Fierce_LiNk Posted January 5, 2019 Posted January 5, 2019 Here we go, again! Here's to a successful 2019 to all of you people out there who will be going out into that field to grind, grind and grind some more in the hope of levelling up your stats. This year, I'm hoping to improve my strength, stamina and HP! I'm recovering from my first two sessions of the new year. Yesterday, I destroyed my legs with back squats, front squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts and calf raises. I used to do the front squats with the crossed arms motion, but I've now learned to do it the "proper way" in the clean/fingers and wrist bent back position, which actually feels quite comfortable now. I've struggled with consistency, particularly with balancing work and exercise. So, the goal is going to be to exercise a lot sooner and to not keeper "putting it off". E.g. do it straight away when I get home from work, or do it as close to waking up as possible. That's the plan! 2
MindFreak Posted January 5, 2019 Posted January 5, 2019 It's on! Well. My wife and I both want more exercise, even though I bike 30 km a day (to and from work). So we are about to cancel our gym memberships and get some equipement at home. I think that will actually help, even though I'm going to miss the classes and being able to lift heavy weights (and drop them).
Sméagol Posted January 5, 2019 Posted January 5, 2019 I'll use the fitness boxing thread to post any progress I may make. I was thinking updates at the end of every month. Though I intend to make a general post about the software as well. In short though, I've kept up with it, got an exercise streak of 12 days I think (session of +/- 35 minutes)? Every day since release in any case. Though apparently my BMI was technically good in the first place. Just need to lose fat and gain muscles. Anyway, it's too early to tell if it will help me achieve that goal, but for now I can confirm that I'm getting more exercise than before. Before Fitness Boxing, I actually intended to take up swimming. But I kind of want to see how far I can get with this alone, so i think I'll just use this for at least 2 months, than see if I want to do more. It's just that the Switch app, while being pretty mediocre to be very honest (again, I want to make a general post about it), but it is also terribly convenient.
MindFreak Posted January 6, 2019 Posted January 6, 2019 So... Crossfit membership cancelled, my wife has cancelled her gym membership and we have browsed at some weights - I think we'll go for some fine beginner weights, 60 kg in total, and a couple of kettlebells (12/16 and 20 kg I think). That should be sufficient for most training bar the heavy kind. But there is an excellent gym at my work, so I can go there once or twice a week to lift some heavier weights if I want to - and row. I hope this will be good and worth it - but we came to the conclusion that with a tight work schedule and a kid, the barrier for exercising was simply to go to the gym to do it - why is that? So yeah... we'll try it. 1
Fierce_LiNk Posted January 7, 2019 Author Posted January 7, 2019 On 06/01/2019 at 10:08 PM, MindFreak said: So... Crossfit membership cancelled, my wife has cancelled her gym membership and we have browsed at some weights - I think we'll go for some fine beginner weights, 60 kg in total, and a couple of kettlebells (12/16 and 20 kg I think). That should be sufficient for most training bar the heavy kind. But there is an excellent gym at my work, so I can go there once or twice a week to lift some heavier weights if I want to - and row. I hope this will be good and worth it - but we came to the conclusion that with a tight work schedule and a kid, the barrier for exercising was simply to go to the gym to do it - why is that? So yeah... we'll try it. I can definitely say that life has been a lot easier for me since I started exercising at home. It started off very small, just a small set of weights and dumbbell bars. Then, I gradually built on that. Fast forward a couple of years and I haven't set foot in a gym since then, own a cage and have expanded to bumper weight plates. It started out small, but it's always something that you can build on. It's just so much easier because you have more freedom when it comes to the timing of when you want to work out. Good luck! 1
MindFreak Posted January 8, 2019 Posted January 8, 2019 9 hours ago, Fierce_LiNk said: I can definitely say that life has been a lot easier for me since I started exercising at home. It started off very small, just a small set of weights and dumbbell bars. Then, I gradually built on that. Fast forward a couple of years and I haven't set foot in a gym since then, own a cage and have expanded to bumper weight plates. It started out small, but it's always something that you can build on. It's just so much easier because you have more freedom when it comes to the timing of when you want to work out. Good luck! Yeah, I've been envying that for quite some time but I don't have the space for something like that. We're currently looking for buying a house and we stumbled across one that had a fully equipped home gym / crossfit gym in the shed. That was... I was so close to saying yes!
