Fitness Catch-All

Chaz wrote:

I should get back to having a recovery protein shake after lifting. I stopped because I'm trying to lose weight, but adding two protein shakes per week probably wouldn't slow weight loss that much, and might help keep my lifting progress going. Does whey go bad? I've got some left from my last bucket, but it's probably two years old now.

If you're worried about weight loss impact, don't ADD two protein shakes, SUBSTITUTE two protein shakes, so that your caloric intake is unchanged, but your protein intake is up.

Does whey go bad? Sure, eventually. But kept in a tightly-closed container, you should be good. If it tastes funky, toss it.

Yeah, I'd probably be replacing my normal breakfast with a shake on lift days.

boogle wrote:

I have knee problems now if I sit for an hour or two.
Apparently strength training may help remedy this.
I will be returning to lifting boogle.

Patellar tendon, Boogle?

I was a fitocrat for a while, but then they broke the mobile a few years ago. I've got a post a few pages back on what I use now, so I won't spam. But it does keep rep max records for 1-x reps. Cool little table. I look up the table at the weight I will be using that day, and set a note line below that set that states "Nine would be a PR". That drives me a bit.

boogle wrote:

I have knee problems now if I sit for an hour or two.
Apparently strength training may help remedy this.
I will be returning to lifting boogle.

Careful you don't drop Boogle, I hear he has knee problems.

Does anyone do body weight training (aka calisthenics)? I'd really appreciate a tip.
A few months ago I wasn't able to do a single pull up. I've been doing australian pullups and once they got easy I elevated my legs to make the exersise harder. Today I am able to do five full regular pullups.
At this point I feel like I want to do regular pullups in my workouts but I'm not sure if it's too early yet. I tried doing 3-4 reps with full range and then another 4-5 negatives. It was quite challenging for me.
Can this be a good way to progress or should I wait before get a little stronger to be able to do more full reps?

That's probably fine as long as you schedule in some rest.

Start doing em now. If you're not seeing progress (I.e more reps) within a few weeks, switch back.

Reddit r/bodyweightfitness is a great resource.

You could also try the "grease the groove" method, if you have a pull up bar at your home.
https://www.artofmanliness.com/artic...

The rule is basically "if you want to get better at X, do X regularly. If you can't do X fully, do as much of X as possible until you can." That goes for pull ups, push ups, squats, running a marathon, playing guitar, etc.

So yeah, throwing pull ups into your routine even if you're only doing a handful is fine.

This message Ball is on sale today for $14. Great for those rotator cuffs and hard to reach places where you need a deep tissue massage and the foam roller won't do.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81WHHB8567L._SL1500_.jpg)

Well, it's time for me to join this thread.

I turned 38 a few months ago and my historically fast metabolism is starting to slow, leading to a really vicious case of dad-bod. So I've changed my diet around and am currently on week 2 of the StrongLifts 5x5 program.

What has amazed me the most so far about this process is realizing how much food I have to eat when eating clean. I'm trying to consume 2,400 calories a day and I feel like I'm having to constantly eat. I'm not complaining, since this means I'm thankfully never hungry, but it makes me realize just how bad my previous food habits were.

Stronglifts is a great program to start with. I began with that as well and thought at the time "it cannot be that simple and work."

It can and it does. Have fun with them gains!

I am tantalizingly close to my all time lifting PR's. These were set about 7 years ago. I'm less than 10% from some. They aren't huge numbers, but they're huge for me.

Grats! It's all relative. I gave up long ago measuring my PR milestones against others. No sense in it unless you are training for a competition.

It is all relative, and it'd be nice to be older and stronger. Not just older. And I may end up in a meet, just to have the experience.

Just checking in to see how everyone is doing as Summer starts to wind down.

Been staying disciplined on getting my workouts in and have been enjoying going for walks at night with a weight vest. That will have to change when Fall gets here but for now it's great!

Also have been back to using MyFitnessPal to track my nutrition since it kind of got away from me a couple months back. It's good personal accountability.

I fell off the wagon pretty hard a couple months ago.

In an attempt to on-ramp myself back onto the wagon, I started the 100pushups.com program yesterday. I can do 10 minutes every couple of days, right?

This link on range of motion tips for taller guys is tremendously helpful for me.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/content...

So I’m slowly doing a little more straight arm workouts. The far off goal is handstands and full Planche. The only reason is that it looks cool.

Did some squats the day before yesterday after a good twelve weeks of not doing them. I'm in pain. So much pain. Upside is I can do them again with no discomfort and the burgeoning tennis elbow seems to have evaporated on its own.

I started lifting in January, coming from basically nothing. Could not do pull-up to save my life, not even a little twitch when hanging from bar. Now I can do three, with last one being a bit wiggly but getting there. Feels good.

Today was the day! I finally hit 325 on my squat after 6 months of plateauing at 315 and hit 275 on my bench after a 4-month plateau stuck on 270. I failed my 1RM on the bench twice after 5 minute breaks and just decided to move onto deadlifting. Once the deadlifting was done I went back on the bench and pushed through the 275.

I'm sure eating more calories and not cutting anymore was the primary reason for this plateau. I starting cutting in February and went from 185lb - 165lb. Been hoving around 170lb since about May and my lifting hasn't been as strong since.

Now it's time to bulk again for 6 months and I guess it's true that more calories = more lifting strength. I plan to get up to 190-200 by Feb 2019.

Oh nice! I’m no where near that for my squat.

Tempest wrote:

Today was the day! I finally hit 325 on my squat after 6 months of plateauing at 315 and hit 275 on my bench after a 4-month plateau stuck on 270. I failed my 1RM on the bench twice after 5 minute breaks and just decided to move onto deadlifting. Once the deadlifting was done I went back on the bench and pushed through the 275.

I'm sure eating more calories and not cutting anymore was the primary reason for this plateau. I starting cutting in February and went from 185lb - 165lb. Been hoving around 170lb since about May and my lifting hasn't been as strong since.

Now it's time to bulk again for 6 months and I guess it's true that more calories = more lifting strength. I plan to get up to 190-200 by Feb 2019.

That's strong for your weight, nice job! May I ask your height?

wickbroke wrote:

That's strong for your weight, nice job! May I ask your height?

I'm 6' 2" so I have a much longer distance to travel!
Here is the 320 video from mid-Feb. I kinda wish I had someone take a video for this round but I failed it for 6 months I didn't want any added pressure or jinx it lol

A few notable things that have changed over the past month are that I now Low Bar Squat and I have my feet in a little more at shoulder width. The Low Bar position has really changed a lot for me. It felt very uncomfortable at first on my back but it made my center of gravity much better resulting in a more stable squat.

I learned about the Low Bar from Alan Thrall in this very detailed video that is full of beard.

Badass! Congrats on hitting that kind of weight.

You overshadow me. 6', 190. 1 plate, 5 short of 2 plate, 3 plate, and 10 short of 4. Grunting my way back to my numbers from 6-7 years ago.

Finish my two miles swim and at the end my googles snapped. I guess that is a good sign. At least they didn’t break during

Anyone used a Withings sportswatch? The price (US$199.99) and visual design are compelling, as is the claimed 25-day battery life, but something smells too good to be true. It's...it's the watch. Right? Is that how this works?

IMAGE(https://image-cache.withings.com/site/media/wi_products/steel-hr-sport-40w.jpg?fit&src=png&h=400&dpr=2)

https://www.withings.com/mx/en/steel...

I've heard good things about Withing. Battery life can be really impressive if the watch doesn't have to power an LCD screen. I have gotten more than a month out of my Amazfit.