aceluby

Started a shadow boxing program, lifting 2 days a week, cut drinking for the month, and have started eating much better. Weighed myself on Jan 1 and it was the most I've been in like 7 years. I've already dropped 8 lbs and expect to do this for the next 6 weeks. Goal is to lose 20 total by then and see where I'm at, but things are looking good so far! Happy New Year y'all!!!

It turns out the program we were doing was basically full body, 6 days a week. After 5 weeks I had to throw in the towel. It just wasn't fun, I wasn't seeing progress, and I wasn't getting enough rest. So I'm changing it up for the rest of the year with a 5x5, 4 day upper/lower split. So far so good, with yesterday doing a heavy upper body session and today doing a lower body one. Will probably move up in all my lifts next week.

If I had bought at $5, I would never have held through all the growth. I can't imagine myself keeping it when it hit $500, much less what it's at now.

Most of my stock holdings are in the company I work for. Luckily the return on that over the last 5 years has been ~500%. I have taken some of that and diversified into some different index funds (tech, us manufacturing, & international) and started adding $1-200 a week while reinvesting my dividends. Plan is to pay off my house before my kids graduate, then use that and some of my savings to help them pay for school, and have enough to retire by the time I'm in my mid 60's. I avoid crypto, NFTs, and meme stocks like the plague. If I want to gamble I'll go play poker, as it's more fun.

Continuing our "total body every day" workout program and it's starting to get brutal. Today was cardio, and even that had weights and a ton of squats, squat jumps, and KB swings. Yesterday was a heavy lifting session, and Saturday was more of an endurance lifting session. I'm still trying to figure out the method to the madness and haven't come up with anything beyond "we're gonna kick your ass all day, every day - and rest on Thursdays". Tomorrow is another lifting session, so we'll see how that goes.

Have been ridiculously sick with a cold for the last week and finally got to move my body a bit this morning, which felt really good. My wife and I have started a decent lifting program, but so far the workouts seem to be a bit short (ie kinda easy for our fitness level), not doing progressive overloads, and seem to be pretty much total body every day. It's only the first week, so I'm not going to judge it until we've worked through at least 4 of the 8 weeks, and it has kicked my wife's ass pretty good so far - but I am a bit skeptical of the theory behind the workouts. It's only 8 weeks, so I'll finish it and probably move back to the 6 day schedule I did last year that I got some really good gains from.

One week down - many, many more to go. This week is going to be a deload week. Basically just a lot of yoga, pilates, and a little bit of cardio. Then hitting it hard again starting next week on a new lifting program with my wife.

Yeah, don't expect a change, just venting. It's all for fun anyway

Wtf, chose Indy with 5 and just checked and my points stuck, but not my pick. Gd it

Had a good HIIT session today focusing on legs. I think this PPL+Upper+Lower schedule has been great for getting bigger and building some solid muscle. Definitely stronger is all of my lifts, but holy shit has my diet gone to shit. Up to 225 lbs right now, with WAY too much around the love-handles and zero ab definition. Next week I'm doing a "cleanse" with my wife - which is all home cooked meals, controlled healthy snacks, and no alcohol. She wants to do it for 5 days, but if I can get through that I'm going to just keep going. I really need to cut 25 lbs (of fat), so Monday is where it starts.

My wife will definitely want to watch this, so I'll probably get my switch out and continue playing some Witcher 3.

This hits close. I am basically doing a dirty bulk and am at my heaviest I've been in a few years. I don't have any events in October besides bowling once a week, so my plan is to do a serious cut in October through Thanksgiving. Really need to drop the beer, but shit... kids make it hard. I did a new leg workout today and it was hard as hell. 5 sets of dumbbell squats to warm up, 7 sets of split squats per leg - holding at the bottom between sets, 7 sets of sumo squats - holding at the bottom between sets, 3 sets of single leg deadlifts, 3 sets of single leg squats, then 3 sets of hip thrusters. My glutes are ridiculously tired.

Had a really good chest workout this morning. Nearly all of my heavy sets finished with 1-2 in the tank, which is exactly where I aim to be. Tomorrow is back, and Wed will be legs, but I have this nagging issue with my left hip. I'll roll it out a few days in a row, but then leg day hits and it feels tight again. It's not painful, per se, but it is uncomfortable. I'm trying a new workout this week, so maybe I have bad form for one of the moves. Guess we'll see on Wed.

https://www.roguefitness.com/powerblock-elite-exp-series These are the ones I got, 5-90

Week 5 of my 5 day program and things are going pretty good. Today was my heavy leg day, so front to back lunges, dumbbell squats, goblet squats, split squats, very light dumbbell deadlift, side squats, and calf raises. Tomorrow I'll do upper body w/ my wife and Friday I'll finish off with some lower body HIIT (plyo lunges, sprints, bear crawls, & jump squats). Feeling pretty sore on a week to week basis, but feel like I'm getting some good rest on the weekends. Will probably switch things up again next month.

@Tywin et al.Are we doing this again this year, or corking it?

