Lifting support thread 2

[RayKray]

Just noticed I was the last to post on the lifting support thread as it went to 1k so here's another.

Original thread intro post here from
@Work2live

"Thought I’d start this thread as a few people thought it’d be a good idea.

"It might be a nice place to support each other and talk about lifting in general, ask for tips and advice on workouts, how to get enough protein etc.

"All levels very much welcome, from complete newbies to those who’ve been weightlifting for years! 💪🏼"

@DollyParkin sounds like the kneehab is going well... go you!

I hope everyone's training goes well this week!

I am in the hardest week of my training block so I am going to push my deadlifts hard today. Deload next week.

Yesterday I benched with my coach and I was comfortably repping a weight that's only 2kg less than the max I have ever benched, with a pause! Excited to test my maxes at some point but I think I will be waiting longer than I would like to.

Also tried a new way of setting up for my bench, powerlifter style with bum in the air until after you unrack the bar. Felt both odd and good, I need to get used to it but it gets me into a nice stable position. One of the gyms I train in has no powerlifters so I might get some funny looks 😄

And after yesterday's bench success, today's deadlifts were terrible

Just feel really heavy. Win some, lose some I suppose.

@DollyParkin I'd been looking for some inspiration with programming but not wanting to pay for a PT right now, just signed up to a trial of megsquats. Quick question if you know - when it says reps for a single limb exercise (eg lunges) is one rep = right leg and left leg, or one rep per leg? I had a look round the app but couldn't find an answer!

@everycowandagain you need the bad days for the good days to shine through! That's exciting about future bench press though!

Yes very true @Proteinpud, can't expect to smash every workout. I suspect I was a bit fatigued from yesterday's session which was why today's was so hard.

I usually do the required number on each side: so 6 split squats is 6 on each leg.

There's an active Facebook group for those following Stronger by the Day, which is really helpful. Plus the SBD/Megsquats team are pretty quick to answer queries.

Hello All,
Just discovered this thread and am working my way through the comments.

Is there anyone here who started in their earlier fifties and managed to build muscle? I’m 50 and have been training with a pt for over 3 months (3-4x a week) but have barely made any progress. I’m trying to understand whether it’s due to nutrition (I’m not confident I’m on the right plan/approach) or the way we train. I have some fat to lose, but my main goal at the moment is to build muscle. Feeling really disappointed and disheartened today!

Also, can anyone recommend a good online pt, just someone who can perhaps put me on the right plan for my goals?

Welcome @Lolainthegym , I'm a bit younger but lots of women in my gym are that age and older and for sure they build muscle. Main things are eating lots of protein, some would say eating in a slight surplus although I don't think that's essential but eating enough to fuel your body sure is, sleep, and progressive overload on your training. Then there's stuff around rep ranges for strength vs muscle building but they're a bit less important than that first stuff.

Hi @Lolainthegym and welcome.

Do you mean you are not lifting heavier weights when you say you have barely made any progress? PT 3/4 times a week is a lot and unless you were very experienced and strong before, there should have been a lot of progress. If you can lift more, then you are building strength.

Whether you actually see muscle is different. A lot of the stuff online is about men. And genetics plays an important part in where we store fat and therefore what that conceals.

I started taking fitness seriously in my early 50s with a fair bit of weight to lose. Did that (mainly through skipping breakfast and walking lots). My body has also changed shape and I have some visible muscles now (despite meno intervening) but it is slow (and not my main aim).

I would make sure you are eating a broadly healthy diet and sleeping and resting well. And if you are seeing progress on the weights you lift, and feel good in between workouts and have energy for the rest of life.

Agree with @RayKray about rep ranges - that comes later and again is based on research in men I think - but nerd fitness has good explanation. I do train in the low rep ranges with hard moves now (i do calisthenics mainly, so bodyweight) but takes a while to have the skills and form in place for that to be safe.

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/the-correct-number-of-reps-per-set-in-the-gym/

@Lolainthegym im 51 and I know what you mean! I’ve always found it hard to build muscle. I think it’s in some way genetic. But I train 4 times a week -once with an PT and 3 by myself following her workouts.

I struggle to get the protein in but I aim for over 100g per day. I’m 60kg. I think that helps.

I’ve been at it for 10 months now and am seeing muscle but not as much as I’d like for the effort I’m putting in! I feel my core has really improved though from all the deadlifts so that’s a bonus.

what kind of workouts are you doing? What weights?

Hi @RayKray and @MsMartini

Thank you for your responses.

It’s mainly upper body strength that I’m not progressing with, and I have no one to compare it with who started off in a similar position to me.

