Leego

To be honest, I was expecting to get nagged, and was kind of hoping for it. I made that post while I was really frustrated, but I'm not now. And here's the part that I hate where I kind of start to feel like I'm being an attention whore. To be honest, I guess I'm kind of sensitive, and I'm used to people (other than my family) ignoring me when I try to contact them or connect with them, or when I'm talking to them about myself or something personal, or even business related, so I've kind of gotten myself to the point where I expect people to say things to me, and if they don't say anything to me when I expect them to, I easily get offended, and I'm beginning to get tired of being nice about it. I know it's not personal, most of the time. At least not on here and most other forums. Sometimes people really just don't know what to say, or expect someone else to say something, or are just busy.To be honest, I have gotten much more help, response, and consideration here in the Nerd Fitness community than I do in most groups, communities, classes and teams in college and when looking for work, which makes me glad that I switched to this instead of BodyBuidling.com, so I'm thankful for that. I will try to be more active on the forums again. Afterall, I have to get to know people and let them know me. It's worth noting that I still do care enough about myself to keep going. I have not stopped.

Well, I never did find a good stretching routine for after I lift weights with Starting Strength, and I totally forgot about glute bridges. I can't honestly say that I'm going to walk around everywhere clenching my butt cheeks, but I will do glute bridges and "fire my glutes" while sitting down more often. Update: It feels weird and oddly challenging clenching my butt up out of my seat, but I'm gonna keep at it. Especially since I sit a lot, right now. I notice that when I do, my stomach comes in a bit, and all of my lower back touches the back of my chair. Is that the correct way of doing it?

And just like that, nobody cares. Phew! At least I still care! I will only be coming back here for advice about specific things I absolutely cannot find via searching..

Well, I want to see a doctor, but I have no health insurance, and right now, I have no money to get health insurance with, or to pay to see a doctor with. I would get a job, but where I am at, no one will hire me. I'm a "dependent", so "technically" my parents are supposed to get health insurance for me, but for some reason, they're not in a hurry or effort to get it for me, and I'm not sure if they can. Not being able to see a doctor anytime soon is part of the reason I've been trying to improve my own health recently, since I'm not going to be getting any medical help anytime soon in my life. I can try to get help by joining this group in my college for low-income and minority students, but I ain't got my hopes up for them to let me join. It's almost enough to make me want to just drop out of college, get a job, and get myself situated, and THEN finish college. Well, today, I only got about 5 hours of sleep. Last night, I went to sleep at about 10:40 PM, and I found myself awake at 3:30 PM, and unable to go back to sleep. So I rolled around and hoped to go back to sleep, but then decided to just get breakfast, skip gym and do body weight exercises later today, and try to go back to sleep at about 6:00 AM or 7:30 AM. But THEN, my baby sister got up, mom had to go to work, and my dad's still asleep. I tried to take a nap before she left, but got woke up about 15 minutes later. So NOW, I've got to babysit my baby sister until dad wakes up, by the time I can go out and do exercises, it's either going to be extremely hot, or extremely stormy, most likely watch my baby sister again while my dad takes care of some house work, all while either trying to stay up until 10:30 ~ 11:00 PM (and it's the weekend, so my family's going to be up REALLY late), or trying to just squeeze in a nap at some point, forget exercising today, and just sleep for as long as I can so that I stay awake until everyone goes asleep, which will put me at 2:00 - 3:00 AM again, which doesn't work during the week because I have to be up no later than 7:00 AM to catch a ride to the gym with my mom. Goddamn, I need my driver's license. I don't mean to rant, and I love my family, but it's a bit stressful trying to stay on track with them, and I've already been having a hard time sticking to a routine lately, and this is just one of those days where I feel like giving up and going back to being a night owl until I go back to college, but if I give up now, I most likely won't start back my routine when I go back to college, I will just be stuck in a rut, and no one will care but me. Also, I've felt like I've had just the worst shin splint ever, lately, and it won't go away.

