Workout: What did you do today?

[grindy]

I dunno what the different pullups and pulldowns I'm doing are called in English lol

The head coach is the one who designing individual programs for everyone and they are small diagrams showing the motion rather than verbal descriptions. Also he's Russian and all my previous trainers were Francophone

I should have an old program somewhere in my stuff but don't know if I'm going to find it in the two days I've got here (I'm flying to France for a month on Sunday)

If your program works for you and you're having fun and progressing then that's the most important thing but tbh the more I hear about your trainer the more sus he seems. Making things needlessly complicated is charlatan 101. Strength and hypertrophy training, especially for beginners, shouldn't be particularly complicated and should mostly rely on basic exercises. Obviously everybody and every body are somewhat different and one can always play around with stances, grip widths etc. but a pulldown is a pulldown no matter whether you do it with a wide or narrow grip, underhand or overhand etc.

[jadis]

Respectfully, who are you to say that?

Like, what's your expertise?

I'm not a beginner btw

[grindy]

Around the 100kg mark for squats. I did 120kg for three sets of 10 last night but I usually wouldn't do reps that low for legs. Normally around 20.

Bench is around 100kg but reps a lot lower, 4-6 for a heavy session.

I do RDL but not standard deadlifts. Around 100kg there as well.

How come you're at 70kg for bench, safety reasons?

Holy shit, I just realized that you said that you usually train squats with 20 reps. That is insane. This is taxing af and requires a lot of willpower. Props.

[jimmy jazz]

Holy shit, I just realized that you said that you usually train squats with 20 reps. That is insane. This is taxing af and requires a lot of willpower. Props.

Thank you mate.

I prefer higher reps for legs. I've done heavy with low/moderate with high and my legs respond better with higher reps.

And yes it is very hard.

[grindy]

Respectfully, who are you to say that?

Like, what's your expertise?

I'm not a beginner btw

My expertise is being generally very interested in this stuff and reading and watching a lot about it, although I understand that my meek numbers might make me seem somewhat unreliable.
There are various definitions of what beginners/intermediates/advanced lifters are. This can be tied to both strength and years of proper training. I assumed you are a beginner due to your numbers and because I read somewhere that you haven't been lifting that long. It wasn't meant as an insult and I'd consider myself a beginner as well, although I have trained in some way for over twenty years now and have accrued a fair bit of knowledge, if I may say so myself. I haven't been consistent though and have trained stupidly and followed lots of shitty advice and marketing gurus when I was younger.

[jadis]

I've been working out for ~15 years, relatively consistently though often pretty lazily. Never been driven with regards to numbers, I just like feeling good.

I haven't seen any beginners benching almost 100kg though. Nothing to write home about, clearly, but not a beginner's weight.

I've developed pretty good form from working with good trainers but I'm aware that there's a limit to my understanding of the mechanics behind how exercises work because I don't know anatomy.

The head trainer at my current gym is an exceptionally knowledgeable guy. He doesn't "complicate" things, he gives very specific instructions adapted to each trainee. He has professional sportspeople coming from afar to train with him and he also does wonders with older people who need to recover after strokes or car accidents.

What you said did sound slightly patronizing to me.

[grindy]

Sorry, I misunderstood your training history. And 100kg bench is certainly quite nice and I'm not knocking it but I've also known naturally strong guys achieve it after a few months of training.
Didn't mean to be patronising, just saw a potential red flag and pointed it out but of course I could be very wrong. As previously stated, the most important thing is that you like your program and have good results and if you do, then who cares what I think.

[jadis]

All good man

I'm surprised how protective I got of my trainer, maybe he's becoming something of a father surrogate to me, who knows

In general, this summer working out has become more important to me than ever, for a few reasons (like having a couple of stressors). But it's still all about making myself feel better and getting out of my head, not any goals or gains.

Very excited to get to train in a new gym starting next week cause I'll be in Nice for the month.

[grindy]

All good man

I'm surprised how protective I got of my trainer, maybe he's becoming something of a father surrogate to me, who knows

In general, this summer working out has become more important to me than ever, for a few reasons (like having a couple of stressors). But it's still all about making myself feel better and getting out of my head, not any goals or gains.

Very excited to get to train in a new gym starting next week cause I'll be in Nice for the month.

*insert obligatory "nice" pun*
I love training from home and don't think I'll ever change that but it's super exciting to train in a new environment for some time. I love training in hotel gyms when on holiday. They are usually pretty shitty and I love the challenge of jury rigging whatever's there to still suit my needs and program. I was staying in a hotel in August with a gym that didn't have any kind of vertical pull possibilities but I managed to use a (terrible) machine cable press for one armed pulls by bending over 90 degrees and it was the best lat activation I've felt in a long time.

[DJChameleon]

What's your program like? Would be interested to see everyone's program actually.

Mine's pretty basic.
I usually switch the order of the big movements on each of the two days and make the first movement of the day heavier than when I do it second.
Pull day: Barbell Rows and (weighted) pull ups, after that a superset of either cable curls and face pulls or band pull aparts and incline curls. I also superset calves with one of the big movements.
Push day: Bench press (barbell or dumbbell on an incline bench), overhead press and a superset of either french press and lateral raises or cable pushdown and cable upright row. Also supersetting some neck training in there.
Legs: Squats (normal ones and Tom Platz style narrow stance squats on a slant board to really target the quads), deadlifts (conventional or Romanian) and back extensions on both days for that sweet-ass sweet ass.

