thread of getting sw0le

and yes, learn how to do compound lifts.

benching is good, but overhead press might be even better..........

also pullups

okay awesome. right i forget about pullups, i love those.

sweet

don't be afraid to look like a goof! most people there are goofs and don't know what they are doing . Anyone there clowning on people is an idiot and a rare thing , i find people just mind their own business .

i was also pretty worried about looking like a goof/injuring myself when i started lifting. fortunately, the local crossfit gym required that you take a three-session introductory course before you could join the usual classes, and in it they instructed you on proper form. so, i took the course, learned the lifts, and then never did any crossfit ever again

lol owed

haha

crossfit is good for having bumper plates and lifting platforms . the rest is for the birds, i used to be able to go the the crossfit gym by me they had "open gym" a couple hours a day and it was $40 a month to do that.

yeah, i went to the open gym, which was a little awkward at first for obv reasons

guys i got shit-talked by a couple of goons at my "serious" "crossfit" "barbell" type gym the other day. three of these big ex-footballer types were camped out by this giant hammer-type squat machine next to the bench press i was using. i had my headphones on but the song was quiet so i overheard one of them say i looked like a puff marshmallow (i was wearing gray tights and a white nike tank). and then another dude said "well at least his legs have some mass" and another dude said "yeah but it's the bad kind of mass." like, wtf? i flipped them off, avoided eye contact, did my last set then went upstairs lol. i have only seen these motherfuckers a few times and haven't seen them since it happened but if i catch any of that vibe again i'm talking to the owner.

Hardcore gyms without Crossfit are lovely, lovely places. Hardcore gyms with one or two Crossfit-ish (but not the real deal) trainers are lovely when you learn the Crossfit-ish dudes schedules and know when not to be there. Gyms that pretend to be hardcore and are lousy with Crossfitters are hellholes to be avoided.

wtf map?? christ

omg that's fucked up. i would get them kicked the fuck out for sure.

(says the gay dude who's never been to a gym before lol, p much my worst nightmare)

dudes who go to the gym in groups are always fuckin gross. it is good that you indicated that you heard them, hopefully they will feel shame

there's a crossfit room in my gym full of way nicer bars and bumpers than we have in the regular part. i am occasionally tempted but the crossfit trainer often wears a blue lives matter hat so fuck that dude

it's weird because when i went to a globo gym kind of place there were groups of body builder types that were the nicest guys .

what was the music like? my gym is all nu metal in the morning when i go. since group gym dudes don't wear headphones they are fully subject to "down with the sickness" or say a nu metal cover of "zombie" over and over and that can be the genesis of anti social behaviors

I don't recall them playing music at any kind of intrusive levels . now your average Crossfit gym will definitly blast all of the worst nu metal and cheesy EDM 24/7

There is a definite exercise guy who hangs out at the gym all the time as their social thing and to pick up people. Those are the guys commenting on other people with their friends because they have no life.

I did a one month thing at a gym I used to be a member at and it was noticeably so much worse because of all the crossfit people monopolizing spaces and moving the equipment around all the time.

Discovering that competitive bodybuilders and weightlifters are generally chill and respectful of anyone who is there to work out was really important and has helped me find good gyms pretty consistently in my travels. They are there to work in a pleasant environment are are more likely to be annoyed by the loudmouth wannabe than the slightly skinny newb or somewhat overweight oldtimer genuinely doing his or her best.

NB: this does not apply to three-rep roidheads, but you can generally figure out which gyms cater to that clientele pretty quickly.

map that's really fucked up! cannot believe the shit people try to pull in public

it would be really lovely if this thread morphed into a yoga thread! i've never done it myself. i've had people recommend it over the years, maybe as a way of telling me i need to relax idk...

though of course the yoga world is just as rife with creeps and scammers as the rest of fitness, isn't corepower basically a pyramid scheme?? how did you all navigate that world and learn what you needed?

I'm working on dialing in all the non-workout parts of my routine and so far this has meant a) buying an automatic food dispenser to try and train two rambunctious kittens not to wake me up at 5 AM every goddamn morning and b) sitting down for some hardcore Food Math; I'm trying to stick as close to my macros as possible and trying to tweak macro timings for the first time, with more carbs around the workout and more fats later in the day to try and promote satiety/better sleep. It's unbelievably boring and finicky but it at least led me to realize I should probably work out earlier, since I'm unwilling to give up my big oatmeal & strawberries breakfast and that's hard to fit into this scheme otherwise.

