Hmm? 🤔

To recap: Im a sanitation worker. I work full time 40 hrs. A week. I bike home for 3 miles from work every day. Then I go into the gym and do ONE compound lift. 5 sets 4 reps. As heavy as I can manage or as much as the machines will give. So a single night may look like: 3 mile bike ride then bench press. Or 3 mile bike ride then pull ups or some lat pull down Or 3 mile bike ride and ab wheel Here is what I have to show for 1 month of this. Keep on mind, im not eating cleaner. Im just eating whatever. Ive lost 3/4 of an inch off my waist. My chest is getting more toned. My core is looking tighter and even my intercostal muscles around my ribs are getting more pronounced. I have lost it least 6 pounds and my biceps are looking a bit bigger and a bit more vascular. One thing that has happened is that I leave the gym WANTING to do more. But I dont do that. I dont want to cause myself to potentially burn out. So that's a nice psychological trick that Ive encountered. Not doing more makes me want to do more the next day which keeps me going on the daily. I would recommend doing this if you're dealing with depression and are slightly out of shape or skinny fat or could stand to slowly burn off 10 to 20 pounds. If you're more experienced, them this likely aint gonna do shit for you or you are already doing WAY MORE than what Im doing now. I dont want to spam the forum with this on the weekly. But now im starting month 2 and Ill check in with you guys at the end of December.

I've been following some of these recommendations, and they have helped. Especially getting some sunlight time in the morning. Recs from the top comment: Remember these practical tips: - Try to get natural light in your eyes within 1 hour of waking up. - Try to incorporate exercise as early as possibly. - Get in cold water after. - Wait 90 minutes before drinking any caffeine.

I think we all need the reminder every now and then. Personally I changed my programme last week after staying almost a year on my previous routine and it was becoming boring. And boring is the enemy that makes you not go to the gym, makes you not train as hard. I spent some time looking for a new programme but most of them used the same exercises and progression system which was just rehashing what I'd been doing for months. I eventually found this one: https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=157587143 which I'm in the process of trying out (but liking it so far). But obviously at the gym the best routine is the one everyone else is doing, but they never want you to be on it lol. So remind yourself: at least you're doing something. You could be staying at home on the couch, or you could be working out. And you chose to work out.

Thr idea of GTG is about not working your muscles to failure, but to practice your exercises consistently. This might mean instead of doing 100 straight puships, you might do something like 10 or 15 reps, take a rest and do that again until you reach 100 but never really getting to a failure state. My experience feels anecdotal, but doing so... I went from doing 4 pull ups per set with extreme effort in 2 weeks to something approaching 7 to 8 reps with extreme effort. 🤔 Ive done shit like this all the time, especially the one punch man challenge and it might take me all day to get it done or just an afternoon, but it was never killing me and I managed to trim up nicely during the summer. Anyone else tried it?

Last meal I had was Monday at around 6pm. Haven't eaten since. Only drink water and electrolytes. I'm pretty hyped. I haven't done an extended day fast in almost a year cause I have just been super stressed with work and life. Finally had a moment where I was gonna be alone for about a week and so with no one else cooking and eating around me it was the perfect opportunity. I've done several of these extended day fast over the past few years. My longest was 162 hours or just shy of 7 full days. I am tempted to go for a 7 day this time but not sure if I want to get that close to the Thanksgiving holiday. Refeeding properly takes 2-3 days minimum. The longer the fast the longer you should spend refeeding. By "refeeding" I mean, eating small portions steadily over a few days increasing size and amount as you go till you are having normal sized meals again. For anyone that is going to go one some "fasting isn't good for you" rant, do some actual research please. https://youtu.be/7nJgHBbEgsE There has been a lot of good research done into therapeutic fasting. It is a perfectly safe and normal thing to do if you don't have some medical condition and are intaking the proper electrolytes. The human body evolved to be able to go long periods without food. Only in the past hundred years or so have humans abandoned fasting at large and I feel a large part of this is the promotion of excessive consumption by capitalism. Almost ever culture on earth has had some fasting tradition in it's history and many still do. It really is an empowering thing to do. Until I started intermittent daily fasting, and later extended day fasting I didn't understand how much food ruled my life.

Decided not to go another night. I thought it over and I figured it just snack onf some kraut, salad, and Greek yogurt and let that digest slowly overnight. Didn't want to take it too much closed to the Thanksgiving. Might try for a 7 day fast in a few months.

