sbacon82

Congratulations on the new addition!

Moving week! We have had the keys for a while to our new house but things are finally cleaned up and painted and we are moving in. The result has been ENDLESS farmers carries and a few atlas lifts here and there lol. I hate moving!!!!!! I am going to vent for just a second here about a fallen hero. There is a certain Doctor that is charismatic, convincing and cut as all he**. He had me hookline and sinker. I was devouring every single piece of information that he had online for free and I figured I would just go all the way and pay to sign up for his website. Huge mistake. His diet plans are absolutely riddled with his brand of supplements and all the workouts pretty much require a gym membership. I am disheartened....but I get it. He’s an opportunist and he’s good at it. Unfortunately his path is not my path. Cancelling that membership now. i still don’t have my power cage assembled but, I guess getting the new house is “more important” than my new toy lol. (I love my wife...I would never get ANYTHING done without her). I am sticking to my plan though of mixing strength training and calisthenics based out of my home gym using minimal equipment. Ah well. If I can’t join that guy’s army, I will just be an army of one.

Good morning! I recently purchased a fitness reality 810xlt. Who else has this rack? What accessories have you found that fit it and you really like? I have a million ways to do dips so I am dodging the dip bars. Just looking to see what if anything I should be adding to the old shopping list!

Man is it ever hard to remember to update this!! But here’s the benefit to doing it. I looked back and as of my first post, I am officially down 10 lbs! I weighed in this morning at 165. I have been experimenting on myself myself quite a bit lol. I am currently on day 2 of 16:8 intermittent fasting. I am a little hungry but it isn’t dehabilitating. I feel good. I still have a layer of fat but in the long run I have made so much progress visually that it’s crazy! My current problem is that I didn’t/don’t have the muscle mass to support it and I kinda look....well....little. But the caveat to that, is that I am still a few weeks out from being able to purchase a set of plates. I got a killer deal on a brand new power cage though! Somebody didn’t set it up and it is still in the box but I got it for a used price. I can’t justify any kind of bulk until I have a lot of stuff to lift. I won’t ever dirty bulk. E-v-e-r. So just a slow caloric increase and a combination of heavy lifting and calisthenics. Every ounce of progress is a HUGE motivator. I feel better than I have felt in years!

Thank you so much for the reply! I will feel better about them when I get my legs horizontal! I am combining calisthenics and power lifting. I know it will be a long road but in then end aesthetics, power and movement are the goals. I am am glad I have this community to help along the way!

Just curious here...I can’t get my legs straight or parallel to the ground. Straight. I feel may be a flexibility issue. Parallel, though...what exercises can I supplement with to start improving that? Or is it just L-sits until I am blue in the face? for the record, I am doing them on parallettes.

Current status - on vacation with three little girls under the age of 7. The day after we return, we have ear tube surgery for our oldest first thing in the morning (5amish). That afternoon, children’s services is bringing us three foster kids that will be with us long term. So shortly there after, we are moving to a new house....with 6 kids...ages 11, 6, 3, 3, 2, 2. On the upside, after the move I will have a permanent workshop AND we will have a permanent home gym. I think I will need both.

Haha love it. Thanks for the nod! The only thing we have found that even comes close to working is to burn the energy off. Great day for a park or a pool or something similar. It only KIND OF works. There will still be over tired meltdowns and so on and so forth. They aren’t like us. Exceed our TDEE and we want to hold down the couch the rest of the night. They get stuck in berserk mode and just go until full tilt. This is the trade off for a break for a night I think.

Man, remembering to do things is hard! Like...you know...posting here haha. I did something bad. I don’t know what. But it resulted in prednisone and lots of neck pain. My GUESS is an ugly set of deadlifts. The doctor said take it easy for a few days. She meant not to work out, I heard “take the plates off the bar and do stuff anyway”. So far so good. And my neck is feeling better. I am now now in the 160’s for the first time in years and it appears to be fat that I am losing. I only really have a ton of fat in my torso. If I start seeing firmness there, I am going to do a slow caloric build into my bulk and cut my three month goal a little short. There are just some areas that, losing any more size will start to make me look like a heroin addict. So cutting is a little nerve wracking for me from the get go. Just being careful!

First off, thank you for the response. Feedback is super important in all things! I guess i didnt really post a post a complete picture in retrospect. I do cardio...I hate cardio....but I do it. We have an elliptical that I use 15 minute warmup before each workout. 20 minutes on off days. I also change it up from time to time and go at the heavy bag for 20 minutes. I used to be a fairly decent martial artist so that’s pretty natural to me. The above is done monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday I follow my cardio with 3 sets of planks to failure, three sets of hollow holds to failure, body weight tricep dips and some more intense stretching following the NF flexibility challenge. The reason I chose those particular ab exercises is to develop more core stability in preparation for heavier weight down the road. The “bulk” I mentioned, I plan to do slow. That’s why it is 6months long. I have a tendency to collect weight in one spot because prior to this journey I didn’t eat right. I am adhering to TDEE and macro based goals in an effort to correctly gain some size. My current build is skinny-fat. I need some size...I can’t even find a stupid watch that looks right on my wrists. The plan to add pullups is there, but right now, I can’t even do ONE. I am hoping the above compound exercises assist me in that effort and here in a couple weeks I plan to buy a band to assist in pull-ups. I am currently doing a fairly clean whey protein shake for post workout. I am curious why 4x12 when most people recommend lower reps at a higher weight. I’m not criticizing. I don’t know enough to criticize. I’m just trying to learn.