Lately, I've been getting lazy with counting my calories, which is bad, for me. Counting calories every time I eat helps me keep the amount of food that I'm eating every day in perspective, but it's also a pain in the ass, sometimes. The MyFitnessPal app on my phone doesn't always cooperate like I want it to, and I can't always scan everything, so I end up manually typing everything in, which is tedious as all heck. Plus, on my phone, it doesn't remember the foods that i enter in, so I have to do it all over again every time. DX Also, there are the "mystery" calories, as I call them: Calories that i can't count because they come from foods that someone else prepared, so I have no idea what's in them, or how much of it I should be eating. As a result, I usually eat less at dinner time, and if I'm still hungry a few hours after dinner, or find that I haven't even broke the 1,500 calorie mark yet for the calories that I COULD count, I'll eat a little something extra. Lately, I've kind of stopped giving much care about counting calories. It seems hard enough just to focus on sleeping right and walking, and I'm already am pretty proud of myself for having made it this far with strength training as it is, and I want to continue it, and it will be easier to control my diet when I can more easily control my life what and when I eat, as well as have an easier time keeping myself busy, which will be when I go back to college. I tend to eat when I'm bored and idle, and am just standing around in the kitchen or sitting in my mom's workplace. When I had a dorm room, I rarely had any food in my room, as I mostly ate at the cafeteria, and I could always find something to do, so avoiding eating just because I feel like it and can while at home has taken a fair bit of will on my part. I've also been slacking off at the gym, but that's not entirely my fault. I've been feeling a bit drained lately, and I don't know if it's because of lack of rest (I've been making sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep regularly), me not eating right lately, or my body fighting off some sickness that I got (which I can't tell because I haven't felt really sick lately). I will say that, I did try tobacco recently and accidentally swallowed the juice. It made me feel lightheaded, then dizzy, then a little nauseous and lightheaded, and then I slept it off, or so I thought. Safe to say, I'm never chewing tobacco again. Just the thought of the taste of it makes me feel a little grossed out. The last time I went to the gym, I felt tired, unfocused, and not really prepared or excited to do squats. I still hit all of my workouts, but afterwards, I didn't feel psyched, and I didn't feel like doing much else: Not even walking/running intervals. I didn't do warrior lunges (which I kind of hate), kettleball swings (which I'm not sure if I'm doing right, I need to check), nor jumpin' jacks (which I question the usefulness of with only 1 set of 30). I'm not saying everything is going wrong, I believe I am at least still on track with my weightlifting goals, if nothing else. I just feel like I'm slipping out of my routine, and I'm most concerned about losing weight for appearance purposes, and it's kind of hard to maintain a proper, consistent diet at home sometimes. Oh, also, I'm feeling a bit of a soreness in my upper, middle back, and I keep getting this sensation like a bug is biting the top of my shoulder. Now being out in the country, the shoulder thing really could just be a bug bite, and my back is most likely sore from my workouts, but I tend to get a bit paranoid whenever any soreness doesn't feel like a sort of burning soreness.

Shhhhiiiieeeeet, let me be a novice for LIFE. Thank you for the chart. I believe I will be hitting my 31st day of weightlifting pretty soon.

I like this for your goals and attitude, and that reference to Billy Idol. I wish you luck!

Also, this will be real quick, and I will most likely post this on my battle log later, but here's been my day so far: As of today, my stats are: Deadlift: 130 lbs Bench Press: 80 lbs Squats: 90 lbs Power Cleans: 80 lbs OHP: 70 lbs Just for my reference. When I went to the gym today, I felt oddly tired. I thought I slept well enough, but I'm not sure about how I ate yesterday. My dad wanted me to stay with my grandmother and help her and spray the house for ticks that noon, so I had breakfast (which I don't normally do anymore) and missed lunch. By the time I got home, I was so hungry and thirsty (I didn't want to take food and water from my grandmother, and there was a growling white dog in front of the fridge), I ate 3-4 fingers full of sour cream & onion potato chips in my fingers before finally waiting for dinner to be ready and eating some sausage, greens, and potatoes. After that, I made me and my family some peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and ate one. Besides 2 protein shakes, that's all I remember. Anyways, I felt out of it at the gym today. I almost wondered if I should do squats, but I did them. I still feel fatigued, though. I haven't even done any other exercises today, not even the treadmill, but if it isn't too hot, I might see if I can do some walking or intervals outside in the afternoon.

