Bro, do you even lift?

P

plexi59

Guest
Kind of curious how many of you here lift weights. Thanks to COVID I got back into lifting. I have a platform and a power rack in my garage and a couple of barbells, but they just sat unused for the last few years - I got tired of having to painfully stretch my shoulders and quads for barbell squats. Turns out I was just doing it wrong and there are easier ways to mobilize shoulders. Quads are still a pain tho.

I’m about 3.5 months in, getting back my gains. Still not quite where I was, but feel great already.
 
Try deadlifts instead of squats.
They work your shoulders a lot as well as your legs, lower back and abs.
Just reach down and grab the dumbbells at each side of your feet, which should be spread about shoulder width apart.
Tilt your head back so that you are staring slightly up at the ceiling, keep your core tight and then slowly go into an upright stance.
Squeeze your traps together and hold for a moment before returning to the starting position.
If you feel any pain in your knees or lower back then you need to adjust your positioning until that does not happen.
Do not turn your head to the side ever while lifting.
My bad- a barbell is even better in some ways because you won’t have to reach down as far.
Especially with a 45 plate on each side.
But you will have to invert your grip until your palms are facing your body which is not as natural as a neutral grip with dumbbells.
 
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I do both, not the same day of course. You do really need both if you want balanced development. And dumbbells aren’t gonna be sufficient for me. My deadlift PR is 225kg. Not much, but it’s honest work, no juice.

I decided to not do bench press this time though. I replaced it with incline dumbbell press - it’s easier on the shoulders.
 
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Sure can, 5-6 with good form depending on how I’m feeling. Can’t have lats without pull-ups. I also gave up drinking about a month ago. I calculated that my two beers daily meant I drank 4 gallons of pure alcohol a year. That can’t be good for the liver.
 
Funny story- at least to me- about guitar players and lifting weights.
I met Jerry Cantrell at a pre-show event at the Club Casino at Hampton Beach in summer of 2006.
I had just been released from prison on the morning of the show and my girl had tickets as a coming home gift.
I stuck out like a sore thumb because I had a crew cut and looked like I had spent every waking hour in a gym for the last 4 years instead of playing guitar-
and he made a joke about it as we were shaking hands.
I looked at his toothpick arms and asked him why he didn’t lift weights.
He looked around him at the smoking hot sun-tanned beach girls who were all there for him and his singer-
and just said “Why bother”.
Ouch.
I have been using that saying everyday since when I don’t see the point in doing something.
 
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I got into Kettlebells about a year ago just before lockdown. Mark Wildman's YouTube channel has been super essential
Really feel in great shape and better body balance with big improvements in areas I'd not trained enough
Also got into clubbells firstly to help fix a winged scapula but a by-product of both is my arms are much stronger and I had had some issues with hand pain due to computer use and that's totally gone, And best of all I find my hands much stronger for playing guitar

Plus in morning Yoga, bag work in my garage to help keep my Krav Maga skills in some sort of shape and my new toy which is a decent turbo trainer where I'm on Zwift quite a bit

There are ways to keep in decent shape without a gym
 
I was one of the lucky ones that had full commercial grade equipment in my garage. When covid hit last year, I just put Youtube on out on the TV in garage and worked out for hours. Still do. I go to my gym now maybe 1-2 times per week and at home gym 4-5 times per week. This picture doesn't show it, but I just installed rubber stall mats yesterday. Next is to upgrade those dumbbells to commercial gym style vs these hex dumbbells that I have now. Also wanting a hack squat machine and leg extension/curl machine.


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plexi59 said:
Kind of curious how many of you here lift weights. Thanks to COVID I got back into lifting. I have a platform and a power rack in my garage and a couple of barbells, but they just sat unused for the last few years - I got tired of having to painfully stretch my shoulders and quads for barbell squats. Turns out I was just doing it wrong and there are easier ways to mobilize shoulders. Quads are still a pain tho.

I’m about 3.5 months in, getting back my gains. Still not quite where I was, but feel great already.
Click to expand...
Do you low bar squat?
 
