ifebruary workout was wonderful . . .
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Stronglift Workout B
Squat -1X5X 55/65/75, 5X5X 85
OHP- 1X5X 45/50, 5X5X 55
DL - 1 X5X 95/105
Keto 3 Week Challenge February 5th-25th
Day 6- Focus is on getting high fat foods in during the day.1 -
I'm supposed to do Workout B today but I'm worried because my legs are still sore from 2 days ago (and running yesterday didn't help). there's soreness in a quad muscle in my left leg, and adductors in both legs. Maybe deload with squats and deadlifts. Also, I got a massage two days ago and that left my lower back/upper glutes sore as well. Will see this afternoon how I feel. Deloading if not outright skipping may be in order. grumble
Why is my deadlift so weak (tried 70 the last time and my back acted up)?
Maybe add some more upper body today as well as OHP...?2 -
Workout B minus squats
OHP with dumbbells: 2 sets of 10 @ 5 lb dbs, 2 sets of 10 @ 10 lb dbs, 5 sets of 5 @ 15 lb dbs.
Question: if I feel my lower back and neck tightening when I lift, does that mean I'm doing it wrong and should lift less?
Bicep hammer curls: 3 sets of 7 @ 15 lb dbs
Deadlift: 2 sets of 5 with two 25-lb dbs
I worked out at home and all I have are dumbbells adjustable from 5 to 25 lb
Not feeling that great today. Probably too much cardio yesterday to allow recovery from Wednesday.
(walk-jogged to gym 1.5 miles; 10 minutes arm crank; 30 minutes run-walk on treadmill 2 min run 1 min walk intervals; another 10 minutes arm crank; walked home)0 -
I feel much better. Going to go to the gym and find something to do that I didn't do this morning.
Outfit: Motorhead T-shirt and black shorts with socks that match: yellow with white duckies0 -
Felt much better at the gym!
Started out with close grip lat pulldowns (simulating pullups) after warmup sets, 4 x 5 @ 90 lb, 1 x 5 @ 95 lb
Deadlifts 2 x 5 @ 60 lb no back or hip issues!
OHP with two 17.5 dbs 5 x 4
DB bench press with two 32.5 lb complete 5 x 5, highest yet with dbs!
Goblet squats 1 x 5 @ 40, 1 x 5 @ 42.5, 2 x 5 @ 45, 1 x 5 @ 47.5 lb
Probably because
1) I ate a lot of bread 3 hours before
2) the duckie socks brought me luck2 -
Question: if I feel my lower back and neck tightening when I lift, does that mean I'm doing it wrong and should lift less?
it's hard to tell just from a description, because i'm not sure if 'tighten' means the same thing to me that it means to you. do you feel like you're leaning back, i.e. away from the bar? a lot of people do that to give themselves more leverage, but it puts your lumbar spine into extension and kind of makes it the fulcrum of the lift at the same time, which is not great for it.
have you ever heard of the 'shelf' cue for upper-body lifts? it's pretty mysterious at first, but once you get the hang of it it does make a dramatic difference. what it means is you find all the muscles along the back edge of your armpits, and you 'set' them. that's lats, teres, probably a couple others. if you can get those muscles activated and braced, then they literally do feel like you've just made a 'floor' for your arms to push the bar from, kind of like it bisects your body right around the bra line. i actually used to picture myself standing in water up to about that level, and for some reason that clued my brain in.
if you can do that, then when you launch the bar, you're pushing off from that shelf. it makes a dramatic difference, because it means you sort of trap the leverage of the lift right at that very-close point. that leaves your lower back and everything else free to stay neutral, because you're not calling on those joints to get into it and help you out. you still brace everything south of that shelf, of course. but you mostly just it all to keep yourself directly over the middle of your feet.
i never know when i say stuff like this if it's complete gibberish
i know it's the way things like this make sense to my mind, but there's been enough evidence that my mind doesn't speak exactly the same dialect as other people's.
