Strength / Weight Training

That looks really sore though. Ouch.

I’d also recommend some decent bands - the resistance these apply can mean fewer plates are necessary and they can be used for others exercises too.

Tried that men's health amrap circuit w/ 5kg dumbbells this morning, was NOT easy. I am out of shape.

Love Turkish get ups. You can easily do them with a dumbbell. But you can also try to ask nicely if the gym could buy more kettlebells so that they get 2kg intervals.

I’m an instructor in a gym and we love to get these inputs from members, so we know what equipment to buy next.

Does anyone have a good myprotein discount code? (Other whey proteins considered)
Thank you. ❤️

Bands are lethal! I’ve twatted myself in the face at least twice with them haha!

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I did have a go at 20 kg , a leap from 16
i made it , if a bit wobbly .
Maybe if I started with 20kg

Thanks friend. Will give these a bash. :)

You can also break the movement up a bit to practice which helps with getting used to heavier weights - e.g. do reps of the first part from the floor to having the bell extended above your head in the bridge position & back down again / then some reps of kneeling to standing, again with the bell above you / then stand up & practice the last part coming back down.

turns out getting knee sleeves on is a bit hard huh...

Any tips for overcoming plateaus doing chin ups? I've been stuck at 18 for some time now.
Time for some weighted ones at lower reps?

The harder the better

Could also try getting a band to help you to do more reps
Practice hanging for grip strength

18 is amazing. never been at that level, but when i was a bit... ahem... lighter, and did a lot of pull ups once I could do 8 I did a mix of higher rep bodyweight sets and lower rep weighted sets.

There's also the russian fighter pull up program - https://www.strongfirst.com/the-fighter-pullup-program-revisited/ - you could do the weighted variation.

But yeah, add weight at this point I reckon. if you don't fancy the program above you can find your 2rep max (2 rep max cause easy to accidentally cheat a bit on rep 1 of a chin/pull up) and try to do 3-5 sets of 5 at 85-95% of that weight (where 100% is your bodyweight plus whatever you hang off you) you'll be in a good spot.

had to search online for tips to make it easier, had to do that for a lot of things but never putting on an item of clothing before...

how's your finger by the way?

I've been adding 3 sets on the assisted machine at end of session to really push to exhaustion, but good point might try some bands to mix it up.

had to search online for tips to make it easier, had to do that for a lot of things but never putting on an item of clothing before...

Lol... I kinda fight with it up my shins, roll mine up then fold it over under the knee and roll it up.

Finger is getting better. I can flex it so no tendon rupture. The tip might be fractured but can't do anything about it so I've buddy taped it. (thanks to some really helpful guidance)
I managed to go to the gym today but only did push exercises so didn't put pressure on the finger (bar rested on my palms). Seemed OK. Can't train tomorrow and Saturday I'll probably do legs or abs.

Cheers for asking.

yeah i found folding them over themselves helped a lot.

Glad to hear it's not as bad as it could have been. hopefully it can handle some pressure in the near future for pulls. if not i guess there's always those figure 8 strongman straps.

I got a set so will give em a go probably in Monday

First of all - be careful to not wreck your elbows.

That said, there are a handful of things to try: add weight - fairly straightforward.

Train different grip positions/width etc. Palms facing/facing away, narrow grip and wide grip.

Do offsets (one hand higher than the other). One of the easiest ways to do it is by hanging a towel over the bar and using that as the lower grip. Good work on your grip too. You can also swap the towel for a resistance band, but it’s a lot harder than with a towel as it’s basically a one arm chin-up minus whatever assistance the band can provide (which often isn’t much).

Do negatives - jumping to the top position and doing a controlled lowering, do these when you can no longer complete a rep normally. You can also do them with 1 arm for a particularly savage workout, NB doing one arm negatives is fairly traumatic so do it as the main part of the workout rather than at the end.

Superset bicep curls before doing chins so that your back is having to do more of the work.

pull ups - be careful to not wreck your elbows

Yup... This was me

Some really good pointers here, thank you. Also thanks @zooeyzooey for the link to that program.

Plenty of rest between sessions should hopefully keep me from blowing up my elbows, fingers crossed.

I have been mixing up between under and neutral grip, need to throw in more overhand ones but I REALLY struggle with wide overhand, my shoulders really don't like that.

The towel offsets sound properly hardcore so look forward to trying those out. Will do a progress (or not!) report in 6 weeks or so. Thanks again!

wide overhand

I think most ppl do... Its hard. I certainly do.

but I REALLY struggle with wide overhand, my shoulders really don't like that.

It sounds like you’ve identified your weakness tbh. It’s definitely worthwhile working on the ones you find hardest rather than just overtraining the ones you’re best at.