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Staying Fit Staying Sane

Ooops, forgot to post yesterday. I was a solid 45 mins on the elliptical for 6,300 steps; mom put in 32 mins as well.

This morning, I added 5x5 bench press of 70lbs (not much, but it's close to 1/2 my body weight) and will see how every second day goes with it. Another 45 mins on the elliptical (6,100 steps) and mom hit a new PB with 35 mins on the treadmill. She even called me to begin a few minutes before my normal "Good morning, young lady" factetime start with her!
 
woodpusher said:
Ooops, forgot to post yesterday. I was a solid 45 mins on the elliptical for 6,300 steps; mom put in 32 mins as well.

This morning, I added 5x5 bench press of 70lbs (not much, but it's close to 1/2 my body weight) and will see how every second day goes with it. Another 45 mins on the elliptical (6,100 steps) and mom hit a new PB with 35 mins on the treadmill. She even called me to begin a few minutes before my normal "Good morning, young lady" factetime start with her!
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Nice! 5x5 every other day is actually quite a lot especially to start.
 
Yesterday I started taking the full serving/load of my protein shake (1100 cals, 56g of protein) split over 2 windows. One after working out and a second late into the evening a few hours before beddy-bye time. Didn't seem to work this morning, as I'm now under 155lbs :eek: . The 15lb bag should last just under a month, so we'll see what has transpired then.
 
You guys are getting smarter!

@woodpusher I’m happy to give you some simple programming tips for the weights, but don’t want to be ’that guy’ and start giving unsolicited advice.*

Bodyweight can go up and down quite a bit on the daily. It’s the weekly and bi weekly progress that’s important. That and eating.

*Ok, I probably already that guy, got to learn to shut up.
 
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HMan said:
Bodyweight can go up and down quite a bit on the daily. It’s the weekly and bi weekly progress that’s important. That and eating.
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I was just saying this in another thread. A podcast that I listen to quite a bot that is hosted by a Health Coach/Fitness trainer has her clients take the average of their weekly weight totals as a better indicator of weight loss or muscle build. It was the first time I ever heard that but makes total sense! I know a lot of health advisors tell people not to weigh their selves everyday...but I find it fascinating the daily fluctuations of weight. Sometimes you know why the body goes the direction it does and other times it's a head scratcher. For me though, it makes me evaluate what I did (food, eating habits, exercise, sleep) the previous day.
 
@HMan I'm good with any advice, tips, recommendations. Not looking to get into a full weight program at the moment, just small steps, incorporating things over time. Sort of how I went from 33 mins on the elliptical to 45 and then later increased the resistance, and introducing some upper body this morning.

As for weight, I'm tracking daily and graphing not only my morning wake-up weight, but also a rolling 7-day average. I've put it in my journal today, and will report weekly in the Weight Loss thread, but since we're discussing it..... As you can see, despite the daily flux, the rolling average since Jan.10 is holding steady with less than a 0.5lb variance.
1611251589294.png
 
We’ve all heard so much about exercising and diet over the last 50 years it can be overwhelming .

for me, I am trying to stay away from weights right now and use only body weight for training, outside of my battle rope. I found this kid Chris Heria on YT. Ridiculous body weight training. Need to figure out how to incorporate that slowly into my life.


dangerousdon said:
But yeah...the strength training thing...I need to do a better job of going to failure...because I don't think I am doing quite enough.
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as far as going to failure, i read something yesterday about a fitness enthusiast Dr. who didnt recommend this. Opinions though, right? I happened upon it when researching a crossfit Hero WOD called Murph Challenge as someone mentioned it to me last week. Cool challenge but not for me.

did a nice bit of extending jogging/running as i had the day off for the inauguration yesterday. Incorporated some HIIT sprints. Pretty stoked on how well i felt after it.
 
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woodpusher said:
@HMan I'm good with any advice, tips, recommendations. Not looking to get into a full weight program at the moment, just small steps, incorporating things over time. Sort of how I went from 33 mins on the elliptical to 45 and then later increased the resistance, and introducing some upper body this morning.

