What Was Your Work Out Today?

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  • williamsonmj1
    williamsonmj1 Posts: 85 Member
    Very little energy today- probably because I lifted twice in a row and generally have been exercising pretty consistently, while still in a small-ish calorie deficit. But I forced myself to do a quick 30 minute incline treadmill walk, and was glad I did. Might take a complete break tomorrow- before Pomp Day on Saturday.
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 10,864 Member
    Lower Hypertrophy

    Squats 4x15
    BB Step-Ups 3x12
    BB RDL 4x10
    Leg Extension 3x12
    Seated Leg Curl 3x12
    Calves Extend 4x12
    Suitcase Carry 3x40s
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,735 Member
    _John_ wrote: »
    (background on me..always been an overweight athlete, but got lean in my mid 20's, let it go, got lean again in my 30's, and am about 7 months back into it after a 9 year layoff. I'm a BIG guy for 5'10". Currently 237 lbs, but I get visible abs at like 210-220 lbs. Years of experience strength training)

    I actually do that for a lot of muscles...same issue with training my chest sometimes. But I always feel other muscles tiring on stuff that "should" be for lats.

    Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing. Doing pull-overs (essentially a lat isolation) is the only exercise I really feel them burn, but even doing those, I either get too much recruitment from other muscles close to failure when I do them with an ez curl bar laying, or I get too much tricep help when I do them standing. However, combining the 2 exercises, and it makes my lat what fails, which I guess is what I need to make sure I know I'm working my lats.

    @_John_ , I've been through multiple rounds of physical therapy for various things. Usually, one key focus has been recruiting muscle groups that I tend to under-utilize. The methods include relatively low-intensity exercises that recruit those muscle groups, with a focus on the recruitment rather than on generating power or achieving fatigue.

    For example, my last round of PT for shoulder impingement included some exercises that were quite easy from a strength perspective, but that forced me to better recruit the muscles around the scapulae. This creates an adaptation - better mind-body connection, reinforcing the relevant neural pathways - that allows those muscle groups to engage more effectively and more automatically during more demanding activities.

    That's the point of the steering wheel thing, for lats. These things aren't strictly muscle exercises - they're more like brain exercises. A plus is that they can be done in "wasted" time.

    On the machine rows, assuming we're talking about the normal horizontal pull: Are you thinking about engaging the lats as the first part of the loaded movement, then squeezing the shoulder blades together and down as the last phase, before the brief between-rep hold?

    It's conceivable to me that lats could be slower to fatigue in a lot of movements just because they're pretty big and used in lots of movements, whereas some of the smaller or more specialized muscles may be quicker to fatigue. But recruitment can be a problem, too.

    As context: Me, I'm a late-bloomer aging active woman, now 67, wasn't routinely active until my late 40s. As a consequence, I see physical therapists more than the average person, maybe. :D I'm not expert about strength training, but have quite a bit of formal education and experience in biomechanics of rowing motions. ;)
  • _John_
    _John_ Posts: 8,645 Member
    @nossmf I'll definitely give that a shot when I do lat pulls/pullups next.

    @AnnPT77 yeah, I'm definitely thinking of trying to feel the exercises where I want them to target. I under trained my mid back and lats for years in my training.

    All through HS our workouts were essentially: Bench, Squat, Cleans, OHP/high incline press, Lat pulls. No horizontal pulling (that wasn't explosive like what you do for cleans). And that's what I went back to in my 20's. It wasn't until my next stint in my 30's that I really trained my mid back hard with the rest. Now in my 40's it's one of my better body parts from a muscle development point of view even though I struggle to feel it. And I think part of my issue is that I keep up my upper arm and forearm development during layoffs and lose some of the big weightlifting type muscle development that doesn't have to be that big for daily life when I'm off strength training for 5+ years.
  • Ernest_Nigma
    Ernest_Nigma Posts: 69 Member
    Cycled to the pool, about 10 minutes each way, for 1250 m swimming. Donated plasma this afternoon so I'm taking it easy this evening so as not to spring a leak where they poked.
  • williamsonmj1
    williamsonmj1 Posts: 85 Member
    edited September 2023
    nossmf wrote: »
    _John_ wrote: »
    Like for example, my pull-ups. They kill my forearms and where my bicep attaches on my lower arm. That's where I feel failure coming from when I do those. With rows, again, my biceps are what fails. Machine rows...same thing.

    Something which helped me was to stop focusing on moving the bar/handle, and start focusing on moving my elbows. As in I grip the pulldown bar, then focus upon moving my elbows down; the bar just sort of follows on its own, like magic. If I focus on moving the bar, I feel it in my biceps; if I focus on moving my elbows, I feel it in my lats.

    Yeah- I think the best cue is "Bring your elbows to the bottom and back of your ribs". When you do this, you get a lot of lat engagement. If you then control the eccentric and start the pull from the absolute bottom, they go crazy- I feel them shivering on the way down.

    I watch guys doing chinups in the gym and I see that the angle of their upper arm doesn't change that much relative to their torso through their lift. So the lats are mostly functioning isometrically to maitain that arm position, and a lot of the movement is coming from their biceps.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,735 Member
    About 7500m row in bow of the double (trying to stay out of the way of the water ski team, but getting big-waked by them repeatedly (sigh - do they really want to drown their granny?)). My Garmin decided to delete the workout. (I assume I accidentally hit the buttons somehow.)

