Deckard Gainz

Hey, congrats on the weight trending in the direction you want, and passing that 60 pt milestone.

I hope the dude that messed with your workout was just a newbie unaware of etiquette or something, and not just blatantly messing with you. I'm guessing there will be a lot of fresh faces at a lot of gyms after this whole event, for better or worse.

On 7/6/2021 at 6:36 AM, Brovatar Korra said:

 

I struggle with those types of deloads as well. I used to think cutting back weight was mandatory for them (50-60% of usual intensity etc) and it always felt like "wasted gainz time." Decreasing frequency sounds like a good strategy. I have a planned deload coming up at the end of this challenge, I was thinking of trying scaled back volume (one working set instead of three)

There are plenty of folks who claim deloads aren't necessary at all, and for a lot of people that's probably true. Everything is a lever, and you can pull any of the levers you want, however you want. Decreasing frequency does the same thing as decreasing volume/rest time/intensity in any configuration, more or less.* I bet you could save a lot of time with a single working set. I have a silly thing in my head that anything under 3 sets isn't really worth my time unless I'm training towards a max attempt or something. I acknowledge this is as silly as any other hard rule on this kinda stuff, but it's my brain and I can be as silly as I want with it. So usually my "make it easier" tweak is increasing intensity and decreasing volume. Like 3 sets of 3 is going to be much more chill than 4+ sets of 5+ even if the weight is heavier. Apparently CNS fatigue isn't too much of a problem for me in the powerbuilding set/rep range or else that might sound like a nightmare. I very rarely put up really big numbers though. Basement solo lifting contributes to this for sure.

On Tuesday I did 50 deadlifts around and above my body weight, which was hell, but was fine. On Wednesday I ate one (1) banana and hit a new bench PR: 245 lbs for 5 ( and 3 reverse pyramid style sets after--this is me "decreasing volume"). I had a large and filling dinner after that, so don't worry that I'm undereating. I find most of my success in cutting comes from further restricting my eating window rather than attempting smaller portions or whatever else people do. Yesterday I rested, ate grilled chicken and pizza, and still clocked in under 2k cals. Macros aren't great, but uhhh, call it a refeed. Whatever.

According to the 1rm calcs I've used, my new bench PR suggests I should be able to bench 275 lbs, which would be an increase over my actual bench max of 265 lbs as of late 2019. I haven't made any attempts since. It would be really cool to crack 300. Maybe that could be an end-of-year goal for me. That might require actual programming though, which, ehhhh, we'll see. BF% is still the highest priority. I did clock in at a relative low weight recently, but pizza did not make the scale happy (I assume this is more about salt and water retention than food intake). 

The plan for this afternoon is SKWATS, which would put me at 3 workouts for the week again. I think this is the sweet spot for recovery for me, but I also want to push work capacity so I hope to get back to 4 soon. I will be going out of town on Friday next week so it's doubtful I'll get in 4 unless I skip a rest day, which sounds like hell.

Anyway I am just rambling at this point so I will sign off here.

*I'm sure there are a million subtle differences in the ways these changes affect potential (as I've insinuated in other comments), but I imagine for someone around my level, these differences are not meaningful enough to me to antagonize over.

Quick update: managed 3 workouts total last week, which did not end up being deloaded at all. It was fine. I think having one less workout day may be enough to catch up a little on recovery. I will continue to monitor fatigue levels going into next week, but I'm really hoping I can just decrease overall frequency on occasion rather than do deloaded workouts. I hate feeling like I'm wasting a bunch of time just going through the motions.

I had drinks on Thursday for no reason in particular, and predictably had a lot on Sunday between two different parties. I think I'm going to try and pare this one down to 1 drinks night per week. It's fun, but a big setback.

On 6/28/2021 at 8:45 PM, RaveOnOn said:

I’m not sure why this challenge is so……challenging. I felt like I set myself reasonable goals, but I rarely get beyond the daily walk. It’s something in my brain, because I don’t feel tired or sore. I am being mindful of my food, so I guess that’s another thing going well. I just need to get on track with the movement stuff again.

