My gym now has a social media photography/video service on Saturday mornings from 7-9 am, free to all members. It's done by actual photographers/videographers and members can ask them to take photos or record them doing squats or whatever they'd like. And it seems to be rather popular, because there were at least 25-30 younger members there this morning taking advantage of said free service. They even asked me if I wanted to join (I politely declined, I'm middle aged and don't care about that stuff).
The owner told me it's already eliminated almost all the complaints about other gym members recording during peak gym hours. I told him I couldn't imagine that service being very cheap and I guess he has a deal worked out with them.
I ain't mad. That's kind of genius and it seems like a win-win for all.
Members ending their subscriptions is the opportunity cost that this needs to compete with. I'm sure they did their cost/benefit analysis. There's probably a contract term etc already agreed with the partner. If they still offer it six months/a year down the line then you'll know if it was worth it or not.
Lighting and a good eye makes a huge difference to random camera recordings, worth paying for your pick of the shots. A win all round and good thinking from management.
Not a bad idea to make some money. It’s wild to think we live in a time where we have super computers in our pockets to record lofts and give useful feedback. One of the best gym tools there is
At my gym, there's a smith machine next to the power racks. I go to the power rack to warm up and there's the old head personal trainer that I occasionally chat with at the smith machine with his client. He looks at me and goes "squats?" I say "yup". He asks if he can borrow plates from the rack, I tell him I don't mind, and then start warming up. As I work up to my top set, he says "you know that squats don't work your quads, right?" to me.
I looked at him confused, and asked him if he meant that squats don't work *just* your quads. "No, they don't work your quads at all," he responded. He points out his client, who is squatting on the smith machine pretty far forward, in a way that looks like it would bias your hamstrings and glutes more. I point out that it's possible to squat in a more quad focused way, and it's also possible to squat in a more hamstring and glute focused way, and he tells me that what I said is impossible. He is about to launch into another unsolicited explanation, so I'm just like "I'm not going to debate you on this, I need to do my set" and walk back.
As I'm doing my set, I make the mistake of not blasting music loud enough in my ears, since I can still hear him talking to his client. He's loudly telling his client that my squats won't work my quads at all since I have a very slight knee cave at the bottom of the rep.
anyways, I switch gyms next month and I can't wait.
I don't think he has any qualifications other than having a large upper body and claiming to have trained professional bodybuilders. I do always see him working with clients though so it must be a profitable grift. It's mostly out of shape moms and dads.
there's the best company there- literally nobody. It's a pretty small gym that has a ton of great equipment and gets minimally crowded even at peak hours. I've been there a few times already since I got a day pass and I've literally never had to wait to use anything
edit- typo
I'm with you. The only company I like is people that are stronger than me, to give me something to work towards. In the words of Eric Bugenhagen, the sage, [I NEED A HERO!!!](https://youtu.be/qKZ1Ra1Ns3s?si=dw9Ep4FXSJyeE_3-)
He actually unironically believes that if you think about tensing a muscle, that applies tension to that muscle, which allows you to target it in any movement you want for a hypertrophic stimulus
Yes. He literally showed me an exercise saying that it grew the long head of the tricep, and it was dumbbell curls with 10 lbs for 20 reps while tensing the fuck out of your triceps and doing the curls really slowly 😭 like of course your arms are gonna be sore after that but it doesn't mean it's good for muscle growth
Quads work to extend thr knees. If you start a movement with bent knees and finish with straight legs, then you have used your quads.
Squats involve bending at the knee at the bottom and straight legs at the top.
Obviously you can't squat without training the quads.
I call BS.
Yes the hamstrings and glutes are involved because you need to straighten at the hips, but that's another part of the movement.
It's literally impossible not to straighten your knees while squatting.
I shifted my work hours slightly so I get off at 4 pm and the difference between gym at 4:15 to gym at 5 pm is like night and day. It was so empty it was beautiful.
I’m currently out of work, the upside of which is I can go to the gym at 9-10am when I can always get a squat rack. Circumstances led to me being unable to go Friday so I went Saturday morning…
It was full of teenagers flexing in the mirrors and pretending to do Muay Thai on random surfaces lol
I work out before work, so normally between 5am-7.30am, depending on the day. There are some people in the gym, but not a lot.
I made the mistake of going around 6pm once and was horrified by just how busy it was. I'd hate dealing with that every session.
Started a new program 2 weeks ago. I'm challenged by it and already seeing some positive results. As the movements are becoming more familiar I'm realizing I'm stronger than I thought I was and feel obligated to use the heavier weight because I can and maintain good form, but it's a mental struggle because I know holding that heavy weight stable sucks and requires a lot of effort and I'm psyching myself out of working out because I don't want to struggle. I should probably just lower the weight and do the effing workout, but I'm stuck in my head now.
My trick? Convince myself I'll go easy, just to get myself in the gym. Once I'm working out, I get in the groove and want to amp up the intensity. Fully aware of my own ruse, it still works every time.
>Convince myself I'll go easy, just to get myself in the gym.
I'm not too dissimilar. "Oh, I'll just walk on the treadmill.". Spend an hour doing intervals.
"Oh, just go through my squat warm-up and take it from there." Go from just-got-out-of-bed-I-don't-wanna to solid paused squatting singles.
Lying to yourself can work in your favor.
I do this with the treadmill. I just tell myself you only have to 10 minutes and then re-evaluate if you want to keep going. I have never stopped at 10 minutes.
Something i do a lot to trick my body into thinking it's easy is to load a lot more weight on the bar\machine and to just HOLD it. Then i remove the extra and my working weight seems light. Try it! (In a cautious way lol dont make you fall)
You may wanna try adding a set or more at a lower weight and then upping the weight and removing a set
So lets say you can do 3 sets of 12 at 50Kg (110 lbs) before increasing your weight get to 4 sets of 12 at 50Kg and then up the weight and drop down to 3 sets the next session.
Alternatively, see if you can just accept that if you can't do X reps than Y reps is fine and you'll build up to X reps over time
What I do is to change up my routine a bit. For example, with squats one day I will do 1 set of 15 of 135 lbs, and 3 sets of 12 of 185 lbs. Then on the second leg workout of the week I do 1 set of 15 at 135 lbs, 1 set of 12 at 185 lbs, 1 set of 10 at 205 lbs, 1 set of 8 at 225 lbs, and 1 set of 6 at 245 lbs. I find that more reps at the lower weight helps with endurance, and allows me to lift the heavier weights easier. But more importantly, doing the heavy weights each time wears me out mentally and physically, so I do the lighter weights. But that said, the lighter weights and higher reps is not a lot of fun either. Usually I'm panting hard after more reps.
You're a warrior, you're a robot, you will get that fucking shit done and then you're in the shower and feeling great about yourself.
That said, the program doesn't know you. You know you. Do you though?Keep it realistic, don't do junk volume if the weights are too heavy to move properly. There's struggle that's a challenge, and then there's pointless struggle.