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2) the duckie socks brought me luck
awww. i have lucky baby-elmo st patricks' day pants . . . used to be mr t would rely on my pants to tell him whether i was bench/squatting or deadlift/pressing that week. but lately, i don't even use them twice a month. i keep them in tissue paper and don't wear them when i'm strong because it would be wasting their magic . . . and i don't wear them when i'm struggling because what if i break their special mojo by failing a rep while i'm wearing them?
on that note, this was a bench and squat day. also deload week, so hardly even worth talking about. but omg what a gong show.
i keep forgetting how being an introvert really is a real thing. it's just like arthritis flares too. you just deal because what else can you do most of the time, and then when it's more serious, it sneaks up on me and disables my ability to realise what's wrong while it's doing it. so the first wakeup call that i got was when i went down into the hole for a squat and just . . . idk, lost it. still not sure what happened, but i went halfway towards 'over backwards' and then stopped myself and just hung there. then FINALLY there was a little bit of silence while everybody had the adrenaline spike, so i was able to pull it together and stand up again by myself.
but honestly, that's what it was. i love mr squats very much, but he's one of those people . . . comes into a space, turns on loud music and then just raises his voice to get past the music with it. and i just cannot deal with great washes of noise. most of the time it's okay because so long as there are times when nobody's talking i'm fine. but this was a day when somebody needs a new car, and after i got myself upright and free of hte bar i suddenly all my brain wanted my body to do was jam the hands over the ears and go fetal until he SHUT UP ABOUT CARS.
no wonder i couldn't squat. i honestly couldn't. i just needed the voices to stop. bleh.3 -
fanncy0626 wrote: »jowaring- fantastic measurement and scale loss!
Great workout!
Thank you!I'm going to italy in 8 weeks and have put a dress size on so I need to lose the weight to fit in my shorts lol.1 -
Today's workout
Hubby's at work and he helps me with the bar so did lighter squats.10 bodyweight then 5x10@52lbs.
Bench 1x5@47lbs,57lb then 5x5@62lbs. This is the first time I've finished at this weight, so am really pleased !
Rows 1x5@60lbs 5x5@67lbs.
Glute bridge.5x10@67lbs.2 -
canadianlbs wrote: »2) the duckie socks brought me luck
awww. i have lucky baby-elmo st patricks' day pants . . . used to be mr t would rely on my pants to tell him whether i was bench/squatting or deadlift/pressing that week. but lately, i don't even use them twice a month. i keep them in tissue paper and don't wear them when i'm strong because it would be wasting their magic . . . and i don't wear them when i'm struggling because what if i break their special mojo by failing a rep while i'm wearing them?
on that note, this was a bench and squat day. also deload week, so hardly even worth talking about. but omg what a gong show.
i keep forgetting how being an introvert really is a real thing. it's just like arthritis flares too. you just deal because what else can you do most of the time, and then when it's more serious, it sneaks up on me and disables my ability to realise what's wrong while it's doing it. so the first wakeup call that i got was when i went down into the hole for a squat and just . . . idk, lost it. still not sure what happened, but i went halfway towards 'over backwards' and then stopped myself and just hung there. then FINALLY there was a little bit of silence while everybody had the adrenaline spike, so i was able to pull it together and stand up again by myself.
but honestly, that's what it was. i love mr squats very much, but he's one of those people . . . comes into a space, turns on loud music and then just raises his voice to get past the music with it. and i just cannot deal with great washes of noise. most of the time it's okay because so long as there are times when nobody's talking i'm fine. but this was a day when somebody needs a new car, and after i got myself upright and free of hte bar i suddenly all my brain wanted my body to do was jam the hands over the ears and go fetal until he SHUT UP ABOUT CARS.
no wonder i couldn't squat. i honestly couldn't. i just needed the voices to stop. bleh.
I loathe noisy people at the gym....well, in most places really. I give the evil eye to people who shout across the gym.0 -
@canadianlbs your shelf explanation does make sense. I am not sure if I've done that way or not, the next time I lift I will see if I get that feeling around the lats, etc. No, my back doesn't arch as I do OHPs. I tighten the heck out of everything - abs, all over back, glutes, hamstrings, quads (for some oddball reason tightening my quads helps). I still feel a bit of tightness at the base of my back and around my neck, but I am not outright arching. My back would start to arch if I didn't have everything else tightened.1
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amyinthetardis1231 wrote: »I loathe noisy people at the gym....well, in most places really. I give the evil eye to people who shout across the gym.
i really really like captain squat. but this night had five of us instead of just four, and somehow it made a difference. plus, normally he goes through quiet periods, at least while he lifts. this time he was doing deload, so i think he might even have talked through his sets
idk, i just . . . there's like a cut-out point, where suddenly i can't do anything because i just need it to stop.
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^I'm not that nice, lol. I'm very sensitive to sensory stimulus, and I absolutely hate going to the gym when it's loud and busy. It gets jarring and overwhelming really quickly. That's one of many reasons I love being able to go in the mid-morning hours during the week, when there's hardly anyone else there. Bliss!