Beast Posted January 8, 2019 Posted January 8, 2019 I'll use the fitness boxing thread to post any progress I may make.There's a fitness boxing thread??? I miss boxing! There's a guy in my gym who's started doing boxing in another gym and I was like "I have pads, I have gloves and MMA gloves, let's practice here too!" and he was up for it. My new gym has NO boxing stuff at all. The closest we have is Body Combat and it's not my cup of tea. The whole changing stance every five minutes does my head in, lmao.So I massively fucked up 2018 but it was due to my bad knee injury and the fact it was just such a shit year and I didn't handle it well. It's weird but for some reason, I feel something about 2019 in a positive way.I started it, as always, with a cold and a chest infection that leaves me struggling for breath. Yesterday was the first workout I done of 2019 and I done great. I did two walks and a circuits class.My eating has been good as well although I had a few squares of an Aero bar because I've never tried them before.I'm aiming to lose a pound a week. I know that I should just focus on losing fat and not weight but I don't like being THIS heavy. I liked being 16st 7lb at least. For a lad my height, admittedly, I carried it pretty well.Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Fierce_LiNk Posted January 9, 2019 Author Posted January 9, 2019 On 08/01/2019 at 7:30 AM, MindFreak said: Yeah, I've been envying that for quite some time but I don't have the space for something like that. We're currently looking for buying a house and we stumbled across one that had a fully equipped home gym / crossfit gym in the shed. That was... I was so close to saying yes! I originally started off by working out in my bedroom in a flat that we rented. I bought a set of retractable squat stands, a bench, a bar and lots of weight plates. It wasn't easy though and it was tough navigating in such a tight space. To squat, deadlift and shoulder press all in the same workout, I had to move the stands into a completely different area in the room (as well as the weight plates) due to an overhead beam. Then, to deadlift, I had to move the bar and all the weights back to the other side of the room, whilst being careful not to hit the bed with the barbell due to the width of the room! We had juuuuust about enough space to be able to squat, deadlift, shoulder and bench press. The shape of the room really, really helped us out there and we got lucky. The best thing you can do is work with the space that you have available. I'm lucky that the house that we bought contains a garage with just enough space to be able to fit the cage. A garage is perfect, especially as these days a lot of houses come with driveways, often making a garage redundant. If you can find a house with a garage, it contains so much potential. The other alternative is to build a studio or something in the garden, depending on space available. Obviously, that'll be more expensive, though! We made it a priority to look for a house with a garage to enable us to exercise at home. Pretty sure the estate agents thought we were weird for making a garage a priority when looking for a house! Good luck with the house hunting. It's fun and stressful at the same time.
nightwolf Posted January 11, 2019 Posted January 11, 2019 Ah such goals! I'm looking forward to dipping in here and seeing how you guys get on. Well last year I dropped from 96kg I had in August 2017, Tuesday I weighed in and had dropped to 80.4kg. So a good 15.6kg loss. This year I really want to get to 70kg, so the push is real. At the moment I'm doing a lot of cardio, because I spent the whole of last year doing 3 to 4 sessions a week of pure weight lifting I decided to mix it up a bit. I must admit I am missing my compound exercises though! So perhaps in the next few weeks I'll get back to benching and deadlifting at least. Thankfully, the gym I go to whilst out of my way a tiny bit has everything I need, I wish I could join the boxing classes, but they are at a time that's really difficult for me to make - sadface. I'm excited however, to see if I can reach 70kg, something we worked out I have not been since before university (at which I would have been 17!!!), a healthy, reasonable weight to be. Although my gymming won't stop after I do reach that weight. 4 sessions down for this year - the rest of my life to go! ./waffle 2
Fierce_LiNk Posted January 12, 2019 Author Posted January 12, 2019 On 11/01/2019 at 7:02 PM, nightwolf said: Ah such goals! I'm looking forward to dipping in here and seeing how you guys get on. Well last year I dropped from 96kg I had in August 2017, Tuesday I weighed in and had dropped to 80.4kg. So a good 15.6kg loss. This year I really want to get to 70kg, so the push is real. At the moment I'm doing a lot of cardio, because I spent the whole of last year doing 3 to 4 sessions a week of pure weight lifting I decided to mix it up a bit. I must admit I am missing my compound exercises though! So perhaps in the next few weeks I'll get back to benching and deadlifting at least. Thankfully, the gym I go to whilst out of my way a tiny bit has everything I need, I wish I could join the boxing classes, but they are at a time that's really difficult for me to make - sadface. I'm excited however, to see if I can reach 70kg, something we worked out I have not been since before university (at which I would have been 17!!!), a healthy, reasonable weight to be. Although my gymming won't stop after I do reach that weight. 4 sessions down for this year - the rest of my life to go! ./waffle That's really good going, so far. Even if you don't reach the ultimate goal of 70kg, it's still in the right direction and you can still count it as a win. It's just varying degrees of how much you can win by. How much cardio did you do last year, or was it purely lifting weights + diet? 1
nightwolf Posted January 13, 2019 Posted January 13, 2019 Aye, my current weight loss seems to suggest I'll be close to 70kg by this time next year, it'd be good if I can get before that. As for last year, up until the end of November it was a mix of compound exercises and going for walks at lunch. 3 to 4 times a week for an hour each time. Then a 30 minute walk each day. I got pretty bored of just doing weights in December and have been doing cardio only - so an hour 3 to 4 times a week instead, plus the walk at lunch time for work. I'm now going to start doing a mix of compound exercises and cardio :).