Lots of people fail to do reasonable things and also succeed at doing unreasonable things, all the time. One thing that helps me is to go beyond the short-term challenge goals and try to put some mental focus on the longer-term actual reason(s) for doing this stuff. Are you trying to be healthy so you can stay alive on this earth longer and spend more time with the ones you love? Are you trying to improve your physique so when you go out in public, "everyone either wants you or wants to be you?" Are you sharpening your body into a weapon to wield against your enemies? In fact, I find the more unreasonable hopes/dreams/expectations to be more motivating than the reasonable ones. I can only speak for myself of course, but trying to bargain with myself about the "reasonableness" of something I just don't want to do mostly just makes me feel worse about not doing it. A far more successful way for my superego to penetrate my id is to bring it back to the raw emotions associated with these goals. Do it for love, do it for lust, do it for hate... not "because it's reasonable."

On 6/19/2021 at 6:23 AM, shaar said:

Dude my computer is named the Doof Warrior, I have a Doof Warrior Funko, I just got a Fury Road tattoo, lifting + games = life - methinks we'll get along V. WELL!   What are you playing right now?? (I see that D3 forum name reference)

Oh oops I have been following along but missed that you actually responded to me directly, or maybe I saw and forgot before I could respond. Forums move fast sometimes. Anyways I'm glad my offhand comment started a whole Max Max thing. I am also looking forward to seeing the tattoo.

I have kinda been struggling to find a game that really hooks me recently. I recently replayed Katana Zero because it has a soundtrack so amazing that Spotify told me it was my top listened-to album of 2020. I really like the idea of Civilization games but Civ 6 runs so poorly on my switch that it's put me off from playing more. I just recently bought a game called Pathway, which is like a Raiders of the Lost Ark board game but with tactics combat. It seems pretty cool so far but it's doing that whole roguelike kinda thing, which usually makes it difficult for me to mentally invest unless there's some thread of progression (like Hades, which is fantastic). Are you playing anything good?

Oof, I have made a few attempts at the super early gym time. Never been able to make it "my routine." Hopefully you have better luck.

Whatcha writing? Is that too deep/personal/hard to explain?

On 6/26/2021 at 8:19 AM, TrashcanCarla said:

Your basement setup sounds pretty great, even if there's a low ceiling. I live in an apartment and yearn for the day when I can build my own home gym with a power rack and such.

I'm definitely grateful for the space and the means to have acquired some high-value equipment. My considerations were not meant to come off as complaints if that's what it seemed like. I never grew too dependent on machines so it's not terribly restrictive in my case. I have to do my overhead presses seated, and I do miss the assisted pull-up and lat pull machines, but otherwise there's little change beyond ambiance. 

On 6/24/2021 at 6:02 AM, Hangrybear said:

• You seem to want to avoid high frequency, since your gym setup is suboptimal and not as enyoable as a full set of equipment would be. In this case you can increase intensity. For this purpose I would follow the advice of Jeff Nippard, who also leaves about 2-3 reps in the tank on his sets, but then goes to RPE 9+ on the last set of his lift to fully exhaust the muscle before moving on to the next.
• To stay in the lane of powerbuilding but hit your strength and hypertrophy goals with better specifity, my powerbuilding coach recommends backoff-sets, especially for compound lifts. The idea is to get your strength gains with 2 top sets between 3-6 reps, then reduce the weight and do 1 or 2 backoff sets with 8-12 reps. On the last one of these backoff sets I'd go near muscle exhaustion, as mentioned in the prior point. You do not want to go to muscle exhaustion on a heavy powerlifting set, due to risk of failing the weight and injury risk imho.
• To reduce time spent working out but keep volume high regardless, you can superset some or all of your lifts with opposite muscle groups. So if you do a set of bench, you can then do a set of back, bicep, rear delt, core or leg work. Just avoid hitting the same muscle group, so no tricep, front delt or chest. You can throw these in dynamically on certain days or also just certain exercises.

Generally, this is how I structure a workout:
- 1 primary compound movement, 3-5 sets, 60-80% 1rm, 5-15 reps (usually no more than 12)

- 1 opposite (quads/hams, chest/back, etc) secondary compound variation movement, usually 3 sets, 8-15 reps (I don't really have 1rms for these)

- 2-3 auxiliary/isolation lifts, 3 sets 8-15 reps, usually superset 2 of them

Sometimes I will do 1 heavier first set and then back off 10-15% for the rest, sometimes I will treat all my sets like AMRAPs, and back off if I'm struggling to stay in hypertrophy range (at least 5 reps), sometimes I will do a hard AMRAP backoff set or two if I am 3ish sets in and already feeling too tired to keep up with straight sets at my desired training weight... so to some extent, I am hitting most of those bullet points in one way or another. It depends on how I'm feeling that day. My aversion to high frequency is less about the quality of gym and more about my work capacity and ability to recover. Also my general commitment to exercise. When you start talking about 10+ hours in the gym over 5+ days a week, that's a part-time job. My most ambitious schedule right now is about half that, and when I hit all those days, I am pooped. 

