Fitness

I don't know where else to share this, but I'm so proud of myself so I've gotta post it somewhere. I've finally got my first unassisted pull-up! It wasn't a goal I was working super hard toward, but I've noticed a lot of new muscle definition in my back, probably because I do a lot of rows, especially bird-dog rows and renegade rows. So I tried a pull-up and I was able to do one pretty easily! Not bad for a middle-aged lady! Now I've got a goal to do three. :)

I (40M) am new to this whole scene because I wanted to lose weight. This is the first time I have ever really gained weight because my metabolism was always stupid high, but its slowed down in middle age as expected.

I started intermittent fasting, immediately cut out snacks and started having a Slimfast shake for lunch, then a reasonable dinner.

Thats all been fine, and my weight is starting to come down.

I did read articles saying that Slimfast isnt particularly good because of the sugar content, but all the articles seem to be from the US (I am British) and the stuff I have is no added sugar, and all that seems to be carb based.

People have suggested skipping it for a protein shake instead, but a lot of that is conflicting!

People have said about making a shake with protein and peanut butter, people have said peanut butter is awful for it.

I just dont know what to do and I am going in circles.

What can I drink at lunch that is better than I am currently drinking? Do I just mix the protein as directed? Do I add things?

I've been maintaining my weight for a while now but lately it's been rising so I've adjusted calories accordingly, but I'm curious what you see as an acceptable "fluctuation" when you're maintaining?

Might be a question with an obvious answer, but I'd like some input.

I'm into Pilates recently (5 weeks), because it just feels so good and helps a few of my health conditions. But I've been experiencing issues with my hip and lower back ever since I started. The pain is significant, but according to my doctor, it's muscular.

Is this the typical "it gets worse before it gets better" situation, or should I consider to drop it?

Anyone with similar experience?

Crossposted from https://lemmy.today/post/31127120

27M. I have lost 5 BMI points, down to 30 from 35, in 5-6 months. I did simple CICO and resistance training (PPL split).

I am a bit exhausted of the caloric deficit now and want a break. I have felt like this before and taken a maintenance phase of 1 week and then continued cutting. Now that I am no longer obese, I feel less inclined to continue.

Should I recompose at my current weight or should I continue cutting? Ultimately I do want to get to at least 28 BMI or lower.

Any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

So, I'm pretty new to working out. I'm deceptively strong, but I'm more into losing weight than strength building. Still though, I paid $600 for a year of gym membership, and I bought these things called Powerblock's, which are like dumbells, but you can customize their weight up to 50lbs (and you can expand them later up to 90lbs). So I figure I should just do some strength training anyways. Not like there's a downside, right?

So for the first month of this, I had a very wrong idea. I thought "go to the gym, every day, and just do whatever".

So most days were arm day. I'd go on a Monday, arm day. I'd go on a Tuesday, arm day. I'd go 4-5 days a week.

Since then, I've been told NOT to do that, and only do arm day once per week. As the muscles need time to heal between lifts.

Here's the thing I don't get. I've been doing curls, and another machine where you pull these pulleys downward, and set the weight. With Curls, I'm up to 30lbs for that. Sets of 12 is what I was told. I was doing sets of 20, but I was told that was too much.

When I got home, I tried doing this other exercise with my Powerblock. I'm sure there's a name for it, but bear with me. You stand straight up, with your arms at your sides, holding the dumbells. Then the exercise is, you raise your arms. Not forward, not towards you, but to your sides. So your body makes a T shape. Arms fully extended left and right at shoulder height, still holding the dumbells. and then you lower your arms back to your waist. It's kind of like flapping your wings, but in slow motion, and more stiff.

I can't do that at 30lbs. I can't even do it fully at 20lbs. I've been doing it at 17.5 lbs. But here's what's weird. Even from day 1 when I did curls, I could either do it, or I couldn't. Based on weight. My first attempt I tried a 50lbs dumbell. Mistake. On day 1 I kept sizing down until I got to the 10lbs, and then over the coarse of a week, moved up to a 20lbs, and now a 30lbs. But if I tried to do another weight that I couldn't lift, I just couldn't lift it. There's no pain.

But when I do my T arms exercise, even at 17.5lbs, there's pain. It's not a lot of pain, but there's pain.

