I quit the gym and started kickboxing, hitting a heavy bag is a much better workout then lifting weights! My belly is killing me for food though...

I'm keeping busy. Running daily lately; last month reached 100KMs, going to surpass that this month. Mixed up my gym routine, been working on deadlifts and back in good form with them. Still much work to do.

Still cutting for summer. Down from 200 lbs to 182 lbs, and as of yesterday my deadlift max has only dropped 415 to 405 so far. I was only going to drop to 180 but still look softer than I want to... gonna keep going to 175 or 170.

I'll join this thread very soon! I just joined a gym and I start Thursday. I did some tests and evaluation today, I'll have a trainer who'll follow me since I have a shitload of weight to lose (170 lbs or so to be exact). The process will take like 2 years but I'm ready for it. My coach will make me a program but I'll do like 30 minutes of cardio and I'll go like 5 times a week. I'm ready to stop being a couch potato fatass.

Good to hear it, Tony. In a year you'll probably be jacked. This will be an amazing life choice in the long run.

I've been adjusting what I do in the gym to doing the physical labour job. I had to take a week off the gym at first, just to let my body adjust to the job. I've only been going 4 times a week now instead of 5-6 like I was doing before. I've been sure to drink lots of water, get 8 hours of sleep and eat a lot to keep my body fuelled. Also, spending a lot more time stretching and foam rolling. I promised my girlfriend I'd start doing cardio because I keep running out of breath when I go up stairs (but she said she doesn't want me to get abs because according to her everyone who gets them turns into a douchebag lol), so I'm slowly getting back into jogging. Once I get fully into it, don't think I'll go beyond 3 times a week for thirty minutes.

I've read all the articles I could find about how to adjust your lifting routine to a manual labour job, and most seem to say that doing high weight and low reps is the best because on the job you're essentially doing the equivalent of lower weight with very high reps. So I've stuck with 5x5 with bench/deadlift/squat and moving it down to 3 sets 5 reps for all the other lifts. Seems to be going well so far, made very good progress on the bench press in the last few weeks. Pretty confident I'll be able to bench 250lbs by the start of August.

so i've actually started gymming a lot the last two months, near on everyday when I'm up north.. there's a well stocked gym that doesn't cost a cent so I'd be silly not too. It's a bit depressing seeing how out of shape I am as opposed to when I was at my peak. Just doing a large amount of hi rep/low weight shit and heaps of cardio, I have no real desire to get bulked up, it's moreso a thing where I'm trying to tone up and get good core strength so that I can avoid various "getting near 30" problems- a few of my more sedentary friends already have bad backs and shit.

Tried my first bench yesterday- 160 lbs, 3 reps. Almost died. Bit of a bummer- I had a 3 rep max of 280 back in 2012.

Tried a single arm push up a few days ago. Quite funny… I read somewhere that if you can do about 30 regular
push ups you could start trying single arm ones. Well, as I easily can do 30 normal push ups I though this might
be a sweet idea. Nope… wrong idea, haha. I tried and actually hit the floor directly where I lay for a few
seconds laughing myself to tears about my failed try. However I will keep trying! If anyone has some neat tricks
to achieve this, please tell.

Generally thoughts about quitting the gym and doing just bodyweight stuff manifests themselves quite heavily.
In the last weeks I often trained bodyweight stuff at home instead of doing my normal gym stuff and it felt
so much better and more exhausting. I felt "positively sore" the days after, much more than after my usual
routine. Maybe this kind of training suits me better. Feels more natural and "fighting-spirit-like".

I tinkered around with the bodyweight stuff at home a lot while I was getting back into the swing of things. I suspect that this sudden soreness you are experiencing is because of the lighter weight / higher reps hitting more of the slow twitch (endurance) muscle fibers. Other than exercises like dips, I was never able to progressively overload as much as required, being more than an intermediate lifter as I'm assuming you are. I tried supersetting with a few configurations that worked just OK, but oftentimes by the point I reached an acceptable level of failure, my joints were starting to get sore from simple overuse. Depends on your goals of course, but just my experience.

The simplest progression for achieving a one-arm push up is by decreasing the incline. For example, start by doing one-arm push ups on the edge of a table. Once you can hit a comfortable number of reps with good form, find something lower, like a chair, and repeat the process until eventually you can do them off the floor. As you get lower, you will probably have to widen your foot placement a bit, for balance purposes.

If you're interested in trying calisthenics exclusively for a while, check out the Convict Conditioning books by Paul Wade. It's not the only calisthenics program out there, and you could technically find plenty of free high-quality advice just by searching online, but let's face it, doing a program called "Convict Conditioning" is metal as fuck.