As for weight, I'm tracking daily and graphing not only my morning wake-up weight, but also a rolling 7-day average. I've put it in my journal today, and will report weekly in the Weight Loss thread, but since we're discussing it..... As you can see, despite the daily flux, the rolling average since Jan.10 is holding steady with less than a 0.5lb variance.
View attachment 45611
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Hey that graph is pretty cool, how did you make it?
 
global_dev said:
as far as going to failure, i read something yesterday about a fitness enthusiast Dr. who didnt recommend this. Opinions though, right? I happened upon it when researching a crossfit Hero WOD called Murph Challenge as someone mentioned it to me last week. Cool challenge but not for me.

did a nice bit of extending jogging/running as i had the day off for the inauguration yesterday. Incorporated some HIIT sprints. Pretty stoked on how well i felt after it.
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Right now my primary goal with weights is to strengthen my lower back as I have problems. The weight exercises I am doing are great, I don't have to have a soul crushing workout to feel like it is doing some good. And in fact if I do it even as little as twice a week I don't usually have any pain or discomfort from my condition.
 
Good discussion about taking weighted work to failure.
The current state of affairs with that seems to say, that no you don't need to take sets to absolute failure ever. That's true for both strength training and training to gain or maintain muscle.

This is a relatively new trend but there's a lot of good reason for it. It does depend on temperament, there are folks who just don't feel like ti was a trip to the gym without nearly killing themselves.

In strength, it's all about keeping uninjured and building momentum towards a peak/competition. In training the goal is more and more to never miss a rep.

In training for muscle, the latest research seems to indicate that sets any where from 4 maybe even 5 reps from failure stimulate muscle growth. But it's incrementally more the closer you get to failure.

However there are a couple of huge downsides to training to failure. One is the fatigue cost, it just can wipe you out and actually mean you can train less overall. The other is injury risk.

So the general advice now is keep sets say 2 reps from failure on average.

What I like to do, and a way to get the best of all worlds is start training further from failure, and each week add a rep or so taking sets a little closer to failure. This gives a clear sense of progressing, but keeps the stupid out, as best as possible.

So, since we were talking about @woodpusher's program, here's a super simple variation of how to implement it.

2 times a week of bench is more than enough, and it's a good idea to do something for the back as well, so I took the liberty of adding a row variation in. Like a barbell or one arm dumbbell for example.

1611260864314.png
 
global_dev said:
What type of weighted exercise are you doing?
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I know all of these are not specifically lower back exercises...but If I do some variations of these...then I have very little, if any, lower back pain/discomfort:

Bent Over Rows
Deadlifts
Cleans
Over the Head Presses
Combination moves (Deadlifts, cleans, over the head press)
Squats

For me...Deadlifts are key. Those seem to help out the most. To make matters interesting...I do do these with a curl bar. It's not ideal, and at some point I will get a straight bar...but it's what I had and for while exercise equipment was really hard to find...so I went with what I had.

I am actually now interested in getting sandbags for my workouts instead of the plate weights. 5t just seems more functional to me and less robotic...if that makes sense.
 
10-15 reps... egads! My wife cannot lift anything close to half of what I can, so if I hit "failure" then I need to roll the weights down my chest and belly until I can sit up with the weight on my thighs. :eek: Let me try in a few days to see if I can do a set of 10.

I can probably simulate "rows" by dumbbells and chest-down on the bench. My bench's capabilities are simple: bench press, preacher bar, leg extension and some crappily-uncomfortable butterfly arms.
 
Ah, no worries, for sure, don't hit failure! Especially with bench press, you can tell when you're getting to the point that you won't be able to do another rep. the bar will start to slow down a lot.

If you aren't keen on 10-15 reps, you can change the heavy and light days, so the first day is more like what you're doing now. Ideally you'd do something like 7, 6, 5 reps so probably start with 65 lbs since you were doing 70. Anytime you get past 9-10 reps you can add weight. The second day, just follow the same formula, take about 10% off the bar, and reps land where they land.

I like 10+ reps just because it can be safer at first, you have to use lighter weights, but otherwise the effect is the same with 5+ reps and you get stringer. So double win.

Yeah, rows with dumbbells are a great choice. This is more what I meant. (Don't worry about the weights John is talking about)

 
No upper body work today, as this morning, my puny lats and pecs said to me "Hey! We're here to move chess pieces! What are you trying to do to us?" 🤪

Still did cario and such on the elliptical for 45 mins / 6,000 steps; mom put in 32 mins on her treadmill.
 
Last day of deload, did a light bike ride, and light deadlifts and squats.

I got the program for the next meso, it's going to be a doozy!

Just say your farewells now friends.
 
I went for a light easy jog for about an hour and change (including warm up and cool down) and goal was to jog 55 mins while maintaining a specific HR zone (zone 2). Almost there, a bit tiny bit higher than the zone desired but close enough.
 
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