I am too impatient for yoga but when I do it regularly my posture becomes so good I feel like I am two inches taller. Also it's so much easier to sit with my legs completely together that I wonder if men manspread not because of a big ball problem but because they lack the flexibility and strength in those muscles.

it would be really lovely if this thread morphed into a yoga thread!

questionable

isn't corepower basically a pyramid scheme??

whoa, i've never researched yogas so i didn't know about this. there is one near my gym. what is this about? i'm interested in pyramid schemes

corepower has a class they do with weights i heard

i'd have to look up what i read again but i think it was: they push people through their expensive chain of yoga teacher cert classes, dead-end for-profit ed tactics

yeah yoga culture is kinda more fd up than other exercise things, but its all ultimately a similar mix of neurosis and commerce, doesnt mean u cant get a good sweat on tho right lol

Saw this at the gym today and... idek pic.twitter.com/3jOrgGm5uO

— . (@labakasura) June 23, 2019

watch youtube video of how to do free weights start light until u have a feel for it f the machines theyre unhealthy, weights will help u tone up eating bad is not a huge impediment

― lag∞n, Thursday, June 20, 2019 4:23 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, in addition to youtube videos of how to lift things correctly, watching compilations of gym fails (like the one lagoon posted above) can be instructive in their own way. You can say to yourself: "here is what it looks like to not know at all what you're doing at the gym. I have at least watched a few videos about proper form and technique and will not be pulling any of this weirdo shit."

careful tho some of those are pretty gnarly lol

here's the times article on corepower:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/style/corepower-yoga-teacher-training.html

there's also this:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/corepower-yoga-instructors-sue-americas-largest-chain-of-yoga-studios-for-underpaying/

oooh

i've been having some trouble with gym in 2019. more sitting (for some reason idk yet) at my new job location has made me stiff and i feel weaker. could be getting old. i had not gone in several days and went last night, just made myself do 5 things and leave. i did feel better but decided i'll just go do whatever i feel like for a while. don't push it, grandma. blehhhhh

I am too impatient for yoga but when I do it regularly my posture becomes so good I feel like I am two inches taller. Also it's so much easier to sit with my legs completely together that I wonder if men manspread not because of a big ball problem but because they lack the flexibility and strength in those muscles.

― Yerac, Monday, 24 June 2019 8:47 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The answer to this is my own cult - Pilates. I'm just back into doing it after 6 months recovering from my snapped tibialis anterior tendon. I am less degraded than I though I would be and muscle memory appears to be strong. The challenge is persuading the instructors at my new studio to ramp things up more quickly. One, at least listens. They also seem to be members of a sub-cult, called Basi, which is much more hands on and breathing oriented but I'll stick with this studio till I move out.

There's a lot of work on hip flexors and abductors which (for me at least) are neglected and undiscovered muscles. You may be right about the man spreading thing.

Finally broke my old best/bad form squat (180, I know, not great) with good form for 3x5- if I can keep up linear progression next week I'll finally squat more than my body weight for the first time ever

that’s awesome. don’t get too hung up on exact weight- it’s different for everyone. ones own body weight is a good benchmark.

c&jed a plate today, went up p easy, my form is still trash when i lift heavy tho just get no depth total power clean

its interesting when i started doing the lift it was blowing up my mid back and now its more hitting my shoulders, works i guess

Just missed the body weight squat- managed two decent sets of 190x5 at 192.5 and a third set of 3. Keeping the load the same for next week, but soon

though of course the yoga world is just as rife with creeps and scammers as the rest of fitness, isn't corepower basically a pyramid scheme?? how did you all navigate that world and learn what you needed?

i started going to a studio where i knew one of the teachers already and it turned out to be a great place, my method was to just show up to level 1 classes (some of the instructors w/iyengar background were really helpful) and accept that i was going to be terrible at it and frustrated for awhile. but also i wish i had realized that if twisting or folding a certain way hurts your back, don't force it - used to manage to injure myself approx every 4 months when i first started. and now i just don't practice shoulder stand or any of the neck stuff at the end of class, i don't even work on headstand because of the neck strain - i don't care if the teacher says they're important poses, i will def hurt myself doing these.

been reading this thread thinking i should start lifting weights a little bit, my building has a gym but i avoid because i have no idea what i should be doing there and it's really intimidating! i take some pretty difficult vinyasa yoga classes multiple times a week & run occasionally, so it's like.. i don't really NEED to for general fitness but from just yoga i'm never going to get enough upper body strength to be able to do arm balances.

yeah do it youll pick up lifting quick if youve done a lot of yoga, watch youtubes on high bar squat, overhead press and deadlift imo

yes, it is nothing to be afraid of. do overhead presses and my favorite dumbbell bench press and one arm dumbbell row. the more often you do it the more your body just tells you what is the right thing, imo.

i wonder what exercises you'd want to do to make arm balances easier though? push-ups, dips & pull-ups?

I committed the cardinal sin of staying in the gym too close to closing time, on a holiday no less! Looking at the TV between sets of dips I overhear someone saying "He's just fucking sitting there, watching Spongebob"--wait, I'm watching Spongebob! Panicked look around the room, it's deserted and 3 minutes to closing time and I've never hustled out faster or avoided eye contact with the staff more studiously.

lmao

Yeah, there's no crime in going to the late shift, but you are definitely going to be judged on the efficiency and intensity of your workout by tired staff.