Today was leg day, followed by walking the dogs, mowing the lawn, then 2 hours of walking around the zoo with the kids. Definitely enough legs for today. Two moves in particular are just destroying me for my lifting days. The first is this move where you step up on a bench, step down, then with the same leg do a reverse lunge. Three sets of those as part of a super set. The other move that's been getting me is the single leg squat that's right in the middle of a giant set. I need a nap.

On to my 3rd week of PPL/Upper/Lower split and think I've found a really good sweet spot. I'm getting up around 4:30, take my pre-workout & vitamins, start working out at 5, done by 6, shower, protein shake, then start working by 7. Weekends I get to sleep in to 7 and take those rest days very seriously. Nothing more strenuous than walking the dog (which with a new puppy in the house is at least twice a day). Every workout feels like I've had plenty of rest to go hard, which has not always been the case with some of the programs I've tried out. Like @Iskaral Pust, my diet for the last few months has gone to shit. Not much of a sweets guy, but I've been indulging far too often in a few beers/wine after the kids go to bed that is easily adding 500kcals per day, plus we're getting takeout at least once a week that leads to more cheat meals than I should be having. I've seen some good strength gains and I'm carrying significantly more muscle than I was a couple years ago, but I really need to get back on a better diet and cut out the drinking.

Had a really good push workout this morning. The two days of rest and using the theragun worked wonders to get through the first week of doms. So far I think I'm going to like this workout regimen. The PPL days are longer with progressive overload and heavy weights, with the upper/lower days focusing on bodyweight hypertrophy. Upper was all pushups and pullups (~200 pushups and 50 pullups - which I'm realizing I'm just awful at), and lower was a 30 minute leg focused HIIT/plyo workout

I stopped doing heavy deadlifts a few months ago and don't think I'll ever do them again. There is just too much possibility of injury when there are better alternatives. I'll do them with super light weights to get that nice stretch, but much prefer a kettlebell swing to build strength along my backside.

I thought I was going crazy when I couldn't find this thread last week... Today starts my 5 day PPL-Upper-Lower program since last week was my last week of softball (won the championship in one of my leagues!). Had a really good push workout today and was absolutely gassed despite not having any cardio. Been doing straight 3x10s for the last couple of months and switched to progressive loads with a drop set today and can really tell the difference doing the progressive loads. Started out pretty light for my first set of dumbbell presses, but I'm glad I did because the rest just crushed my chest. Fly's, incline press, incline fly's, narrow press, partial fly's, decline pushups, a bunch of triceps exercises, and then finished with dips and triceps pushups. Definitely gonna feel it tomorrow for back and bis.

We usually go morel hunting, but with two little ones we didn't get out this year. I like them stupidly simple, sliced in half and fried in salted butter & garlic.

The thing about True Blood that I think people forget is that it did have quite a bit of critical acclaim the first few seasons. It had 16 Emmy nominations and 4 Golden Globe nominations. It really had a problem of going on too long where people remember some of the awful choices in later seasons (blegh... Billith....) over the high quality that was presented in the first few seasons. Dexter is another show that aired at the same time that fell to this same fate. GoT to a lesser degree, but the last 2-3 seasons being mediocre to downright awful cast a pretty big shadow over the entire series as well.

Got to do some gardening over the weekend. New house had a vegetable garden that had a tarp over it for who knows how long. Took that off and found about 1/2 dozen garter snakes. I fucking hate snakes, so that was fun. Cleared out the snakes, added some nitrogen, some new soil, and then tilled it. Soil under is pretty crap and full of clay. Planted some seeds and got some plants from the hardware store, then added humic acid & seaweed. Didn't fence it in the first night and the bunnies already took out some of my tomatoes, spinach, peppers, and all of my beets - so need to watch over those to be sure they recover and replant when necessary. Also planted some annuals and got some more ground cover & perennials for my front yard.

I'm going to vent a bit here. The mental health resources we have in the US is completely fucked. About a month ago I got a call from one of my band-mates - our harmonica player/singer took his own life. His wife told us he had been severely depressed for a while with the pandemic, but couldn't/didn't get any help to deal with it. He left behind two grade school aged kids, a stay-at-home mom, and because he took his own life, no life insurance will get paid out. The whole thing just pisses me off. Then 3 weeks ago I got a call from my sister. My 25 year old brother was in a coma from a combination of COVID and an overdose that caused his heart to stop for 5 minutes. My brother had tried to kill himself 3 times in the last 2 years. About 6 months ago my mom called every mental health facility within about 10 states to get him committed. He was 100% behind this and they couldn't find one opening in. Any that had spots couldn't take him in because they were reserved for people that were either coming from a hospital or jail. None of the places would take someone who had diagnosed bi-polar disorder and multiple attempts on their own life - because it wasn't "urgent". I'm still fuming about this part. He needed help. He tried to get help. The help he needed was simply not available in our country. Last Saturday we had to take him off life support and he passed last Monday. This was a good kid that had some pretty tough mental health issues and self-medicated in very harmful ways to try and deal with it - and there was nothing for him. So yeah.... I'm just fucking pissed right now about how absolute shit our mental health resources are