Grassroots Strength Training - Bodybuilding, Power Lifting, Etc.

I'm looking for a good app that gives me a challenge every day. Eventually building into workout routines. 

Something like at the beginning it says:

"Do 5 pushups." "Were you able to complete this?" 

Months later, it might say:

"Do 20 pushups, 10 squats, these yoga positions, and go for a 5 minute run." "Were you able to complete this?" 

It'd be even better if such an app would tailor workouts to preferences. Like "I like to ride bike" so I'll get more workouts that include that. Or "I'm flexible" and "I like weightlifting" so it'll say, suggest squats more often. 

So... my old go-to source for whey protein (Body Fortress on Amazon) is gone/smaller bottles/expensive.  What are you guys using these days?  Looking for 

A) cheap whey protein.  Not sure I am willing to go the unflavored route, but I would consider it, at least for blender shakes as I generally put banana + pb in them anyway

B) ideally something with free shipping / subscribe easily / etc.  Amazon made this easy as I just had 5lb come every month.

Little different story here.

I'm 31 and 6'1 with wide build. Hit 299lbs 2 months ago and said no more. Depression, divorce, 2 kids and desk job left me stagnant and finding comfort in food.

In my teens/20s I played football, hockey and raced mountain bikes semi-professionally.

So started changing eating with healthier choices, appropriate portions and 18/6 fasting.

On the days I don't have dad duties I visit the gym consisting of:

-30-45min intense cardio, treadmill, spin bike, recumbent stationary bike in 15-20min intervals

-multi-function trainer, woodchop, one arm pull, alternating press 3 x 15

-ab machine 3 x 15

-freeweights curls 3x15

-and weather permitting ill change a gym day for a ~8mi mountain bike ride with 1000ft elevation gain.

Days on dad duty:

-pushup/situp/leglift 3x15

-20-30min yoga

After 7 weeks I'm down 23lbs way more flexible and feeling way better, have more energy to play with my kiddos and just happier.

2023 goals:

-Hit 220lbs

-Ride MTB 300mi offroad

-Do a 5k marathon

Beer Baron said:

Full Power Racks vs just a Squat Stand? What are people's opinions?

We have one rack now. CL Market special. It's an open front squat stand with a pulley system (overhead or at the feet).

Want a second rack so wife and I can train at the same time more easily. Being in Columbus, will almost certainly buy Rogue, especially if we decide to buy new.

Leaning squat rack with spotter arms, mostly for space and ease of taking a bar off the rack to go from like Squats to Overhead Press.

People talk about the greater versatility of a full power rack. People with a full rack, what does it gain you that you can't really do with just a squat stand with spotter arms?

Squat Rack I'm leaning towards... vs. a Full Rack like this. Open to recommendations on good alternative brands, but I feel like Rogue tends to offer value in line with its pricing.

I realize this was asked two pages ago but I thought what we ended up doing was worth mentioning so in 2020 we decided to buy a rack for the garage so we could work out after all the gyms closed and fell upon rogue as our main choice because of our experience with them when we were doing Crossfit. They do make quality stuff that will last and at least back then equivalent quality seemed to cost even more than Rogue stuff did. Since we needed to be able to park the car in that side of the garage occasionally we needed something that was either shallow or swung against the wall with not too much trouble. My wife however once dropped the bar during a back squat and refused to consider anything that was not a full cage. Here is what we got and are extremely happy with-  .https://www.roguefitness.com/monster-lite-rml-390-fullw-fold-back-wall-mount-power-rack I let her choose the color, so neon green, and the powder coat has held up well. I much prefer the fabric safety straps it comes with to metal safety bars. They have jumped $3-400 in price since we purchased ours. Wow. It doesn't seem like you will need to fold the unit and the solid one similar is quite a bit cheaper. Highly recommended.

In reply to gunner (Forum Supporter) :

Waiting to see if I actually get paid my "bonus" for the year. Then buying a rack (and maybe a new barbell) when it comes in.

Pretty well decided I want a full rack for the option on attachments. Planning to lay down a plywood base and bolt it down. Leaning strongly in favor of the RML-3. I'm fine with safety pins for now. Can add straps later.

We're in Columbus, so we can just go to the Rogue showroom and check out what we like and make a decision that way. Just throw it in the back of the minivan.

