Silo

The reaction to my picture that you see in my avatar suggests there's, at least, something else in play as well... since there's no way the one's that reacted to it, could be close enough to me to pick up pheromones. :-)

I think it's also partly a "hey, this guy works hard" kind of reaction.

I like things that are planned ahead but I also don't like being tied down to recurring meetups. For example, I dropped out of book club because I didn't like being obligated to go the second Tuesday of every month. Well, I also didn't like the restaurant that we met up at every single time but I tried to tell myself to go for the camaraderie and I just wasn't convincing enough.

Has anyone here every tried Toastmasters? I found a club near where I live that meets once a week, and I'm thinking of dragging myself into one.

I have been considering Toastmasters off and on for about 15 years. I don't know anybody who is a member but have heard good things about it.

If she likes the elliptical and likes watching TV, I'd say put a TV in front of the elliptical for her. Or if she likes knitting, she can do that on a recumbent bike. Realistically, she either needs to find something that she enjoys or that she will tolerate long enough to get results. I am a similar spot with my husband. He wants results but he doesn't really like doing any exercise. He tolerates running but has developed plantar fasciitis so that's not possible right now. He has dabbled in weights but does not like it at all so he's not committed to a program. What he does like is playing basketball and soccer but he's out of shape enough that he doesn't want to play against anybody. I wish there were a league for out of shape people and then once you got into shape you had to move on so that some other out of shape person could take your place.

Great work so far! I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. I'm in a similar position, having lost 55 lbs and being down to the last 10. I'm finding it to be extremely difficult to stay focused on weight loss for more than 3-4 weeks at a time right now.

I drink a ton of water but I've always been a fan of how it tastes so it's not due to it being zero calories.

Other than that, I mostly drink coffee with whole or 2% milk and iced tea with Sweet'n Low. Sometimes I get crazy and drink hot tea with SnL and milk.

I also have an occasional beer or Coca-Cola.

I have no good advice on that because when it has happened to me I've just let the friendship fade away.

That's why they invented bodybuilder style:

Yep, that's what I do. I try rack position every once in a while but it's uncomfortable and not a high priority for me.

As far as back vs front squats, front squats fit my body better. I am leggy/gangly and pretty much a mess with back squats. I had worked up to holding 25 pound dumbbells on each shoulder before switching to the barbell last year. I had to revert back to 30 pounds total (using a lighter bar obvs) to start. Then it took me 3 months to get up to 60 pounds and even those turrible, just turrible.

I've been exercising in silence lately. The other day, though, my husband was trying to fix a plumbing issue in the basement while I was working out so my daughter went down too. The soundtrack to my workout was a mixture of "can you hear any water flowing above your head?" and "Can I buy an R, Pat?" (daughter is a big Wheel of Fortune fan.)

Also I see your goal this year is to start liking squats...

Good luck.

Ha. I had a ton of problems with squats last year, resulting in me having anxiety issues every day I had to do them. To get past it I've been squatting a more often this year (3-4 times a week) and doing other types of squats instead of back squats. Front squats are my main squat right now and then I do Zerchers and goblets for higher reps. So far my do-it-to-get-over-it plan is working well.

Anyone ever play the gym game where you do whatever you're doing to the rhythm of whatever music comes on in your headphones? Obviously I wouldn't recommend it during heavy low rep sets, but I often find myself doing it during warm ups or stretching or high rep stuff. For instance today I ended up doing jumping jacks to Darude Sandstorm, and bicep curls to Let It Go.

I want to see the LIG curls. Most 4-8 year old little girls I know have the exact choreography of that scene memorized so I'm imagining them curling their ways through the icy blast.

This is old but I just came across it today.

"According to Johns Hopkins' Ghilcrest, the genetic marker his team discovered primarily manifests itself in the trait of extreme persistence, often making its carriers completely impervious to rejection."

and

"These individuals are extremely adept at feigning interest in even the most tedious topics," said Chereskin, referring to an experiment in which men who carry the marker were asked to listen to an attractive woman talk at length about plans for her sister's upcoming wedding. "Additionally, when properly cued, they will reflexively spin subtle innuendo from even the most banal phraseology."

Was he doing wrist curls?

Bless me Nerds, for I have sinned.

I did quarter squats today.

(Admittedly, they were on my programme and were high box squats, but it felt so dirty and wrong!)

What do quarter squats do for you? Are they to get you used to a higher weight? And how high was the box? It seems like it would be super high.

I have been trying to pay attention to the phases and work my workouts around them. I started 5/3/1 this past month and it miraculously lined up perfectly so I have been doing a bit of a happy dance about it.

Excellent!

You can always take your feet off the moving bit and onto the sides, it's not ideal. Good news is summers coming, you can run outside with all the space of a free range chicken.