Whoever came up with the whole "if you can do 30 regular pushups you should be able to do one one-handed one" is clearly smoking something. I can do 60 normal pushups and can't do a one-handed one to save my life. Tried after seeing that, and promptly fell flat on my face.

New to the thread...but always into fitness! Used to be fairly high level amateur athlete but these days just try to keep in relatively good shape so I can still enjoy activities I like to do without too much hurt (i.e., mountain biking, skiing, ultimate frisbee...)

Earlier this year i realized my fitness dropped below my expectations so started to do lunch hour runs 3-4 times a week...definitely notice a big difference now from when i started. I did have to relinquish my gym membership cause no time. Anyone here do home workouts without weights with good results?

Haha, welcome to the club



I've done so some years ago and - as I wrote in my post above - think about getting back to it again.
A great tool back then was a Thera-Band (fitness band) in the highest strength available. You can
take that folded double or coupled with second one and achieve a very high resistance with it.
Put it over your back and attach it with your grip and you can do a push up set with only being able
to, say, 5-6 reps. I also used to attach it at various heights and angles at the spiral staircase in my
appartement and could "emulate" a lot of pull downs and rowing stuff. Def. a underrated tool!

fucked my thumb a while back. I ain't up to a hell of a lot, just work and beginner fundamentals until I can maintain false grip and pressing exercises again.

'better' is relative to your goals.


tell her everyone with a shaved pussy is a slut.
(you don't see every guy who has abs, how can you infer all of them are douchebags, based only on the ones who make themselves seen?)


yup.
this is me about my mobility in particular. I plain _can't_ do things guys 10 years younger have no problem with (like extending their wrist and bending their fingers back)


where'd you read that? endurance has fuck all to do with strength.

I highly recommend r/bodyweightfitness/ if you're interested in going beyond beginner bodyweight work without any knowledge/coaching in it


what were you able to do? hollow-back press? front pull to inverted hang? planche push-ups? front lever pull ups? one-arm pull ups? one-arm handstands?
I don't run into many people (and none IRL) who've reached the point where there's nothing they can do to make their bodyweight too heavy.

I've been bulking for about six months now and I think it's finally time to go on a cut. So just over a year ago I lost 50lbs and went from 250 to 200 by drastically changing my diet (and unfortunately switching to lite beer), going on exceedingly long runs multiple times a week and lifting 5 times a week. It was a pretty good transformation and I got lots of compliments, but I still wasn't really happy with how I looked. I had muscle, but not nearly as much as I hoped for and I just couldn't make the last ten pounds required to look really good budge. Then two things happened simultaneously that changed everything. I was running with a girl outside but then winter hit and the gym was doing renovations on the track so my only option was the treadmill. I gave up cardio. I was also having a bit of a hard time at school that semester and the stress ended up leading me to regress into my old shit diet. I was getting kind of depressed about it, thinking I was going to balloon up to 250lbs again.

But then something totally unexpected for me happened - I had better muscle gains in one month than I had in the previous three. I also didn't gain nearly as much weight as I thought I would despite how I was eating. I realized that I was previously drastically limiting my gains by running too often and by not eating enough. I kept this up and tried to eat a lot so I could get 200g of protein a day and enough calories to make my muscles grow optimally. I gained quite a bit of muscle and my strength has improved quite dramatically (and still is). It was a very long process, but in six months I went from being 200lbs to 223. I'm not really fat now, but I am a little bit chubby. You can definitely tell I lift, but I am by no means lean. It's summer now, the pool in my mom's complex is opening in a few days and I live ten minutes from the beach and my girlfriend wants us to go there a lot. Also, I just don't feel as good when I'm heavier. I hate breathing heavy and feeling sluggish.

I've been wanting to go on a cut for a while, but have put it off because I don't know where to start and I'm afraid of losing muscle/strength in the process. I also work a manual labour job, so I'm especially worried of burning through the muscle if I lose weight. I feel like it's time, though. I've read a lot of articles, but still don't feel like I know what I'm doing. I guess I'm just wondering if any of you guys have experience cutting and have advice on how to do it well without losing too much muscle. Also wondering what your favourite things to eat are with high protein and not too many calories. I'm used to getting the protein in at any cost without being concerned about calories. I'm only looking to lose 10-15 pounds and 20 at the absolute most. I Don't really want to go below 200lbs.