For instance, when we work on shoulders, I’m on the same weights (4-5kg dumbbells) as when I started 3 months ago. (This is doing things like lateral and front raises.) Started with 5kg dumbbells for dumbbell shoulder press and can only lift 7kg now, that’s after 3 months. With the chest press - I cannot lift any heavier than I started. Same with deadlifts.

One thing I wonder about is whether it’s best to stick with the same exercises for a few weeks before changing things up? My PT switches the exercises we do every single session - so, sometimes, I won’t repeat a particular exercise for a while. Does this affect progress?

I feel I’ve been wasting my time and need to learn more about this so I can train myself! The link you sent, MsMartin, was really helpful - thank you.

Just thinking on with the muscle thing, I've had disproportionately larger muscle growth in the last 3 months than before. Before I could spot muscle looking in the right places. Now my muscles catch me by surprise when I look sometimes as they are much bigger. The main thing that has changed is my programme. I'm pretty sure we've been doing a combination of strength and hypertrophy (muscle building) so there's more muscle there to put strength into. I have compounds at lower reps (strength) followed by accessories at much higher reps (I think hypertrophy). And I push the accessories hard. But that said I know programming is also about figuring out what works for different bodies as there aren't singular rules, so maybe that's what suits my body. But programming has made a difference for sure.

Hi @redfacebigdisgrace

Sorry, didn’t see your message.

Yes, seems like we’re both in the same position. So glad I found this thread!

What weights were you lifting when you started and what are you able to lift now, if you don’t mind me asking? I feel I should have made more progress than I have as, like you, I’m also training quite frequently. I can ‘feel’ the difference in my legs (they feel very smooth now), and can see they have changed a little, but am struggling with my upper body.

I do 3 days of upper body training and 1 day of legs/glutes. But my pt doesn’t believe in training the same muscle more than once a week.

I can leg press 90 kg, hip thrust 50. I can’t do back squats, so I use a dumbbell, but just 10 kg.

Upper body strength is not great - 4-5kg, 7kg for some exercises. I’m not happy with this but just can’t seem to lift heavier.

Did everyone else start off on fairly low weights?

@Lolainthegym i'd be asking questions too, given what you have said. And not sure I would make progress if I only trained a muscle group once a week.

Your shoulder weights for raises seem high compared with your presses too, to me (but as I said I mainly do bodyweight so adjust load by feet positioning for shoulder press rather than weights).

Standard splits include things like Push (chest and triceps)/legs/pull (back and biceps)/rest, repeat, and Upper/Lower/Upper/Rest. Some people do more whole body, some split it down further.

I have always found just doing one a week for a particular group means I get awful DOMS and progress is slow - it is what I do for legs as that works in other ways for me right now but not the most efficient way to train, IMO and IME.

@Lolainthegym

How is your PT at correcting your form? That is critical for me. Once my form improved I was able to add more weights/reps and make progress.

How is your protein intake?

My routines have quite a lot of compound moves so I think I hit most muscle groups twice a week. Could be wrong though! I’ve only just started my new routines so am still figuring them out. I do 2 lower and 2 upper.

How long have you been lifting for? I did body pump then bootcamp for years so was already quite strong. I started in February and have made slow but steady progress.

You’ll be able to lift more doing compound moves as you’re using lots of muscles. Things like lat raises will always be fairly low as they’re isolating exercises uses using small muscles (I lift only 4kg).

So I would focus on your form, protein and sleep. Maybe give yourself another 4 months or so and then reassess.

Last point -does your PT work you hard? Some of those at my gym seem to end up chatting more than getting their clients to work!

Also, just for context. When I trained on my own in lockdowns I made progress on stuff that I could do at home, with no teaching input. I've got stronger with one shared PT a week, and a couple of classes plus my solo sessions. And my instructors and PT teach my how to train on my own as well. My dh has been doing one 30 min small group strength class a week with occasional practice in the week and he has made progress. People get stronger with apps and programmes like MegSquats, even without teaching input. So something does seem wrong to me. If you did push ups every other day at home starting with your hands on a stair that allows you to do ten, you would get stronger and better at them and move down the stairs, so why isn't that happening in a gym with all that PT I am wondering. Sorry, I hope you can work it out.

Thank you, everyone. You’ve given me lots of helpful information. Reading everything, there definitely seems to be something wrong with my training/progress.

I’m wondering if it’s switching exercises/programmes too often - for instance, we did push ups once in the whole 3 months! (Which obviously doesn’t give me the chance to get better at them.) We’ve probably only done chest press 3 times.