Eh. I think I'm just letting myself get distracted from what's important. Also, I guess I keep falling into the mentality and common belief that muscle comes mostly from lifting weights, and that people who looks skinny and weak and saggy (skinny-fat) look like that because they don't lift weights...which is true, but not because they only have a normal amount of muscle, but because they lost muscle due to malnutrition, or lack of weight training to maintain the muscle they naturally have while losing weight, or something. I think I'm getting confused on the genetics part of it, but I think that with my build, and my strength training, and my diet, that if I lose a lot of excess fat, I will NOT look skinny-fat. I will NOT have a sagging stomach and granny titties. And what matters most, the most important thing to me, is not getting huge intimidating muscles, but to have as much functional strength and weight as possible. I just want to LOOK strong for aesthetics and respect, but I will be much happier with how I look if I lose weight either way, and there are other ways I can garner respect from people in the meantime.

So...I'd take it that means it's going to be at least two years of regular training to reach my strength goals, especially if I'm planning on dropping a lot of weight, assuming that everything goes perfectly. Well, what about building muscle? When would it be best to do that and what would be the best method? It's really starting to sound like it really would be easier and quicker to just lose weight and reveal the muscle that's already there and to continue focusing on slowly building strength, than to try and hurry to build muscle, just like what Tanuki said...and kind of like what this other guy I met said.

Dude...just by assuming that I"m gonna weigh 200 lbs some day, those numbers go into the 400s. So, Assuming I'm gonna weigh 200 lbs some day: Deadlift: 400 lbs Squats: 350 lbs Bench: 200 lbs OHP: 150 lbs How strong is that? Just hitting 200 on deadlifting, squatting, and benching sounds pretty strong to me. I think I'm forgetting about what Tanuki said before. I should just keep going, and see how strong I can get. I still want to build muscle at some point, though. Still, those goals not only sound impressive, but reasonable, except for hitting certain lifts earlier than others. I start thinking about hitting these strength goals, and I start getting impatient, and start thinking about progressing with my squats and deadlifts by 10s instead of 5s, but I also get paranoid that I might break something by trying to keep at that pace. I would have to imagine that I would need PLENTY of protein and at least 8 hours of sleep MINIMUM every night to recover from that quick enough to do it Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

mm. Those ARE expensive...I'm trying to save at least $100 just in case I have to get more weights or find another gym. I'm currently on a summer student program at a gym in a nearby city, but it ends on August 1st, which is just roughly 3 weeks before I go back to school. Knightwatch, will the assistance versions of the squats and OHP help me regain control of the bar if my arms begin to fail? Because that's my top concern when lifting to failure. I've got my weightlifting goal now, but I'm not sure if it's realistic: I want to be able to: Deadlift 300 lbs Bench Press 200 lbs OHP 150 ~ 200 lbs Squat 200 lbs Power Clean 200 lbs Or achieve some equivalent goal with a different program. I'm not sure how long I will be sticking with SS. Once I hit those bench marks, I will begin working with those weights to failure to both maintain my ability to lift those weights, and to build muscle.

True that! I still like deadlifting just a little more, though. It's my favorite. Nothing gets my testosterone going more than squatting down and picking up a shitton of weight. So, to note today's progress because I left my book at home today: Squats: 3x5 of 85 lbs: +5 increase! Deadlift: 1x5 of 130 lbs: +5 increase! OHP: 2x5, 1x4 of 70 lbs: +5 increase! Burned 382 calories on the treadmill I've also noticed that trying to warm up with lesser weights tires my arms out before hitting the real ones, when doing OHPs. I take it that I need more rest in between each set when it comes to OHP...like 3-5 minutes.

Oh, well, guess what? Today, I managed to overhead press 70 lbs! It wasn't easy, and took all of my concentration and will, but I did it. I used all of the techniques Rippetoe said to use the best I could, and I managed to get 2x5 and 1x4. I also managed to squat 85 lbs without falling back/over! I did 3x5, but I felt like I didn't go deep enough or like I felt anything, so I did another 2x5 to try and get a parallel squat. I did reach one point where I felt a struggle to push up with the weight, and I felt a shock of nervous energy shoot through me, and sprung back up before I went beyond the event horizon. I also deadlifted 130 lbs, so that's a +5 increase on that. I'm still worried that I'm not building strength in my legs with squats like I'm supposed to be, but then again, my legs did start off stronger than my arms because of my bodyweight, and I DO have to work squats every workout, which means 3x a week...fuck, why is that? Are there any other leg exercises I could do or use alongside SS?

