what I’m looking for, but want to see if you all have any recommendations.

I’m also trying to figure if there’s some low cost equipment I should add that would help. Like those variable weight dumbells, I think I could afford those. But a full set a weight plates is well beyond what I can afford.

https://digital.la84.org/digital/api/collection/p17103coll10/id/66/page/0/inline/p17103coll10_66_0

honestly was looking for a jordan peterson equivilant of "clean your room" and workout sort of rhetoric - but coming from communists

something along the lines of theory/ logical thinking that would state how required it was to work out and develop discipline - this was all rhetoric spurred after reading roderic day

!