The Spider

Went to the gym with my brother on Friday. Haven't seen him in 10-12 years, so it was good to spend time with him as adults, not as "older brother, younger brother," arguing and being mean to each other. He was kind of a goof, though. I told him I was new to the gym, and I was focusing on the large muscle groups with benching, pullbacks, squatting, leg presses, etc. So what do we do at the gym? Nothing but biceps lol.

I may have improperly used the word "friendship" there and should have instead used "relationship" or even more accurately "working relationship." It's a team effort, a grocery store pharmacy, and I feel I'm not just being segregated but almost ignored even when there might be work to be done and I need to be part of a work conversation, not even necessarily a comic books/movies/tv shows/beer/politics conversation. I realize I'm not guaranteed a connection with anyone, but the respect to make sure the work gets done properly and in a timely fashion is important. I've seen tasks take two or three times longer than they should, or just completely ignored, and I wasn't approached for help or guidance, or even to just be asked to do it myself. I've even gone to check on the status of the task, to see if I could help, and I've been yelled at by coworkers to buzz off. Along side that, even when there's a small talk conversation and it's something that I have interest in, I go to add to it, and they seemingly intentionally change the subject while I'm talking. Do you think I'm overthinking it, or do I just work with assholes?

What do you guys recommend for when you're stuck working with a lot of females? I'm outnumbered almost every shift I work (full time, customer service at a pharmacy). I get irritated with all their emotionally charged chatter/shrieking at each other, or I get dragged into some kind of workplace drama with which I have actually nothing to do. I do my best to just come to work, get the job done, and go home, but that prevents me from developing any kind of work friendship. Any ideas on how to keep the balance?

Reason I asked my question(s) is because he may not realize that he's not expressing himself clearly enough for you. One thing that me and my wife both had to work on a little.

Hoping to get to the gym tomorrow after work. Need to start some OHP and some dead lifts. Anyone here know of a reputable YouTube source for form checks?

My long term goal is to have the Spartan Trifecta within the next 10 years. My short term goal throughout these next ten years may seem somewhat convoluted, but it's this: I own a LOT of shirts (tees, buttons, dress, etc). Most of my t-shirts have shrunk just enough to show the edge of my belly button when I raise my hands above my head, but they fit otherwise. I want all of those shirts to be too tight on my arms and chest, so that I have to get rid of them. They're in perfect condition and I still like the design too much to simply donate/sell them. Honestly, if I could find these shirts (I bought them almost 10 years ago) in the next size up, I would get them. So to say that I know that I've reached this goal will be when I see and feel it. Another smaller goal will be to begin doing martial arts training again. I was, during high school, doing very well with martial arts training. Lots and lots of dynamic core and body weight style workouts, weight vests, along with good old swinging heavy swords and spears around (not to mention punching people and being punched in return). I didn't have a great diet, so I didn't look as good as I could have, so once I get somewhat better about my diet, which will help me reach the previously mentioned goal, I hope to get very serious about my martial training, and finish the curriculum that I had begun when I was 15. I figure if I get the appearance that I want by next year, I can begin training again. I hope to do a Spartan Sprint in September, but I'm not sure if my friends are still on board (it's a groomsmen gift from my wedding last year) since everyone has full time work. Heading to the gym after posting this, so I hope to be going to the gym and getting some good cardio for the next few months to be on my way to my next goal.

What do you expect him to do, since you say that he doesn't seem to support you, but he claims he does? How do you feel he could better show his enthusiasm?