So anyway, I am pooped. I hit all 4 workout days both of the last two weeks, and the fatigue from that became pretty obvious over last weekend. My body is still mostly used to 2-3 hard workouts per week. To exacerbate things, I spent a good 3-4 hours on Sunday gardening, pulling weeds, and digging up a few "weed trees" that have been hiding in the bushes and grown deep,  thick roots that require shovels and chains and all sorts of hard labor to remove. I was sore in all sorts of weird places and still pretty fatigued from a few hard weeks in a row. I took the last two nights off, and I'm leaning towards doing a couple deload type workouts to round out this week. Although, some death metal and a little good old-fashioned machismo might upgrade them to regular workouts, but we'll see what I feel like once my hands touch the bar this afternoon.

My weight has bounced back up, so maybe there's not a trend yet, but it's not something I'm going to antagonize over. C'est la vie.

If it's at all interesting to you, here's my citation for saying "I've also read that there's some evidence it doesn't matter too much beyond 100g or so total" (please ignore the casually gendered vernacular - the research being referenced was conducted on male and female athletes).

Quote

This suggests that bigger guys may not need more protein than smaller guys. Therefore, expressing protein recommendations as an absolute amount (e.g. 120g/d) might be more accurate than recommendations expressed per kilogram of bodyweight.

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/athlete-protein-intake/

On 6/26/2021 at 8:54 PM, Brovatar Korra said:

It appears Fit Genie basically just pulls all of its nutrition information from fat secret.com. So at least there are no dumb-dumb entries. The recommended calorie/macro goals it spits out is interesting - it has some high protein recommendations almost 1 g/lb. It is supposed to have a software that makes calorie/macro recommendation adjustments as your weight changes (based on goal of build muscle/lose fat) so I'm interested to see how that plays out.

First off, good on you for at least making an attempt to use a different program. I have experienced similar frustrations with MFP, and my solution was to give up on tracking completely. I'll be interested to see if Fit Genie is truly better. It seems like without some programmatic data entry, these sorts of apps will always be subject to human error, of which there seems to be a particularly high volume and intensity when it comes to calculating calories and macros from food.

1g/lb protein seems in line with a lot of what I've read about muscle growth,  unless that's changed in the last couple years. On second thought, I think that ratio is usually based on "lean muscle mass weight" vs actual weight. I've also read that there's some evidence it doesn't matter too much beyond 100g or so total. Still though, if the plan is to end up in a certain calorie range, and you're getting enough fat to regulate hormones, protein is probably a more useful macro to fill in the gaps than carbs or more fat.

On 6/23/2021 at 7:01 AM, h3r0 said:

A nice workout. Each squat I went butt to heels and paused before moving up. I was unaware that I was that mobile and could do that much ROM. Pigeon and shin box are paying off. 

I hadn't heard of shin box before so I ended up trying some out at the end of last week and was surprised to feel some tightness. After loosening up with them, I felt like my normal gait had suddenly taken on a "model going down the catwalk" feel because everything felt so much looser. I might end up working these into my routine a little more often. Glad to hear they are working well for you. 

Welcome, and good luck on the challenge.

With regards to barbells and spotters, I'm not sure what your gym provides, but most gyms have some sort of safety mechanisms you can (and should) set up to provide a place to drop the barbell and safely move out of the way. They're not always obvious so if you don't see them around, consider asking the gym staff about them if you do eventually want to try out more of the barbell activities (which I highly recommend).

I also want to reiterate what some other fine folks have said: soreness for a few days after lifting is completely normal, and can be worked through. Having only 1 arm be sore would be a little concerning for me, but it is possible, especially if it's your non-dominant arm, that there is a strength differential between your arms, which hopefully lifting will help balance.