Today was pretty annoying, TBH. Bros curling in the squat rack and hogging both benches--I couldn't finish my benchpress bc people were being really rude and thoughtless. One guy was sitting on the bench for a solid 20 min yakking with his buddy--same guy I had to chivvy out of the squat rack where he was curling, via many pointed stares--and another guy refused to let me work in even though he was obviously resting between sets and I only had 4 to do. I was so steamed when I left!
So for what I did get to do:
Squats 4x5 @ 130. Mostly with good form, a couple got kind of good morning-y so I stopped at 4.
Benchpress 1x5 @ empty bar, 1x5 at 55 while I was waiting for the squat rack.
Wretched rows: 3x10 @ 70. I'm not at all bitter at having to do extra rows to make up for not being able to do something I like, no not at all.....blargh. Don't mind me, I'm moody today.2 -
Stronglift Rest Day
Kettlebell Swing
GobletSquats -3X5X30
Russian Kettlebell Swing- 25X7X30
Keto 3 Week Challenge February 5th-25th
Day 7- still in ketosis and making meal plans ahead which helps me to be successful. I have heard of several people in our group that are having success in losing weight! Congratulations!1 -
amyinthetardis1231 wrote: »I'm not at all bitter at having to do extra rows to make up for not being able to do something I like, no not at all.....blargh. Don't mind me, I'm moody today.
lol. i try so hard to suppress the whole my-workout's-more-valid-than-yours thing when it's crowded, partly because i've been on the receiving end of it so many times when i was struggling to work something out (stinking squats). but, yeah. there are times when you really do feel like 'if you're not going to use that, could you *kitten* off and let someone who is going to in?'
i lallygagged all day, not regrettably since i justified it by declaring it Lacrosse Ball Work day. but then at the worst rush time i went anyway. crazy crowded; i hope this is just the last gasp of tryign to get buff in time to score during valentine's day. like, so crowded the hardest thing to find was enough space to do warmups and active stretching.
so i skipped most of it that. did 5x10 deadlifts with 100 pounds, and during the lighter phases i did rows as well because i'm in a phase of being conscientious about them again. rows were 3x8 at 50, and then 3x6 at 70 because 8 at that weight were too much for me. i'm trying to keep my form clean.
deadlifts though . . . the deadlifts just rocked \o/ i did the first two sets with my knee-band on, because after all, why not. kept my hips up, made sure i had myself pulled properly IN to the bar, and concentrated on the hips-forward idea. no troubling little crunchy clunk from my right s.i. joint at all. it doesn't 'hurt', that sensation, but it sure lets you know it's somethign very real and mechanical that you don't want happening. it's a lot like that little clunk you get in some cars when the transmission catches.
inspired in all this by enrolling myself in a new course at the same building, i guess. i kind of know what i think about organized yoga. but this is 'massage ball' yoga . . . and how could that ever go wrong?2 -
@amyinthetardis1231 what a sucky day, I am getting steamed at those f---wits just reading about them. And don't tell me - I take it those were bro curls, where the guy throws his whole body into the curl because the weight is too heavy for him to curl properly. Jerks.
@canadianlbs great job on the deadlifts! what a feeling that must have been! I know what you mean on si joint problems during deadlifts, my massage therapist noted I had trouble there. He also recommended I do yoga for flexibility. I just got two Rodney Yee videos - Yoga for Beginners and Yoga for the Back. Yee is highly recommended.2 -
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Stronglift Workout A
Squat-1X5X 55/65/75, 5X5X 85
BP-1X5X 45/55/65, 5X5X 75
BR-1X5X 75
Kettlebell Swing
Goblet squat-3X5X 30
Russian kettle bell swing-25X 10 X 30
40lbs loss by May 27th Challenge
Exercise daily and stay at or under calorie goal. Check and check!
