Vintage

Dumbbell bench presses in general work some different muscles than either barbell bench presses or push ups. The stabilization required is far greater (the dumbbells want to move in every damn direction, and you have to work to stop them). You can also keep your hands in a neutral position (palms facing each other, the dumbbells run parallel) which has some advantages for joint health for some people and some people argue that it helps beginners learn not to flare their elbows out hugely on a bench press (which will make the transition to barbell easier because the person already understands proper elbow path). Most gyms have dumbbells and benches in large quantities. You don't need a spotter with dumbbells and they're less intimidating than barbells. And you can start at very light weights with dumbbells. The incline bench thing is a whole different monster.  A lot of people feel like incline bench is a more functional movement for sports and for shoulder health, for one.

But do what works. If you want to do bodyweight work, you can do amazing things with that (Waldo is testament to that). If you want to use a barbell, you can do that.  Steve's point in that article I think is not to overcomplicate things. Pick a compound exercise from each of the movement groupings and get to work. 

I agree with the suggestions about water, dark chocolate (dark choc covered almonds are my favorite), and giving your body time to adjust to new eating habits. I think snacking's ok if you fit it in with everything else in a balanced way. The problem people run into with snacks is that they either tend to  be a)in addition to a complete diet (thus additional calories) poor food selections or c) driven more by boredom, emotion and habit than hunger.

But snacking in itself is ok if you plan it out and adjust in other places. For example. I'm a student with a full time job, and I tend to not be hungry early in the day, so my calorie and food distribution through a weekday looks something like this:

9:00 - coffee and maybe a piece of fruit and some nuts or a small piece of cheese. Sometimes I'll have eggs, meat and veggies - Around 300 calories

12:00 - small packed "lunch" - chicken or meat with veggies - about 300 calories

3:00 - after school snack with the kids I nanny for - a lettuce wrap sandwich, some meat or chicken, nuts -  about 300 calories

6:30 workout

8:00 - dinner. Protein,fat and veggies. If I eat carbs or treats it's now - 600 calories

If I'm hungry and stay up late I'll occasionally have another snack between dinner and bed

In other words, I eat two lunches essentially. But I know ahead of time that I'm going to do that, so I don't try to eat enough at noon to make it until dinner. I just split that meal into two.

So I would suggest planning it out and playing with it a bit. Try the previous suggestions for avoiding snacking our of habit/emotion/boredom. But it's ok to have a decent sized snack if that's what works for you.

ETA: my diet is by no means perfect. Ideally I would like to get to a place where I shifted some of the dinner calories to earlier in the day. But it's working for me pretty well.

I think the big factor here is what the rest of your diet looks like. Yes, avocados are calorically dense. But calories themselves are neutral. They're not a bad thing. We just need the right amount for our expenditure level and for our goals.  But if it fits in with your overall diet, then go for it. So, are you having a hard time keeping total calorie levels where they need to be right now? Are you eating an extra avocado and sacrificing other things you need (like protein) to keep calorie levels down? Does this keep you from getting a good variety of foods in your diet? Avocados also have a lot of fat in them (which can be awesome because that fat keep you full longer). But this may be too much if your diet is full of other sources of fats as well. 

Oh! No, I was referring to the discomfort OP referred to in the original post following the round of squats in question.

The pain one can inflict on oneself with a well positioned lacrosse ball is a totally different thing

As far as everyone staring at you... most of them are jealous and admiring your nerve to get in there and do it. Go you!

For #1, you're forgetting c) it was a different day. There are days when I go in and everything feels heavy and I have to grind through it, and there are days that I feel like I could bend the barbell in half with my bare hands if I tried. Maybe it's about what I've been eating or how much sleep I got or the weather or simply because I felt like I could do it so I had the right mindset. But a) sounds pretty good, too. Little tweaks can make big differences sometimes. Unless you weren't hitting depth, there aren't many things you could do wrong that would make things easier.

As far as your "discomfort",,, what do you mean exactly? Was it fatiguing on the muscles? Did it just feel like your muscles weren't accustomed to it? How long did it take for the discomfort to go away? There are few parts of lifting I find comfortable while doing it. That's to be expected - very little will improve without some discomfort. There's a point where you learn to spot the "bad hurt" and push through the rest.

I reread your question and my answer and wanted to add...