    Later, about a 3 mile walk, but mostly at meandering pace through the local university's annual trials garden, perennial garden, children's garden, arboretum and landscape architecture demo area, reflexology path, and radiology garden (the latter built for patient respite around treatments).
  • nossmf
    nossmf Posts: 10,864 Member
    Upper Power

    Bench Press 5x5
    Cable Row 5x5
    DB Press <superset> DB Row 5x5
    Seated Smith OHP <superset> BB Shrugs 3x8
    Cable Pushdown <superset> Preacher Curl 3x8
  • _John_
    _John_ Posts: 8,645 Member
    edited September 2023
    Push session.

    OHP. 1 working set to failure

    Tried a new variation of flys on my Hoist V4. Did 2x12, 1x failure. Pretty light weight to make sure I felt it properly.

    Dips 2xFailure (and in a totally reverse problem from what I feel with my lats, dips are almost 100% chest for me. I had been doing these after I pre-exhausted my triceps, and I got just a couple more reps with fresh tris today. I do these with legs crossed behind me and leaned forward as much as I can (which still is sometimes a tricep limiting position for some). I’m WAY behind some old strength on these, and I added like 5 reps since last week at just body weight.

    Seated skullcrushers 1xfailure.
  • Ernest_Nigma
    Ernest_Nigma Posts: 69 Member
    A short early morning elliptical session, and an afternoon treadmill run. I tried the 3/1 minutes run/walk intervals again but cut it off at 50 minutes. That kept the HR from peaking as high as the previous 1 hour run and hopefully saved a bit more to run better again tomorrow.
  • laurachambers86
    laurachambers86 Posts: 152 Member
    Gym day yesterday, focused more on arms and core and continuing with my increased weights along with trying some newer exercises like dumbbell flies and seated rows. Tended to avoid things like that when I had tennis elbow but not causing any issues atm.

    Today I went to boxing class, first time since July I think. Super hot and the air con wasn't great so really sweated it out but glad I went.
  • williamsonmj1
    williamsonmj1 Posts: 85 Member
    edited September 2023
    Lifting today! Full body plus arms & chest bodybuilding-style accessory
    • Warmup
    • Front squats- 5 sets of 5
    • Bench press- 5 sets of 3
    • Strict chin-ups- 5 sets of 6
    • EZ-bar preacher curls- 5 sets of 10-11
    • Cable tricep pushdowns- 5 sets of 13-15
    • Incline DB bench press- 3 sets of 10
    • Chest-supported lateral raises- 3 sets of 10
    • Bonus barbell face pulls
    • Side planks- two sets, 20 seconds each side
    This took a long time. Gradually increasing the weight on the main lifts and either weight or reps on the assistance. Very small increases, but moving in the right direction. Squat and bench felt good.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,735 Member
    sampson2010 wrote: »
    I ran a 5k today.

    I don't normally post on the forums, but I kind of feel like bragging into the ether.

    My dad turned 75 in July, had a hip replacement the day after his birthday, and then started a new cancer treatment last month. And he was determined to run the 5k at our city's big race weekend. He's run the half marathon a handful of times at this event, and then the 10k for a few years (once his hip became too bad to train for the half). Finally he was relegated to the 5k. Last year he wasn't able to participate at all.

    Two weeks ago he sent me a photo of his feet in his running shoes and told me it's the first time in a year and a half that he's been able to tie them. (He couldn't bend down because of his hip.) He'd just done a test run of 4k, said it felt good, and that there was still time to register for the event. He asked if I'd do it with him, and I agreed.

    Our goal was to finish in under an hour. Although once we got there, he decided that his goal was to win his age group. (He had scoped out the runners at the start line and it was clear that he was the only "old guy" there, so I guess he won.) My goal was just to keep up with my superhuman dad.

    We finished in 48:30, and I'm incredibly proud of him. So that was my workout today and it felt pretty darn good.

    @sampson2010, that post has so many dimensions of wonderful to it: Thanks for sharing the story, so uplifting!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 33,735 Member
    Probably rowed, probably around 6800m, most likely in bow of the double, eh?

    We had a farewell row then pizza outing for a club member who's returning to Australia after being here for a bit over a year.

    Bunches of rowing shells out on the water: Only 4 from our club, a quad, double, 2 singles. But the university club team are back in force, and so are the varsity women (with reinvigorated spirit under their new coach). Both of those groups had multiple 8s and some coaching launches out on the water. I didn't get a good count because there were multiple eights rowing different patterns with different coaches, but there were at least 8-10 eights in total. Probably 100+ rowers on the water overall? That's quite a lot, for here.
  • laurachambers86
    laurachambers86 Posts: 152 Member
    @sampson2010 your father is incredibly inspiring!
  • laurachambers86
    laurachambers86 Posts: 152 Member
    Got up early this morning and went for a short horse ride, we're still on the grip of this weird heatwave so I didn't go far but just wanted to get out there.
  • williamsonmj1
    williamsonmj1 Posts: 85 Member
    45 minutes incline treadmill walk this morning. Same again tomorrow, and then lifting on Tuesday.

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