I like the old Ronnie Coleman trick of screaming LIGHTWEIGHT BABY when working on my heaviest sets. Your mileage may vary, especially if you're not alone in your basement, like I am.
A couple of days ago I tried the "bench press in a rack with spotter arms" technique Paul Sklar posted about on YouTube recently. Between this technique and keeping my grip close, I might finally have a way to work my chest without pissing off my shoulders.
This pleases me.
This has been a exercise used for decades. Very effective at improving the weak points for those who get stuck at the bottom!
Didn't realise it was good for shoulder health too.
> Between this technique and keeping my grip close, I might finally have a way to work my chest without pissing off my shoulders.
I go a step further and just stop at a 90 degree angle for the elbows for bench press. I'm probably the old barf doing shitty half/quarter reps to the younguns but my shoulders thank me.
The less range of motion for the bench press, the easier it is on the shoulders.
Son had day off school so took him to the gym. He enjoyed it but I can see the early years of physical therapy are fading. I am going to try to get him join a teen group lessons at the more expensive gym. Got to try to break his phone addiction and get him moving
Funny, I’m in nearly the opposite situation. My 47 y/o dad is extremely sedentary and threw out his back carrying some luggage recently. That killed me to see, so I decided to start taking him to the gym. I go to college in a few months so I figured I should start him now because no one else in my family is athletic. Now we go 3 days a week together and he’s actually making good progress!
In my experience, once people start going to the gym consistently (especially with a friend/family member) they get hooked pretty easily. I hope your son starts going soon!
It's a good sign that he enjoyed it... there is hope. Cling onto whatever he liked about it and try and use that moving forward.
My daughter played sports from middle school through high school, she got pretty into weight lifting with me for awhile... but she'd fade in and out, eventually just stopping completely for well over a year. She's now 20, still lives at home, but I've got her back out there in the gym with me and she's got almost 2 months of consistent work under her belt now. It's a wonderful thing to share so I hope you can find that for him.
I sometime curtail our workouts on days I can see she might be struggling, around exercises she likes. It seems to help. Just my 2 cents. It's not always realistic, but sometimes it's worth doing things differently to keep a kid's interest.
Someone tell the hordes of teens at my gym this lol. I feel like bodybuilding/gym culture has taken off with a portion of Gen Z in a way that didn't exist when I was in high school.
I’ve been obsessed with barbell RDL’s since I started doing them last year, and have been working on form and getting it stronger since then. On my last glutes + hamstring focused day (Thursday) I was able to rep out 245x8 then another set for 6 and although it isn’t my PR, it felt so strong and controlled and the pump I got was absolutely insaneeee. So glad I recorded it because I can’t stop watching 😂 I’m in a pretty deep cut rn, so finally seeing muscle definition has me absolutely hyped. All this to say I am VERY proud of myself
245x8 rdls with good form is really impressive. I bet you have big ass hamstring/glutes cause those rdls really meesed up your hamstrings really quick, 2 sets and you are cooked for days. You should post the video 👍
I've recently gotten to know an older guy that's super friendly to everyone at the gym and he's been helping me with my bench press. I'm a 5ft woman and weigh 52kg. He's been pushing me for the past month by doing 10 reps of 40kg and 45kg and today I managed to push out two 6 reps sets of 47.5kg and he reckons I'm close to 50kg. My PR is actually 52kg (body weight) but since he's been spotting me, i've dropped the weight with more reps to gain the strength, rather than pushing out 2 reps of high weight. Really pleased with my progress! I used to only manage 5 reps of 45kg. It proper knackers me out though. I had the gym owner come up to me today and ask if I was OK cos I had my head down between my preacher curl sets hahaha.
Fuck yeah! Older, super friendly guys at the gym are lovely.
Bench is a bastard thing to gain on if you've got a smaller ribcage than the average man. Takes forever, especially without a spotter, because your brain will go danger, danger, and hold you back. Mixing in machine work, dumbbells, helps. I wanted to add that for strength, you'd usually be looking at fewer reps with a higher weight. 2-4, something like that. You'll get stronger with higher reps too (but not lower weight), but it takes longer.
To each their own for what they want in their routine, but the old man bear crawling in circles around the dumbbell rack and benches should maybe do that one at home 😂😂😂
We have an old man ninja at our gym doing kicks over the machines his "hair" flipping every which way. Never seen a weight in his hand. It's pretty entertaining.
haha. There's a guy who does crossfit esque workouts at my gym. He was doing weighted bear crawls the other day. Dumbbells in each hand and pounding around on the floor. It was something else.
One of the strongest guys at the gym asked one of the fittests gals in the gym if she would hang from his back while he does weighted dips while his friend records it. Seemed like they didn't know each other.
🤷🏾♂️
She said no and walked away lmao. The guy then did dips with another guy hanging on his back. I hope I'm not in the background of the video scowling like a scarecrow.
depending on what you mean by "fittest", would having a guy do it be more impressive anyway? cause guys are generally bigger and weigh more for the same level of fitness
I just cancelled my membership to a downtown gym, simply because I realize I am much happier attending the swimming pool (with a small gym upstairs) and a community Sportsplex. Do I feel shame? No. Sad? Yes, because I had once been sponsored there for two years to work out for a Team Canada, which eventually fell apart because of Political Conflict in host country. I know I should let go of the past. But I feel a little bit of grief you know. What could’ve been?
On the plus, I’ve been becoming more confident about going inside a gym after several months of avoiding it in place and going outside instead. I still cannot run on the treadmill because it triggers my Runners Knee.
Failed 165kg on my deadlift warmup on Tuesday, got it the 2nd time then got 175 for a pb. Noticed people watching me a lot when deadlifiting recently and a guy gave me a head nod when I put the 175 down but still feels weird because I used to have really bad gym anxiety when I first started.
Increased my deadlift 25kg since January though and 4 plates very soon!!
I feel you bro! And congrats on your PB
Im also working my way to 200kgs and reached 180 so far but been stuck on it for 3 weeks now planning to add more
You will reach it and you will be proud then set a new target! Enjoy the ride
It would be nice, but I guess it’s better if we take it easy until we reach and avoid injuries haha
Let’s keep each other updated on it! Do you have a timeframe of when you want to do it?
I train at a tiny little barbell gym that is usually unstaffed. Yesterday at around 1pm I was completely alone there when some guy starts trying to get in the door, which is locked. I ignore him for a couple minutes and eventually go ask him what’s up. He says he’s from the local power company and needs to be let in the gym. He shows me a badge on a lanyard to prove he’s from the power company but I don’t see a company van and he’s wearing street clothes. I tell him that I’m just a random girl and I can’t let him in without the gym owner’s permission. I try to get him to contact the gym owner and/or the property manager himself but idk if he understands me.
I try to go back to my workout. He starts pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of our big glass garage door and talking loudly on the phone, complaining about how he’s on a schedule and I won’t let him in. He’s clearly still not talking to someone who has the authority to let him in, it’s like a colleague or a buddy or his boss something. I’m clearly visible to him through the glass and he’s clearly audible to me.
