Lifting Support Thread 3

[Proteinpud]

Continuing from @Work2live 's original thread, with the following intro post

"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! 💪🏼"

ooo I love the sled. No technical stuff to remember, and you can go very heavy.

Other things to do - maybe leg press? That would hit glutes & quads. But that doesn't give you the all-over workout that the sled offers. Did a nice bit of sledding this morning - nothing too heavy, so I had to move fast with it. (pushing 100 kilos fast is cardio as well as strength I found this morning)

@dgirluk it depends what you're using the sled for? For cardio or leg strength or something else. You could do sets of lots of reps of squats. That could be both legs and cardio.

Oooh @dgirluk , I keep meaning to try the sled but have no idea what to aim for in terms of weights and distance/time. I'd like it to be a bit of a heart rate raiser (I usually box for that but have an elbow injury). I'm doing more legs than usual at the moment including vertical leg press - really like that, it feels like such a strong position.

@everycowandagain good you are getting back into it all 😀😀

Yayyyy @YellowAsteroid great numbers!!

@Proteinpud I'm actually really enjoying the change partly because I'm doing more with my training partner and I like learning new stuff - never really benched before. There are a few moves and grips I can't do but apart from boxing I can adapt most things. I've started doing "reverse Tyler twists" with a twisty bar thing for my elbow and it already feels looser.

Thanks @YellowAsteroid and @RayKray - it's a mix really. I do leg presses and various other things, then finish off with the sled for both legs and cardio. I guess squats and lunges would work - our gym is quite small and there's barely any space outside of machines & benches etc., but I'm sure I could find space for static squats. I have knee problems so they're always a bit tricky.

@MsMartini I am also enjoying bench these days, it's probably because I am in a savage deficit and my squats suck so much!

One more week of my deficit then back to more fun things like eating and lifting heavy. I am feeling quite lean and am so pleased with the muscle I have put on, but I want to keep building it until I am completely jacked!!

@everycowandagain me too! I was showing another woman in the gym my developing quads the other day, and she said you don't want them to get too big. Yes I do! The bigger the better!

I love that attitude @RayKray

I wasn't feeling well yesterday (nothing serious, just a cold type thing but slept a lot and didn't eat much) Was still feeling a bit ill today but decided to do a workout (love having a home gym for this) planning that I'd just use lighter weights and I'd feel better for doing 'something'.

Weirdly, weights felt ok and I was able to follow the programme, including a 90kg deadlift. That was nice!

Some movement was exactly what you needed @Proteinpud! Hope you feel better soon.

I had a fairly mind numbing technique session on sumo deadlifts today. At the moment they just feel all wrong. Maybe eventually they will feel better!

Ah, I've never tried Sumo deadlifts, but I've heard that they can feel weirdly problematic if you switch when you're used to regular or vice versa! I'm sure they'll feel more comfortable if you persevere with them.

Today, the last day of my 2 month cut, I benched one rep that was only 0.5kg less than my all time one rep max!

Delighted to be holding some bench strength even at the end of a fairly aggressive diet phase, and super excited to start a new strength block soon and get that one rep max even higher.

Indeed! I use the regular stance for DLs, but in a weightlifting group class, the trainer (different from my PT) specified Sumos with a hex bar. I think she'd set it up to hit glutes more than a conventional DL, which hits the whole posterior chain. The class is a small group women's weightlifting class, so it's a lot of glutes & a lot of volume (so I don't go as heavy).

ETA: wow @everycowandagain that is amazing! Congratulations on the gainz.

So I'm still getting over covid, did a garage gym session because I was climbing the walls (and I'm at the point it feels like a bad cold rather than anything worse) I've averaged 1500 calories this week because my appetite has been shot. Got a PB of 90kg x 3 and then 95kg x 2! That 100kg deadlift isnt going to be far off!

Woohoo! @Proteinpud

My PT. Is training for a Hyrox race so I am too in some sessions. 8 x 4 minute intervals of metcon pieces - I am now lying on the sofa.

sled push and drag
cycle
SkiErg
cycle
rower
cycle
burpee broad jumps
cycle
lunge with sandbag
cycle
wallballs
cycle

Oh wow @YellowAsteroid I feel tired looking at that!

My cardio is going to be shot by the time I get back to it. Happy to still have some strength though!

I didn’t push myself to exhaustion - I kept the RPE at around 8. The cycling was almost active rest - at least I was sitting down and only using my legs.

Wow @everycowandagain that is amazing! Must be exciting to look ahead now.

@Proteinpud also amazing covid-powered DLs 😀. I've found my cardio (such as it is) has come back (frequent covid flyer) fine - I ease in gently and not before I have some energy left from day to day life IYKWIM.

@YellowAsteroid that list makes me feel tired too! Are you tempted to enter a Hyrox comp? Couple of people at my gym are thinking of it I think.

I'm still rehabbing my elbow - doing lots of reverse Tyler twists which seem to have had a dramatic impact. I can do most things now but not back to boxing and can't do chin ups - pull ups are fine. I'm using parallettes for handstands and other upside down stuff which really takes the pressure off the elbows and the wrists so I may use them more long-term (have always used a bit). We did upside down leg raises at PT today: you bend right over so you head is facing away from a ladder and hold onto a bar above you and raise legs so you are vertical and upside down then rep legs to ground and back. Not sure that makes sense 😂but it was challenging.

