thread of getting sw0le

itll be cheap, I didn't have much

noob gains

If I have maybe $100-150 to spend and a very tiny apartment without a bench or anything I could DIY into a bench, what are some good things to invest in for strength training at home? I am thinking push-up handles, resistance bands (probably the loop kind and not the handle kind but idk for sure), a yoga mat, maybe some gallon water jugs, but I'm not sure what else.

pull-up bar and kettlebells are all i use

I want a pull up bar so bad but I bought one a few years ago and it did not fit any of the door frames in my apt :(

was it the kind that hangs off the frame itself or one with the screw-in supports? mine is the latter and the width is adjustable to fit the door frame

it was the hanging frame one, i guess i could try a screw in one??

they just feel sturdier to me -- one of my last apartments had the hanging kind and i didn't like using it but ymmv

i bought one of the fancy rogue ones that mounts into the studs above the door but it's so heavy there's no way i can hang it without another strong person to assist, which is difficult in quarantine!

my fat ass probably couldn't do three pull ups at this point. so out of shape right now

hello everyone!

for $150, you can get:

a decently large backpacking rucksack that fits high and tight with a chest strap

sandbags, duct tape and bulk sand from a hardware store. weigh them out and wrap them up.

hope you all are well.

NYC gyms are open, i figure rolling the dice w/ my physical health is worth the boon to my mental. feels good so far, is what i'm telling myself.

yeah

i live in a podunk red state and my gym has been open since mid-may. i've literally gone every day since they re-opened. it's been a lifeline. its membership base is small and they've only let 10-15 people in per floor, you have to sign up w/ an app beforehand. i would be in a worse place without it that's for sure. and i'm lifting really well atm.

my gym has been open since june at up to 50% capacity, it's fine if a little annoying to have to wear a mask. you don't have to put it on for cardio machines or "strenuous exercise," which doesn't provide any comfort to me in terms of covid prevention but the air circulation is very good, not like my old Y. my problem is being unmotivated and never really wanting to go there. i hate doing any exercise inside my house though.

I decided not to buy a kettlebell during the rush in April and May and ... they have only gotten more expensive since, lol

i am on the wait list for a concept 2 rowing machine

i've been squatting my large flower pots. they're not very heavy but it's the best i can do. i don't really have any place to put actual weights. my gym hasn't reopened.

I inherited a Concept 2 when my brother moved across the country, the mental discipline to put up with such boredom is worse than the physical exertion.

lol i know, i used to row in hs and college so i've had some training in it, the longest i probably went was an hour, but i'm not practiced right now. it is indeed agonizing but would probably be good for my brain.

there are a couple concept rowing devotees on this board iirc, i am tall with short legs and a long torso and have never found a comfortable position on those machines. would love to since my cardio is absolute trash right now.

my strength didn't evaporate as completely as feared. i'm hoping the body fat acquired during quarantine will melt into muscle with no other changes to my daily life. that's how a 39 year old body works right?

i like rowing. milo i hope you give away your rower to someone who would appreciate it. those things are expensive.

i dream of owning one of the new manual treadmills some day. those things are monsters.

as it is i'm back to running outside since it's cooling off.

maybe the rowers aren't that much? idk. anyway it's awesome to say you inherited a nice thing thing and then say you hate it, love that energy.

I use it fairly regularly, but that doesn't stop me from hating the process.

tbh they're made to be hated. they are pretty expensive but they last forever and they make the parts readily available if anything breaks.

xp I've never gotten the endorphin rush/runner's high/whatever that makes cardio even mildly pleasurable, it is 100% means to an end (delaying death marginally).

I oil it... once a year? Other than that it's bulletproof. I upgraded the monitor to one that works with some bluetooth strap thing to monitor your heart rate and track workouts and promptly never used that feature again.

The last time I was in Best Buy in the Before Times they were selling some Peloton-like rower that showed you footage of rowing on a beautiful Alpine lake, which seemed crueler somehow.

Also it was $2500

i've been squatting my large flower pots.

oh it looks prettty funny.

i am finally doing a better job going to the gym. but working at home and the quar generally have fucked up my whole body (beyond making it fatter). i've always gotten a burn in my upper traps when i sit for too long but i used to have a day that was broken up by a lot of walking around. now i sit in a chair all day and it doesn't mix well with pressing movements, which are my faves. last week i had that feeling you get when you sleep on your neck wrong. i am trying to do band things during the day to make my other back muscles work.

oh also that front of hip thing, from sitting too much

Still not hitting the gym and relegated to body weight, and a few dumbbells and kettlebells. One thing that has been really eye opening for me is overhead squats. Even a set of ten with two eight pound weights is a challenge for me, and doing them is helping me discover new things about my squat form and I’m probably fixing flaws and overcompensations I had developed.

only slightly related high lunge is really doing good things for my hips and psoas.

really into anything that's about spinal extension lately

also hit 315 on squats and bench for the first time ever :)

but realized i've been over-doing, basically going to the gym every day as a stress compensator and over-training--really hit an exhausted point last thursday when i could barely make it through 3 sets of deadlifts. so i'm gonna do 2 rest days for every 7 lifting days. it's a 9 day split (i have 2 leg days and 2 arm days lol). whatever i'm living the dream. also eating so many egg whites.