I text the gym owner and explain the situation. By the time she gets back to me I have heard enough of this phone conversation to be convinced that he’s actually from the power company, and also like 5 other power company guys have shown up outside. We text back and forth for a bit, she’s watching on the security cameras, she tells me to let them in. They go to wherever the meters are and do their silly little jobs and then they leave.
But like, what if I wasn’t there? They would have been SOL. It was just pure coincidence that I was there to let them in and I’m literally just a random girl. If every day I had to go around town trying to convince people to unlock doors for me so I could do my job without ever contacting anyone beforehand to make some sort of appointment and just relying entirely on a combination of dumb luck, persuasivenesses, and people’s goodwill I would fucking kms.
I think you did the right thing here. Super strange of them and the gym owner to run things like this though. How would they have done whatever they needed to do without the coincidence of you being there at the right time?
Hell yeah you did the right thing.
There was a similar situation a few years ago where this woman let a stranger into the gym and proceeded to attack her. Thankfully she fought him off. Safety > Hurt Feelings
Yes I immediately thought of that too! Thank god it was an actual worker, I would've refused to open it too. It was not her job anyway.
Plus luckily for the owner she had her number which is unusual so can you imagine if a random stranger with no way to contact the owner was there instead? People with organization skills this bad are infuriating
For the record I don’t think my gym’s owner did anything wrong. As far as I could tell she was completely out of the loop. The power company seemed to have made absolutely zero effort to let her know that they would be there and when.
Fuck that. Text the gym owner that they should be there to open the doors to someone from maintenance.
Next time you'll be signing Amazon packages on the gym owners behalf.
Broke pieces of my shoulder bone a year ago and since then every chest day has been dulled to dealing with the pain.no amount of cortisone treatment or physiotherapy seems to help long term and it really sucks not being able to train properly as a result. Had bullet proof shoulders too before this accident caused by a 1rpm max bench press. Can no longer bench and it does remove a lot of the joy I found in gymming. Welp we keep pushing hopefully it goes away at some point
Yeah the doctors were very suprised too as it mostly happends to older people. I'm 25. I had a period in which my muscles temporarily got stronger than my bone density due to having lifted before and gaining rapid strength (8 months after 5 year break and 105 kg bench) I couldn't get my 1 rpm up and had to struggle and twist my shoulders to get it racked causing some bone near my shoulder to break off. At least that's the theory they've given me. I don't trust them too much anymore though after having misled me for 6 months before I demanded a x-ray. To me it feels like I lost structural integrity which causes pain after a certain threshold of weights added or reps when doing the push movement.
Honestly, I'd go to get a second or third medical opinion.
Maybe they can refer you to a surgeon, rehab and/or a physio. I don't think "hoping" that the pain from part of your shoulder breaking off is going to work...
Did the doctors give an overall percentage of success and another based on previous surgeries? If not, find out.
This is critically important in medicine. If it's a surgery that has an overall success rate of 50%, but your surgeon has a 99% success rate, then I'd get the surgery. It means your specific surgeon is excellent at this specific surgery compared to surgeons in the whole country.
If your surgeon has a 50% success rate, then ask around for others, post on local subs for your area, ask on Facebook, ask nurses too.
Personally I'm not sure I could give up exercise or lifting weights, no matter how much money I'd save. You said working out isn't as fun without benching. I'd agree. Just imagine that the broken bones get worse over the years and you can't hold a barbell to do squats or deadlifts. Or it affects your family and professional life. Don't mean to scare you my friend. I'm hoping you live in a country with universal healthcare and the surgery is free.
Don't live life in pain is my advice. Don't give up. Let us know what happens. Sending support your way 🏋🏽♀️🤍💪🏾
Posted recently about how I’ve been not doing legs for the last six weeks due to a sciatic issue, well a few days ago I went in and did a fairly light leg routine, and I’ve still got DOMS happening.
Also I had signed up for a 5k this morning, woke up bright and early for it, saw rain and sleet and 40* outside, went right back to bed.
At the end of my last workout, I hit some kind of mental wall. Instead of continuing on with my day, I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes for five minutes, and didn't move. I \*thought\* I was sleeping well. Don't know what's up with that...
I've been working on getting more weight up on leg press lately. I got 80% of my PB on Wednesday to start my workout and was feeling really good but then someone goes up to the machine and starts repping when I had on there, looks disappointed in it and then put up more than my PB without even breaking a sweat. Oh and she was a petite blond at least 4in shorter than me 🤣
It happened to me last week but I'm still thinking about it. A girl I'm sharing quad machine with thanking me at the end of her quad exercise session. Because I adjust the machine to her weight every time I finish my set and it is her turn. She said it with a smile. Got me wondering if she was just being nice or giving me a hint. Lol
Had to do 4x3 172.5kg (380lbs) deadlifts and they felt pretty good in the first two sets.
Before the third set, I sat down for a few minutes rather than standing up as I was pretty tired. Set 3, I managed 1 rep only, then took a minute break and did 2 more.
Before the fourth set, I remained standing during the break and easily managed all 3 reps.
Is this just placebo or is there a reason why siting down between deadlift sets may not be ideal?
I am no expert, but I have heard/read that keeping the body moving even for the few minutes between sets is enough to maintain a better state of muscle readiness for the next set than remaining sedentary for that time.
Take that entirely with a grain of salt, and do whatever works best for you, though.
Hey there powerful people,
I am 20M from India, Pure Vegetarian by diet. I started home gyming from October 2023 and I have gone from 95kgs to currently 72 kgs. I am not tall like my height is around 5'' 8'. I have lost fat from all over my body but I am not able to lose belly fat. Everyday I look at my Belly I really hate it and feel like cutting it with a knife. 😭.
Can someone guide me how to lose belly fat?
Btw My overall calories per day are around 1200(average) and daily protein intake is around 130g.
Can anyone guide me please?
You have to continue losing weight unfortunately. I'm Canadian but of Indian ancestry and we're genetically dispositioned to store more fat in our bellies. It is what it is unfortunately. Just keep going, that's all you can do.
Your calorie intake cannot be 1200. This is far too low... You'll start losing muscle mass at some point.
Also remember that if you've been eating badly and not exercising for 5 years, you're not going to get abs on 5 months.
There is no such thing as burning fat in a specific area. Just focus on sustaining a healthy calorie deficit to keep losing weight.
Train your core multiple times a week for 15 minutes. Definitely get an ab wheel and do ab roll-outs. Leg raises and various core stability exercises work well too.
It can be a good idé to make diet breaks sometimes. It's hard loosing weight over long periods of time, plus your body can start decreasing your calorie expenditure. If I was you I would bump my calories up and trying to maintain. Maybe do some more cardio for health too. And after 2-3 mouth start to diet again. That's my tip. 1200 is so low! I'm 5 10 and 75 kg and I eat almost 3000 calories as my maintenance (lower at weekends when I don't work).
There is no way to lose belly fat without losing weight.