Although there are space considerations with the depth of a full rack, I had the forehead slapping realization of, "We already have a half rack that takes up minimal space. I can just put that on the side with the door into the house, and put the full rack on the side where I'm not worried about taking up space.

In reply to Beer Baron :

That's a sweet rack you're looking at there. If you have a Tractor Supply store near you they sell a 4x3 horse stall mat https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/utility-rubber-mat-black-4-ft-x-3-ft-x--frac12-in?cm_vc=-10005 I highly recommend for working out on. I put two together for a 4x6 ft area under my rack. It's just about perfect.

In reply to gunner (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah. I've got 8 of those mats as my current workout surface.

I have two of those horse mats as well.  They are impressively heavy.  I bought some home and had to move them like 25 feet into my gym room and holy crap that was hard.  I ended up rolling them as much as I could and ratchet strapping them tight to give me a way to pick them up.  Would've have been so much easier with another set of hands.

ProDarwin said:

Re: 2023.  My goals are by September (40th birthday) to:

1)  to get to a muscular 200lbs.  I'm going to define "muscular" as sub 15% body fat for now.  I usually hover around 12% but I'm sure that will be harder with that much extra mass.  I weigh ~182 right now, so thats approx 0.5lb/week.  250cal surplus needed accord to an app I plugged it into (see below).

2)  to get back to 1000lb combined between Bench, DL, Squat at a minimum.  I'd love to add a stretch goal to this.  This goal may be interrupted by a move which will mean limited access to barbell lifting stuff for a while, so we'll see how it goes.  I've spent the last month just at a baseline on this, I'll start increasing weights after the holidays.

This will be my first tracking post.  As of yesterday 1/1, my baseline numbers for SS are as follows:

Bench (3x5): 205

Squat (3x5): 225

Overhead Press (3x5):  115

Deadlift (1x5): 275

I'm not going to track max until I get close to my targets, but a rough guess of where I need to be with the above reps is: 240 Bench, 275 Squat, 360 Deadlift

As of this morning 1/2, my weight is 187.8

My workout plan is as follows:  

Week A:  Starting Strength-ish, (exactly as above) MWF.  Crossfit metcon/wod/mobility/cardio on T/Th

Week B:  5 day split Planet Fitness body building program https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/5-day-body-part-split-planet-fitness-workout

Alright, I'm making my plan for the new year. Fitness goals:

• Get back down to a strong 140-145lbs, which is, from experience, my lowest manageable weight. Currently floating around 155lbs. I think inconsistency and stress have been the main things keeping me from leaning out these past couple years.
• Get my bloodwork in check, which for me means doing enough cardio and eating enough vegan meals to keep my (genetically high) cholesterol out of the danger zone. To this end, I'm also trying out meal prepping.
• Stick to a consistent routine, even when traveling. I did pretty good with this in 2022, but there's always room for improvement.

Here's roughly what my weekly training schedule will look like:

• M,T,Th: 30min strength training (with personal trainer) in the evening, followed by light cardio (long walk or bike ride) or dance class.
• W: 1hr at the bouldering gym (stretching, climbing, strength training)
• F: Rest day, light cardio if feeling up to it.
• Sat: Brave the weekend morning mob at Planet Fitness - 35min Stair Climber ("Fat Burn" setting) to warm up, 1hr training arms, legs, and core (3 sets of each exercise, 8-12 reps at highest tolerable weight), 20min high-incline walk on treadmill or medium-intensity eliptical to cool down.
• Sun: 1hr Yoga Class at bouldering gym, followed by climbing

My meal plan for most days will be protein shake or bar and coffee for breakfast, small lunch of Huel, soup or salad, a small carby afternoon snack to maintain energy for evening exercise, and a dinner varied in macros and volume depending on the day's activity level. This is basically what I've already been doing for years, but I'll admit that lately my dinners have been more tailored to cravings and a need to clean out the pantry than to nutritional needs.

In reply to Nicole Suddard :

Your overall plan looks really solid. If I may offer two little bits of advice, I would say ensure your personal trainer focuses on the primary lifts, like barbell squat, bench press, pullups or bent over row, etc. Far too often I've seen other trainers have people do all sorts of borderline useless exercises that don't really build much strength. And two, if your goal is losing some adipose tissue then burning max calories is the name of the game. A brisk walk on a steep incline will burn a ton of calories—that's my preferred cardio, as well as some stair climber sessions.