/rant

Not sure what kind of lifting you're doing, but have you tried increasing reps with lower weights? When I am trying to get lean without losing muscle, I tend to do 3 sets of 10-12 reps of each exercise at whatever weight I can hit all the reps at. I definitely think that running too much and not eating enough are common reasons why people end up losing muscle mass even if they are working out a lot.

I'm no expert on diets, but I eat a ton of grilled chicken for protein and drink milk with every dinner. I would eat eggs, but I hate the taste. I do think that it is different for everyone though, so once you find something that works, you should stick with it regardless of what works for others.

I generally do heavy weights with low reps. This is mostly because if you work manual labour that is the best rep scheme to counteract basically doing extremely high reps with lighter weight as part of your job. Also, I do this because I'm training for strength more than anything with the ultimate goal of participating in a powerlifting meet. I'm going to be careful of running too much, maybe do 30 minutes twice a week. I should have chicken breast more often.

I'm sensing a lot of contradictory notions in your post. For starters, this whole fixation on bulking/cutting has become something of a scourge with modern fitness. There is simply lifting/eating for gains, and there is throwing any sense of moderation out the window and stuffing your face like a pig because you convince yourself that you can get away with it since you are hardcore "bulking." For hardgainers/ectomorphs this might be a requirement, but I know for a fact that this doesn't describe your body type, just like it doesn't describe mine. You say you put on close to 25 pounds in six months, but I promise you that 75% of that or more is adipose and this will become obvious once you start to dial in your dieting and trim down. In fact, I think that you are closer to 180 or less in good condition, yet you claim that you don't want to drop under 200lbs. Why? You are clearly motivated largely by what others think of you, and they certainly can't eyeball your weight (much less care about it). If you have abs and look lean at ~180, you are going to get more positive attention than being a soft 200-215. This is the same syndrome I see all of the time with powerlifters, they think that average people care about the lifting totals, and don't realize the fact that they look like shit from an aesthetic point of view. You need to reassess your goals, as you still seem blinded by the numbers, yet want to look aesthetically pleasing. I'm not saying that powerlifting doesn't have its place, but training like a bodybuilder doesn't involve a whole lot of this "ego lifting."

You want help for dieting? I can definitely give you some pointers, but the first thing to realize is that it is actually harder than most people realize to lose large amounts of muscle when dieting down. Obviously the first order of business is to continue your weight training, and don't change your routine at all. Don't start introducing higher reps and other deviations. Try and maintain your strength, and the best way to gauge this is to stick with your earlier protocol(s). 200g of protein is higher than you need, but try and get most of that from leaner meat like fish and chicken (fish especially). My daily routine that worked exceptionally well revolved around these meats, protein powder mixed with oatmeal, natural peanut butter, fat-free cottage cheese, and lots of mixed vegetables with a (moderate) amount of brown rice for carbs. I think it is too late for you to look good this Summer, but if you are planning on getting into competitive powerlifting you should continue to eat for gains. If I were you, I wouldn't even consider the competition yet, especially because of the huge injury risk. I would diet down 20-25 pounds to get around 15% bodyfat, and slowly begin introducing a caloric surplus along with moderate-intensity cardio (lots of walking worked wonders for me) to keep the gains coming slow and steady. To me, this is more rewarding than blowing up and shrinking down

Man, I'm not THAT fat, and I definitely don't need to lose 45lbs. I have the beginnings of a gut, but I'm not one of those quasi-obese powerlifters where you can barely even tell they lift. I get that 225 might sound like a high number, but keep in mind that I am tall and have a naturally broad build and do have a fair amount of muscle. I think that trimming down to 180 would be overkill and even unhealthy. However, you absolutely have a point about people using bulking as an excuse to eat like fatasses. I definitely fell into this, I thought it was necessary, but I think subconsciously I'm still a big ol' fatty at heart and used it as an excuse to eat however I wanted. Also, I don't want to train like a bodybuilder. For me, muscle gains come much easier than strength gains for some reason. I just want to do powerlifting-style training at a lighter weight that I feel more comfortable/healthy at. Thanks for the diet tips. Cottage cheese and brown rice sound like good ideas. I definitely don't eat as much chicken breast as i should. I already do a lot of walking, and I'm starting go on light runs again (even though I hate it; maybe I'll start swimming again instead).

On that note, even powerlifters should track their body fat. It's best to hover around 15% bf to get the best strength to weight ratio unless you have epic totals and can compete with heavyweights.... otherwise, you risk classing yourself against people who are leaner (and likely stronger) at the same weight.