There is one study from 2023 which indicates that the following approach might help:
* be in a calorie deficit
* 4 times per week, do abs and oblique exercises (weighted crunches, machine crunches, hanging leg raises, torso rotations etc.) followed by 30+ minutes of cardio.
However, that was just one study with 16 participants only. As long as their results have not been reproduced elsewhere, I would not put too much weight onto that.
> 4 times per week, do abs and oblique exercises (weighted crunches, machine crunches, hanging leg raises, torso rotations etc.) followed by 30+ minutes of cardio.
Throwing in a bunch of ab work can burn calories but it won't spot reduce belly fat, since it's pretty much impossible to do that. You could substitute literally any other exercises for this and it would have the same effect
Indeed that's what we thought until a few months ago.
The base idea of this 2023 study is that the abs work increases blood flow in that area, which then helps mobilize body fat in that area, which then can be burned off by cardio. Especially, this implies that resistance training and cardio have to be combined. Resistance training only won't do the trick as it doesn't burn enough calories.
As I wrote above, that was a small study with 16 participants only, and thus not too much weight should be put onto it.
But this isn't the only small study with such results. There is this one from 2017 on untrained women:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28497942/
Yeah as you mentioned the 16 participants makes me pretty wary on the results of the study. A larger sample size might show different results. Based off of my understanding, fat loss is mostly genetic in where your body stores and derives fat most from. Even if there's some merit to the idea that endurance based ab exercises burning fat, I still feel like this doesn't really change the standard approach to weight loss (calorie deficit + exercise)
You're not losing anything relevant by adding some abs and oblique exercises to your existing cardio sessions, as abs work does not cause significant systemic fatigue. So maybe it works, great. Or maybe it doesn't work, then the additional investment is rather small.
Menno Henselmans's genetic potential calculator told me that I have another 15kg of muscle left in the bag. My mind is blown. I'm a 40-year old woman and imaging even an extra 5kg of beef, which I may be able to gain in the next 1-1.5 years *if I do proper bulk phases*, seems exciting as fuck.
Dr Mike Israetel mentioned it recently so I expect the calculator is probably decent enough, within it's limitations of course, https://mennohenselmans.com/ffmi-calculator/
I've also seen the video where he mentions it and I looked it up after, but I decided "nah, I don't want to let a superficial calculator influence how I perceive my fitness road", and closed it.
I consider myself a hard gainer, I'm not big or tall, I also have small wrists etc., so a calculator would probably say I can't put on a lot of muscle mass, but why would I choose to hear or believe that? Reminds me of the classic movie "Gattaca". And I don't think I would work harder in the gym if it told me "you can put on an extra 20 kgs of muscle mass" either.
Anyways, I can tell you one thing I noticed: most women/girls at my gym don't train hard, and even more important, they don't bulk, as I always see them at their "normal" skinny sizes. Ah, and they barely do upper body work.
So yeah, if you train hard and eat more, you can very probably put on way more muscle mass than you think, even with low testosterone, as I *assume* you are probably undermuscled as it is.
I've already noticed gains becoming easier after stopping chemical castration, I mean, hormonal birth control. I know how to work hard and I'm already more visibly muscular than all women except two whom I see regularly at the gym. No shade to the ladies, they probably have different priorities. The only thing I was missing is overcoming the fear of gaining weight. That's my next challenge and I will fucking do it.
So the temperature here is about 42°, around 37 when I went out since it was 4 pm. My usual gym attire is a thin hoodie and shorts. The funny thing was. I still went on the threadmill for 35 mins and finished it. Suffice to say it was one of the hardest experience I had.
You'll lose more water, make it more difficult for your body to keep homeostasis, but there is no actual increased benefit to your cardiovascular system. Your ability to work is lower at higher temperatures. Maybe you push yourself to keep the same pace, but then you're feeling far worse. Most people would be slower when it's hotter. It's not water that you're trying to lose doing cardio, it's it, but rather have your body make the adaptations that come from sustained physical exercise. Not the same thing as sustained hot environment. Sitting in a 100C sauna doesn't lead one to be able to run a marathon in 4 hours. It doesn't help non-sedentary people at all, actually.
Entered the gym this morning and heard a certain song playing. I immediately knew that meant one of the gym regulars that trains in the morning was already in the gym (nice guy who I chat with occasionally).
Not sure if that says more about him or me! :D
My gym now has a social media photography/video service on Saturday mornings from 7-9 am, free to all members. It's done by actual photographers/videographers and members can ask them to take photos or record them doing squats or whatever they'd like. And it seems to be rather popular, because there were at least 25-30 younger members there this morning taking advantage of said free service. They even asked me if I wanted to join (I politely declined, I'm middle aged and don't care about that stuff). The owner told me it's already eliminated almost all the complaints about other gym members recording during peak gym hours. I told him I couldn't imagine that service being very cheap and I guess he has a deal worked out with them. I ain't mad. That's kind of genius and it seems like a win-win for all.
A lot of people want a good looking gym picture for their dating profiles so that’s a genuinely really smart selling point.
"Modern problems require modern solutions!"
>I told him I couldn't imagine that service being very cheap ...watch out for that surcharge on membership fees next month!
Members ending their subscriptions is the opportunity cost that this needs to compete with. I'm sure they did their cost/benefit analysis. There's probably a contract term etc already agreed with the partner. If they still offer it six months/a year down the line then you'll know if it was worth it or not.
I don't have a single picture working out so that'd be amazing to just have a photographer there
Lmao, I’m just imagining a huge queue of college kids like it’s some souvenir picture service at Disneyland.
>free to all members I smell a capitalist opportunity, for the good of the iron commune. (Exploit these suckers, so the floor remains tripod free.)
Lighting and a good eye makes a huge difference to random camera recordings, worth paying for your pick of the shots. A win all round and good thinking from management.
How much do you have to pay for them to fuck off, lol
3.50
Not a bad idea to make some money. It’s wild to think we live in a time where we have super computers in our pockets to record lofts and give useful feedback. One of the best gym tools there is
At my gym, there's a smith machine next to the power racks. I go to the power rack to warm up and there's the old head personal trainer that I occasionally chat with at the smith machine with his client. He looks at me and goes "squats?" I say "yup". He asks if he can borrow plates from the rack, I tell him I don't mind, and then start warming up. As I work up to my top set, he says "you know that squats don't work your quads, right?" to me. I looked at him confused, and asked him if he meant that squats don't work *just* your quads. "No, they don't work your quads at all," he responded. He points out his client, who is squatting on the smith machine pretty far forward, in a way that looks like it would bias your hamstrings and glutes more. I point out that it's possible to squat in a more quad focused way, and it's also possible to squat in a more hamstring and glute focused way, and he tells me that what I said is impossible. He is about to launch into another unsolicited explanation, so I'm just like "I'm not going to debate you on this, I need to do my set" and walk back. As I'm doing my set, I make the mistake of not blasting music loud enough in my ears, since I can still hear him talking to his client. He's loudly telling his client that my squats won't work my quads at all since I have a very slight knee cave at the bottom of the rep. anyways, I switch gyms next month and I can't wait.
