Friday, March 5, 2021

Slowly But Surely

I have been making slow but steady progress. I did get sweats so I could workout in cold weather (reminder: my home gym is outdoors). I even added an exercise. Here is what today looked like:

  • Squats: 6x45
  • Bench Press: 8x35
  • EZ Barbell Curls: 10x25 (they have been EZ curls all along)
  • Cable V Pressdowns: 8x35

Reminder that the weights are what I put on the bar or machine, not the total.

I have been regularly working out except I developed a blood clot in my left leg a few weeks ago. That paused things for a couple weeks. I up the weights when I can do at least two extra solid reps on the last set and everything (e.g. shoulders during bench press) feels good. So far so good.

I did up the reps for the EZ curls. My forearms weren't liking things so I went from 8 to 10 reps to keep the weight from moving up too fast. First workout at 25# and it feels much better than when I tried 8x25 a few weeks ago.

I am alternating bike riding days with weight days. Seems to be going well. I'm not even looking at the scale these days because I know I am going to start gaining muscle (if I haven't already) and seeing my weight go up because of that is just going to mess with my head. Weights haven't affected my cycling, though. The blood clot did but even that has passed and I'm increasing the distance I ride again. Blood clot is still there but it's decreasing.

I did start using an app to track my workouts. Different reps and whatnot were getting too confusing and I didn't want to use paper this time so I hunted for an iPhone app. I settled on Strong. It's not perfect but it's simple and meets my needs. So I have the app to guide my workouts and I play music on my iPhone during my workout. You could say that iPhone is my training partner. A lot has changed in 20 years, right? 😋

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Baby Steps

Increased the weights a bit after a couple of weeks:

  • Squats: 6x25
  • Bench press: 8x10
  • Barbell curls: 8x10

I tried jumping up from 20 to 30 on squats. Too soon. 😆 I'm such a girlyman.

Sunday, January 3, 2021

Reset

I had to reset my notion of "starting off easy". I was getting some soreness in my right shoulder. Not a sharp pain but a dull soreness. Throw in the weather turning colder with my not having any sweats for outdoor workouts and you have a great time to take a few weeks off.

I got some sweats and my shoulder feels fine so back to square one:

  • Squats: 6x20
  • Bench press: 8x0
  • Barbell curls: 8x0

More like square -1. I'm going to keep it here for at least two weeks and maybe as long as four. Once I'm sure all is well I will go back to stepping it up. Very slowly, though. Like no increases until after a couple of weeks each time.

I did notice something interesting this time, though. I wasn't happy with the way I was doing squats and offloading weight from the bar allowed me to work on my form a bit. Long story short: I need to not drop down so much. I was trying to go all the way down, like I used to. Turns out I'm not like I used to be. So I end up going down around parallel or maybe a bit below. It's what's comfortable for me now. Perhaps I'll go lower when I am naturally ready for it. Perhaps not. I'll do a better job of listening to my body and not trying to force things.

P.S. Do people still say you shouldn't squat below parallel? There is nothing wrong with going all the way down, as long as you keep the tension on your legs and don't rest at the bottom. That puts the tension on your connective tissue which can lead to injury.

Saturday, December 5, 2020

The First Week

I know enough about working out with weights to know that I would have to really take it easy for a while. When starting back up again, you're not just dealing with weak muscles but also with connective tissue that needs to get used to workouts. Just because your muscles can handle putting on more weight doesn't mean your tendons and ligaments can. So, I'm using weights that I used to warm up with, as expected. Still, even I was surprised at how little I am squatting.

I ride my bike a lot and I know my legs and calves are strong. However, cycling strong is not the same as squatting strong because the muscles are used differently. So I'm using warm-up weights there, too.

I am getting used to everything again. Moving the long pins in the cage as I setup for squats, then bench. The breathing while lifting. Getting my feet setup just right for squats. During the bench press I now put a pillow under my head because it doesn't like the position it's in (I can't have my head flat when I'm laying down or I get a dizzy-like feeling). It's all coming back to me.

I never lifted very heavy weights. I have long arms and legs so those long levers aren't an advantage in sheer pounds. So I could max just over 200# on the bench press and about 315# squatting, as I recall. However, I was a heck of a lot stronger then than I am now. I will be glad to get some grip strength back, too. Slowly but surely.

My workout is super simple. Three sets (after warm-up) of (all weights are just what's on the bar):

  • Squats: 6x60
  • Bench press: 8x40
  • Barbell curls: 8x30

Friday, December 4, 2020

In the beginning...

...there was Usenet and email, and it was good. Before the world wide web, we used those to communicate over the Internet (capital "I"). If more than 100 people would vote for it, you could create a new Usetnet newsgroup. If not, then you had to start up a mailing list and communicate that way (which are still used by bands (especially indie) to let their fans know about new releases). Your mailing list could forward emails that came in automatically to the whole group and/or the emails for a given day could be collected together in one longer email (a "digest") and that would be sent out to list members.

A bit of internet history: I am an internet fitness pioneer. No, really. I started the "weights" mailing list back in 1990. It was the first thing on the whole internet devoted to working out with weights. I put up a web site, WeightsNet.com in 1996 (weights.com was already taken I couldn't get weights.net because, back then, you could only get a .net domain if you were an ISP). It was a fun little project and even made a small amount of money. However, in 1998 I became a father and that took priority over the site, the list, and my weight training workouts. So, gradually, I pulled back from all three.
[Interesting note: one of the people on the mailing list also saw the commercial potential of talking about working out on the net as well as selling related products (I had my own reasons for not pursuing that). I believe he was just a teenager at the time and he really went for it. He spent a lot of $$ to buy bodybuilding.com and worked his butt off. Ryan DeLuca is now a very rich man. How cool is that!]

Fast forward 20 years to today. My children are in their twenties. I have divorced and re-married. I took up triathlons in 2008 but that has been reduced to bicycling. I couldn't take up the weights again because I had my own workout equipment but I didn't have any room for them anymore (the divorce was pretty financially devastating). However, I do now:
That's an olympic bench and bar, a power cage with pull-up bar, a pulldown/rowing machine (using free weights), a curling bar, and a rack for the weights (the dumbbells didn't make it--yet). The bench and big bar I bought around 1988 and most of the rest I bought around 1991. It has all been sitting in a barn for the last 20 years. Things are a bit rusty but so am I.

So why am I writing? Because I am now 58 and working out with weights for the first time in about 20 years. I thought I'd share what that's like. Pretty simple, really.

Slowly But Surely

I have been making slow but steady progress. I did get sweats so I could workout in cold weather (reminder: my home gym is outdoors). I even...