After last winter's bulk, I'm starting to adopt a similar philosophy to Diamhea. It gets harder and harder to diet the fat off the more you do bulking/cutting cycles due to the nature of fat cells. Bulking tends to increase the amount of fat cells in your body, and they *never* go away unless you get liposuction. You can still empty out the fat stores from the cells through diet and exercise, but they become more and more resistant as they get depleted.

With THAT being said, I do agree that eating everything in sight seems to accelerate the shit out of strength gains. At least in my experience.

Dystopia, you still want to cut, right? I find that you are all over the place sometimes. I understand it can be a lot to take in at once. How tall are you, again? Like 6'1''? I hope you don't think you are 200 lbs solid muscle, because that takes years of training to attain. Two of the biggest misconceptions I've seen is 1. People overestimating how much muscle they are carrying, only to be disappointed once they start to diet down and 2. People misinterpreting increased muscle definition after dieting as added lean mass.

Well, I'm trying to balance two different goals (continuing to get stronger and losing weight while not losing too much muscle), and honestly there's so much different information coming from so many places that sometimes it's hard to know who to take seriously. I don't think that I'm 200lbs of pure muscle, but I also kind of doubt I'd look particularly "soft" at 200lbs. I don't need to have an 8 pack and bodyfat percentages approaching the single digits, I just want to look at feel better. Essentially, I want to be lean but no so lean that I constantly have to obsess about maintaining a six-pack. I know I was incorrect with my 'protein at any cost, calories be damned' mentality, but it's still hard to change. The general consensus of what I've seen seems to be very gradually lower the calories, while maintaining your routine and protein intake (a lot have said you should actually increase it while losing weight). The one good thing I guess is even if some muscle is lost while losing weight, they will still look as big because of the better definition. Haha, at the very least starting won't be that hard because all that I have to do to decrease calorie intake in the beginning is not eat like a morbidly obese dude.

Fucked my knees up 2 months back, slowly building my squat back up... doing 225 for reps again. No real effect on my deadlift since I kinda lucked out with my body type (relatively short legs, long torso + arms... very little range of motion for the legs from start to lockout). Very little pain in my knees since I've been wearing Tommie Copper sleeves more often than not in the past two weeks... might be placebo effect or just the near constant compression, but I'm happy with the recovery.

Still dieting down... 4-pack and obliques visible without flexing, but I gotta lose these damn love handles

Yeah, that balancing act is basically very daunting. Also, I am not suggesting sub 10% bodyfat, but 15% is definitely attainable and should be regarded as an ideal "middle ground" wherein you can safely gain a steady amount of muscle without risking unnecessary adipose accumulation. The internet is obviously a flawed medium when it comes to this sort of advice. Look anywhere, and you can find someone either parroting info second hand, or straight out suggesting why ANYTHING can work. Most of these pro-ANYTHING accounts are bullcrap because everybody has a different response to certain stimuli. Far too many tertiary factors are involved, because as far as I see it, this is a lifestyle. This is why "you have to find what works for you" is such a poignant and honestly, accurate mantra. You say you want to look at feel better. Well, much of this is subjective, but being a lower bodyfat would improve your showing in this regard, so you have an OK plan so far. And yes, you will probably look bigger due to the illusion of gained mass that comes with added muscle definition once you start to drop the fat. Rocking the "full house" permabulker look is okay if you are trying to maintain a holding pattern due to real life circumstances, recovering from an injury, or whatever... but judging by some of the recent pics I saw, you are over 20% bodyfat and will benefit greatly from dropping at least 20 pounds. Thankfully none of this happens overnight, so you have the luxury of being able to adjust on the fly as needed. Good luck, and don't overcomplicate the diet. Aim for a daily deficit of around 500, bump it up if you think you can handle it, and don't forget to slowly drop your total caloric intake to make up for the weight loss.

capeda: How did this injury happen?

...not quite sure. Just woke up and it was there one day. Mostly in my left knee, just a little pain in the right. My best guess would be zercher squats, box jumps, or just falling asleep in a weird position on my recliner. I'm nearly 33 years old, though, my joints are getting more fragile

Although I came down a different road, my position is similar to dystopia4's. I'm over 210 pounds (and 5'8"), focusing primarily on strength, but also on overall functionality, fitness, joint health, mobility, etc. I do need to lose some weight, but it's not at all a priority, since I'm still building a lot of muscle by doing the big compound lifts. I think once I start plateauing with those, I will rein in the calories to get closer to 15% BF. But I have a ways to go. I just finally got 315 on the deadlift. Sadly, that's about what my bench press max is too. Obviously, I have nasty muscle imbalances. While I sort those out, I don't really give a fuck if I look chubby.

