Strength / Weight Training

Bit of a milestone today! The first week since catching COVID my weight has stabilised. From 102kg down to 87kg over four months and finally held steady this week. It’s weird how demoralising it is people saying ‘you’ve lost weight!’, or noticing how clothes aren’t fitting right. Great when I was losing weight for cycling, awful when it’s unintentional. Excited to start building back up at last.

Gonna enter a powerlifting comp early next year too. Open Worlds has got me hyped and my last one was a few years ago at 105kg so if I can hang around the 93kg class I can tell myself everything’s a PR even if numbers don’t go up.

Congratulations on the milestone and on stablizing! That does sound rough. Road to recovery!

It's got a QR buckle and everything!

Wait til you try it! With a flick you can breathe!

Trying to get a normal belt open can be a struggle! I know this all too well!

Got goaded into testing my OHP, which I haven't had in my programme at all (DB seated press instead).
Very nicely surprised to lift 60kg as a 1rm.

First stage of 1234 unlocked 😂

Enjoying lifting again, after last trying 10 years ago. Regret giving it up now!
Late to the talk of apps and sheets, prefer to log my lifts into a google sheet while at the gym. It works while I'm doing the same lifts and similar reps & gives some nice outputs.

Making good progress, against % body weight, after 9 weeks (3x5 or 3x3 when trying to get the weight up).

That's cool

That's quite a nice layout - didn't think of using google sheets to track workouts & generate a graph on the hoof, might import my excel version into that as it would save maintaining 2 sets of dataz. I do like to keep track of progress - helps motivation no end here.

I'm also regretting that I stopped the gym, been back for about 3 months but i'm still a bit off where I was 2-3 years ago. Still, it's a target & should be achievable - was getting to the point I was struggling with most exercises at 5x5 though, should be back at that level by Christmas, then i'll undergo a dedicated recovery phase & mix it up a bit in the New Year.

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I think I'd have too many exercises for a tracker like that....

If I did many more i'd probably lose interest tbf

A colleague spends about 2 hrs per day in the gym - no idea how she keeps track of it all - so many different exercises, plus there's a whole variation of reps/weights too for each day

I spend about that at the moment... I currently track it on paper.

I have 4-5 main exercises that are properly tracked in a spreadsheet (S/B/D/OHP/pull up), and then for my accessories (usually 1-2 main exercises and 3-5 accessory exercises a session) I text message myself the sets/reps/weight. I need a better system.

I've started using the Strong app and that works pretty well for me. Set up workout templates and then also easy to add exercises/sets/reps on the fly if you do something slightly different to what you planned.

ah cheers. for now I've just made another tab on my spreadsheet. marginally more faff than my previous system but probably worth it.

some kind of personalised lifting app is the only time I've ever felt like my abilities as a developer would actually be useful to me (outside of having a job) and yet i'm too lazy to do it.

I've started using the Strong app and that works pretty well for me. Set up workout templates and then also easy to add exercises/sets/reps on the fly if you do something slightly different to what you planned.

Is there a way to historically add my workouts to this? This seems cool

I think you can add a workout and edit the date to be in the past but that would be massive faff for more than a few workouts. Can't see any option for a mass upload I'm afraid.

I wouldnt expect a mass upload as all mine are on a pad i take in to the gym with me.

It looks as though they use txt files to store history, so you could try creating a bunch and copying them to your phone.

So with a combo of working out, cycling and running my gut flab is finally down to a level I am happy with. Time to try upping the calories again to see what this can do for my weight lifting.

But how long after a workout will the extra calories go towards muscle rather than just flab? Same day? Same day and day after?

It’s days rather than hours. It depends on how much damage/adaption you’ve forced to a degree. If you’re working out more than twice a week I wouldn’t worry about it.

Additional calories over what you need to repair that damage/help adaption will go straight to flab though. Just a part of the weight gain process.

Shoes. Is there such a thing as trainers that won't get squished when squatting but are also fine for a bit of treadmill running?

Nike Metcon or Free Metcon depending on if you're leaning more towards the squats or the running. Also kind of depends on your running technique because if you heel strike then you'd probably be better off with 2 different shoes.

Older metcons used to come with heel lifts in the box but my 7's didn't so if that's something you think you'll use try and find some 6's

As dry says generally crossfit shoes are designed with this kind of thing in mind.

I'd say that chuck taylors or vans old skool are fine too. I prefer a heel when squatting now, but used to do all of my lifts in chucks, usually bought from tk maxxx for less than £20. No cushioning for the running side but that's not that big of an issue imo, esp for shorter distances.

I find chucks or vans ruin my feet when running because I have slightly high arches and haven't found decent aftermarket insoles. I'll see if I can try on the metcons somewhere.