Grassroots Strength Training - Bodybuilding, Power Lifting, Etc.

dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Lightly tweaked my shoulder working on a car, and had to drop weight in many exercises. 

I'm sorry to hear this!  If it helps, I can share the PT exercises I'm doing right now to rehab my shoulder.  The good news is that shoulders seem to recover better by working them than resting completely (warning: broad generalization, not a doctor, etc.)

I'm interested.  On a related note, I follow these guys on instagram https://www.instagram.com/theprehabguys/?hl=en

I downloaded their app, and I'm considering the free trial.  I did a fair amount of PT late 2022, and I'd like to find a good set of routines I can do regularly.  If I stick with it, the cost is a lot better than PT visits.  My right shoulder/upper pec is really tight sometimes, and my left knee acts up from time to time, especially after injuring myself during my recent vacation like a moron.

I've been slowly increasing the intensity and duration of my boxing-focused workouts (working around/with the plantar fasciitis) and a few hours ago I went 10 rounds at 80%-100% for 1:30 per round.

I.

Am.

Spent.

I'm hoping I can focus on reducing my bodyweight and minimize the panic when my strength starts to drop off. For overall long-term health, I need to drop some weight.  

I did some deadlifts with the trap (hex) bar yesterday and I was able to pull 475. Not bad but, not my best. 


I did more boxing today, really focusing on footwork and rebuilding my jab. For now, I'm just maximizing what I can do as a 190-pound dad who works too much but, once in a while, I get the urge to cut back on the heavy lifting, severely restrict my caloric intake and see if I can get to 165 lbs. There's still some fuel in the tank and, so long as whatever sanctioning body is semi-local to me has a "masters" division (age 41-up), I keep thinking I'd like to get back in the ring. It may just be the midlife crisis talking but, I think about it every day, multiple times per day.


After hitting the bags I did some stretching, ab and neck work then Turkish Get Ups and some Landmine twists. I wrapped everything up with a short torture session on the stair stepper.

April 1 Check in:

My dad had a heart attack at my age.  Now 25 years later he is in the hospital again.  We are going to visit this weekend.  
 

I will probably never complete another half Ironman in my life, but I plan to fight old age all the way to retirement and beyond.  The new jobs has lots of stairs thank goodness, and I never want to be trapped on a freight elevator.  
 

I have a hard time getting to the gym but I did this.  I will likely sell a car and improve garage / hobby life too.  
 

I don't ever plan to set any power lifting records or hit impressive numbers but we will see what happens.  I'm going to focus on form and 3x10 to 12 of the big whole body movements for a while.

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

"More than last week" is always impressive.

First lifting session in a month. After sitting on my ass, lifting even relatively meager weights felt good. Also felt surprisingly tiring. But that'll come back quickly.

I'm trying to push it too much, too quickly instead of following a safe progression and letting myself heal.

The shoulder tweak I had earlier got worse.

I know better than this. Time to go into recovery mode.

In reply to The_Jed :

How do you find hexbar in terms of balance while DLing? I seem to never really find proper position while using hex and end up basically squatting my DL(maybe my leverages are just completely messed up).

Also started doing some cardio in Feb, going to attend a few social runs by local running store Run United, should be pretty fun!

Went lighter with more reps today, and my shoulder didn't complain. Going to stick to the plan for a while.

Did some nice heavy squats today( 350 5x5). My squat been kinda exploding lately when I've moved from higher rep ranges. Deadlift still kinda stuck, feels like I can't brace well in bottom position.

Timbr said:

Did some nice heavy squats today( 350 5x5). My squat been kinda exploding lately when I've moved from higher rep ranges. Deadlift still kinda stuck, feels like I can't brace well in bottom position.

I figured out what I needed to do to unlock my heaviest deadlifts, also helped my squats a bit. It was all about adjusting my breathing technique to fill my belly more to brace enough.

I figured out that if I tilt my head back and arch my upper back a bit it does a LOT to open up my airways and really suck in a big mass of air against my belt. Then I close my glottus to hold everything in place and crunch into my belt to tighten everything. For squats, this is easy.

For deadlift, I either had to start standing, take a deep breath, and grip-and-rip; or get my hands set up, then loosen my arms and dip my hips just enough to arch my back and take a full breath.

In reply to Timbr :

As long as I go through my check list while setting up, I'm good. For me there is no "grip it and rip it" with a hex bar; my feet or hands would probably wind up too far forward or back and the bar would rock in my hands or swing forward or back when I pick it up.