8 hours ago, Hangrybear said:

Hey this is an absolutely solid (re)starting point and will allow for strength and aesthetic progress, but if you'd want to optimize, it would be good to know what your main goals are in regards to lifting. Is it strength, looks, health?  Which are you willing to sacrifice for the others, or is a balanced approach without large trade-offs desired? Do you want to be a jack-of-all-trades or have high performance in one area? 

I've said it in the past but it's worth repeating: as someone with no interest in competing, the difference between being able to lift 400 lbs and 500lbs has very little meaningful impact on my life, but there are myriad benefits to looking better, including (mental) health. At this point this mostly means losing fat (incidentally probably my biggest physical health risk factor as well), which has less to do with what types of workouts I do, more to do with diet/nutrition, and why I'm mostly fine just farting around with barbells. There are, however, some considerations I have to make when thinking about programming.

• For the next few months at least, I will be continuing to work out in my basement, which has a bench/squat rack, pull-up bar, adjustable DBs, and a low ceiling that prohibits me from doing anything (standing + overhead) and stuff like step-ups.
• I don't know that I care to spend 2+ hours 5-6 days a week cranking on mostly isolation lifts

These are the main reasons I'm not pursuing a true BB workout, even though my goals probably align best with bodybuilding. "Powerbuilding" is my compromise for the moment, and why I'm in the set/rep ranges I am. My current shenanigans were once, many moons ago, based on juggernaut.

In challenge news, I hit my first 2 workouts for the week as scheduled. Once upon a time back when I was doing Stronglifts 5x5, I would routinely get stuck at 225lbs on the bench, which sucks because I was very excited about pressing 2 plates. I deloaded and made fresh attempts a few times, but I always lost a few reps towards the end. I was also struggling with straight progression on many of my other lifts too at the time, and ultimately I switched to juggernaut before ever succeeding. For whatever reason, I don't think I have ever done that exact set/rep/weight scheme since (rarely if ever has 5x5 at 80+% 1rm been on the menu since then) but last night I knocked it out for the first time on a whim. So, there can be some cool moments when you make up your workouts as you go.

Also for the last couple days I've clocked in under 250lbs for the first time in a while. In the past few years, my lightest weight was 217, working out 4 nights a week, eating very low carb, and little-to-no drinking. Usually my equilibrium weight is around 240 (at least for the past 5ish years), so my quarantine weight is +10ish. I don't like to build goals/expectations around weight but it is nice to see a hint of the numbers trending downwards.

You know, it could be fortuitous that you stumbled in on the house when it was full of water. You could be like me and buy a house with a partially finished (carpeted, to be specific) basement, only to later discover that it does get water in it, and the people who flipped it only put the carpet down to  hide the asbestos tile underneath. Anyway, if you need any tips on how to retile a basement, I got you. 

4 hours ago, Hangrybear said:

Am I destined to be a specialist who puts all ability points in only 2 of 6 stats, rotating between which ones are prioritized after longer periods of dissatisfaction?

How do you mentally accept sacrificing performance in your current main priorities in order to have a more balanced set of skills if you have a competitive mindset?

To be fair, this is exactly how I play RPGs. I adapt to the situation and increase stats accordingly, occasionally overcompensating some places and allowing others to languish. It's a very human way of dealing with things. We're an adaptable species, and we're often prone to overcorrection. If your main complaint with yourself is that you're waiting and allowing yourself to be dissatisfied for too long, then it sounds like your course of action should be to evaluate your wants and desires, and make necessary adjustments, on a more frequent basis. Even if you are overcorrecting, more frequent calibrations should overall lead the trend lines towards the directions you want with less meandering. One thing this requires is confidence: confidence that you know what you want and need and that you know the steps to take, or have the means to find out, in order to achieve those things. In my experience, a lack of confidence has been the primary obstacle to assessing a situation and making the necessary changes to fix or improve that situation. You can't let opportunity costs get in the way of that. The grass will always be greener over in the "higher INT" camp, or wherever you're not currently.

Sounds like everyone's got a lot of tips for staying cool. I don't have too much to add there, but I can certainly commiserate with being miserable and sapped of energy in extreme heat. Hope things cool down for you soon.