Keto 3 Week Challenge February 5th-25th
This is day one of week two. Love the food and the recipes! No need to go without dessert! There are plenty of sugarfree low-carb options! 0 -
can't get a squat rack for love or money on a sunday afternoon, sigh. but do i fix this by finding some other time to go in? i do not.
well, actually . . . i got the rack just fine but it had a bench in it already. so i did 55/65/75 bench press with it, although i think that was a lot heavier than i'm supposed to be lifting this week. then i gave the rack away to somebody else and never did get it back.
i did goblet squats instead with just a 25lb bar. am i the only person who finds goblet squats exhausting even at such a low weight? i know that i could squat with twice that even when i'm not having a confident day. but 3 or four sets of 8 with that dumbbell was just about all that i felt equipped for.1 -
d'oh. dumbbell, not bar. you can't goblet squat with a dumbbell, dummy.1
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hehe... it would look interesting at the very least to goblet squat the bar.
push press - 2x10 @ 45, 1x8 @ 65, 3x5 @ 75
front squat - 2x10 @ 45, 1x8 @ 65, 3x8 @ 95
deadlift - 1x8 @ 135, 1x5 @ 175, 3x5 @ 195
cleans - 1x8 @ 45, 2x6 @ 653 -
Stronglift Rest Day
Kettlebell Swing
Goblet squat-3X5X 30
Russian kettle bell swing-30 X 10 X 30
We have now increased the number of swings to 10 per set.
40lbs loss by May 27th Challenge
Exercise daily and stay under calorie goal!
Keto 3 Week Challenge February 5th-25th
I lost .8 pounds and am in ketosis. I love eating this way very filling never hungry and always expect to see a loss! The great thing is that I know it is Fat that is actually being burned especially from liver and belly fat!
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I go to my university gym, which is a new thing for me. I'm still working out what time is best to go. The gym is free for undergrads so the weight room is always SO crowded with guys. It smells bad lol but they have 4 squat racks (maybe getting a 5th) and it's convenient! I'm a graduate student/instructor so I'm always afraid I'll see my students. Anyway... today I discovered that 8am is a nice time to go. Still lots of people, but I didn't have to wait for any equipment.
Squat 1x5 @ 45, 5x5 @ 65
OHP 1x5 @ 20, 5x5 @ 40
DL 1x5 @ 65.
Meant to do 70 on the DL but got flustered while adding the weight. The bar had two 45# on it when I got to it, so I struggled to take them off and a nice guy helped me with that. Then I totally forgot to add 2.5# to either side to make it 70. So, next time I'll just do 75. DL has never felt heavy thus far so I was kinda hoping to move it up quicker--oh well.4 -
Squats: 5x5 @ 130
Benchpress (making up for Sat): 1x5 @ 50, 1x5 @ 55, 1x5 @ 60
Seated OHP: 5x5 @ 50
Deadlifts: 1x5 @ 140. Can I just say how silly it looks to have 2.5 lb fractionals on next to the big 45s? Pretty silly.5 -
@amyinthetardis1231 hey whatever works! nothing silly about it. I wish I had your numbers! My fractionals are saved for OHP.
My get up and go got up and went during today's workout. It's like my stomach didn't digest my lunch or else didn't send the nutrients to my bloodstream. I felt weak and without adrenaline.
I wanted to start with bench press but all benches were taken - including one guy doing supersets with dumbbell bicep curls and then curling with the Oly bar (!!)
The squat rack was empty so I grabbed it.
Squats: 1 x 10 @ 55lb, 1 x 10 @ 60 lb, 2 x 5 @ 60 lb, 2 x 5 @ 65 lb.
Barbell rows: 5 x 5 @ 65 lb and felt somewhat better
Then 2 more sets of 5 reps of squats at 65 lb, then felt a lack of adrenaline so I said f--- this for a game of soldiers
Bench press: two warmup sets of 65 lb.
Then 4 x 5 @ 75 lb - then attempted the 5th and couldn't, and the bar didn't catch the left side peg and reached my chest. I yelled Dammit! and someone caught the bar and then offered a spot. I accepted. Managed 4 more reps at 75 lb but that was it. Hey, last time I did 4 x 5 @ 70 lb and then 1 x 5 @ 75 lb so there is an improvement. But for some reason I was losing concentration, not visualizing the bar going up to the right point.
The guy using the bench press before me was nice and offered to let me work in (he had only one set left anyway). He was wearing a Robotics Team shirt from a local high school - told me he'd been on the engineering track but his math skills weren't enough. I told him about a group I belong to, the National Space Society, and suggested he check us out. He'd heard of us. Always nice to meet a fellow geek.