Alright. So. First 7 days have come and gone. I have not skipped a single day. Recap: each day, 5 sets 4 reps of heavy resistance of a single exersize. Bench press, pull up, or ab wheel. Each day, 3 mile bike ride from work. I had to change things up a bit. The ab wheel hit TOOO HARD and I had to switch it up to focus on bench and pull up stuff. Also, I did a couple days of cable bar heavy rows or dead lifts if I wasnt feeling pull ups. Results so far: I lost 4 to 5 pounds of weight. Certain areas of my body has tightened up a little. I feel more energetic. My pull up strength has gotten much better as the 4th rep isnt AS HARD as it was at the beginning. Bench stays strong and consistent and my chest has tightened up a bit. Nothing super duper dramatic; but so far the 3 mile bike ride mixed with 1 compound movement of heavy weight is yeilding some interesting results.

Hey everyone, Don't know if this is the community to ask, and if there any Olympic lifting enthusiast here. Been going to the gym for the last 2 months, 6 times a week but I have been mostly doing machines (body building exercises). I have been fascinated with Olympic Lifting but is really hard to find workout plans online, for it. My gym offers crossfit classes, but it only has 10 slots and are currently full... Currently trying to do a Clean, but not strong enough to do it properly with the bar only. (Struggling with my shoulders). Any ideas for workouts, to slowly build the core in order to be able to do the OLY lifts with the bar (in order to then train the technique). Don't know if it matters but 1.67cm and 58Kg.

The farts. Good God the protein farts. No matter what kind I use. Brand, type, vegan, non-vegan, etc. Those damn protein shake farts can kill. The are the most unnatural smelling abominations the human body can produce. There are a number or reasons to not use protein powder supplements if you can avoid it. Actual health concerns. Yet in the end, it is the farts that stop me from using them.

So Ive got depression that really saps me of my motivation. However. Fuck it. Im gonna try for 30 days at least the LAZIEST workout routine I can think of. Firstly. Im a janitor. I work 40 hrs a week cleaning. Every day right now, I bike 3 miles home from work. So. Instead of building a whole program that requires me to do several moves with several sets. Im gonna bike home. And then do 1 move! 5 sets of 4 reps. As high of resistance my body will allow. The other day, it was 5 sets of 4 reps wide grip pull ups. Last night was 5 sets of 4 reps bench. Tonight will be 5 sets of 4 ab wheels. I dont care. Im just gonna do this exact thing for a month. So it takes me about 20 minutes to get home and about 10 to 15 minutes to bang out these reps. Im 189 lbs right now. Im hoping to lose 10 lbs, but im not in a rush. Imma find the hell out and see what happens. So by my guess, Ill be doing bench press 2 or 3 times a week as well as pull ups and ab wheels. Ill let you all know what happens in a month. If anything; it wont be a total waste of time and maybe ill at least develop a good habit.

What's your favorite nutritious snack for when you get hungry during the day? I like corn related things. Over here they sell like dried corn things that look like nuts but are actually corn. A portion of that is not only tasty (as they are often covered in spices) but also fairly nutritious with some vitamins and proteins in them. Would like to see what y'all eat when your muscles get a little bit nagging during the day.

I feel really intimidated (not so much by the people here) that have been at the gym for a while. I have always been nervous about exercising in front of others and always have had a problem with comparing myself to others and letting it be detrimental if I am ''less than." I read a good post about not comparing yourself to others but it still is hard when I can see these absolute tanks doing workouts with ease that I could probably only do one rep of. It makes me feel like I missed out these last couple of years, like I could have been there with you guys. I have plenty of life ahead of me but it's definitely something that stays on my mind regardless. I used to play a lot of sports years ago (both through organized teams and recreationally) and was very lean/muscular. A few years ago I kinda snapped and lost the passion for everything; and my physical health has worsened since then. I am by no means fat but I have packed on some weight and lost that strength/stamina I had. I don't like it. It's hard, but it's not like walking up 5 flights of stairs to get to work hard. It's a walking up 5 flights to a nice meal, happy brain chemicals and personal reward type of hard and it is helping me feel much better than I was. I hope to get involved in this community more and thanks for inspiring me, everyone

I'm in the process of setting up a tankie lifting group in my area and I thought it would be nice to have some leftist health/fitness oriented literature to distribute among our units. Any suggestions?

The quintessential gym experience.