I let my trainer remember the exact exercises that I do so I can't like go into detail because we switch it up pretty often but I have chest days on Monday, Tuesday is usually cardio I switch between 20 mins on elliptical and 18 mins jumping rope with a weighted jump rope. 3 mins jumping then 30 second break and back to it. I take off Wednesdays and on Thursdays back to working with my trainer. I switch between Arms day, Shoulder/legs day and back day. He asks me what I want to do and I usually base it off of what I haven't done in awhile. So this past Thursday I ended up doing Shoulder/Leg day.  Fridays is my second cardio day for the week then I'm done. I take the weekends off and only do my 20 minute morning walk. I do that almost everyday regardless of if I'm at the gym or not.

Yeah having a day for just shoulders seems weird to me when I heard Jadis mention that.  If I'm doing shoulders I tie it in with leg day.

I didn't know the name of it until Jimmy mentioned it but on Chest days I do the pyramid sets with dumbbells, I do this machine that's like for chests where you open your arms and close them. No idea what it's called. I also do cable pull downs while standing in like a T shape for the starting position.

[jimmy jazz]

I do this machine that's like for chests where you open your arms and close them. No idea what it's called.

Machine fly? @DJChameleon

[Guybrush]

I posted my own weekly program a while back, but the basics are squats, bench presses and pendlay row, something that I do 3 days a week. Then I have a mobility day where I do yoga and stretches and also a cardio day where I'm not too concerned with the specifics. I've been riding my bike, but last time I did a km just swimming in the local pool hall.

I've added chin-ups, abs and back workouts and various experiments that I toss in there.

I just started and am only 3-4 weeks in. The physical changes are already very noticeable, at least to me.

The weights I'm at are still puny compared to what you guys are doing and I also haven't figured them quite out. I've been doing moderate amounts of reps, so mostly in the 8-12 range. If I feel like I can do more than 3 x 12, I up the weight and aim for something like 3 x 8. If I end up at 3 x 7, that's fine.

Currently, squats are at 50 kg. I just increased, so did a careful 6/6/10 yesterday, which is currently how I calibrate. If I feel like it was a bit easy, I go until failure on the last set, so 6/6/10 means maybe I should aim for 8/8/8 next time.

Bench presses are a lot less, like I think I was at 30 or 35kgs for 7 or 8 reps.

Pendlay rows I think I did at the same weight as bench and can't quite remember the reps. I think I should increase, but I feel like form suffers long before failure on pendlay rows in particular (at least for me) so that one's a little tricky. My general goal is to ofc to only use the muscles for the exercise and lift the bar up to where it touches my chest in the boob area.

Anyways, this is turning into a rant 🙂

As I'm nearing a month on my program, I'm thinking of changing it up a bit. Maybe get some 3-5 rep sets in there? I'm already doing some burn sets where I just go until failure with lighter weights, so I got some high reps in there too, but haven't done any low reps.

[jimmy jazz]

Yes you could definitely try that.

I'd say you're probably past the point of getting DOMS to the point where you legitimately can't move for days (unless you're doing absolutely ridiculous volume) so if you feel comfortable increasing volume or weight go for it.

Just my advice:

Don't go below 10 reps for squats. By this I mean use a weight that you can comfortably do 10 clean reps. In my opinion if you're lower than that it's dangerous especially for a home lifter. You say you're at 50kg for squats so you could also increase your reps to 15 and add more sets. Say five sets. Always leave one rep in the tank for safety reasons.

Also, if you're going to do low reps and heavy weight for bench then don't use the clips/collars so if you fail you aren't going to kill yourself.

And make sure to do a warm up set or two with light weight before going into the heavy weight.

Be safe!

BTW, you're not imagining things, you can definitely notice changes in your body after a month. Other people might not though so you'll need to keep going if you want random women (and men) to approach you in the street and demand that you enter them.

[Guybrush]

Thanks again, @jimmy jazz ! I'll keep your advice in mind, especially about squats. I've already figured I should try to do them at work instead as it seems much safer there on the rack where the bar only moves straight up and can be locked at any height with a flick of the wrist. It seems so much safer, plus I can't harm my wooden floor

[grindy]

I let my trainer remember the exact exercises that I do so I can't like go into detail because we switch it up pretty often but I have chest days on Monday, Tuesday is usually cardio I switch between 20 mins on elliptical and 18 mins jumping rope with a weighted jump rope. 3 mins jumping then 30 second break and back to it. I take off Wednesdays and on Thursdays back to working with my trainer. I switch between Arms day, Shoulder/legs day and back day. He asks me what I want to do and I usually base it off of what I haven't done in awhile. So this past Thursday I ended up doing Shoulder/Leg day.  Fridays is my second cardio day for the week then I'm done. I take the weekends off and only do my 20 minute morning walk. I do that almost everyday regardless of if I'm at the gym or not.

Yeah having a day for just shoulders seems weird to me when I heard Jadis mention that.  If I'm doing shoulders I tie it in with leg day.

I didn't know the name of it until Jimmy mentioned it but on Chest days I do the pyramid sets with dumbbells, I do this machine that's like for chests where you open your arms and close them. No idea what it's called. I also do cable pull downs while standing in like a T shape for the starting position.

Isn't it difficult to ensure progressive overload and keep track of progress when constantly switching up exercises? Or do you have some basic compounds and just switch up some isolations or do small variations like changing grip etc.?