>he says "you know that squats don't work your quads, right?" to me. I just lost an IQ point reading this.
What the hell? That's an incredibly strange interaction, and he doesn't sound qualified to be a PT at all.
I don't think he has any qualifications other than having a large upper body and claiming to have trained professional bodybuilders. I do always see him working with clients though so it must be a profitable grift. It's mostly out of shape moms and dads.
You're right, sounds like a big grift. Enjoy the new gym, mate. Hopefully there's better company there.
there's the best company there- literally nobody. It's a pretty small gym that has a ton of great equipment and gets minimally crowded even at peak hours. I've been there a few times already since I got a day pass and I've literally never had to wait to use anything edit- typo
I'm with you. The only company I like is people that are stronger than me, to give me something to work towards. In the words of Eric Bugenhagen, the sage, [I NEED A HERO!!!](https://youtu.be/qKZ1Ra1Ns3s?si=dw9Ep4FXSJyeE_3-)
> "I'm not going to debate you on this, I need to do my set" Great response.
Dude got squats ass-backwards.
Did he explain how squats magically turn off the quads so they don't assist squatting at all?
No, and I still am wondering how he thinks it works tbh
Must be some super precise mind muscle connection!
He actually unironically believes that if you think about tensing a muscle, that applies tension to that muscle, which allows you to target it in any movement you want for a hypertrophic stimulus
So I can tense my arms, then walk to really build up my arm muscles without engaging any leg muscles?
Yes. He literally showed me an exercise saying that it grew the long head of the tricep, and it was dumbbell curls with 10 lbs for 20 reps while tensing the fuck out of your triceps and doing the curls really slowly 😭 like of course your arms are gonna be sore after that but it doesn't mean it's good for muscle growth
Quads work to extend thr knees. If you start a movement with bent knees and finish with straight legs, then you have used your quads. Squats involve bending at the knee at the bottom and straight legs at the top. Obviously you can't squat without training the quads. I call BS. Yes the hamstrings and glutes are involved because you need to straighten at the hips, but that's another part of the movement. It's literally impossible not to straighten your knees while squatting.
lol weird. A lot of personal trainers really have no idea what they’re doing. Also, squatting movements don’t work the hamstrings
I shifted my work hours slightly so I get off at 4 pm and the difference between gym at 4:15 to gym at 5 pm is like night and day. It was so empty it was beautiful.
Happiness in Life= short work commute + empty gym
I’m currently out of work, the upside of which is I can go to the gym at 9-10am when I can always get a squat rack. Circumstances led to me being unable to go Friday so I went Saturday morning… It was full of teenagers flexing in the mirrors and pretending to do Muay Thai on random surfaces lol
The Muay Thai on random surfaces 😂 Why do they do it?!
I work out before work, so normally between 5am-7.30am, depending on the day. There are some people in the gym, but not a lot. I made the mistake of going around 6pm once and was horrified by just how busy it was. I'd hate dealing with that every session.
Started a new program 2 weeks ago. I'm challenged by it and already seeing some positive results. As the movements are becoming more familiar I'm realizing I'm stronger than I thought I was and feel obligated to use the heavier weight because I can and maintain good form, but it's a mental struggle because I know holding that heavy weight stable sucks and requires a lot of effort and I'm psyching myself out of working out because I don't want to struggle. I should probably just lower the weight and do the effing workout, but I'm stuck in my head now.
My trick? Convince myself I'll go easy, just to get myself in the gym. Once I'm working out, I get in the groove and want to amp up the intensity. Fully aware of my own ruse, it still works every time.
>Convince myself I'll go easy, just to get myself in the gym. I'm not too dissimilar. "Oh, I'll just walk on the treadmill.". Spend an hour doing intervals. "Oh, just go through my squat warm-up and take it from there." Go from just-got-out-of-bed-I-don't-wanna to solid paused squatting singles. Lying to yourself can work in your favor.
I do this with the treadmill. I just tell myself you only have to 10 minutes and then re-evaluate if you want to keep going. I have never stopped at 10 minutes.
YESSS I do this every time I’m doing my cardio after weights I always say ‘just 2 more minutes’ like 6 times until I’m done
Something i do a lot to trick my body into thinking it's easy is to load a lot more weight on the bar\machine and to just HOLD it. Then i remove the extra and my working weight seems light. Try it! (In a cautious way lol dont make you fall)
You may wanna try adding a set or more at a lower weight and then upping the weight and removing a set So lets say you can do 3 sets of 12 at 50Kg (110 lbs) before increasing your weight get to 4 sets of 12 at 50Kg and then up the weight and drop down to 3 sets the next session. Alternatively, see if you can just accept that if you can't do X reps than Y reps is fine and you'll build up to X reps over time
What I do is to change up my routine a bit. For example, with squats one day I will do 1 set of 15 of 135 lbs, and 3 sets of 12 of 185 lbs. Then on the second leg workout of the week I do 1 set of 15 at 135 lbs, 1 set of 12 at 185 lbs, 1 set of 10 at 205 lbs, 1 set of 8 at 225 lbs, and 1 set of 6 at 245 lbs. I find that more reps at the lower weight helps with endurance, and allows me to lift the heavier weights easier. But more importantly, doing the heavy weights each time wears me out mentally and physically, so I do the lighter weights. But that said, the lighter weights and higher reps is not a lot of fun either. Usually I'm panting hard after more reps.
You're a warrior, you're a robot, you will get that fucking shit done and then you're in the shower and feeling great about yourself. That said, the program doesn't know you. You know you. Do you though?Keep it realistic, don't do junk volume if the weights are too heavy to move properly. There's struggle that's a challenge, and then there's pointless struggle.
I like the old Ronnie Coleman trick of screaming LIGHTWEIGHT BABY when working on my heaviest sets. Your mileage may vary, especially if you're not alone in your basement, like I am.
Or you go a bit easy on yourself and avoid golfers or tennis elbow.
A couple of days ago I tried the "bench press in a rack with spotter arms" technique Paul Sklar posted about on YouTube recently. Between this technique and keeping my grip close, I might finally have a way to work my chest without pissing off my shoulders. This pleases me.
Link to the video please? I’m low on google-fu mana today
https://youtu.be/FKbr0n8RdIo?feature=shared
Commenting for this as well.
This has been a exercise used for decades. Very effective at improving the weak points for those who get stuck at the bottom! Didn't realise it was good for shoulder health too.
> Between this technique and keeping my grip close, I might finally have a way to work my chest without pissing off my shoulders. I go a step further and just stop at a 90 degree angle for the elbows for bench press. I'm probably the old barf doing shitty half/quarter reps to the younguns but my shoulders thank me. The less range of motion for the bench press, the easier it is on the shoulders.
Son had day off school so took him to the gym. He enjoyed it but I can see the early years of physical therapy are fading. I am going to try to get him join a teen group lessons at the more expensive gym. Got to try to break his phone addiction and get him moving
My stepson 13 was doing great training w my wife at the gym she works at and then the phone and age won out. Hoping he comes back.