Thanks everyone for all the welcome backs and the shared nostalgia. I too unsurprisingly played a boatload of D2 and D3 I am fairly excited to play the remaster. In the past few weeks I just closed out the most recent season (season 23 I think?) with a friend of mine, this time with a demon hunter. I think my favorite character in the series will always be the necromancer, because it's one of the few games where you can play a "good" necromancer. I don't think I ever had a Diablo LAN party, but we did install the original on a couple of the school computers during computer programming class in high school. A rebel nerd through and through I suppose. 

On 6/14/2021 at 12:38 PM, Stronkey Kong said:

 

Welcome back!

 

Unity eh? Cool.

 

I was actually studying Unreal Engine back in the fall (mainly cuz C++). I actually bought a course I never finished. Hmm... 🤔 Mebbe I should go finish it... at some point.

I've heard good things about Unreal, but as someone who has gotten very comfortable with the quality of life adjustments in higher-level languages (web technologies primarily), C# is much more appealing to me than C++. I was really interested in Godot as well because I think open source is great, but I wasn't thrilled about the idea of it having its own scripting language that wouldn't be transferable.

I didn't bother with any courses, but maybe I should have. Rather, I bought a $15 code asset from Unity's asset store as a launching off point, and then just started making stuff and tearing stuff apart, with lots of googling along the way. It's a much better way for me to learn. It may end up taking longer in the long run but practical application beats theory for me almost all of the time. I have since decided to rebuild everything from scratch, which has been pretty slow-going so far. Maybe if I eventually make enough progress to have something to show off, I will.

On 6/16/2021 at 12:21 AM, Scaly Freak said:

It is genuinely really good to see you again. Entropy aside, how've you been?

Good to hear from you as well. It's nice to see some familiar faces around. The short, polite answer is that I've been probably more or less the same since the last time I was around here.

I started the challenge off fairly strong. I got all 4 workouts in, which has been a rare feat of late. I had some drinks with friends on Friday, and one seltzer on Saturday. This works for me for now. I did not work on any side projects but I did make it most of the way through the first Witcher book, which I am trying to finish within the next week so I can return it to my gaming friend who lent it to me, now that we are back to gaming in person (he lent this book to me over a year ago).

No adjustments or updates for the coming week as of yet. Just gonna keep on keeping on.

Ahh you are learning Italian. At first I thought Italian was a new NF class ⚔️🍝 . In that case, mi scusi. Congrats on the good bill of health and good luck on the challenge.

14 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

That stuff isn't fresh anymore, and it feels like it's more daring to be optimistic and kind. So the fashion has come back around to Voyager, despite it being out of step at the time.

Hard agree. I still have yet to get through BSG for this exact reason. I tried firing it up in the middle of the pandemic and my brain was just like "absolutely not. If you want this just turn on the news."

26 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

There were massively progressive things and massively regressive things happening at the same time.

Ha, at least that's gotten better... wait...

Aaaaaanyways....

31 minutes ago, sarakingdom said:

But, bam, wacky alien bartender/cook in Voyager, and, bam, wacky alien doctor in Enterprise (though he was, strangely, the only character on Enterprise that actually worked).

I don't think it was strange at all! Phlox was excellent, and I will sing his praises from the hills at any opportunity. Even the most horny Denobulan episode was still an interesting take on polyamory/ethical-monogamy/not-predatory-polygamy or whatever. It wasn't perfect but probably more progressive than basically any scene with T'Pol in it. There were a number of occasions where his dedication to the hippocratic oath presented more interesting dramatic tension than most of the other characters in Enterprise could ever muster for any reason. None of the other cowards on that ship could stop Archer from doing war crimes like he could, and with such a bedside manner. Anyway, they work because they are real characters with feelings and convictions. Quark was an asshole but he at least had some characterization, and he had Rom to actually make that whole situation worthwhile at all. Ahh, Rom, a Ferengi after my own heart. Anyway, Neelix didn't have anything. He had Kes, but then, he just didn't?! And no one ever said anything about it ever again. Completely bizarre.

I relate to a lot of your struggles for this challenge. It feels vaguely familiar. In any case, it sounds like you are on the right track, and I genuinely hope your hypotheses prove correct and your solutions work well for you. I mirror the sentiments that your restrictions sound strict, but I do think strictness can work in your favor. I tend to agree with your assumptions that reducing and simplifying rewards can grant us an appreciation for rewards that are more effort and/or less intense. I'm interested to see what discoveries you continue to make on this journey.