Oh! Neat! Also, I think I will try the pedometer, if I can decide which one to get.

I guess I am. I feel a few habits deteriorating.

Weight loss (more like fat loss, and it would preferably be down to 200 lbs, but I would be happy to just reach 260 lbs or 250 lbs), muscle development (nothing too huge or important), speed, and mobility (for things like parkour and sports). I only really care about getting my strength up to a certain level so that I can handle something like firefighting and lifting myself up, over, and around things, also so I will have a good base, or, you know...starting strength.

I wonder if I should have tried 5x5, except for the fact that I can't do dips, although I'm sure most people can't when starting out. I wonder what's going to take up my interest more after I finish SS? I'm leaning more towards something like CrossFit (I hate to call it that), simply because of what they're focused on. Can you build muscle with CrossFit? I will mention one other thing: This guy at the gym I've been going to, a trainer named Blake, said that what I would have to do with squats, is basically practice going as low as possible with the bar, and progressively develop my flexibility. Then, I can take on heavier weights when squatting. He also setup some weird contraption for himself, where he connected two resistance bands to a barbell to aid him in parallel squats. He said he has trouble with those for some reason, especially since he's used to going all the way to the floor during his time as an Olympic weightlifter.

Well, I've been doing intervals on a treadmill. It generates a good sweat, and helps burn calories. Usually, I will walk at an incline of 3.0% - 7.0%, and then on the low inclines, turn it down a little and in the last 30 seconds, turn the speed up to 6.0 mph. I was afraid that my legs and thighs would be too sore for it, but it actually felt like it helped loosen them up a bit after squatting. I even managed to get up to 6.5 mph. I got it up to 7.0 mph, but it started to feel like it was almost going to take my feet from under me, so I quickly turned it back down. About 20 minutes of this supposedly burned roughly 256 calories. If I did these intervals for an hour, I would have burned roughly 500 cal. ~ 800 cal., depending on how frequently I went up to 6.0 mph. I feel like I'm still gonna prefer normal running, at the end of the day. It's just more natural and more safe. You know what? I think I'm gonna learn how to third-world squat...it sounds like it might imply something bad, but that's what it's called: http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1856085 I'm gonna practice it everyday.

Ah, cool. I can't do the Danger Method because of my week pattern. I mean I can, but I'd rather have at least two days during the week to spend with my dad and little sister. Plus, I don't know how intense the Danger Method gets, but right now I'm doing 3 days a week, and my body is REALLY getting sore from the extra weight I'm putting into my exercises: My squats are getting dangerous, OHP is getting VERY difficult and annoying, and the power clean is fun, but it has always made me a little nervous lifting that much weight that fast and catching it in a totally different arm positioning. There's gotta be a better way, or at least another way, to train explosiveness than that...but I'm killin' my deadlifts and bench presses.