I'm pretty happy with my muscle and strength progression but I'd like to lose a couple pounds in the love handle area. I don't have much, but I'm just trying to lean out a bit. Starting this week I'm changing my routine to intense cardio 3X/week, aiming for at least 600 calories burned per session, and high intensity weight lifting 2X/week, probably something like the DC hardcore style workout: rest/pause sets taken to failure 3X for each muscle group. Day 1 will basically be torso, and day 2 arms and legs, aiming to maintain my current muscle mass while melting some fat away.

In reply to infinitenexus :

Our trainer does a pretty good job over all sticking to the basics, which is good because I tend to get bored with those when I'm doing self-led workouts. I push hard and try to max out weights during those 30 minute training sessions, and then on Saturdays I do my fine-tuning exercises that I need to build specific strength and stability for dancing, climbing, cycling, etc. 

As for cardio, we live about a mile away from a nice tall bridge over the intracoastal waterway, so walking from our house to the bridge, over the bridge both ways and back home makes for a nice little mid-week fat burner session that I can do even if I'm feeling low-energy.

In reply to Nicole Suddard :

That sounds nice. Best place I have to walk near my apartment is a park where a kid got shot recently. Ahh, Cleveland

Figured I'd post a picture for some accountability. Started my workout with some abs, then hit the treadmill. This was my first cardio session in a long time, so of course I immediately cranked the incline up to 10 and the speed at 3.6mph. Had to power down the incline when my calves started hating me, but still burned a decent amount of calories for 25 minutes. Next time I'll improve by a bit. 

Jumping in for accountability with an early year data point:

37 years old- should increase pretty linearly

6'1"- no change anticipated

187.5lbs- Was down to 180-182 at the end of last summer. Since then I've joined a gym and begun adding some muscle back to my frame, but I'm also no longer as lean as I was last August.

32" waist- Not super concerned about this, just want to avoid growth here

Body fat percentage: 22.3% per my cheap bathroom scale. I'd like to get under 20% here. I wasn't super disciplined with my diet through the holidays so some clean up is needed

Lifts:

Squat- 290

Bench- ?? I've had some rotator cuff pain/instability during pressing movements lately so my primary focus is to rehab and get fully healthy before I go heavy

Goals for 2023:

Continue to get back into the weight room on a consistent basis. I'd taken a couple of years off and have missed it. Late 2022 was fairly slow but 2023 is shaping up to be a busy year, so this might be the most ambitious goal.

Drop body fat percentage below 20%.

Get squat to 350-375lb range.

Get shoulder healthy so that I can consistently get back to pressing motions (chest/overhead/etc).

Body weight will be whatever it is based on potential muscle gain and body fat percentage.

STM317 said:

Body fat percentage: 22.3% per my cheap bathroom scale. I'd like to get under 20% here. I wasn't super disciplined with my diet through the holidays so some clean up is needed

I wouldn't trust that bathroom scale. Those things are notoriously the least accurate body fat measurement tools, and body fat is already notoriously tough to measure.

I'm 5'9", ~185 lbs, and wear 34" waist pants. I'm fairly certain I'm <20% body fat.

Bench- ?? I've had some rotator cuff pain/instability during pressing movements lately so my primary focus is to rehab and get fully healthy before I go heavy

Goals for 2023:

Continue to get back into the weight room on a consistent basis. I'd taken a couple of years off and have missed it. Late 2022 was fairly slow but 2023 is shaping up to be a busy year, so this might be the most ambitious goal.

How much back arch do you have when you bench?

I find a bit of back arch greatly improves how comfortable presses are on my shoulders. Enough back arch so that... basically I my shoulder blades are flat on the bench when they're tucked, which means my arms follow a slight downward ROM relative to my shoulders, produces a much smoother motion. If I'm pressing higher, I feel like something "catches" inside my shoulder like I'm missing a shift gate.

Have you tried using a "sling shot" to help protect your shoulders?

In reply to Beer Baron :

Yeah, much like body weight I don't really care what the number on the scale says for body fat percentage. I'm just going to use it to monitor trends. As long as I keep using the same scale I just want to see that number trending down.