When I first started experimenting with high-bar back squats in the interest of improving my oly-lifts, I experienced some pain in my lower back (even at medium weights) that I'd never had with heavy low-bar squats. After asking for input here and having my coaches observe and video me, I realized that while I was shifting my shoulders up higher (making me feel more vertical), I was arching my lower back a bit more than I should. I was trying to raise up my upper back to accommodate the higher bar placement while keeping my hips/pelvis/legs in the same arrangement as in my more accustomed low-bar squat, and the result was a lot of arch in my lumbar spine. Since then I focused on treating my high bar and front squats differently than my low-bar ones. Instead of pushing my hips way back, I actually think of sinking down between my legs (I think one description I read of this was something like picturing your legs as trees and your pelvis as a hammock hanging between it or something weird like that). Eventually I found something that worked. I had to decrease weights and really work on it a while to find a solid movement pattern, make some adjustments in my mobility and get used to the slightly different muscle emphasis. But the moral of the story is that (at least for me) a high bar squat isn't the same as a low-bar but with my chest and shoulders up. The whole squat is one movement - I couldn't just adjust one piece of it and keep the rest the same.

Everyone has slightly different body mechanics, so I'd agree with wildross and somethingsup - the angle isn't as important as if your core is tight, stable and not rounding, your knees are out and the bar path is vertical and staying centered over your feet (or over your heels). My torso goes farther forward in a low-bar squat than in a highbar/unweighted/front/overhead squat, and my stance is a little wider to adjust for that. 

But a video for form check would probably help here.

One sweet thing that I do tend to  be able to control is frozen grapes. I'll buy a bunch of grapes, pull them off the stems and wash them, and put them in a ziploc and freeze them. When I want something sweet, I'll get about 1/2 a cup out of the freezer, put them in a bowl and GO SOMEWHERE ELSE to eat them. I finish the portion and give myself a chance to get absorbed in another activity. If I eat next to the fridge it's too easy for me to refill my bowl when in reality I'm satisfied. 

Similarly, I freeze most chocolates and things. It's tough to eat them quickly because you kind of have to gnaw at them. It gets me into the habit of eating sweets slowly, so when I am out I can eat a small piece of chocolate slowly and be ok.

I also save certain treats for things that I only get when I'm with friends so I can share them. Or I do this with the kids I nanny - Wednesday is our day to get a treat after school, so I can keep in my head the rest of the week "nope, you don't need a milkshake today - but if you still want one by Wednesday you can go with the kids and get one to split three ways." It's kind of a combination of making myself wait a while to see if I really want it/to give the craving a chance to subside and finding a way to help me eat only part of what I would on my own.

ETA: Disclaimer - fruit is still sugar. I don't give myself a pass to eat as much as I want. But it doesn't seem to hit the same "more More MORE" trigger that candy does sometimes for me. 

I have zero real advice (other than that you might be able to find some products online), but I do want to say go you! for giving it a try. I have RA and logically I know that I should give it a try, but emotionally I just haven't been able to summon the will-power and motivation. So good for you for prioritizing your health.

Just guessing in the dark here... a lot of women get anemic during their period. Blood loss, you know. When you're anemic, your blood isn't going to be able to deliver enough oxygen to your body. You'll get fatigued faster. You've noticed this with martial arts and having less energy. Now you might be noticing it with muscular endurance.

Other possibilities:

-Is your diet the same during your period as it was before? Are you eating junk? Not eating enough of something?

-Is your head in the game? I have occasional days (not just on my period, but they're more common around then) when I just don't have any fight in me. Being in the right mental state to power through sets when they start to feel heavy is a huge deal. As you get more experience, you'll get better at tapping into this mindset and at recognizing when your body can keep pushing or not. 

-This could be totally unrelated to your period. I've had those days and so has every other lifter I know. Sometimes something just doesn't feel right. The weights feel heavier than usual, the sets feel longer, etc. Maybe it's the weather, how well you slept the night before, a cheat meal the day before, stress over some deadline... whatever. It does happen. The good news is that there are days that are the opposite. You walk up to that bar, you feel like a bad-ass, like you could lift 400 lbs, and your old PRs feel easy peasy. 

I've never actually used an assisted pull up machine...

But when doing pull ups on a bar (with human assistance, bands, negatives, or now on my own), my hands are outside my shoulders. It felt awkwardly wide at first. But as I got used to it and learned to recruit my lats better, it started feeling much more natural and stronger. Now, if I tried to do a a pull up with a narrow grip I'm pretty sure I'd feel like a T-rex trying to do a pull up. And it would be about as effective.When I do chin-ups (palms facing towards me), then I bring my hands in to that narrow grip. 