I have 15lb weights that I keep in my car for exercise on the go(and at work bc I have a lot of free time when I’m not reading) and I got 35 lb DBs that I rarely use. Recently I’ve gotten strong enough to start curling the 35s and I feel so hyped that I can do it with proper form, what do you use for DB curls? Do you like bicep curls or do you have a different go-to quick exercise you do on the go? because I wanna try to work something other than biceps at work too

I like watching gym memes as going to the gym is a meme experience of itself sometimes. However, for some reason most meme subreddits or instapages have a right wing touch to it. Being misogynist, racist or generally alt-right can ruin the otherwise good memes posted there. So, does anyone have a meme community that doesn't feel the need to insult women or minorities?

Every year there are, what, thousands and thousands of people starting at the gym? And every year some of those people will want to look up steroids and other PEDs to get results. This is gonna be the ultimate discussion (if it takes) to finally settle this. No judgment, no bias, just facts. Consider the following. Our view of a natural human body has been so distorted that many now think peak natural fitness is being scrawny, and you _need_ PEDs to show any muscle. This leads many people -- especially impressionable people, like teens -- to seek out PEDs because they are being told this is the only way to progress _and_ it's not dangerous at all if you take them correctly. Take them correctly being the keyword. Most doctors will not help you take PEDs (some might), so it turns into self-experimentation that has left many dead and ruined over the years, until we have refined the training regimen enough today to, finally, have a somewhat responsible PED usage. And now what happens? PEDs have lost some of their "demonic" nature, which is great, but now you have teens on tiktok praising SARMS (which are not studied enough for human consumption) and peddling their supplements to make money. Who else hear has heard the random geared jock sell their whey powder, turkesterone, BCAAs and overpriced routines and promise similar results from these? Essentially we get to a point where newcomers believe they need PEDs to actually achieve anything. Thus they do not go to the gym. The second group, who doesn't know about PEDs, thinks they should get incredible results in 6 months to a year. When they don't get them, they leave dejected. Especially as teens (16-22) are in their prime physical potential and do not need PEDs to achieve incredible results that will follow them for a lifetime. We are driving people _away_ from physical fitness. PEDs work. If they didn't nobody would take them. They work really well. But they can also destroy you. They change you forever, for better or worse. For example, steroids create more "nodes" in your muscle cells, which direct how much muscle you can build. These nodes stay even after you get off steroids and change your natural ability to create and maintain muscle mass. This is a desired effect of steroids. There is such a thing as responsible PED usage, but even then we're not entirely sure how much we can push it. Some people took it completely irresponsibly and ruined their life (in their own words). Others took them responsibly, for example they stopped after 5 years, and are doing great. But how much can you push those five years? In my opinion, take PEDs if you want. But know what you're getting yourself into, in and out. You can never know enough. Furthermore, figure out what your goals are. What is the point of achieving in one year what could be achieved in five? You still need to work out five years down the line on PED. You're gonna look swole faster, sure, but for how many health drawbacks? In the competitive field the use is different. Everyone takes them and so if you even want to qualify for a competition you have to get on them too. Essentially, is there a clear benefit to PED usage towards your goal, that could not be achieved without them? PEDs also change your body and believe me, those in the know will know you take them. Shoulders get super massive and look sharp as a knife. On HGH your organs enlarge (from what I heard) and push out against your belly. Personally, I don't even find steroid users attractive. First because it's clear they're on steroids (which still requires a lot of work, they still put in the workouts), and second because it's just too big. It's like you're trying to look like a mountain. But that's just my opinion. I think what the fitness community as a whole needs is transparency. Be honest if you take PEDs, nobody actually cares. Admit to it. You can do it now.

Be aware that the people in the gym are a very select group of society. I always used to compare myself to others in the gym, mostly the mental gorillas you see pushing 44kg dumbbells as bench press. I admired their strengths but it made me feel small in comparison, with my 26-30kg press. But after I while I realized that me going to the gym is an achievement of itself. Whenever I did physical activities or physical labor outside of the gym I noticed what I actually achieved while in there. People complementing looks or my strength because to them, I was a beast. Focus on your own journey. Admire people for their strength, but don't let that make you feel worse. You're doing great for taking the time to work on yourself. Those madlads and madlasses at the gym started somewhere as well.

I do about 4km to 6km every day, I would like to know if this is ideal or do you have to run a greater distance daily to maintain your weight and health?