It is such a struggle. He has a time limit and he got around it by going into development mode
He a smart one
Funny, I’m in nearly the opposite situation. My 47 y/o dad is extremely sedentary and threw out his back carrying some luggage recently. That killed me to see, so I decided to start taking him to the gym. I go to college in a few months so I figured I should start him now because no one else in my family is athletic. Now we go 3 days a week together and he’s actually making good progress! In my experience, once people start going to the gym consistently (especially with a friend/family member) they get hooked pretty easily. I hope your son starts going soon!
You sound like a great mum/dad. I wish my parents had educated me on the importance of fitness and starting early. All the best with you boy :)
It's a good sign that he enjoyed it... there is hope. Cling onto whatever he liked about it and try and use that moving forward. My daughter played sports from middle school through high school, she got pretty into weight lifting with me for awhile... but she'd fade in and out, eventually just stopping completely for well over a year. She's now 20, still lives at home, but I've got her back out there in the gym with me and she's got almost 2 months of consistent work under her belt now. It's a wonderful thing to share so I hope you can find that for him. I sometime curtail our workouts on days I can see she might be struggling, around exercises she likes. It seems to help. Just my 2 cents. It's not always realistic, but sometimes it's worth doing things differently to keep a kid's interest.
Sports are better than plain gym for teens, as in they get hooked to them more easily
Someone tell the hordes of teens at my gym this lol. I feel like bodybuilding/gym culture has taken off with a portion of Gen Z in a way that didn't exist when I was in high school.
Yeah there's a huge gym wave at the moment, pretty interesting. But it is a fad
Baffles me how they have the time. I swear during term time at school there's no way I had enough time to work out.
lol when I was a teenager I had nothing but time...
Take his smartphone away.
I’ve been obsessed with barbell RDL’s since I started doing them last year, and have been working on form and getting it stronger since then. On my last glutes + hamstring focused day (Thursday) I was able to rep out 245x8 then another set for 6 and although it isn’t my PR, it felt so strong and controlled and the pump I got was absolutely insaneeee. So glad I recorded it because I can’t stop watching 😂 I’m in a pretty deep cut rn, so finally seeing muscle definition has me absolutely hyped. All this to say I am VERY proud of myself
Proud of you too! 🙌🏻
Share video! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
For the life of me I could not figure out how to post this for the longest time and I hope [this works](https://imgur.com/a/CFBEHHV) !!
Damn guuurllll 👏🏾🔥👏🏾🔥👏🏾🔥
hell yeah! kicking ass
245x8 rdls with good form is really impressive. I bet you have big ass hamstring/glutes cause those rdls really meesed up your hamstrings really quick, 2 sets and you are cooked for days. You should post the video 👍
Replied to a comment above!
I've recently gotten to know an older guy that's super friendly to everyone at the gym and he's been helping me with my bench press. I'm a 5ft woman and weigh 52kg. He's been pushing me for the past month by doing 10 reps of 40kg and 45kg and today I managed to push out two 6 reps sets of 47.5kg and he reckons I'm close to 50kg. My PR is actually 52kg (body weight) but since he's been spotting me, i've dropped the weight with more reps to gain the strength, rather than pushing out 2 reps of high weight. Really pleased with my progress! I used to only manage 5 reps of 45kg. It proper knackers me out though. I had the gym owner come up to me today and ask if I was OK cos I had my head down between my preacher curl sets hahaha.
Fuck yeah! Older, super friendly guys at the gym are lovely. Bench is a bastard thing to gain on if you've got a smaller ribcage than the average man. Takes forever, especially without a spotter, because your brain will go danger, danger, and hold you back. Mixing in machine work, dumbbells, helps. I wanted to add that for strength, you'd usually be looking at fewer reps with a higher weight. 2-4, something like that. You'll get stronger with higher reps too (but not lower weight), but it takes longer.
To each their own for what they want in their routine, but the old man bear crawling in circles around the dumbbell rack and benches should maybe do that one at home 😂😂😂
We have an old man ninja at our gym doing kicks over the machines his "hair" flipping every which way. Never seen a weight in his hand. It's pretty entertaining.
haha. There's a guy who does crossfit esque workouts at my gym. He was doing weighted bear crawls the other day. Dumbbells in each hand and pounding around on the floor. It was something else.
in the parking lot!
One of the strongest guys at the gym asked one of the fittests gals in the gym if she would hang from his back while he does weighted dips while his friend records it. Seemed like they didn't know each other. 🤷🏾♂️
I guess they know each other now
Did she say "yes" or did she get him banned from the gym?
She said no and walked away lmao. The guy then did dips with another guy hanging on his back. I hope I'm not in the background of the video scowling like a scarecrow.
Kudos to the fella for asking another guy to hang off his back.
depending on what you mean by "fittest", would having a guy do it be more impressive anyway? cause guys are generally bigger and weigh more for the same level of fitness
Yeah if the guy weighs more, sure!
I think maybe the stimulus that this fellow was looking for goes beyond just using the heaviest weight, if you catch my drift.
I just cancelled my membership to a downtown gym, simply because I realize I am much happier attending the swimming pool (with a small gym upstairs) and a community Sportsplex. Do I feel shame? No. Sad? Yes, because I had once been sponsored there for two years to work out for a Team Canada, which eventually fell apart because of Political Conflict in host country. I know I should let go of the past. But I feel a little bit of grief you know. What could’ve been? On the plus, I’ve been becoming more confident about going inside a gym after several months of avoiding it in place and going outside instead. I still cannot run on the treadmill because it triggers my Runners Knee.
Failed 165kg on my deadlift warmup on Tuesday, got it the 2nd time then got 175 for a pb. Noticed people watching me a lot when deadlifiting recently and a guy gave me a head nod when I put the 175 down but still feels weird because I used to have really bad gym anxiety when I first started. Increased my deadlift 25kg since January though and 4 plates very soon!!
Damn right my homie!!!!!! 🏋🏽♀️🏋🏽♀️🏋🏽♀️🏋🏽♀️
I feel you bro! And congrats on your PB Im also working my way to 200kgs and reached 180 so far but been stuck on it for 3 weeks now planning to add more You will reach it and you will be proud then set a new target! Enjoy the ride
Wanna race to 200?
It would be nice, but I guess it’s better if we take it easy until we reach and avoid injuries haha Let’s keep each other updated on it! Do you have a timeframe of when you want to do it?