Jesus, you have a very negative opinion of Mark Rippetoe, like you said. I can't comment on it, other than that after this summer and after I reach 100 lbs or whatever weight I hit in all of my exercises but deadlifting (when I plateau, in other words), I'd rather switch to something that's better for building muscle and not just strength, that also won't result in me hurting myself in the process without anyone's help (is more sustainable, in other words), since I hear you have to lift to failure to build muscle (which I'm assuming is not entirely true) Well today, I managed to bench press 75 lbs, which is 5 more than I did last time, and powerclean 75 lbs, which is 5 more than last time. When I went in to try and squat 85 lbs, I bailed, and I mean I bailed hard. That was the first word that came to mind..."bail". I don't even remember hearing it anywhere, but if it is a real thing, what I did was it. Alright, a bit of background information, I was already a bit sore from squatting and getting low with the barbell on Tuesday, so that didn't help. This time, I took Tanuki's advice, and I did warmup squats: First 1x10 bodyweight squats, then 1x5 empty bar (45 lbs) squats, and then 1x5 65 lbs squats, and then finally, I started 3x5 of 85 lbs squats. I tried to get low this time, because I noticed that I wasn't getting nearly ass-to-grass low in some of my past squats, and then, I don't know if I went too quick and lost my balance or something, but I swear, as soon as I got low, I felt my thighs and legs refuse to push me and that extra weight up (and I already weigh 280 lbs), and they said "No, we can't do that yet", and I said "WHAT?", and then I felt myself begin to slowly fall back, and TIIIIIMBERRRRR. My life flashed before my eyes, and I fell back with the racks catching the barbell (albeit very low), lightly, glancing-ly skinning my left forearm. After that, me personally, I was fine. A little disappointed that I didn't break 85 lbs in my squats, but fine. My body on the other hand, was just shaking scared and in shock. So I took a few minutes to rest, drank some water, let my body calm down, and then I moved on to bench presses and power cleans, and just squatted 3x5 of 80 lbs again, instead, and this time, with a better setup, going slower, and not squatting all the way down. Anyways, that's why I'd rather lift to failure with dumbbells, rather than barbells, I am NOT trying to experience THAT again. I'm gonna take Tanuki's advice and just read what Rippetoe has to say about form, setup, and warming up, even though he speaks a bit of jargon in the book, and even though he's a bit infamous to some people. Also, what's the "Danger" method?

Funny...the GNC whey I got tasted like a Vanilla milkshake and mixed better than anything else I have ever used. It was filling and lasted a good time, too. The first type of whey was something that was supposed to be chocolate and peanut butter flavored. It tasted alright, but that's about it. It didn't mix well, and at the time I didn't know what I was doing, so I used 3 scoops each day for that stuff. I paid a little over $40 on that jug...most expensive and quickest use of $40 on calories and protein I've ever done...It didn't even last a month.

So I've been taking GNC brand Mega Men energy and metabolism vitamins and protein shakes ever since I first started weightlifting for serious. Personally, I like it. Some of the whey shakes taste pretty tasty but aren't addicting, and seem to be a good way to make sure I get enough protein and calories each day if for some reason I'm too busy at home to make a proper meal, or couldn't get as much meat as I wanted to or should have. And the vitamins are nice because I have a hard time getting fruits and vegetables. At home, it's a matter of having green vegetables available and at my mom's workplace where I have lunch. In college, it's a matter of having time and space to prepare the vegetables and keeping them fresh. Still, I wonder if they really work?

Strength imbalances are one of the things I was worried about when I first started doing SS. I know that my left arm is slightly weaker than my right. I can feel the difference after lifting and pressing, and I can see my left arm lagging behind my right when picking up the weights sometimes...but that could just be because I'm right-handed. For this reason, and for the sake of saving money and doing something a bit more safe and sustainable, even at home, I originally wanted to work with dumbbells instead of barbells, but I found myself wasting time being indecisive on what to do, but I knew (or thought) it would be best for me to start off working my entire body, so I went with the most basic, sound, commonly recommended beginner program I could find, which was Starting Strength. Now that I'm on it and have been seeing consistent progress, I'm planning on sticking with it at least until I am able to hit...idk what would be a decent time to switch to something else...200 lbs deadlifts and 100 lbs bench press or something? That sounds pretty impressive, for me. Also, Jenglish, where do you live to be running in the summer time? Because where I live, I can't stand it. It's always 80-90 degrees, and there's insects literally everywhere. I live in the Mid-South in the United States, so...

Wow, um...OK. I'll continue to cut, then. 1,800 cal. on off-days, 2,000 cal. on work days. I don't want to get lean, and I do want to have bigger muscles, but I don't really care about being the strongest, especially since it won't do me much good, most of the time. Just these beginner gains I've been gaining have been impressive and fun for me. For firefighting work in the US, I think I need to be able to lift and carry a minimum of 200 lbs (but I could be wrong). Outside of that, I don't care about being the strongest. I care about being able to sprint faster, jump higher, do parkour in general, being able to maneuver my body around all kinds of obstacles, and being able to hit as fast and hard as possible. I only care about getting muscular for the aesthetic purposes. Looks are everything in the world I live in, afterall. Also, what's with Tijuana?