Goafer Posted January 13, 2019 Posted January 13, 2019 The Muay Thai place I've been looking at has been a bit lacklustre in getting back to me. I asked a few questions before Christmas, mainly about membership and schedule and they said to keep an eye on their Facebook page, as they were moving over the Christmas period and membership and schedule would be announced in the new year. A few days ago they posted that classes had started up again, but there was no sign of any schedule or membership announcements. They have got an open day coming up, so I'll be going to that and see what the prices and schedule are like. From the photos on Facebook, their new gym looks great, although I do have a backup just in case. There's a much smaller place in the village I grew up in/my parents live, so I can always fall back on that if plan A turns out to be expensive or shit.
Goafer Posted January 27, 2019 Posted January 27, 2019 (edited) Well I went to the open day and I'm now a member. Went with the silver membership, which includes all martial arts, but no gym (bronze is gym only, silver is martial arts and gold is both). The guy who initially showed me around and signed me up seemed to think this was best for starting, as fitness would come from the training. So I now have access to Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu (as well as a bit of boxing and rasslin'). I'll probably start with Muay Thai, as it's what I'd consider a traditional fight, with punches, kicks etc, so it looks easier to get to grips with. Jiu Jitsu is just a whole new world to me. I watched some of the demos and I had no idea what was going on. It was very impressive though and as I said to the instructor "that looks like how most fights end". I'm glad they did an open day, because the hardest part was just going in. They were all super friendly, but there's only so much they can do to to prevent the intimidation factor when there's a cage in the corner of the room and several people kicking each other with alarming velocity (it sounded like a whip cracking as their leg hit the pads). Next step: Edited January 27, 2019 by Goafer 1
Fierce_LiNk Posted January 28, 2019 Author Posted January 28, 2019 Good job, @Goafer. Looking forward to hearing how you get on with it. Always exciting trying and doing new things. I've got a completely blocked nose and feel a bit awful, but have still managed to lift some weights in between all of that. Deadlifts/legs on Saturday, cardio yesterday, and then chest, shoulders and some triceps work today. Need that day off tomorrow. *collapses on sofa* 1
bob Posted January 28, 2019 Posted January 28, 2019 Fell off my bike one icy morning last week and sprained my wrist. Lame.
Will Posted January 31, 2019 Posted January 31, 2019 Managed to run 50km in total in January, already a quarter of the total I managed last year. Hopefully can keep it up for the rest of the year. 1
MindFreak Posted February 5, 2019 Posted February 5, 2019 Finally got our new equipment at home and did a test of it Sunday after a run. First thought: The bar can be shortened making it less stable. However, the worst thing about it is that it's impossible to clean it without the tightener rotating a bit off - because it's tightened with a thread like this: That's a mighty shame and hadn't thought about that. So it'll be for simple movements only. Other than that, it's fine and 60 kg is good enough for most lifts at home or for a workout. On the positive sides, the plates themselves seem good and don't leave marks on the floor. The kettlebell is fine but has a bigger handle than I'm used to so I have to spread my legs more when swinging it. No problem, though. The 12 kg we got for my wife is as big as the 20 kg I use which is a bit weird. It's a bit too big for her taste.
Fierce_LiNk Posted February 5, 2019 Author Posted February 5, 2019 Show us pics of the real stufffff. I generally dislike the screwlock collar designs for the barbells and dumbbells. It takes ages to screw the collars on and off and...they just don't seem right to me. My old standard weight barbell was like that and it just used to grate on me how much time I'd be wasting messing with the collars.
