***The 2020 Gym Rats Thread*** ᕦ( ͠°◞ °)ᕥ

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This week has been tough, either barely reaching my targets or missing entirely. The combination of long working days and not having had a week off from the gym since the end of the first lockdown has left me shattered. Up to this point I’ve made decent gains week on week, but I feel really weak this week.

So. Next week. Do I take the week off completely to rest or do I hit muscle groups, but light and for reps?
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
This week has been tough, either barely reaching my targets or missing entirely. The combination of long working days and not having had a week off from the gym since the end of the first lockdown has left me shattered. Up to this point I’ve made decent gains week on week, but I feel really weak this week.

So. Next week. Do I take the week off completely to rest or do I hit muscle groups, but light and for reps?
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Pump work. Beach weights.
 
Somnambulist said:
Too many similar movements, too many sets, which I’m guessing are a bit easy as if I did 7 sets of bench I’d have nothing left for any other pressing.

Pick a couple of compounds for that day - ideally in different planes of movement - do like 6-8 sets total, then do a couple of sets of isolations for chest/tris/side delts. A good rule of thumb supported by the research is something like 10-20 hard* (as in <3 reps in the tank) sets per body part per week over 2-3 sessions.

Past the beginner stage, doing more is better than doing less for gains, but only up to a certain point: as you increase volume you get into something like diminishing returns where you can keep adding more but it doesn’t do anything more for you and just extends your workout time needlessly (called ‘junk volume’). Add more still and you start going down the other side of the hill where progress is slower, non-existent or you even start to backslide because the amount of work you’re doing is past your ability to recover from it properly for the next session. Something that always stuck with me I heard years ago was ‘do as little as you need to do to keep progressing’ - so if you’re not a complete beginner and doing say 12 sets for chest each week (both from compound and iso work combined) and lifts are all going up, why add more gym-time doing 13-20 sets if you don’t have to?

*most people don’t train hard enough and their ‘2 from failure’ actually turns out to be 5+ from failure when actually pushed in a sports science lab getting screamed at by a spotter - you can get a LOT out of a few sets if they’re done with focus and intensity. I don’t like training to failure but sometimes doing it for a session or two in a safe way can be illuminating as to what you can actually do vs what you think you’re doing and get you better at judging reps in the tank.
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Yeah I only did 5 sets of BP for last session, highest I went was 4 reps. Did 3 sets to failure, no clips. (so bar dropped 3 times). 3 OHP. 3 sets of DB Floor Press. 3 sets of CGBP. And at the end superset of skullcrushers/lateral raises for 3 sets.

Now I am just wondering whether to have a 5 day or 6 day routine. I was 5 days whilst at the gym and everything progressing ok so don't think I should change it as I tried 6 days last week and I was pretty tired tbh. This week back to 5. Only reason I wanted 6 is to increase BP lol..

What's the best accessory exercises to increase BP? I can CGBP 70KG for 5 reps but max reps at 80KG BP is 4 so I think my chest is holding me back.
 
B&W said:
What's the best accessory exercises to increase BP? I can CGBP 70KG for 5 reps but max reps at 80KG BP is 4 so I think my chest is holding me back.
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How long has your bench stalled for? Maybe look at where your recovery could be lacking ie macros/calories sleep stress. Maybe go down to 75kg and try to put more reps on there each week.
 
iBSOD said:
How long has your bench stalled for? Maybe look at where your recovery could be lacking ie macros/calories sleep stress. Maybe go down to 75kg and try to put more reps on there each week.
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I would say almost 2 months. Since I started gym I've lost about 10 pounds, I am eating about a few hundred calories short of maintenance on most days but a few it is normal.

Sleep is good. No stress.
 
B&W said:
I would say almost 2 months. Since I started gym I've lost about 10 pounds, I am eating about a few hundred calories short of maintenance on most days but a few it is normal.

Sleep is good. No stress.
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Assuming your macro nutrients are good, i think maybe you should change your programming for bench. I am not very knowlegable on this tho so I'll let someone else answer :p

I would expect gaining strength to be a lot more difficult in a deficit. Looks like youre doing well so far tho. Keep it up!
 
B&W said:
I would say almost 2 months. Since I started gym I've lost about 10 pounds, I am eating about a few hundred calories short of maintenance on most days but a few it is normal.

Sleep is good. No stress.
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Past the 'new to lifting' stage and as you get progressively lighter when dieting, it becomes more and more difficult to make good progress on lifts and the goal often ends up being just to maintain weight on the bar, so I wouldn't be surprised you're stalling on bench if you're spending most of your time in a deficit atm.

I'd imagine you'll progress fine once you finish the diet and do some form of bench a couple of times a week; things like obvious weak points and specific work to rectify those don't tend to crop up until you've been lifting a while and have really settled in to certain movement patterns and are like a machine in terms of performing reps, bath path and all that sort of stuff.
 
Funny, last week I really struggled. Had a good rest on Saturday and have since bounced back with most of my lifts feeling good again. Desperate to get my fractional plates for Christmas.
 
Sometimes you just need a good rest and sometimes you need lots of caffeine!

I tried a different approach with deadlifts today, went online and found out how to do them with proper form first... Bar over middle of shoes, shins touching bar, and shoulders over bar, also learned how to take the slack out the bar. And then instead of bouncing at the bottom, put it down and lift back again. Was a lot easier tbh, managed a new PR of 125Kg too.

I did the breathing in before lifting and exhale once its down. What is the que for the lats, do you need to squeeze them together? I'm sure once you start lifting they start squeezing anyway?
 
Gym’s back open on the 2nd, praise be to the god of gains.

Weights still haven’t arrived but Lockdown 3 will so be a thing so haven’t cancelled my order and tbf they did say average weight time would be 3 weeks or so and I ordered on the 6th, so still time this week for delivery.
 
Yeah, gyms opening back up. Not sure what I'm going to do. I am actually enjoying my new timing as it means I have more free time for myself in the evening.

Before I would goto bed at 10 now I can sleep at just before midnight.

On the other side, there's a few things at the gym I can't do right now. Mainly pull/chin ups, dips ( I need to adjust the rack tbh but last time I wasted 5 minutes and it still wasn't at the right position).

Also lack of dumbbells. I may go weekends.
 
I know a couple of people were interested in my posts back in August about starting to use an online coach.

Thought I'd post a quick update, end of August I was 250lb which is a big old weight to be carrying at 5'5. The main day to day effect it has when I'm that heavy is it aggravates the Chronic compartment syndrome which I suffer from in my lower legs. This means that I can barely walk 100m without my legs being in agony and needing to rest until it clears, carrying extra weight/bloat is when I really notice this.

So I started with a coach just after the August BH. Since then I've had weekly check ins changing up my food/cardio as needed and generally giving me that kick in the right direction that I've been missing for far too long.

I've found a new and totally unexpected love for my cardio, something I've never been a big fan of and had ignored in my training for the best part of a decade. I'm holding muscle mass pretty well and generally feeling much better and healthier. I was becoming genuinely worried about my heart attack risk towards the end of the last lock down.

I'm now a touch under 20lb down, 231.5lb at my last check in. I walk for 3+ miles pain free each afternoon as part of my cardio while the gyms are shut or hit 20-30miles on the bike when I'm in the gym. The weekend just gone I completed something I didn't think I'd be able to do which was walk up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrekin without any stops and without my legs giving up on me, not much for most people but massive for me.

Most importantly I fit in my clothes again, so no change of wardrobe needed :D

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