Damn nice GAINS

queens ass guidos making the gym feel real unsafe these days so i bought a fancy exercise bike and some FITNESS APPS to get thru the winter. goodbye to swoleness hello to bicycle fashions

tell me about high lunge

feeling you on the over-compensating. after doing badly for a while i have been doing great for the past 5-6 weeks but cannot accept how little i can deadlift. but i made my hips and knees (IT band syndrome was bothering me in the past and kept me from running spring/summer when gym was closed) feel better with a lot of butt exercises. then the other day at the gym i awkwardly got up from a bench i was face-down on and felt a pop in my knee. it hurt only a little and the pain mostly went away after a few days, decided it was nothing, then i decided to squat a barbell for the first time in a while. it popped more and now hurts, can walk fine but feel it getting up from a chair and any twisting motion, but concerned from google that i may have torn my meniscus. so dumb that it all started from a thing that was not even an exercise! and a sign i am getting old. i would normally not do anything about a thing like this because i am so doctor-averse but i am going to go to one hopefully soon.

especially because i have obtained CONCEPT 2 and want to be able to use it without worrying i am permanently damaging my knee

tell me about high lunge

https://www.ekhartyoga.com/media/images/articles/content/Crescent-Pose-High-Lunge-Anjaneyasana-Ekhart-Yoga.jpg

Damn nice GAINS

ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

queens ass guidos making the gym feel real unsafe these days so i bought a fancy exercise bike and some FITNESS APPS to get thru the winter. goodbye to swoleness hello to bicycle fashions

― adam, Monday, 23 November 2020 23:27 (yesterday) link

With the caveat that I have neither lived in your skin nor necessarily been to your gym, I am a big proponent of not letting the gym bros get to you. First of all, most of them probably care less about you or what your doing than you think. Anyone who has achieved gains knows they started somewhere too. Second, if they are actually actively making you feel unsafe you should probably speak to a manager about it.

queens ass guidos making the gym feel real unsafe these days so i bought a fancy exercise bike and some FITNESS APPS to get thru the winter. goodbye to swoleness hello to bicycle fashions

― adam, Monday, 23 November 2020 23:27 (yesterday) link

With the caveat that I have neither lived in your skin nor necessarily been to your gym, I am a big proponent of not letting the gym bros get to you. First of all, most of them probably care less about you or what your doing than you think. Anyone who has achieved gains knows they started somewhere too. Second, if they are actually actively making you feel unsafe you should probably speak to a manager about it.

i meant their maskless/dicknosed disregard for social distancing and wiping down machines, i live in a very trumpy eastern european neighborhood and everyone is performatively eschewing public health norms, plus it's crowded. i snitched em out to 311 w no effect ha ha.

Oh I see! Pretty sure you live where I used to live then lol.

masks at my gym are about 50/50. i wear one but slip it down when i'm doing sets or cardio. usually there are fewer than 25 people in a .. i don't know the square footage but it's two floors, probably a normal size for a city gym. cleaning solution and towels everywhere, everyone wipes everything down. i only felt freaked out in october, when it was starting to get crowded (35+), but then they instituted using an app to check in and track numbers and it dropped back again. idk i feel very lucky, i would be having a really hard time if i couldn't lift weights, and this gym is owned by a couple who happen to do a really great job running a gym and have responded to this year very well.

of course this morning i strained an upper back muscle doing squats so i'm going to have to take it easy / go light for a while.

we are required to be under 25% capacity now but that is apparently not a small number of people. you are required to wear a mask unless engaged in "strenuous" activity or cardio machine. my gym has been flooded with johns hopkins students whose gym is closed and they have varying levels of awareness. i wish they would go back to the appointment system they had early on. will probably close again soon anyway because positivity rates are way up here like everywhere else.

my gym is tiny with no windows so i haven’t even considered going back. i got some dumbells and a pull up bar and i’m just trying to keep steady. no gains, just steady sailing. have become a devotee of split squats.

that is one thing i've tried a bunch and can never do - just can't get used to using the top of my foot as an anchor (it hurts and feelw weird!)

me too! also i feel like my front knee is way out in space and liable to go in unwanted directions

The hard thing for me about the home workouts is the boredom of the workouts and finding motivation to push myself. I don't really have much variety of weights, and it's extremely boring to just do more reps. I've tried some variations and tried combining exercises (kettlebell swing into kettlebell clean into shoulder press into squat) but I'm still just not pushing that much weight and it's not as satisfying (although I have slimmed down without the lifting hunger, which is nice). It's hard to set goals, track progress, etc. Some days I will set a goal like 100 regular pushups plus 50 modified or something like that, but it still doesn't have the same feeling to it.

The most enjoyable thing I've found to do is actually running outside, as we have a really beautiful wooded trail along the river.