That's what I do--set the treadmill to sprinting speed, sprint a bit, jump to the rails, sprint a bit, jump to the rails, lather rinse repeat.

I had my first >bodyweight lift on Friday--hip thrusts for 150#. 

I'm a 44 year old chick and I have to keep checking myself, Dude comes into my conversations way to much.

Yeah, I use Dude a lot too. I also tell my daughter to "chill out, homeslice" on a regular basis. I generally have to switch between that and "punch it, Chewie" daily. Kids have their own concept of time and schedules and it doesn't always work with the real world.

Lol. My big pregnancy craving was spaghetti. Lots and lots of spaghetti. We would have dinner planned out and then at 5 when I was leaving work I would call my husband and ask "Say, how does spaghetti sound?" Luckily he likes spaghetti. Even brought me some in the hospital afterwards.

I work at a university so the local tech support is often made up of young college aged people. I just had one in to fix something on my computer. It's running super slow so he asked how old it is. When I told him, he said "Three years old? Well, I always say that computers age about 10 years for every year so yours is kind of getting to middle age and, ya know, slowing down, feeling like it can't quite make it much longer..." The oh s**** look on his face as he tried to backtrack after I said "Hey!" was worth the (unintended) insult.

But.....but leg day

It's his journey and he's a grown boy so I can't make him do what he doesn't want to do   

But seriously, I'm not pushing it. He's been in a plantar fasciitis induced funk so deciding to try something other than running is a step in the right direction, even if he's not following the exact path that I would.

My wife and I can't walk for exercise together, I walk so much faster than she does, and my legs are so much longer, that if I'm walking fast enough to do me any good she's straining too much, and if we walk at a speed where she's working I'm not even breathing hard.

He's 6'2" and I'm 5'6". I'm a pretty fast walker (and strangely competitive when it comes to people trying to pass me when I am walking, I've actually sped up in the middle of a cool down because I could sense somebody getting close to passing me on the indoor track) and can keep up with him. But my parents are 5'2" and 6'3" and his are 5'2" and 6'4" and those are two pairs that would never walk together for fitness either.

What I learned last night--my husband and I cannot work out together. We could if we had duplicate equipment but with the current setup, no way. Between our height and strength differences it's just not doable. Also, he has no interesting in squatting but will deadlift.

Here's a picture from my "gym" yesterday. I decided to put one of our dogs on the C25k program because he's been a bit mischievous lately and I generally follow the "a tired dog is a good dog" rule. Well I forgot how stubborn and lazy he is when he doesn't want to do something (as opposed to very fast when he wants to be--#3 here.) So here he is after two and a half 60 second jogging intervals rotated with 90 second walk periods. Notice the leash is extended behind me, not in front of or even beside me. He had this pained "ugh, she is killing me!" expression and we got a lot of stares. I ended up doing one more jog interval and then took him home, where he immediately went out back and raced around like a maniac.

Maybe it's a shopping thing based on another thread I read? Lose inches in the chest you can still wear t-shirts/most of your shirts. Gain inches and then you have to go out and get a new wardrobe since your stuff wont fit? 

Didn't think about that but it's probably true. He has enough trouble with his arm length already (I want to say 38" arms but that might be crazy, anyway they are long) so I can see being wary of adding another complicating factor.

My personal opinion: always start with just the bar.  Or less, if necessary, and focus on form before weight.  Once that's down, adding weight is relatively simple, but will depend largely on which exercise you're talking about.  

 

Disclaimer: I am not a trainer.  Or a doctor.  I don't even play one on TV.  

This is what I did, it takes a bit of an ego check but being able to focus on form is valuable. The only one that had weight on it was deadlift, I put one 45 on each side and that was so the bar was in it's proper spot.

Okey dokey. He is going to think I am crazy telling him to start at 135 for deadlift but I am certain he can do that.

He also says that he doesn't want his chest to get any bigger though* so he should be happy starting with the bar for that.

*Don't most men want bigger chests? I thought that big chests and arms were a guy thing.

Quick question--What weights do you start at when trying to figure out how much a person can lift? I'm talking if you're not doing SL5x5 and starting with the bar.

My husband wants to start lifting with me tonight. He did a very minor amount of lifting 20+ years ago in high school (minor=sitting around chatting until the coach walked by and then doing a few reps until he was out of the room) and since then has not really done anything. I think he's going to follow the 5/3/1 beginner's template but first he'll need to figure out what weight to use. I know he'll have to mess around a bit to figure it out but I don't even know a good starting point to suggest so it doesn't take an exceedingly long time to figure out. He is strong but out of shape. If it matters, he's 6'2" and 240ish.