I'm pretty ready to call bs on the "fat burning zone" thing. When I lift heavy or do intense interval work, my heart rate spikes way above where any fancy-pants treadmill will tell me to keep it for "optimal fat burning." I've still lost 25% of my bodyweight in the past year and look much much leaner. Here's one link to explain where it came from and why it might not actually make a whole lot of sense. 

The one case in which it seems to make sense to try to maintain a certain range is when you're doing certain types of endurance training. I have trouble pacing myself on runs longer than an all out sprint, so when I work on improving my distance running I focus on keeping my pace at a pace that I can still speak while running. But that has nothing to do with fat-loss.

My spidey sense is telling me that form is breaking down and you are shifting forward onto your toes. Knees going "too far forwards" is a myth that just will not die. A form check video is definitely the answer. If that isn't possible then be mindful to keep your weight on the sides of your feet optimally, or your hels if you must. Never let yourself rock forward onto your toes.

In my experience it's not really about the knees going too far forwards... the importance of the "shins vertical, knees back" cue for me is that it keeps the weight on my heels. I'm not sure I could possibly follow that cue while shifting weight to my toes. 

OP - a doctor may be in your future. But first you could spend some time with mobility and foam rolling to make sure it's necessary. The only time I get knee pain is when I've neglected my IT bands, hamstrings and/or hip flexors. IT bands especially. That whole "the head bone's connected to the neck bone" song had one thing right... our body parts are all connected, and a tight or immobile muscle in one place can show itself as pain in another part.

Welcome! I think you're getting a lot of great advice. My 2 cents...

1. Set small goals at first. Looking at this as "I need to build the perfect exercise routine, master it, and become a gym-expert" all in one chunk is really intimidating. One day, set a goal of just going to the gym. Go in, wander around (or take a tour if that's comfortable for you), check out the locker rooms, maybe spend a few minutes walking on a treadmill or on a stationary bike so you can observe everything inconspicuously. If you're feeling like a rockstar that day, find some free space and run through some of the exercises you were doing with your trainer - same workout, just in a different environment. Or make that day 2. Then another day, do that with one or two small changes (instead of doing body weight lunges, do them with small dumbbells held at your sides - whatever small steps seem manageable. Keep going like that and before you know it you'll be on a roll. [My personal preference is to blast music that makes me feel like a bad ass in my headphones when I do things like this - for me it's stuff like AC/DC, but that differs by person].

2. Start simple. Check out some of the articles mentioned on building workout routines and lay out something that sounds do-able and enjoyable to you. Beginners fitness isn't rocket science (though I know it can feel like a huge scary task), so don't over complicate things now. You can create a perfectly functional, effective fitness routine for yourself right now with only a small handful of exercises. Fancy can come later.

3. If you think you might be interested in barbell training at some point, browse through the powerlifting forum, warrior's thread and consider getting a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. By all accounts the man is an ass, but the book gives you some pretty clear descriptions and instructions on the major lifts.

One thing that might make things a little more complicated here is diet. I'm guessing that as a dancer you're not aiming to put on much muscle and thus not deliberately eating at a caloric surplus (plus the constant activity is probably burning through a lot of activity). This doesn't make strength training pointless, but it will slow down progress. Combine that with only lifting once/week and results might be painfully slow in coming.

But I get it... I love strength training. If you pay attention to how you're feeling, there's no real reason you can't give it a try. Pick a few compound movements and really focus on form and technique to maximize your progress.

That does sound like a lot of volume all of a sudden. Two things you might try:

1) lower the volume (i.e. do fewer reps and sets) and increase the difficulty so that you're not getting as much repetitive use. Doing your pullups chest-to-bar (touch your chest below your clavicle to the bar instead of just eeking your chin over it) is a great place to start with this.

2) Some shoulder pre-hab might be helpful. Look up bulletproof shoulders online and try it out. You can work it into your warm-up if you like.

Last thing... be sure that your eccentric movement (the drop) is reasonably controlled. I've seen people pull up to the top and relax everything and drop like rocks back into the bottom, which has got to yank horibly on the shoulders. 