There's no pain if I go down to 15lbs, which is the powerblock with no weight, and completely empty. So it's practically weightless. Which is what I don't understand. Why can I lift curls at 30lbs, but this T exercise not only causes pain, but I also can't even do 20lbs?

Am I doing something dangerous?

I usually plan on Sundays, adjusting based on how much time I’ll have. I always aim for at least 4 workouts a week, even when life gets busy.

I heard from a lot of people that it's not good too switch up routine too often, but to me it's actually feeling quite good swapping PPL with UL (if time is short) but going atleast 4x a week (UL - UL) or perhaps UL PPL.

I wanted to share my workout routine that balances flexibility and consistency. I use a mix of Upper/Lower and Push/Pull/Legs (PPL) depending on my time constraints each week.

Typical Week: 6x per week: PPLPPL (Push, Pull, Legs, Push, Pull, Legs) 5x per week: A mix of Upper/Lower and PPL 4x per week: Upper/Lower (always at least 4 workouts)

I made a few Upper, Lower, Push and Pull days to select from and alternate every now and then.

Upper A: Chest focus Upper B: Back focus

Lower A: RDLs Lower B: Squats

Push A: Chest focus Push B: Shoulder focus

Pull A: Back/Lat pulldown Pull B: Back/Pull-ups

Is it really that bad to change routine this often?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65417887

1. Push Pull Legs (6 days a week) Back can be sore after pull day and will limit leg day.

2. Push Legs Pull This ensures a good leg day but messes with pull day.

3. Pull Push Legs This feels like the most optimised of the three. Pull day is affected only once a week, as opposed to twice a week for the other two routines.

I thought some folks here in fitness@lemmy.world might also be interested in a more strength and hypertrophy training oriented community, with a focus on weekly training logs, program discussions, questions and lifting techniques.

After humming and hawing about it ever since the Reddit API migration, I decided that if I wanted to see it on Lemmy I really should make it so.

!weightroom@sh.itjust.works

One of the things that I missed the most from Reddit was the strength training subs, as they were great motivation to stay consistent, and the occasional program parties were a lot of fun. A bunch of folks trying to get through super squats and drinking a gallon of whole milk per day made for some pretty interesting workout reports.

I have not traditionally been a community builder in the past, but I believe there is big a gap in the Fediverse where strength and hypertrophy training should be.

I normally do a regular calisthenics routine 3 times a week, which involves push-ups among other exercises. Unfortunately I have recently injured my elbow, and need to give it some rest to heal. Are there any upper-body or arm exercises I could do in the meantime to preserve my strength that won't put stress or pressure on my elbows?

Hey, I was reading a lot lately and built myself a new plan after I followed my other one since weeks.

It's a simple 6-day Push/Pull/Legs - A/B rotation with a weekly rep scheme progression in it.

Rep ranges rotate forward for each version every inbetween each version (picture).

Exercises I have chosen:

PUSH A Barbell Bench Press Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press Cable Chest Flys (mid-chest) Lateral Raises Cable Triceps Pushdowns EZ Bar Skullcrushers

PUSH B Dumbbell Bench Press Incline Barbell Press Dumbbell Flys (flat bench) Dips

PULL A Chest-Supported Rows Lat Pulldown Face Pulls Rear Delt Flys EZ Bar Curls Incline Dumbbell Curls

PULL B Pull-Ups Seated Cable Rows Straight Arm Pulldowns Reverse Pec Deck Hammer Curls Preacher Curls

LEGS A and B currently same: Leg Press Bulgarian Split Squats Leg Extensions Lying Leg Curls Standing Calf Raises

So years ago I got some stretchy ribbon stuff from a PT I was going to. It's kind of gross now and not as bouncy. I clearly need some new stuff. But where to get decent ones? There's a PT down the street from me but it's, I think, over priced. $5 Below sells it but, I think, it's probably trash. Where does one find some huge rubber straps for a good price outside of a bdsm dungeon (and i only ask because I want green and red, not black).

This is an open ended question. How do you create continuity in how you visualize your fitness journey across devices/platforms?

For example, I have data from my Amazfit, Zepp, Google Fitness days, I currently use a Garmin 530 while cycling and a Fenix 6 Pro Solar for everything else. With Garmin+ hinting at bad things to come and the high prices of Garmin watches I'm considering a possible Polar or a Suunto next. How do you visualize your trends over time?