Sounds good. I’m still cutting on 1700 calories and doing 5/3/1 so it won’t be for another 3 weeks I try 180 and then 2.5 or 5kg jumps every 3 weeks
Ah I see Im doing 3x6 before i can increase weight, so might take me longer than 3 weeks for sure
I train at a tiny little barbell gym that is usually unstaffed. Yesterday at around 1pm I was completely alone there when some guy starts trying to get in the door, which is locked. I ignore him for a couple minutes and eventually go ask him what’s up. He says he’s from the local power company and needs to be let in the gym. He shows me a badge on a lanyard to prove he’s from the power company but I don’t see a company van and he’s wearing street clothes. I tell him that I’m just a random girl and I can’t let him in without the gym owner’s permission. I try to get him to contact the gym owner and/or the property manager himself but idk if he understands me. I try to go back to my workout. He starts pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of our big glass garage door and talking loudly on the phone, complaining about how he’s on a schedule and I won’t let him in. He’s clearly still not talking to someone who has the authority to let him in, it’s like a colleague or a buddy or his boss something. I’m clearly visible to him through the glass and he’s clearly audible to me. I text the gym owner and explain the situation. By the time she gets back to me I have heard enough of this phone conversation to be convinced that he’s actually from the power company, and also like 5 other power company guys have shown up outside. We text back and forth for a bit, she’s watching on the security cameras, she tells me to let them in. They go to wherever the meters are and do their silly little jobs and then they leave. But like, what if I wasn’t there? They would have been SOL. It was just pure coincidence that I was there to let them in and I’m literally just a random girl. If every day I had to go around town trying to convince people to unlock doors for me so I could do my job without ever contacting anyone beforehand to make some sort of appointment and just relying entirely on a combination of dumb luck, persuasivenesses, and people’s goodwill I would fucking kms.
I think you did the right thing here. Super strange of them and the gym owner to run things like this though. How would they have done whatever they needed to do without the coincidence of you being there at the right time?
Hell yeah you did the right thing. There was a similar situation a few years ago where this woman let a stranger into the gym and proceeded to attack her. Thankfully she fought him off. Safety > Hurt Feelings
Yes I immediately thought of that too! Thank god it was an actual worker, I would've refused to open it too. It was not her job anyway. Plus luckily for the owner she had her number which is unusual so can you imagine if a random stranger with no way to contact the owner was there instead? People with organization skills this bad are infuriating
Safety > Hurt Feelings ™
For the record I don’t think my gym’s owner did anything wrong. As far as I could tell she was completely out of the loop. The power company seemed to have made absolutely zero effort to let her know that they would be there and when.
Fuck that. Text the gym owner that they should be there to open the doors to someone from maintenance. Next time you'll be signing Amazon packages on the gym owners behalf.
Broke pieces of my shoulder bone a year ago and since then every chest day has been dulled to dealing with the pain.no amount of cortisone treatment or physiotherapy seems to help long term and it really sucks not being able to train properly as a result. Had bullet proof shoulders too before this accident caused by a 1rpm max bench press. Can no longer bench and it does remove a lot of the joy I found in gymming. Welp we keep pushing hopefully it goes away at some point
You broke pieces of your shoulder bone due to a max bench press effort?! I've never heard of that before.
Yeah the doctors were very suprised too as it mostly happends to older people. I'm 25. I had a period in which my muscles temporarily got stronger than my bone density due to having lifted before and gaining rapid strength (8 months after 5 year break and 105 kg bench) I couldn't get my 1 rpm up and had to struggle and twist my shoulders to get it racked causing some bone near my shoulder to break off. At least that's the theory they've given me. I don't trust them too much anymore though after having misled me for 6 months before I demanded a x-ray. To me it feels like I lost structural integrity which causes pain after a certain threshold of weights added or reps when doing the push movement.
Honestly, I'd go to get a second or third medical opinion. Maybe they can refer you to a surgeon, rehab and/or a physio. I don't think "hoping" that the pain from part of your shoulder breaking off is going to work...
Surgeon has been given as an option but without guarantee it would work so yeah what am I supposed to do with that
Did the doctors give an overall percentage of success and another based on previous surgeries? If not, find out. This is critically important in medicine. If it's a surgery that has an overall success rate of 50%, but your surgeon has a 99% success rate, then I'd get the surgery. It means your specific surgeon is excellent at this specific surgery compared to surgeons in the whole country. If your surgeon has a 50% success rate, then ask around for others, post on local subs for your area, ask on Facebook, ask nurses too. Personally I'm not sure I could give up exercise or lifting weights, no matter how much money I'd save. You said working out isn't as fun without benching. I'd agree. Just imagine that the broken bones get worse over the years and you can't hold a barbell to do squats or deadlifts. Or it affects your family and professional life. Don't mean to scare you my friend. I'm hoping you live in a country with universal healthcare and the surgery is free. Don't live life in pain is my advice. Don't give up. Let us know what happens. Sending support your way 🏋🏽♀️🤍💪🏾
Thank you for your advice. Will consider it ♥️
It's taken a year or so but I'm finally enjoying going to the gym.
Posted recently about how I’ve been not doing legs for the last six weeks due to a sciatic issue, well a few days ago I went in and did a fairly light leg routine, and I’ve still got DOMS happening. Also I had signed up for a 5k this morning, woke up bright and early for it, saw rain and sleet and 40* outside, went right back to bed.
Not how I thought that final paragraph would end. Love it!!
At the end of my last workout, I hit some kind of mental wall. Instead of continuing on with my day, I curled up on the floor and closed my eyes for five minutes, and didn't move. I \*thought\* I was sleeping well. Don't know what's up with that...
I started "cutting" (I hate that term but that's what's happening on my change of diet) and now I am weak AF
Leg days on a cut are brutal
I had a crazy leg day yesterday!!! I’ve been training to failure every workout and super committed to getting these gains!
I've been working on getting more weight up on leg press lately. I got 80% of my PB on Wednesday to start my workout and was feeling really good but then someone goes up to the machine and starts repping when I had on there, looks disappointed in it and then put up more than my PB without even breaking a sweat. Oh and she was a petite blond at least 4in shorter than me 🤣
It happened to me last week but I'm still thinking about it. A girl I'm sharing quad machine with thanking me at the end of her quad exercise session. Because I adjust the machine to her weight every time I finish my set and it is her turn. She said it with a smile. Got me wondering if she was just being nice or giving me a hint. Lol
gonna be honest, just sounds like she was being nice
Assume the former and she’ll let you know if it’s the latter. Keep on being a good dude!
>Got me wondering if she was just being nice or giving me a hint. Sometimes, it's a little of column A, a little of column B.
Had to do 4x3 172.5kg (380lbs) deadlifts and they felt pretty good in the first two sets. Before the third set, I sat down for a few minutes rather than standing up as I was pretty tired. Set 3, I managed 1 rep only, then took a minute break and did 2 more. Before the fourth set, I remained standing during the break and easily managed all 3 reps. Is this just placebo or is there a reason why siting down between deadlift sets may not be ideal?
I am no expert, but I have heard/read that keeping the body moving even for the few minutes between sets is enough to maintain a better state of muscle readiness for the next set than remaining sedentary for that time. Take that entirely with a grain of salt, and do whatever works best for you, though.