Tremonti said:
Do you low bar squat?
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Yep. Meat and potatoes routine: low bar squat, traditional deadlift, military press, pull-ups, some rubber band work for the upper back and thoracic spine. It works and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything. Strong back and legs mean strength everywhere else, so I target that more.
 
Tremonti said:
I was one of the lucky ones that had full commercial grade equipment in my garage. When covid hit last year, I just put Youtube on out on the TV in garage and worked out for hours. Still do. I go to my gym now maybe 1-2 times per week and at home gym 4-5 times per week. This picture doesn't show it, but I just installed rubber stall mats yesterday. Next is to upgrade those dumbbells to commercial gym style vs these hex dumbbells that I have now. Also wanting a hack squat machine and leg extension/curl machine.


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I have a rogue monster rack and bench, but don’t have a pull down machine. I have one of those cable things which uses barbell plates, but a proper lat pull down is not doable with it, so I rarely use it. I also have an attachment for the rack to do dips. Instead of pull down machine I have a separate lifting platform, which I built and leveled myself. That’s where I do deadlifts and military press. I built it for Olympic lifts, but never had the time to learn them. Because they’re very technique oriented, I’m too chicken to get started on them without proper coaching - don’t want to learn the wrong motor patterns or worse, fuck something up.
 
Bill Arsenault said:
I cannot recall exactly what that is.
But no- not me.
I‘m not built right for heavy squats. 225 is my max weight on Barbell squats- but for reps.
I have to settle for seated leg-presses and hack squats.
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Nah man, unless that’s 225kg, that’s most definitely not your max, no matter your body composition. With training and proper nutrition almost any healthy man should be able to squat twice their lean body mass, and deadlift a bit more than that.
 
Haha. Your right though.
No excuse for laziness.
More like 225 is my Max before I feel like puking and the pressure in my skull makes my tinnitus sound like I’m working out next to a ringing church bell.
Thx for the interesting conversation and motivation.
Have a great one Brother.
 
I took some time off, about a year, but I am starting to get back to working out. Fortunately, the company I work for has a gym that nobody really uses with a Rogue power rack and some barbells. The only problem is that they only have about 225 kg in 20 kg plates. It's not a problem now as I have started back way lighter than I used to lift. 225 kg deadlift isn't something to sneeze at. That is also my max that I lifted. That was done after a pretty regular schedule of lifting and training for competition. The good news is that I pulled that off after my 40th birthday.

It makes a big difference having a regular routine. It's crazy how much my fitness level declined after a year. I'm not starting from scratch, but I am finding that weights that were quite easy to do are more challenging than I remember at my peak. I know I will get it back, but we will see what father time says about that. I'm 44 now, and feel like at this age it is a necessity to get some kind of regular exercise in order to stay healthy. I can't get away with the bad diet and lack of exercise without paying the consequences. When I was in my 20s, I could eat whatever I wanted, smoke, drink, no exercise and I felt fine. Now in my 40s some of that may have caught up with me. It feels good to be back at it.
 
I haven't been to the gym since Covid hit. Before that, I used to work out with weights 3-4 times a week for the last several years. Now, I'm just a fat bastard. That's one of the worst things about Covid for me, not being able to go to the gym.
 
I just force myself to go to the gym no matter what - even if I don’t do much sometimes and don’t stay long.
If you just go there- no matter what- even if you don’t plan on doing much -then you never give yourself an opportunity to make excuses.
Theres no wiggle room there.
Or I will at least stop at a park on the way home from work that has monkey bars and just do a set of Pull-ups and Push-ups after every lap walking around the perimeter.
But I don’t allow myself to do the park thing two days in a row.
It’s the only way I will get it done.
If I try to go home first- I’m cracking an IPA and rolling a cigar and that’s that.
Its the reason I have no weights at home and need to go somewhere else to work-out-
I get distracted too easy or keep putting it off until later.
 
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I lifted barbells for years and it was a godsend for my health, however when I started working 70 hour weeks in 2017 I switched to kettlebell workouts because I just didn't have the time. I miss barbells and look forward to having the space to setup a squat rack and a bench at home.
 
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