Glad your elbow is improving @MsMartini, and yes just going to try and get through work tomorrow (will be the first day I'm back in front of the public rather than WFH) before I try any cardio or classes. Have been trying to get out for a walk each day and have been having some crazy heartbeat spikes on my Fitbit so I think it will need a period of adjustment!
With the DLs I did think that a week off would probably do me good, was surprised given the low calories though maybe it's a short enough time period that it hasn't had an impact.

Not sure I entirely get your description for the leg raises, though I've done pike leg raises in a headstand and that's hard enough!

I keep hearing a lot about hyrox competitions at the moment, are they CrossFit? Or a similar alternative?

Hyrox is a fitness race with 8 x 1000 m runs in between 8 strength & conditioning pieces.

hyrox.com/the-fitness-race/

So you start with a 1000m run, then go into the following, with a 1000m run in between
1000m SkiErg
Sled push
Sled pull
Burpee broad jumps
1000m row
Farmer's carry
Sandbag lunges

Wall balls

Men & women have different weights for all these, but they don't make any differences according to age.

It is the latest fad after CrossFit, but probably you're less likely to injure yourself. It looks like fun (!!!) as all the pieces are stuff I do regularly in training sessions. You race against yourself, although there is now a structure of World Championships inevitably.

I've done the 8 pieces in about 55 minutes, but I've never done it with the 1000m run in between. The day I did that, I had to have an afternoon nap ... The fastest woman at the moment is 59 mins and 32 seconds. The fastest man does it in a little over 35 minutes!

In my age group (65-69) the women's world record is all of this in 1 hour & 24 minutes. I cannot contemplate that - she must be an amazing athlete. I can run at about 10km per hour when I'm fresh and not feel it is too fast to sustain, but not in between all those other pieces!

So you have to train all the strength stuff when you are truly wrecked. That's one of the training techniques, and why we did the workout above. My PT did it alongside me and did about twice the numbers I managed (eg 100 wallballs in 4 mins, when I managed about 52).

Goodness @YellowAsteroid what a workout!!

@Proteinpud maybe those are similar except instead of being in a handstand my arms are up behind me holding onto a bar? I think that probably makes it easier. I did leg tuck raises against a wall in handtsnad too today but with hips pressed against the wall so more of a mobility thing

Oooh my PT is leaving!!! Quite sad. But it opens up new possibilities for me.

What so other people do? I am a member at Pure which is cheap and allows me to have PT once or twice a week. But it’s pretty grotty . My goals are to keep building lean muscle, get stronger, keep up my cardio and do the odd thing outside. At the moment I do 4 days a week lifting - a mixture of compound and isolation, upper and lower. I also run once a week.

I do like the motivation of a PT but am open minded. Would love to hear what works for others. Thanks.

I need a PT. I wouldn't work as hard as I do without someone in my ear, telling me "Right fucking now."

I'm very self-disciplined & workaholic & driven in my job, so I actually quite like being told what to do in fitness classes, and I work harder. Is that weird? for me it's about a sort of balance.

I love having a coach. I don't need anyone to encourage me to work hard, indeed it's often the opposite. He manages the intensity, load etc so I can meet my goals and not fatigue myself beyond what I can recover from and injure myself. And sometimes that includes telling me to stop. And definitely includes doing less in my sessions than I'd do left to my own devices. But for what I do that's really important if I want longevity.

I also like having someone programme for me and just tell me what to do. And care about me and my goals.

I have had sessions with PTs though who lack expertise and all those soft coaching skills. I think I really lucked out with my coach.

If I was trying to do it from scratch I'd go to an independent proper lifting gym and look for a PT there, as I think that's where the skill lies, even if you don't want to be a powerlifter.

If I was trying to do it from scratch I'd go to an independent proper lifting gym and look for a PT there, as I think that's where the skill lies, even if you don't want to be a powerlifter.

Come to my gym! I used to be at a chain, and I still miss the wide variety of people there, but it closed (curses). My PT moved to an independent serious powerlifting /body building gym, and I followed. It's great fun, the people are all lovely - even the hulks - and interestingly at least as many women as men there. Although they're all only 30, it seems, so sometimes it is depressing to see what they can do, whereas I work my butt off to do about two-thirds of what a young person can do.

For me the appeal of a PT is for their skill - I'm not interested in someone who provides me with generic programming (which is what I saw a lot of in chain gyms, though appreciate it might have changed) So it would be a powerlifter, or gymnastics skills, or olympic lifting. But that might just be me!

I work hard on my own, but when I've had a PT I've found I've been able to push myself more, but it's not about working hard it's confidence - if a trainer who knows me is confident that it's the right time for me to try something I'll trust them, whereas I'm more likely to think I'm not ready for it.

@MsMartini I think yours sound harder as I'm imagining the grip/shoulder strength required to hang onto the bar! I find tuck handstands really hard, I struggle to keep the shoulder position I need with the back arch required.

@YellowAsteroid that's an intense workout! Thanks for the info. I can imagine switching between those exercises and running takes a special type of fitness.

Thanks all! How do I even find a power lifting gym? There’s a few independent gyms near me but they seem to be more about small group PT which is not really what I’m looking for. I’d prefer one to one.