The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

Haha I've been on high alert after reading 190 pages of that cheap eBay bumper thread the past few days...

If you want to try and the 5x5 they have an app that goes along with your workout. It's sort of interactive with a timer and you log your reps and weights and it calculates the weight for the next day. The concept is to start at a weight you can do 5 reps of comfortably and then each workout you add 5more lbs to that and continue at that pace until you miss a rep. It's set up as a 3day a week workout but I did other stuff the other days so I could still go 5-6days. It focuses on the big lifts (bench, deadlifts, squats, OH press and BB row). I really liked it and saw significant increases in my maxes. I did it for about 8 weeks and officially joined the 1000# club (around Xmas last year). I've recently switched up my workout to incorporate some of the stuff from the 5x5 since I saw some gainz from it...

 

which app is this?

 

I think it's just called "5x5" the official workout is "Stronglifts 5x5" so maybe that is in the title too...

http://stronglifts.com/5x5/

 

I'm sure it's not accurate, but as long as it's going down, I'm ok with it. I'd say it's probably 1-2% off. But, I was at 14.5% on it back in March.

The way those scales calculate BF is "bioelectrical impedance." Basically sends a small amount of electricity through the lower half of the body and measures the speed of the current.

 

I've heard that is more accurate than the calipers though, although I've only ever seen them as hand held things...

IMO it doesn't matter what way you calculate, as long as you use the same way the whole time. Then it doesn't matter what the # is, but the difference from when you started to where you are. If you use a bunch of different methods throughout it would be hard to validate the results...

 

For me I just look in the mirror. Then I wink at myself

 

I don't use a rowing machine, so I dunno. These are the only rows I do:



Using dumbbells/barbells are far superior to machines because some machines take away some of the weight and it's on a fixed plane, so you're not utilizing all the muscles you should be. When having to balance weight and having nothing but your body moving/controlling the weight, you engage a lot more muscles than you would on a machine. That being said, machines do have their place. I usually end a body part on a machine to focus purely on form and being able to squeeze my muscle at the peak of the exercise without having to worry about other things. I'd definitely stay in the free-weights area for the majority of your lifting though. Machines are for old people.

 

lol - old people LOVE machines..

I do those rows too, and my gym has the combo where that is also used for lat pull downs. I do some leg machines too but still do a lot of squats with a barbell. I'll do leg ext/curl and calf raises (on a leg press machine).

 

I see that gym lighting is really working for you in this pic. You even look more tan.

 

Cables put less stress on your joints because of the consistent tension. Really helps them old folks. I'm getting there myself

 

I might try to gravitate more towards free weight more but for anyone who does row I did 2019m on 9:27 pacing myself to the end where I got up to 39 strokes a minute

 

I'm all about using machines, especially on leg day...I just don't think they're as good as good ol freeweights. For each body part, especially legs, I'll do 1-2 compound movements and then move to machines for isolation stuff. Nothing beats a squat, but it's also good to take everything else out of the equation and really hone in on breaking down the quads via leg extensions

That's the 'after pic' of my 'before-and-after' fish oil and BCAA supplementation

I can beat that...








...pun intended

 

Yeah but he is talking for multiple minutes...not 16 seconds

 

Oh...nvm then

 

For some reason I decided to come back into the gym and do a second round of cardio after work. Who am I and what am I doing??

 

@zacharypaul89 Have you seen the supcase for AppleWatch

 

I'm thinking about doing 2 a day today. Did back this morning and I wanna do legs tonight. I didn't lift Monday nor Tuesday.