GIFt us your lifts! (or other achievements!)

Thank you Mike.
He is back at home, and things are settling down more.
He is still sick, but at least home to recover.
As for my back, i walked a lot, to at least get some movement in.
And i did workout last monday and going at it again tomorrow.

But i feel like i lost so much strenght. Did some deadlifts monday...3 sets of 8 at a weight that used to be my warmup...But patience and time to get back at where i was

KickassAmazon76 wrote: »

Been a while since I checked in... Gus, you're not alone. I think I've done two lifting / gym sessions in the last month. Been dealing with my dad's weakness as well (for almost a week, I was going to their apartment and getting him out of bed and fed in the mornings, settled at dinner, and then to bed in the evening). Plus Mom got covid and was sick as hell and then gave it to me. So I was dealing with that WHILE trying to help them.

Work hit hard too, with a few 12h days thrown in the mix, and now my eldest has the Vid and I'm still recovering.

It has just been a royally brutal month. Though... I did lose my appetite, sense of smell and taste, so i think I'm down almost ten pounds. LOL
#silverliningsIguess

The good news is that Dad has improved enough that I don't have to go there 3x a day, and Mom is doing better. I'm still exhausted and just... weary.

Life gets in the way of our fitness goals... but if I wasn't as fit as I was before life got in the way, I'm sure it would have been that much harder.

Keep pressing on, folks! It's worth it.

ugh!
You have had a lot to deal with Sandy.
Glad your dad has improved enough that it gives you some rest as well

And totally agree on the last part, if things like this would have happened 15 years ago, i would be dulging in food for pitty, and not recover so fast.

In other news, i have cancelled my subscription for the gym for next year, so i can focus completely on my walking event and train for that.

I am afraid that otherwise, i would still spend my free time in gym, rather than walking outside.
So taking out the temptation and will restart the membership when i am done with the event in July.

Just wrapped up 15 weeks of a cut, dropped 11 pounds in that time, with smaller waist and thighs but chest/arms stayed the same. Visually am not beach ready, so am thinking instead of doing a 3-month bulk followed by 3-month cut before next summer, I will do a 4-week Holiday feast and resume the cut come January, for a 5-month cut before summer, see what the extra two months can do, especially if I show a little more discipline and cut another 100-200 calories per day.

New pb dead lift 145 kg

Am 15.5 stone

Years back I injured both shoulders by being stupid on the bench press, avoided surgery, but forever after had limited range of motion. Fast forward a decade, I'm now teaching my son how to lift properly and safely, and of course he notes how my bench press stops with the bar several inches above my chest. He also made an observation which floored me, how the bar seemed lower on my warmup sets than on my working sets. Got me to thinking, self-analyzing my bar path, and I came to realize that over time I had unconsciously been creeping the bar higher on my sternum when the weights went up, since it felt more stable at my "limited" range.

So today I forced myself out of my comfort zone, intentionally moving the bar to hover lower on my sternum, and sought to lower the bar to make actual contact with my chest. Sure enough, I could get the bar to touch, where I had been convinced my range of motion would prevent it, and what's more there was zero discomfort. So for the rest of my bench press session I systematically increased the weight, fearing I would have to stop at a relatively light weight, like 30% of normal.

Completely floored me that I actually didn't start to have any issue until I got all the way up to 75%! And what's to say how much of that issue wasn't a combination of cumulative fatigue from all the sets leading up to it, plus the normal weakness of doing a familiar exercise in an unfamiliar way? My incline press similarly surprised me, working my way up to 62% of normal, not quite getting all the way down to my chest before encountering resistance to going any lower (an inch compared to six inches).

Bottom line is my work this past decade must have helped heal my shoulders more than I had realized, which is a great thing. The follow-on regret is how much more could've been done had I not convinced myself of a permanent limitation and instead kept working at it. But that's the past, it can't be changed. What I can do going forward is continue to work with this "true" bench press motion, systematically work my weights back up again. Who knows, maybe working through this larger range of motion will force parts of my chest previously ignored to join the party, resulting in bigger appearance, bigger strength, or both.

Who says you can't teach an old lifter new tricks? (Or for the cynic, it's never too late to stop lying to yourself.)