On 6/13/2021 at 2:47 PM, shaar said:

The new forum format STILL OVERWHELMS ME A LITTLE but I’m gonna do my bessssssssssssst.

Hello, returning heavy-thing-lifter fellow here and experiencing this as well, but on the bright side I always kinda holed myself up with the Warriors and there are a ton of people I never got around to meeting, so now I get to learn amazing things like multi-classing in warrior and bard. Who knew? The doof warrior knew, I guess. So anyway, howdy. Weight lifting is also my thing, as is playing a ton of video games. I'll be tuning in as well. Best of luck!

Welcome back. Fellow returning/respawning rebel here to cheer you on. Sounds like you have a reasonable plan and expectations. Good luck!

Definitely here for the Voyager and general Trek commentary. I did not catch any Trek at all when it was fresh and new, and have only somewhat recently watched pretty much everything except the newest stuff in order, so my perspective is colored a little differently. I started out disliking DS9 due to it being so much more militaristic than the others, but I grew to really enjoy its commentary and complexity, all in spite of Quark, but I digress. I thought the tone of Voyager was refreshing after the dour later DS9 seasons. Without all that historical context, or the pressure or expectations, I was able to consume it all at face value and enjoy the powerful performances by Mulgrew and Russ in particular. The grating qualities of Neelix, however, transcend time and historical context. So it goes. Anyway, I think Janeway is a fantastic role model for this and any challenge and look forward to watching that power manifest through you. Good luck!

Hello old friends and friends to come. Stay awhile, and listen. It looks like it's creeping up on two years since I last attempted a challenge. I once again humbly offer myself to the rebellion in search of inspiration, motivation, and reinforcements in my battle with entropy.

Since Diablo 2: Resurrected is scheduled to be released later this year, I thought it a fitting challenge theme for my namesake. It's a remaster, so basically, it's a version of the game that should function more or less the same as the original, but look a lot better. Incidentally, this is exactly how I'd like to re-release myself to the world after The Year That Shall Not Be Named: essentially the same, but better-looking. 

I have been lifting heavy things with some regularity and something resembling progress since I was last around these parts in late 2019. However, like many, I did put on a few extra pounds in [YEAR REDACTED] and am now making a more concerted effort to remove those pounds. I have a lot of general knowledge around the diet and exercise requirements necessary to achieve my goal, but I don't have a plan for doing so, and I think that's fine. I'm not much of a planner, so I'd like to approach this challenge the way I tend to find success elsewhere in life: by the seat of my pants.

Since this is apparently a theme, I'm going to structure the challenge with maintenance goals (original), and stretch goals (remaster). That kinda works, right? I might refine them to be more specific over time, but I probably won't. Work out, drink less. That's the main game.

Original Goals:

• >= 2 workouts per week
• <= 2 days/nights with drinks per week (weekends, ideally)

Remaster goals:

• 4 workouts per week
• Work on side project(s) at least once a week
• Jeez, Idk, eat less/better??

In other news, I'm shopping around for a new lifting program, but I don't have the same enthusiasm for reading and researching that I did a few years ago. Enthusiasm in general has been in somewhat short supply. My current "programming" is just a hodge podge of 60-80% 1rm/7-9 RPE, 3+ sets, 5-12ish reps, and whatever accessories I feel like, depending on the day. It's not much of a program, but it's better than sitting on the couch with a beer. I'm kinda hoping some casual conversation around here can steer me in some direction eventually, but I'm also fine just winging it for the foreseeable future.

Also, over the last few months I've been teaching myself game development in Unity, so that's the main side project I've been trying to carve out some time for every week. It's somewhat relevant to the theme, but I don't have any specific goals for it yet either. Happy to talk anyone's ear off about that, but for now I'm mostly just learning and tinkering. 

Happy birthday, fellow long-torso-dadbod-haver 🎂

Hey man, it's been a while. I like the new, or maybe not that new, user name. Good luck on the house stuff. Around here, people are offering 30k+ over asking and waiving inspections, that's how nuts the market is right now. Hopefully it's not as bad where you are.

Here's may participation in the game: I'd buy the cheapest one, flip it or rent it, put the cash into an investment account, quit my job and live off dividends. GG EZ