• do you feed your stats into a spreadsheet?
• Do you use a quantified self app like Exist that pulls data from multiple sources

Another concern of mine is winding up split between ecosystems like if I bought a Suunto watch and eventually replaced my Garmin Edge 530 with a Wahoo device.

I can't pretend that Garmin does this especially well, even when my current devices are all Garmin, but I know my watch measures recovery and readiness after the rides I do on my edge, so I'm never in the dark as to where I stand on my recovery. Using a device only for workouts seems like it would be problematic as fitness isn't just movement, but also how you eat, sleep, etc.

So, I started going to the gym about a month ago. Doing dumbell curls I started at 10lbs. I tried 50lbs at first.

Mistake!

Sized down until I got to 10lbs. I was looking for the first one I could do 20 reps. Then, as days went on, I kept moving up sizes. I'm currently at 25lbs. I keep wanting to move up to 30lbs, but my body gives way around the 12-15 rep range. So, not quite there yet. But the first 10 reps of 25lbs aren't even hard anymore. It only gets increasingly more difficult after the 10 mark, but more often than not the 15 mark. 15-20 are the hard ones.

But with 30lbs it's hard right from the start.

So, should I be doing the 30lbs reps, even if its less than 20 reps? Or do the 25lbs reps which I can easily do 3/4ths of before it becomes a struggle for the last few reps?

I am always wondering and overcomplicating things in life and I have been posting quite a lot of questions here lately because I am just more confused the more I read.

I came to the conclusion that I absolutely might not need a rest day if I have the energy and motivation to go to the gym.

But I also can just quit going to the gym if I need more rest as well instead of just one rest day.

I have a few exercises that I know I can execute with a decent form. Probably not perfect but fine enough to not break me in the future so I just do them.

I feel like I have the best results in this kind of a mixed routine.

One week I do for example Push Legs Pull while moving Triceps from Push to Pull day and Biceps from Pull to Push day. This just feels way better than Chest + Triceps cause I have to lower weight for triceps exercises by almost 50% once I get to the exercise on chest day. Same goes for Biceps. Why biceps on pull day if I could just throw in a rest day after pull day and repeat again or heck, I can still go Push again with a bit lighter weight if I figure I don't need it.

So right now my routine is more like this: Monday: Chest + Biceps Tuesday: Legs (light) and bouldering (climbing) Wednesday: Back + Triceps Thursday: Cardio Friday: Upper Body (2 Chest, 2 Back, 1 Triceps 1 Biceps exercise) Saturday: Legs heavy Sunday rest.

But sometimes I don't feel the need to rest and I just add an arm day and after that I rest again.

It feels like I don't have a real routine but I am just juggling with the exercises I know and when to do them with the goal to hit most muscles 2-3 times a week.

After a pull day it sometimes feels wrong to not go to the gym the next day and just go for 4 biceps exercises so I just do that and call it a day.

I'm totally not sure about recovery in general but it might be taxing on my CNS but I just throw in a rest day here, a rest there and sometimes two days or heck even three days and go full into it again. Correct me if I am wrong but I think it could be a better idea to just listen to your body and not to a routine?

I just did Upper Lower + PPL (5 days) and tomorrow is sunday. Why should I stay at home tomorrow if I feel I can go hard on push tomorrow? If I go hard on push tomorrow I could still rest on monday and continue with legs and pull on tuesday and wednesday?

I don't look like Doc Mike, Chris Heria, Chris Bumstead and whoever is out there. But I also will never go as heavy as they go so it feels like that this whole recovery story on social media is more for the people who are really deep in the game but not for people who have so many sessions. Don't understand me wrong. Recovery is important and thats why I don't go to the gym every day. But sometimes it feels like working out chest and back twice is a week is perfect but my arms could actually need 3-4 workouts. Sometimes it feels like my legs only need one workout and I am dead the whole week so I won't do them twice. Just as an example...

I think waking up in the morning and doing whatever doesnt feel exhausted (worstcase soor) should be worked out. If I do chest monday and wednesday I feel like its fresh - why not just do Push again and move the pull to the next day?

But same goes the other way: Why should I go into my leg day if I am tired and exhausted from a heavy push day? Yeah my legs are fine but holy if my CNS is fried why?

We want to hear it!