I'm 5'2" with stumpy little legs, so I get it. I'm flexible enough now to put my feet flat on the floor (though I look distinctly un-ladylike doing it because I have to spread my legs out wide), but for a long time I put plates under my feet when I benched. My bench is most powerful when I have my feet flat on the floor and can drive through my heels. Benching optimally should involve your whole body - feet driving into the floor, quads as tight as possible, the entire core braced like you're about to take a punch in the belly. If I'm focusing hard on maintaining all of that tension throughout the lift, I've got a 120# bench. When I don't I'll end up pinned under 105# every time. 

But I'd say it's more of an issue of limiting the amount of weight you'll be able to move and of reducing the number of muscles you're working than anything else. 

On the push press  - a cue that works for me is to keep my rib cage down and in - think about tucking it close to the pelvis.. I focus a lot on tightening my core and my glutes to help me do this. Quads should also be tight during the lift - for me this is one of the first things to go when I'm fatigued, weakening my lift and causing me to lean back to get the weight up. It may be a shoulder-centric lift, but your core and legs should be working hard too. Ultimately learning to recruit your core, glutes and legs into the task will make the lift stronger.

Haha, sorry DirtyLittleSecrets, I swear I did read your post... except for those two paragraphs apparently. I swear I suffer from pinball brain... my attention just rebounds around all over the place without regard for where I want it to go sometimes.

A (very fit, very strong) friend re-posted this article on facebook the other day. I appreciate that the author acknowledges that the messages might be trying to say something positive, but that there are less positive interpretations as well.

 

 

Ah, okay, so length/frequency is more of a what you can handle thing? I'm still a little confused by it. If you can spend an hour going at a decent pace or half an hour blasting it out, how much does that affect? Are you eventually just able to feel "okay that's all I can handle today"? If a routine is "supposed to" take an hour or so, but you're able to do it in half that without exhausting yourself, does that mean it's too easy? Does soreness factor in at all? Like, I'm sore that means this routine is still good or I'm sore, better make it a rest day? What I'm going for is mostly to satisfy curiosity in how far I can go. I don't have a target weight or waist size or something like that, though I would like to fill out more. I'm curious to see what I'm capable of if I fixed my diet and exercised as much as possible and increased the difficulty as much as possible without going to a gym or spending several hundred dollars on equipment and if that could equal or surpass someone who did. I don't want to exercise "enough" to gain some weight or build some strength, I want to be Batman. 

You've gotten some good advice and I agree with all of it. But I've also got a more general suggestion/response.

I mean this nicely... chill out, stop over-thinking and over-planning, and just get going. It doesn't really matter how much further past "generally in pretty good shape" you want to go, you still have to get to "generally in pretty good shape" on your way there. And the reality is, at the beginning level, it just isn't that complicated. There are plenty of training methods (like body weight or barbells), rep schemes and training schedules to choose from, and most* of them will get you to the "in decent shape" point. But none of them will get you there if you don't stick with it, so pick the one you can/will keep to for a while. If you want to do body weight, do body weight. If you'd rather do a 45 minute intense session, do it. If you can stick to/handle a 5 day/week schedule then go for it. Make a plan for the next 6 weeks and get started. Read through a few of Steve's body weight workouts on the nerdfitness site and pick one. There's going to be plenty of time to get into the details and the complicated stuff down the road, but you've got to get yourself to that point. 

*Yes, most. There are some ridiculous, absolutely worthless workouts out there, but they can usually be spotted if you keep your head on straight and use common sense. The plans on nerdfitness are a safe bet.

There have been a few other threads on this recently in both this forum and in the gear review one, but...

I'm a 32E now (down from a 36G) and I wear the Panache bra here. Every time I shrink out of one I replace it with a new color. They're comfortable, breathable, and don't mush my boobs together. 

Niccolo said almost exactly what I would have said. I have a tendency to rush into the third pull (i.e. bend my arms too early) as well, and I really have to focus on coming to full hip extension and on not trying to drag the bar up with my arms.

One additional cue that helped me on catching with elbows up (and getting under the bar) after I had worked out my mobility issues was to think of it as actively pulling myself under the bar. It shouldn't be a passive movement where you just allow yourself to drop - think about sending yourself into the quarter squat or full squat and pulling yourself under as fast as possible while shooting your elbows under and then up in front.

I agree with bench pressing and wall push ups. You can also do push up negatives (start in the top position and slowly lower with a count of 3 or 4 seconds, then push back up with your knees on the ground, lift your knees back up and repeat). 

I have a spibelt and really like it. I carry my iPhone, a key and sometimes an ID and a little bit of cash.