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[nenjin]

No One Cares How Much You Lift

Brought to you by chubbyemu. There doesn't seem to be anything this guy hasn't done on his channel. Gaming. Powerlifting. Insanely detailed cause/effect medical case studies.

The message here is pretty simple: "You don't lift for anyone else but yourself. You lift because, on a day, you will be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday. And god willing, you will be a better version of yourself tomorrow than you are today."  You're not doing it for attention. You're not doing it for the rewards it will bring you, although there are plenty to be had. You're doing it because because you want to be better. That's the essence of self-motivation.

[nenjin]

2019 ended rather poorly on the Fitness front and 2020 isn't off to exactly a rocket start.

I'd planned on a 1 or 2 break at the end of 2019. I knew I needed it, the signs were all there. There was the holidays to do and travel and it seemed like a decent time to take a break.

And then I went and got the sickest I've been in probably a decade or more. Started with a fever, muscle pain, a dry cough. Then it progressed into some kind of bronchitis and sore throat. I was sick for a good two weeks. Lost my voice almost completely for a week. I'm better now but it has been slow coming back. My throat still feels kinda messed up in spots. My voice is back but I've lost certain ranges. I'm told it will come back eventually. So I spent Christmas, my birthday, New Years and most of my break from work sitting around feeling like garbo. The doctor said it wasn't even Influenza which has been scything through my town the last couple of weeks. It was something else.

I've been slow to get back to my workouts. The first couple I did were....tough. My grip strength was the first thing I noticed had really tanked. The doms were pretty intense, especially as I started changing up exercises to things I haven't done before or done in a long while. Things are still coming up which have given me excuses to skip a workout to two. Did some serious eating over the holidays, going off my plan.

I'm not worried per se. It's just about getting back into the rhythm which I know I can do. It's just....was hoping to start strong but getting sick absolutely kicked my legs out from under me. A little disappointed? that it took me down so hard and recovery from it has been so slow. Was starting to mistakenly think I was bullet proof for this sort of stuff.

On the plus side, despite not working out and eating too many low quality calories for a few days, I've lost body fat. I was probably eating half of what I normally do for a good week and a half while I was sick. That tends to be my MO these days: when I work out, I eat somewhere below maintenance. When I'm not working out, I eat a good deal below maintenance.

So while the year didn't start off very strong, I definitely have gotten the rest I need. Now I just need to get the ball rolling again, get back in to the part of the year when there's not much going on to distract me from my routine. After this workout and "cheat week", I think I'm in a good place to drop the last little bit of body fat I've been looking to lose. No idea when or how long, but I think this is the year I finally get to call myself lean.

[NRDL]

2020's gonna be interesting for me, strength training wise. I'm seriously planning on running a modified version of Doug Hepburn's routine, for the squat, deadlift and overhead press. Along with the pull up and the dip, I'm gonna try and progress as much as I can in one year with this frame work.

I'm also looking into fasting. I want to lose some body fat, but I'm also trying to get my Dad into it. So it's kind of a solidarity thing.


Haven't been able to properly get to my gym for a few weeks, so I've just been doing pull ups. Managed to do 120 in 40 minutes, by doing 3 pull ups a minute. Tomorrow I'm going to try doing 5 pull ups a minute, and see how far I can go with that.

[notquitethere]

My 2020 fitness goals are to get below 20 minutes on a 5km run and be able to touch my palms to the ground without bending my knees.

Currently, my pb is 22.47, and I can touch my toes just fine.

[JoshuaFH]

You're notquitethere, but it's clear you have room for improvement.

[Ulfarr]

It's good to hear that you are back in action Nenjin. NRDL and notquitethere, I hope you reach and exceed your goals this year 

On my part, after a disastrous (both exercise and nutrition wise) autumn and a slightly better December where I somehow managed to cram in a few good workouts despite the increased workload, I'm finally doing well on keeping a somewhat consistent workout schedule.

Nutrition is a whole other issue though. I've managed to shed the kilos I got during autumn but my fat percentage is higher than what I want and I'm really struggling to adapt to a deficit diet once again.

[Kagus]

I'm just gonna sneak in here and mention that the Norwegian word for deadlift is apparently "Markløft". "Mark" means "ground" (archaically, nowadays it's mostly used to specifically refer to things like fields, plains, and woodlands), and "løft" is indeed "lift", so the word then becomes "groundlift", as in lifting from the ground.

...however, "mark" has another definition. It's the word for worms. So I've been practicing my wormlifts today.

[Ulfarr]

Tomorrow is

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

cock push up day then.