Honestly going from a straight bar to a hex unlocked ~75lbs for me. I started throwing 10s on like nothing.

Beer Baron said:

Timbr said:

Did some nice heavy squats today( 350 5x5). My squat been kinda exploding lately when I've moved from higher rep ranges. Deadlift still kinda stuck, feels like I can't brace well in bottom position.

I figured out what I needed to do to unlock my heaviest deadlifts, also helped my squats a bit. It was all about adjusting my breathing technique to fill my belly more to brace enough.

I figured out that if I tilt my head back and arch my upper back a bit it does a LOT to open up my airways and really suck in a big mass of air against my belt. Then I close my glottus to hold everything in place and crunch into my belt to tighten everything. For squats, this is easy.

For deadlift, I either had to start standing, take a deep breath, and grip-and-rip; or get my hands set up, then loosen my arms and dip my hips just enough to arch my back and take a full breath.

Thanks, gonna test it next friday, see if it works for me :D I'm usually using straps on top sets so grip and rip is rough for me I'd say, takes a bit of time to setup.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

Honestly going from a straight bar to a hex unlocked ~75lbs for me. I started throwing 10s on like nothing.

Going from mainly sumo back to conventional did same for, increased my DL by like 50 or 60lbs in last 3 months :D And removed a lot of hip discomfort too

GIRTHQUAKE said:

Honestly going from a straight bar to a hex unlocked ~75lbs for me. I started throwing 10s on like nothing.

Same here. I could also do dead lifts more often if I stuck with the hex bar since it didn't kill my spine as much.

I REALLY like the hex bars with the raised handles for frequent deadlifting, like Christian Thibaudeau's "Built for Bad" program. I usually keep my hips pretty high with those and turn it into something akin to an RDL. 

Well I'm old and out of shape, but I hit the garage again.  I will get stronger, but it's going to take longer.  The last time I worked out seriously I was doing a lot of triathlons right when my most recent kiddo was born (she's 9 now) and then bam.... I blew out a knee.  Recovery from that at 45 was a lot different than the doctor said it would be.  I have no excuses now as I have to look for the scars.  It is fully healed and then some. 

Here's my PT shoulder routine.  If you're short on time, the two exercises that I think give me the most benefit are the doorway stretches, the the 2lb medicine ball on the wall exercises.

Just want to drop in and recommend Mind Pump as a resource for this kinda stuff. Their podcast is pretty solid and they're good dudes. Lots of great tips and motivation for lifting long term. My wife found them a few years ago and they've been extremely helpful for me. I can't put up any big numbers but I'm lifting more than I was a year ago so I'm happy about that. 

Ever since I got a Garmin watch and started using it to record my activity, I've had hard data about my workouts versus the imprecise "how am I feeling about things" method I was using before.

The most current enlightenment is that my walking speed puts me into zone 2 heart rate after about 10 minutes of walking. That's good enough to increase fitness. This means I don't necessarily have to run around, stressing my joints to get more fit.

Yes, I'd heard people saying that before, but I didn't realize what the "easy" zone really felt like without the data. As per my earlier post on this page, I was over doing it and beating myself up for no good reason.

I'm finally seeing some movement on the scale. I weigh myself every afternoon, upon waking, nude after relieving myself. I weighed 193 when I finally made the decision to start eating properly again, for performance instead of taste and in a decent caloric deficit. I was 187 when I woke up today and I've been noticing more definition and my face has lost the bloated look it had.


 

The_Jed said:

I'm finally seeing some movement on the scale. I weigh myself every afternoon, upon waking, nude after relieving myself. I weighed 193 when I finally made the decision to start eating properly again, for performance instead of taste and in a decent caloric deficit. I was 187 when I woke up today and I've been noticing more definition and my face has lost the bloated look it had.


 

Nice! Probably a lot of water weight going out currently, especially if you cut down on salt n stuff. I've always noticed quick initial drop whenever I'm cutting purely 'cause of sheer amount of water weight(usually like 6-7 pounds, I'm a solid 220 rn so I guess gotta cut down to 200 or so soon... )

This is what my heart rate looked like during my last "heavy" weight lifting session. It's worth noting that I walk around/pace between sets to try and keep my heart rate elevated. 


Strength training can be cardio training, too!

For contrast, here is a 4 mile run:

I have 0% confidence in my fitbit's heartrate measurements during lifting.  Sustained cardio like a run is better, but even then not great.