MindFreak Posted February 6, 2019 Posted February 6, 2019 Screwlock collars... I'll remember that name. Yeah, it's a bit time consuming for sure but when I don't have more weights than this, it doesn't require much change. I've got 4*10, 2*5 and 2*2.5 kg.
nightwolf Posted February 7, 2019 Posted February 7, 2019 I never even knew they existed! TIL I guess. Does anyone else seemingly suffer weird comments when it comes to weight loss? I have had more negativity my way with losing weight than I have ever had with my size. I had heard of this happening with people around you, but never realised that I would have this also. New lowest though - 79.4kg, 16.6kg down, 9.4kg to go til the "goal". Its been slow and steady over the last year, allowing me to drop down from a size 20 at my biggest to a size 14 (32 inch waist) now, woo! 1
MindFreak Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 Office plank has got intense... We do five minutes now - when I started back in October it was three to four minutes. I do 4:20 in the regular plank and then do each side for 20 seconds as I can't hold it any longer at the 4:20 mark. After each sides I can go on for about one or two minutes again but well, we stop there. I can actually feel a difference in my shoulders, who knew that a static hold for five minutes would be good for toning the shoulders? 1
BowserBasher Posted February 11, 2019 Posted February 11, 2019 Right. Really started logging my weight and trying to lose some in October of 2017. Started at 190lbs and by August I was down to 167lbs. Slacked a little, not so much on the exercise but having more than one large pizza a week (working at a pizza place the temptation is easy to get free food) and was back up to 176lbs last month. So I’m sticking to one medium sized pizza a week and making sure I get in a 40 minute cycle everyday. Along with getting out walking on my days off. A month later and I’m heading the right way again. 2 1
Fierce_LiNk Posted February 18, 2019 Author Posted February 18, 2019 On 07/02/2019 at 6:41 PM, nightwolf said: Does anyone else seemingly suffer weird comments when it comes to weight loss? I have had more negativity my way with losing weight than I have ever had with my size. I had heard of this happening with people around you, but never realised that I would have this also. I wouldn't say negativity as such, but people these days are veeeeery quick to make comments if there's any degree of change. A few years back, I decided that I wanted to slim down and wondered if it was possible for me to have my abs showing in an attractive way. About 2/3rds of the way through, a few of the parents at my school said that they preferred me when I was bulkier looking as it made me look more muscular. Not the worst thing in the world to hear, but at the time it did throw me a little. There will always be some degree of negativity, whether that's packing on the muscle or slimming down, and it's usually from the uninformed crowd who don't exercise or don't keep themselves in shape. It's the same crowd who watch the Miss World contests and comment that "this one's nose is too big" or "that one has pointy elbows", etc. You're the one who has to live with the body ultimately, so make it right for you. 1
bob Posted February 18, 2019 Posted February 18, 2019 I wouldn't say negativity as such, but people these days are veeeeery quick to make comments if there's any degree of change. A few years back, I decided that I wanted to slim down and wondered if it was possible for me to have my abs showing in an attractive way. About 2/3rds of the way through, a few of the parents at my school said that they preferred me when I was bulkier looking as it made me look more muscular. Not the worst thing in the world to hear, but at the time it did throw me a little. There will always be some degree of negativity, whether that's packing on the muscle or slimming down, and it's usually from the uninformed crowd who don't exercise or don't keep themselves in shape. It's the same crowd who watch the Miss World contests and comment that "this one's nose is too big" or "that one has pointy elbows", etc. You're the one who has to live with the body ultimately, so make it right for you.Miss World is literally a beauty contest though. I feel like it's one of the few times it's ok to criticise someone's appearance?
MindFreak Posted February 20, 2019 Posted February 20, 2019 (edited) Broke my old record for rowing 3000 m today. I've been doing this regularly over the past months but my personal best was from January 2nd 2016 (don't ask why) and it was 11:13 - since then I've been howering around 11:25 but last week I hit 11:20 again and today, I beat the old record and hit 11:10. I was ruined afterwards but managed to do some light bench press afterwards just to get some pushing movements as well. Can't see myself beating the new record anytime soon as I would have to hit 1:51 / 500 m or below consistently now. Also weighed myself - I'm still 69 kg (181 cm) so that's fine. I had my suspicion that I had gained a little weight but seems not. Edited February 20, 2019 by MindFreak 2
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