Came out feeling rather deflated. Maybe I'm just starting to get ill - my husband was home ill yesterday and today.3 -
Came out feeling rather deflated. Maybe I'm just starting to get ill - my husband was home ill yesterday and today.
i'm so impressed that you kept going after missing the pin on your bench press. so many people would have just quit for the day but getting four reps after a scare like that is amazing. i've done it myself - went yeahyeahyeah and didn't listen when mr t warned me about overshooting on his adjustable rack, adn then went right ahead and overshot on one side. it scared the living sand out of everyone, so don't underestimate how much a slip like that takes out of you. i think it's way more costly than just a regular rep, so getting four on a set AFTER that is just great.
next time you bench, you might want to try doing at least one warmup with just the bar, and then taking an increment and doing a 55 set before 65. and if 65 is a warmup weight too, then just do three reps instead of five. i'm preaching what i don't practice myself - i always try to sneak the heaviest warmup up to five reps myself for silly ego reasons but warming up progressively can make a big difference for upper-body lifts in particular. those little muscles that women don't use as much seem to benefit from being given lots of time to boot up and come online. plus, i kind of believe in mark bell's dictum that you can do all the warmup sets that you need without tiring yourself, if you keep the reps low.
for myself, we had a stat holiday today. i got on a hamstrings mission early in the day and spent pretty much all of it sitting on my pvc pipe searching out various tiny-feeling and super-stringy tissue threads and working on them. like a monkey hunting for fleas, in a way. by dinner time i had them in such an altered state i felt like i sort of had to take them to the gym and squat with them, for fear they'd seize up again overnight if i didn't show them the full range of motion i'll be expecting from them for from now on. walked to the gym and did 3x5 goblets with a 25 dumbbell, then a rack came free so i did 5x10 front/back sets. i think i just like keeping my squats nice and light, but idk how a mere 45 pounds can get me as sweaty and breathless as that. it's got a lot to do with the breathing, i think. i'm being completely obsessive about pulling in the deep diaphragm breath and then locking it there with my whole torso before i unhinge and descend.
other thing i did was lat pulldowns as accessory. i stuck with just 20 pounds instead of trying to be macho. 20 was so easy to work with i wasn't really doing lat work so much as shoulderblade retraction-and-[whatever that other word is]. i think i did 3x15 and i started to throw in some static holding as well on the last couple of reps in each set. it was actually really nice and seemed to do a lot for getting my shoulders open enough to make back squats viable right afterwards.5 -
Great job on the squats! Glad you went to work on the hamstrings. I definitely need to do what you did. My hamstrings are tight. Thanks for the kind words - I had just felt weak in general during most of the workout, for example on the squats. I'm not even sore today, which tells you I couldn't work hard enough.2
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Happy Valentine's Day
Stronglift Workout B
Squats-1X5X 55/65/75, 5X5X 85
OHP-1X5X 45/50, 5X5X 55
DL-1X5X 95/105/115
Kettlebell Swing
Goblet squat-3X5X 30
Russian kettle bell swing-10 X 10 X 30
40lbs loss by May 27th Challenge
Exercise daily and meet calorie goals!
Keto 3 Week Challenge February 5th-25th
Dark chocolate at least 70% cacao and making some of the delicious keto recipes like the chocolate cake in a cup!
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band pulls - 3x12
bench - 2x10 @ 45,1x8 @ 65, 3x5 @ 95
pause bench - 2x6 @ 65 at a 5 count
decline bench - 1x8 @ 45, 1x8 @ 65
tricep pushdown - 4x10 @ 60
overhead tricep ext - 3x8 @ 30
Treadmill at a 2 incline, 3.2 speed for 30 minutes
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oh my. those hamstrings . . .
i got into - not a fight really but a showdown on the bus with one of those jesus-freak haters who was picking on this really young moslem woman until i couldn't take it anymore and got between them. stuff like this is never movie-dramatic when you're actually stuck in the cross-hairs of it. it's just . . . lame. you don't turn into stallone. you just look lame and you sound lame and you feel pompous and squeaky and lame, and just ugh. nobody's ever written a true-to-reality movie script about things like this. there aren't any heroes really. just people exposing their dorkishness.
he was super angry but he shut up. still don't know why, but i was sooo glad when he threw himself off the bus a few stops later. i don't think i dramatize, but i'm not a bunny rabbit either. he really was someone i would have headed straight to a bright place with witnesses and demanded somebody call for the cops if he'd followed me off at my own stop. so i was relieved because damn it. i had plans to go lift. didn't want to spend my evening hanging around in a gas station with him outside it like a rabid dog.
anyway, thanks for the outlet. i did go and lift, 10x5 overhead press with no rack. it was good, but i guess it just kind of postponed the jangles instead of killing them off.3
only thing is . . . my bum still isn't sore.