I don't think I usually do tons of arch when I bench, but I can usually slide my hand under my lower back pretty easily when I'm in position, and I feel like my shoulder blades are pretty flat on the bench. But maybe I should try to get some video of my form, or a second set of eyes. Good advice, thanks! I'll consider the Sling Shot too.

The rotator cuff pain is present for most any pressing motion (bench, incline, or overhead). I even feel it a bit doing lateral delt raises with heavier weight. I can do dips all day though. I lift without a partner, so I typically choose dumbells over barbell work. Especially if I'm going heavier.

I've taken it really easy for the last month or so, focusing on lots of flexibility work and very light weight mobility stuff. I think it's helping as I had a decent push up workout the other day without pain. Just going to keep that up as I gradually build back. I'm not 25 any more, so I need to incorporate more flexibility work, and a thorough warm up into the routine anyway.

Incline and decline are easier on the shoulder joints than flat bench. Might be something to consider. 

TRX straps or gymnastics rings are also great.

My current hypertrophy-day press is ring push-ups. I put feet on a plyo box and have the rings set to hang about 6" lower for a nice deficit. Easy on the shoulders, and gets plenty of core activation too.

I was trying to get into using Olympic rings, but all my gym has is TRX bands and I'm not sure how to build the needed strength OR move them wide enough to use them properly. So far I'll just try suspending myself on them like im in the extended point of a dip.

My gym reopened so I was finally able to go the last 3 days- I tried to keep up my work through bodyweight exercises and a cheap exercise bike I got for when I build a room of my home into a gym, and it seems like I was decently successful. I kept light with my major lifts- 135x 10 on bench, up to 225x7 on dead, and 135x10 on squat with leg press going over 360 to build back to my earlier levels. Feels great to be back, even though I basically went light.

I have no idea what my goals should be, or are. Frankly they're kind of shadowy- hitting 300/500/300 club would be pretty cool, but after some incidents in my life I want to be more martial-arts fight-worthy than weightlift strong. I've tried to get back in, but my current schedule cannot work with anything local for boxing or the arts. Maybe start the Bioneer's Batman program?

Got my "bonus" and raise. Shopping power racks now.

Debating best system for securing said power rack. The obvious option appears to be just anchoring it to the concrete floor in the garage. This does limit my ability to relocate the rack if I feel like. I would also need to rent a hammer drill to drill pilot holes into the floor for the anchors.

Next option would be posts going back to the wall and anchor it to the exposed wall studs. This will cost more in hardware, but I'll always have it and be able to move it if I am so inclined. Also places a bit of rigging to step around if you're going to spot someone. Although Rogue wants me to use one of their fancy metal wall-mounts, I see no reason I couldn't just use horizontal arms and anchor those to 2x4's.

I could build a plywood lifting platform. This would be a nicer surface to stand on than just rubber mat on concrete. Can use that o anchor, but that requires a countersunk bolt coming up through the bottom, and properly measuring to align all of those holes through every layer.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas? How would you do this?

Had somebody watching me while doing squats because something felt off. They said my bar path was a bit off and my knees are creeping forward.

Time to get a phone holder so I can video things and get my form right before trying to increase the weight. I'll probably even drop weight and work reps for a while to get good form back into muscle memory.

ProDarwin said:

1)  to get to a muscular 200lbs. 

2)  to get back to 1000lb combined between Bench, DL, Squat at a minimum. 

This will be my first tracking post.  As of yesterday 1/1, my baseline numbers for SS are as follows:

Bench (3x5): 205

Squat (3x5): 225

Overhead Press (3x5):  115

Deadlift (1x5): 275

As of this morning 1/2, my weight is 187.8

As of yesterday 2/1, my numbers for SS are as follows:

Bench (3x5): 215

Squat (3x5): 225

Overhead Press (3x5):  120

Deadlift (1x5): 275

As of this morning 2/2, my weight is 186.0

So yeah, basically no progress.  First I hurt my back, then took it easy for a few weeks.  Then I got a vasectomy, and havent lifted since, and realistically have at least another week until I can lift heavy.  And by that point I'll be in NZ for a week, so really I don't expect to even do a real strength workout again until 2/20 or so :(

In reply to ProDarwin :

I've got my vasectomy scheduled for about a month from now. Not looking forward to a month without lifting or climbing. I know my lifting will recover well after the time out, but I like being able to exercise.