Hello ladies and germs, I come to do my 4th challenge! It will be more of my previous challenge, which is simply going to the gym and getting strong. This time though, my overarching goal is to be even more stringent on my diet. Less grease and sugar, and more fruits, vegetables and lean proteins. I'm already "o.k." with my diet, since I don't usually care for sweets on the regular, and when my wife gets ice cream cravings or some such, we set a goal for how many weeks we have until we earn our "cheat" day. If I were to have written a retrospective for this previous challenge, it would've been mainly that I have the issue of not following through, which has always been a challenge for me, even when I was very little. I need to find ways to amp myself up throughout the course of the challenge, rather than getting comfortable and then forgetting. Since my last challenge, I've seen my doctor for my sleep issues, and he's prescribed a mild sleep aid which has been working perfectly. Today I got out of bed at 6:30 a.m. with a lot of energy, so I stretched for a good while, read a bit, and did some much needed apartment cleaning. Now some of you might be wondering why on earth I'm posting this so early before the next challenge begins, and I'll tell you why! Accountability - you guys respond to this now, I'll be more excited about doing it by the time the next week rolls around. Secondly, I am already doing this, as once I'm done with this, it's off to the gym for the 2nd time this week. Yeah!

Hey guys, my wife isn't too keen on getting callouses in her hands alongside her gains, plus her fingers are too swollen ATM to get her wedding ring off, so when she grips a barbell, it pinches her hand pretty badly and takes her focus elsewhere. So I was thinking I'd ask for some opinions on lifting glove quality. What should she look for exactly or do they really not make a difference, one brand to the next?

Over did the soda again already. Up to 40 oz this week so far. Made it to the gym and I feel like I accomplished something. I'm up to 100lbs on the long pull machine and 80lbs on the pull down machine. On top of that, I ran 1.1 miles with 3 breaks, each roughly 0.05 miles long. Not my best but definitely not my worst. My goal tomorrow is to go to the gym in the morning, hopefully early enough to swim. I haven't made it to the pool once this challenge and I really want to do that at least once to kick this challenge in the 'nads. My wife and I may make it to the gym on Saturday morning as well, so we may do a fitness class. In other news, I've decided I'm going to use the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge in June, which is a 3.5 mile race. I'll use it to be a rough measure of how well I'll do in the Spartan Race. I've always been cool with obstacles like climbing and crawling, etc, but distance running has never been my strong suit.

This week was a total flop. No body weight workout, only went to the gym one time, and had way too much soda and just inhaled cookies like they were my life support. Gonna chalk this up to remembering that I set goals to constantly strive to do better, not prove how good I already am. I'm still leaps and bounds from where I was, but this week was bad, and I really don't have an excuse this time. Hoping to kill it this last week. In other news, I have the goals I'm going to set for next months challenge already planned.

Retrieved the newly repaired vehicle that was mangled by the deer that hit us on Thanksgiving. Car looks great! Then one of the people working there handed me two big boxes of wafer cookies... now I have even more sugary snacks in my apartment to not eat LOL. Gonna have to have friends over and try to get rid of them that way.

For some reason my store suddenly started carrying individual bottles of Mountain Dew Code Red... oh, how I've missed it... So I've definitely failed on the soda goal for this week... twice now... sheesh. Made it to the gym and ran 1.25 miles this time, so I'm definitely making improvements in my physical ability! But sugar is still a serious problem for me.

I hadn't even heard of it until you asked. Looks like fun!

Wound up sleeping way too long Friday. I've been feeling sluggish again these past few days but I've been making it. Went to the gym on Saturday, did arms, and I think I just didn't eat enough before going because my run was pretty weak compared to previous ones. Still squeezed it out to the 1 mile mark on the elliptical, but I slowed down twice during the run for the first time since I started going to the gym again. Still working on finding good snacks to bring to work and doing meal prep so I'm not tempted to just buy a big sandwich or pizza. Last couple of times I hit the gym I didn't do my chin ups, though on Sunday I was at a friends house and their brother had a chin up bar attached to their door frame, so I got to do multiple chin ups on that. Did two whole chin ups both times I attempted, which was an improvement for me! Now I'm hoping to find a chin up bar for my apartment to keep that trend going upwards. Hooray for victories! Also, drank my fill of soda for this week. No more soda this week!