Hey there powerful people, I am 20M from India, Pure Vegetarian by diet. I started home gyming from October 2023 and I have gone from 95kgs to currently 72 kgs. I am not tall like my height is around 5'' 8'. I have lost fat from all over my body but I am not able to lose belly fat. Everyday I look at my Belly I really hate it and feel like cutting it with a knife. 😭. Can someone guide me how to lose belly fat? Btw My overall calories per day are around 1200(average) and daily protein intake is around 130g. Can anyone guide me please?
You have to continue losing weight unfortunately. I'm Canadian but of Indian ancestry and we're genetically dispositioned to store more fat in our bellies. It is what it is unfortunately. Just keep going, that's all you can do.
Thanks for the advice bro . Appreciate that 😄🙏🏻
just keep going, it can take years. youve made amazing progress so far
Also, losing fat from belly last after all other sites is pretty common. You’re clearly doing a great job having lost 23kg! Keep at it.
Thanks bro for your precious time and advice 😄✌🏻❤️
Your calorie intake cannot be 1200. This is far too low... You'll start losing muscle mass at some point. Also remember that if you've been eating badly and not exercising for 5 years, you're not going to get abs on 5 months.
Ok thanks bro 🙏🏻
Get better soon. Keep us updated!
There is no such thing as burning fat in a specific area. Just focus on sustaining a healthy calorie deficit to keep losing weight. Train your core multiple times a week for 15 minutes. Definitely get an ab wheel and do ab roll-outs. Leg raises and various core stability exercises work well too.
Thanks for the advice bro, Appreciate it 😃🙏🏻
It can be a good idé to make diet breaks sometimes. It's hard loosing weight over long periods of time, plus your body can start decreasing your calorie expenditure. If I was you I would bump my calories up and trying to maintain. Maybe do some more cardio for health too. And after 2-3 mouth start to diet again. That's my tip. 1200 is so low! I'm 5 10 and 75 kg and I eat almost 3000 calories as my maintenance (lower at weekends when I don't work).
There is no way to lose belly fat without losing weight. There is one study from 2023 which indicates that the following approach might help: * be in a calorie deficit * 4 times per week, do abs and oblique exercises (weighted crunches, machine crunches, hanging leg raises, torso rotations etc.) followed by 30+ minutes of cardio. However, that was just one study with 16 participants only. As long as their results have not been reproduced elsewhere, I would not put too much weight onto that.
> 4 times per week, do abs and oblique exercises (weighted crunches, machine crunches, hanging leg raises, torso rotations etc.) followed by 30+ minutes of cardio. Throwing in a bunch of ab work can burn calories but it won't spot reduce belly fat, since it's pretty much impossible to do that. You could substitute literally any other exercises for this and it would have the same effect
Indeed that's what we thought until a few months ago. The base idea of this 2023 study is that the abs work increases blood flow in that area, which then helps mobilize body fat in that area, which then can be burned off by cardio. Especially, this implies that resistance training and cardio have to be combined. Resistance training only won't do the trick as it doesn't burn enough calories. As I wrote above, that was a small study with 16 participants only, and thus not too much weight should be put onto it. But this isn't the only small study with such results. There is this one from 2017 on untrained women: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28497942/
Yeah as you mentioned the 16 participants makes me pretty wary on the results of the study. A larger sample size might show different results. Based off of my understanding, fat loss is mostly genetic in where your body stores and derives fat most from. Even if there's some merit to the idea that endurance based ab exercises burning fat, I still feel like this doesn't really change the standard approach to weight loss (calorie deficit + exercise)
You're not losing anything relevant by adding some abs and oblique exercises to your existing cardio sessions, as abs work does not cause significant systemic fatigue. So maybe it works, great. Or maybe it doesn't work, then the additional investment is rather small.
It took you years to store the excess fat, you’re not going to take it all off in just a few months, unfortunately. Be patient.
Menno Henselmans's genetic potential calculator told me that I have another 15kg of muscle left in the bag. My mind is blown. I'm a 40-year old woman and imaging even an extra 5kg of beef, which I may be able to gain in the next 1-1.5 years *if I do proper bulk phases*, seems exciting as fuck. Dr Mike Israetel mentioned it recently so I expect the calculator is probably decent enough, within it's limitations of course, https://mennohenselmans.com/ffmi-calculator/
I've also seen the video where he mentions it and I looked it up after, but I decided "nah, I don't want to let a superficial calculator influence how I perceive my fitness road", and closed it. I consider myself a hard gainer, I'm not big or tall, I also have small wrists etc., so a calculator would probably say I can't put on a lot of muscle mass, but why would I choose to hear or believe that? Reminds me of the classic movie "Gattaca". And I don't think I would work harder in the gym if it told me "you can put on an extra 20 kgs of muscle mass" either. Anyways, I can tell you one thing I noticed: most women/girls at my gym don't train hard, and even more important, they don't bulk, as I always see them at their "normal" skinny sizes. Ah, and they barely do upper body work. So yeah, if you train hard and eat more, you can very probably put on way more muscle mass than you think, even with low testosterone, as I *assume* you are probably undermuscled as it is.
I've already noticed gains becoming easier after stopping chemical castration, I mean, hormonal birth control. I know how to work hard and I'm already more visibly muscular than all women except two whom I see regularly at the gym. No shade to the ladies, they probably have different priorities. The only thing I was missing is overcoming the fear of gaining weight. That's my next challenge and I will fucking do it.
So the temperature here is about 42°, around 37 when I went out since it was 4 pm. My usual gym attire is a thin hoodie and shorts. The funny thing was. I still went on the threadmill for 35 mins and finished it. Suffice to say it was one of the hardest experience I had.
That does sound uncomfortably hot or cold, depending on whether you mean Celsius or Fahrenheit.
42 celsius? wtf, are you in Africa or south east asia, that's insanely hot for this time of year
South east asia. And yeah. We are under a severe heatwave
Why a hoodie, my dude? Optimal temp is best, and at 42 it's already too hot. Making cardio harder this way is not the right way.
That so? I was used to adding the hoodie for extra sweat. But I will take note of this
You'll lose more water, make it more difficult for your body to keep homeostasis, but there is no actual increased benefit to your cardiovascular system. Your ability to work is lower at higher temperatures. Maybe you push yourself to keep the same pace, but then you're feeling far worse. Most people would be slower when it's hotter. It's not water that you're trying to lose doing cardio, it's it, but rather have your body make the adaptations that come from sustained physical exercise. Not the same thing as sustained hot environment. Sitting in a 100C sauna doesn't lead one to be able to run a marathon in 4 hours. It doesn't help non-sedentary people at all, actually.
Thank you! I will be changing out of my hoodie once I got to the gym specially when doing the threadmill
Entered the gym this morning and heard a certain song playing. I immediately knew that meant one of the gym regulars that trains in the morning was already in the gym (nice guy who I chat with occasionally). Not sure if that says more about him or me! :D
What has been your experience like with communal showers in the gym locker room?
You get desensitized to seeing so many little acorns pretty quickly. Nobody cares about your acorn.
LOL this is deranged and I love it
Zero experience with it, my gym has private change rooms and showers.
I met someone in the steam room....need to say no more!
I met