Bought a set of gymnastic rings a few days ago. Great tools! I did some beginner oriented stuff and already
these were pretty hard stuff. A lot of core work going on… Think this will be my "final step" away from the
regular weights/gym stuff. Together with the stuff I learned from the bodyweight link provided by Erotetic
and the mentioned thera bands this suits me and my personal way of training a lot more.

Hope that works out for you. Don't expect to put on crazy size, but given your injuries it could be a nice way to strengthen ancillary muscles and increase flexibility.

nice. congrats.
they're a lot of fun

looks like I'll be popping in this thread periodically for motivation (since my own friends are complete flakes). I absolutely hate working out, but its worth it to not feel tired and like crap all day, especially now that its summer. plus, I'm pretty set on loosing my stick figure arms for good this time.

It's hard for me to understand this attitude because I'm lucky enough to really enjoy at least most aspects of lifting (I still dread lots of heavy squatting, for example), but I think that also gives me some means of understanding why I enjoy it, which might in the end be something you could simulate. Most obviously, it's fun to see improvement, and to that end, lifting for strength might help you stay motivated even if your general goals are more ''fitness''- or aesthetic-oriented. Strength is much more easily measurable, and the initial progress can be really encouraging. There isn't much room for progress (or point really) when it comes to curling, but there is tons of room with compound lifts, which should help with fitness etc. anyway. Every week, at least initially, you can show up and be demonstrably stronger. Aside from this stuff, there's always the possibility of taking up a sport or something that you find fun, and then perhaps additionally lifting/running for the sake of that, so that you can stay motivated by focusing on particular aspects of your performance or whatever that you want to improve. Truth be told, I haven't played any sports since I was a child, so my perspective here is limited.

I started a suspension training program because i'm sick of weights and the gym - in addition I'm doing about 250-300 pushups a day and running anywhere between 3-5 miles four times a week. It's nothing compared to my early days, but I'm putting on some lost mass and getting some cardio strength back - kicking the smoking habit and just trying to get a little better.

Why is it hard to understand? It takes a lot of effort to look good, otherwise everyone would be built

Well, first, things can take effort while still being very enjoyable. Working out is like this for me, lifting weights especially. Dieting, on the other hand, takes effort and isn't enjoyable. It's mostly for that reason that I don't look especially good. Things can be enjoyable while still resisting being done for other reasons -- forgetfulness, laziness, whatever. I think a lot of people enjoy working out, but just neglect to schedule it in, so it doesn't end up happening. They may enjoy it, but enjoy other things more, as another example. Lifting weights has always just felt intrinsically gratifying to me, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. Runners get runners' highs. So, intrinsic enjoyment of exercise seems to be near the norm, and there are other explanations for cases in which people nonetheless don't exercise. But every so often, yeah, people can simply hate it. But even then, I suspect a boundary can be crossed beyond which they do find it enjoyable. Jogging with aching shins and a burning throat is less likely to be fun than jogging effortlessly while taking deep breaths of fresh air, etc.

Well, that was a whole lot of words out of nowhere. I agree with most of what you are saying... I think? Seems like you went off on your own little tangent with that one. It also appears like a waste of all of that good effort to still eat poorly, especially to the point that it cancels out your aesthetic progress. Why continue to grind your joints down and bust your ass when you admit you don't look good at all? I guess the self-gratification of getting in and out of the gym every day bestows some quality work ethic, but diet cannot be disregarded.

what kinds?

So what's everyone up to lately?

Still hitting the gym regularly. Been doing those decline presses that you recommended - not bad, I've been noticing a positive change there. Reached another personal best on deadlifts last week.

Been doing a lot of running. Ran over 100kms in May, near that for June, and so far on track for about 80kms this month. Would be nice to surpass what I was doing before, but will be busy with moving and settling in over the next month so who knows. As a result of all this I've decreased in waist size yet again, from 33 to 32. Finding that some of my pants no longer fit nicely.

EDIT: Pic from today. Still not even near my best, and fairly sweaty/tired/unkempt in that photo... but making good progress.

Hard to tell much from the pic.

I'll have a cell phone pretty soon and I'll upload a progress pic of my own. I have dieted down enough by now, it is time for me to start putting muscle on via a clean, steady bulk. Nope, I won't eat like a pig and justify it because I am in permabulk mode. Ideally, I won't have to diet again for a long, long time. Unlike 95% of the younger generation of lifters inspired by YouTube fitness "experts" and obsessed with steroids over natural potential, I have the patience to make it work for me.

changing it up a lot, but essentially following this thing;

http://www.military.com/military-fitnes ... sh-workout