First of all, a little background. I am currently a skinny-fat dude. I am 35 years old 5’10” 175 lbs and squishy. I have always been a little guy and I want to change that but I also want to look good with my shirt off. Not for picking up women, I am happily married and to be honest, I want the confidence of having a good body and I want my wife to be wowed as well. In the midst of this, I want to be a lot stronger and retain mobility. Heres what I have going on: my current program consists of 4 compound movements Squat Dead Lift Overhead Press Bench i am spending the next three months cutting to lose my gut and some extra flab here and there. Following that, I plan to do a 3-4 month bulk. Potentially doing StrongLifts or a similar program all powerlifting style. Then i I plan to do a strict cut for another three months to see where my deficits are before I even worry about isolation exercises. I dont need to look look like a body builder really, but reasonable definition in my arms, chest, abs and legs would be great. While getting stronger and regaining some mobility. Am I on the right path for kind of a hybrid physique?

This week has been a whirlwind with my wife being gone at our church’s vacation bible school every weekend and me still having at least one kid every night. I haven’t really had a chance to post, but I haven’t skipped any workouts! Just a minor update, I am down to 172. This could be fluctuation, but the scale has been there for a couple days (had to do a couple days because I didn’t believe it the first time. I don’t REALLY care about the scale, but it is still a minor victory. Update on equipment: I have a friend that is trying to buy a smith machine and is selling off some of his other stuff. I picked up an Olympic barbell and a free standing punching bag (because running sucks, and bag work is great cardio). My workout hasnt drastically changed due to my lack of equipment but I have added in 15 second intervals of planks, side planks and hollow holds. Not because I think it will give me killer abs, bro. I decided that while I was working on gathering equipment, it could be helpful to develop more core stability in preparation for heavier weight. We leave on vacation in 2 weeks. When we come back, I am ready to focus on a more TDEE/macro based nutrition plan. I have been writing meal plans etc. Defying the “dadbod” since 2018!

Looks like I missed a day on my battle log, so this is for yesterday! Exercise got derailed yesterday. I slept wrong or something and ended up having to go to the chiropractor. He told me to take it easy for the remainder of the day....so I did. Food....well it wasn’t great. My wife took a half day yesterday and we had some running to do. Breakfast-none snack-none lunch-wildfire chicken salad from Bob Evans snack-none dinner-a bowl of cereal yeah, that’s ugly! When I read back through here, it really looks like I am eating at way too big of a caloric deficit. I am probably burning muscle for energy. That’s not going to work. I am planning on eating a little more today.

Oh no! Attack on Titan season 3 is on VRV! So much for my goals! (totally kidding)

Monday came and went. More of the big compound movements today. My weights didn’t increase necessarily (mainly because I own no more plates lol) but I changed stuff up a little. Instead of doing them in a circuit at 3x8, I did 5x5s without a circuit. Deadlift - 90 lbs umm this needs to go up 5x5 with NO fatigue on my last set. Overhead press - 25 lbs. same as deadlift. No fatigue. Disappointing lol squat - this is a struggle for me only because of my knees. I put the bar down and took away the assist from the chair. Body weight only but all the way down. I can only hope this will get better! pushups - 5x5. I honestly struggled a little bit at the end and I am good with that. I won’t forever. I am being stubborn. I don’t want to buy any more of the 1” plates because I am digging around for a used Olympic bar so I don’t want to invest in one system only to never use it again. I just don’t recover much money selling it. Meals were....meh today. breakfast - yogurt and a banana snack none lunch - left over slow cooker chicken and salsa snack - none dinner - some lean cuisine meal post workout - protein shake I could have...SHOULD HAVE done better. I have been absorbing WAY too much noise watching trainers on YouTube. It is just clouding my mind and making me think I am not doing the right things. But honestly, when I stop listening to the Abercrombie models and CrossFit celebrities I feel like I am. I am treading water right now (figuratively) I am doing what I can do with what I have and focused on just doing SOMETHING. We have a couple weeks until vacation. When we get back, I am going to start making moves especially with nutrition. My goal over the next year is to cut for the next three months, bulk for 6 and then do a hard cut for three which will just about land me at the first day of summer which was my goal date all along. I am switching my nutrition to something strictly TDEE/Macro based and currently creating a spreadsheet for the macro nutrients of some of my favorite foods (NERD fitness, remember?) to make it an easier task. I was kidding myself believing that what I wanted would be simple to get. But now I’m all in.