Sorry, wormlifts were too good of a setup to pass. For anyone worrying about nsfw content, the link is for a clip from tenacious d and the pick of destiny, on YouTube.

[notquitethere]

Thanks Ulfarr, and good job on getting some workouts in.

JoshuaFH, that's always how I envisioned the username-- questing after an improvement, but never fully arriving as there is always more improvement that can be made.

[nenjin]

In an effort to make up for lost days, I wormlifted and squatted yesterday, somewhere below what I normally do just to warm up to my normal numbers. Then I did my regular Wednesday workout today. I'm going to give more focus to shoulders in 2020 (OHP, either barbell or dumbell, side laterals with an aim to raise my weights, and varieties of rear delt work from bent over dumbell flies, to bent over dumbbell raises, to machine reverse flies.)

....But man am I going to hate life tomorrow. I normally do my leg work on the weekend so I can walk awkwardly for two days in relative ease. The second day after leg day, the DOMS are usually worse than the first. Tomorrow errything is going to hurt.

If this is doable though, I'm going to add another day too, and change my routine to Mon - Upper, Tuesday - Lower, Thursday - Upper, Friday - Lower. We'll see. I've yet to feel like I'm up to full speed. At least my appetite is back though!

[Reelya]

If this is doable though, I'm going to add another day too, and change my routine to Mon - Upper, Tuesday - Lower, Thursday - Upper, Friday - Lower. We'll see. I've yet to feel like I'm up to full speed. At least my appetite is back though!

Coincidentally, this is the same days I'm now aiming for. Day 1, Overhead Press, Day 2, Wormlifts, Day 3 Floor Bench Press, Day 4, Squats, as the main lifts. Three sets of a lighter weight, aimed at 15 reps then three sets of a higher weight aimed at < 8 reps. I also do three other related lifts per day, total sets = 4 exercises with two groups of 3 reps = 24 total sets, for a total of about 275 total reps in about 48 minutes. I'm sure this isn't quite optimal, it's sort of cobbled together from reading about different systems.

[nenjin]

Omg, the DOMs. The DOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMs. My legs feel like petrified wood right now.

On the other hand, my upper body isn't bad today. It usually takes a workout or two after a break before the DOMs come back to manageable levels.

I do around 300 reps in an hour and some change. Except leg day, which I just keep to wormlifts and squats and do about 50 reps in 45 minutes or so. I keep wanting to add more to my leg day but after those two lifts, my lower back feels tired and kinda tight and I worry about putting it under additional strain doing ab work or things like glute bridges etc....

Going to be difficult getting in two leg days a week though if I'm too sore and stiff even 4 days after my first session.

[nenjin]

*puts out the call on Facebook for used weights, because I need more than 30 pound dumbbell for the gym at work to synch up with the rest of my workouts*

*former employee finds basically a starter barbell set with plates and a rack and everything, worth probably $600+, for just $175*

*talk to the boss the next day and he says we don't want any more free weights because he doesn't want the liability, and would only accept machines, which we have exactly zero room for*

Kinda sucks. I get it, if you charge for a gym membership you assume liability to some degree. But it's like.....if you want to actually succeed, you can't shoot yourself in the fucking foot with limitations like that. A rowing machine, a tread mill, two bikes, two combination machines and some dumbbells is great and all when you're starting out, but it's not enough once you're not a noobie anymore. I guess it sort of fits with his whole "incubator" philosophy about the building space. I guess when you're serious enough about fitness, you find somewhere else to work out. Just like when you're successful enough in your business, you move out of our offices.

Guess I'll just eventually buy my own dumbbells and sneak them in to work.

[Ulfarr]

*Two weeks later*

HR: Why would you like to work with our company mr. Nenjin? As I see it, until recently you held a better paying position than what we currently offer.

N: Ah, it's a simple reason really. You have that sweet Swolenmaschine 9000 in your company's gym.

[nenjin]

I'm back, baby!

So far 4 workouts a week has gone smoother than I thought it would. I expected to be super sore and super low energy. It's amazing to me how I can be crippled for 4 days after not doing legs for a few weeks.....and now I'm doing it twice a week with slightly more volume and I'm not even sore the next day. The human body truly is a special machine.

I think this means I can start going heavier. TBH not even more shoulder workouts are leaving me sore the next day (although I'm not really putting up the numbers that make me happy.) Because I don't really want to spend even more time a day working out and doing more sets and reps, I'll need to jack up the weight on everything pretty much.

I guess I just really needed a break. I feel stronger than before I got sick, able to take more punishment. Let the 2020 gains begin.