When I trained legs with the pt, I remember we did leg press once and never revisited it. I then started training legs/glutes on my own, leg pressed more often and managed to keep increasing the weight.

I do think my form is compromised as there are times I’m given a weight I feel is too heavy for me to lift correctly on my own, so then the pt assists with the lift. I think I’m having enough protein, but now realising perhaps we don’t do enough compound exercises.

I think I’m going to train on my own and see how I get on over the next few months. Will have a look at the MegSquats app, too.

Is it possible to lift heavier without a spotter - this is one of my concerns. I feel I can’t do exercises like back squats or even chest press without a spotter. Or maybe that’s just because I haven’t learnt how to do them properly on my own.

You've done push ups once and chest press three times in 3 months? I think you are right - you will progress faster on your own!! The nerd fitness site also has DIY programmes, and there are plenty of others to choose from. A friend has just started the full stronger by the day thing and is impressed so far.

One of the reasons I got more into calisthenics is you don't need a spot to train safely so much. I used to do back squats with a (more experienced) training partner though and now I sometimes use the hack machine in the gym - have you one of those, or a Smith machine? I know people say you don't need a spot for back squats if you know what you are doing but it takes a while to get there.

I wouldn't worry about that too much for now though. If you follow a structured programme on the things you can do alone, make sensible subs where needed (depending what your gym has and what you feel confident about), and be consistent, you should progress. And gradually add in other stuff as you can. My gym mostly has rubbish PTs but there is one who is interested in what I do and will sometimes give me a few minutes of tips, and there are a few people I know who would show me how to use a new machine or give me a spot if needed too. Gym cultures vary but all the ones I have been in have been like that. If you save on your PT, maybe you could get an occasional session with someone really good in future to show you specific things?

Good luck!

Also, just as an example of how you can keep it simple with bodyweight exercises, you can do (not trying to convert you to cali 😀but it is a useful way of seeing the big picture I think because there are so few basic exercises):

push ups (hands elevated if need be, work downwards), loads of variants to target triceps and shoulders as well as chest
pull ups and chin ups (with bands/hold/negatives - see Megan Callaway on insta for progressions), lats, back, biceps
dips (with bands if need be) - straight or p bar or bench- triceps, chest
inverted rows - make harder or easier by moving legs in and out/elevating feet, back, lats
bicep curls using a bar or rings

core involved throughout really but I do lots of hollow body holds and flags.

Most of those are big compound moves that only need a bar, and can be done safely on your own. They will hit upper body pretty effectively. And obviously there are machines equivalents for them all eg lat pull downs, the different angled chest presses etc - they tend to isolate muscles more. If you are thinking about programming, it can help to see the big picture I think, and then work out how to cover everything.

Just nipping in as at work, but do you have a smith machine at your gym? That allows me to be more confident with squats and chest press.

@Lolainthegym I pull a lot of WTF faces when reading stuff about your PT. It really doesn't sound right. I'm a bit extreme on the whole repetition thing cos of my goals and love of repetition but I do the same programme for several weeks before it gets changed. No one's programme at my gym gets changed less that every 4 weeks, and then the changes include maintaining interest and will intimately be a variation of similar stuff.

Re failing squats, I used to worry about it but is fine once you've experienced it. Set the safety bars just lower than where the bar goes when you squat. You could practice a fail and then you realise it only goes a few cm further. But as others have said there's loads of ways of approaching it. Do what makes you feel the coolest, for me that's always the barbell. Calisthenics are cool too though!

@RayKray totally agree and love "Do what makes you feel the coolest".

I did freezing cali class outside last night so we finished with a circuit including tyre flipping - that's cool too 😂

It does sound ridiculous, doesn’t it! I did start repeating the exercises on my own, but I’ve been paying for a pt so that I can just get things done at the gym. I will just have to train myself going forward, though.

I think the mistake I made was thinking that, because my pt has an amazing physique, she’d be able to help me achieve that, too. But what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.

I do have use of a Smith Machine. I could do back squats using the SM - will I achieve the same results?

That’s a good idea about paying for a session now and then just to get some help with specific equipment/exercises. And I think I will try practising a failed squat as one of my fears is what will happen if I have to drop the bar.

Right, I’m going to make a note of where I’m at currently, work on my own and then re-evaluate in a few months’ time. I like repetition, too - I think it allows you to see how you’ve progressed, which I imagine is very motivating.

I’m going to keep telling myself to do what makes me feel coolest!

Calisthenics sounds pretty cool! But last night was 🥶!