There’s this mid-40s woman at my gym that stands on the bench to grab the lat-pulldown machine and floats down with it. It’s adorable to watch.
Yeah…. Nope, not for me. I’d rather change the programme
I generally stick to the same movement patterns, albeit, when I train at a gym or an outdoor gym (we have lots of those in the UK now), it’s fun to see how much I can lift with a machine as opposed to free weights as a kind of alternative challenge…like, when I stay over at my Mum’s place shortly I’m going to see if I can hit 105kg for reps on row machine with one arm. (I got 95kg x 2 last time I trained at the gym near my Mum’s place).
Also, circuit training can be fun thing to do, especially if I’m training in a fairly quiet gym (not something I do much when training from home, other than on isolation exercises).
I haven’t used a program in the last 2 years. I usually just start working out and seeing where it takes me.
In saying that, my training is conditioning dominant so it works well with the @T3hPwnisher chaos approach.
I keep meaning to start one and will when I get regular gym time under my belt however even then it feels too rigid and stifling at points.
Knowing what you’re going to do beforehand can create anxiety. Having to swap an exercise because someone is using the thing you need can create anxiety for some.
I’ve seen juice freaks stomp through a gym raging because someone is using the cable machine and their workout is now blown out the stratosphere.
The beauty of bodyweight training is that it allows creativity to flourish and you can build some crazy ass routines on the fly. As long as they are underpinned by brutal effort.
This is why the @T3hPwnisher approach chaos mindset works ms so well. Once you embrace chaos then you can become free.
Probably went on a bit of a tangent there but hey ho
I’m not the expert, but my $0.02 is the best is to not worry about the best and just do some stuff. My highest ever levels of athleticism came when I just put in work at the activity I needed to improve: i.e. if running needed to get better, I’d just go run. I ended up well above average this way, although not elite.
In writing this, I think a realization hits that I should do more of that nowadays.
Absolutely. It’s definitely interesting to see different views on this, and I’m sure it’s goal-dependent. I don’t have anything riding on my gym time, so I don’t care that much what is taken. That said, I do still have days I’ll get annoyed if someone is doing long circuits in a crowded gym and I can’t use anything.
I’d start with 1-2 days of 30 minutes at a low intensity (aiming for Zone 2) on days you don’t lift weights. If you are walking a lot also, this should be enough cardio and the low intensity shouldn’t impact your lifting workouts. We vastly overestimate how many calories we burn when doing cardio so this also shouldn’t really create problems with maintaining a calorie surplus.
“Zone 2” had me re-reading a Gentilcore article from a while back. I can incorporate this into my dog walks. They are usually around 40mins long. See if I can get between 120-140bpm upping the speed/finding routes that have an incline or something, if I can do that for the majority of the dog walk I should be golden. I walk to the gym a mile or two every other day on top of this and coach football once a week. I’d guess that’ll be more than adequate. Cheers.
Weighted backpack! I’m in the same boat where I need to make the dog walks “count”. Adding weight helps quite a bit.
You must have a more energetic dog than I do – there’s no way I could get mine to walk fast enough to get my heart rate up over 100.
Since my back injuries I have always had to change programmes in some way.
My thinking is, as long as it’s in the spirit of the programme it’s fine because it’s either do no work or do some work. Other than that I do like to stick to a programme, as they are written by people a lot smarter than me.
Good discussion.
I’m assuming that’s 2 gym workouts per week. Do you do any other training on non-gym days?
Bodyweight circuits are by their very nature simple and easy to follow. And I mean this in a good way. There are no worries about how much weight to lift, %RMs etc.
You can still increase the benfits per body area just by focussing on the type of exercise and number of reps.
You can vary the cardio benefits by reducing/increasing recovery times, or by introducing star jumps, burpees etc.
You can add in advanced gyymnastic movements if you are good enough and feel the need.
Pure strength and bodybuilding has endless complexity, German training, French training, HIt etc etc. It`s a minefield of reasons to hop around within and across programmes.
Strength training with weights, esp barbell, are surprisingly simple and non varied for athletes. Often just 2 or 3 key movements.
For me its push ups, push ups with mountain climbers, plank variations, squats, lunge variations. 45 secs on and 15 off for 10 to 15 mins. Followed by weights with 3 of deadlift, leg press, bench press, pull down, row. There
s a load of guff written by people who have had success with a particular genetically gifted person, need to sell a pgm or supplemnt online, or are just a bit OCD
If you find yourself severely diverging from a program, then you need to be honest with yourself and determine what your real goal is, how often you can train, what exercises you like to do, and what you will realistically commit to.
Definitely, but I think what constitutes “severely” may be different for each of us
I confess I recently started doing accessory training at home on 1-2 musclegroups (1-2 sets each) every other day. Resistance bands, dumbbells. Adding some volume to the low volume HIT (combined with powerlifting) approach. My own personal hybrid. It took 48 years to understand what works for me in terms of natural bodybuilding.
It’s also a forgiving strategy considering I have a severe lack of sleep in my life. Honestly, I’m surprised it works.
So honestly, I hear those concerns, but I just think that for me, it doesn’t matter.
I love lifting weights. I like being strong and muscular. I can even throw in an excuse about needing to be in shape for my job. But let’s get real for a second, this isn’t how I pay the bills. I’m not going to be getting any sponsorships from Nike or winning hundreds of thousands in prize money from competitions. I can get significantly bigger and stronger than average, but I’m not one of the absolute top tier guys.
I also know that heart disease kills millions of men, and that being a bigger person puts me at greater risk. I also know that I simply “feel” better when I include cardio (even if I hate doing it). And maybe it does impede my gains a little. I don’t think a lot, but maybe it takes off 2%. Well… so what. I’m not the top guy where a 2% difference on my total matters for anything other than ego. Practically, a 500lb deadlift vs a 490 deadlift is the same damn lift. Would I like the 500? Sure. Would I not do something that makes me feel good and probably extends my lifespan in order to get those 10 more lbs? No.
Now, that’s just my thoughts on it, Where I am openly admitting that getting bigger and stronger isn’t the most important thing in my life. It’s important, but I’m not willing to do ANYTHING to chase that goal. So with that in mind, I think the best route for me is to chase health alongside muscle
That was awesome
Lol thanks, I was worried it came off a bit more preachy than I meant it to, but I hope the point got across well.
I am in a similar boat to TrainForPain. I will follow a program as written, especially the first time. The only time I sub is if I have not worked up to a certain rep range, eg, I can’t do 50 pull-ups unless I add an assistance band. Same movement, a little weight off, seems fine to me on assistance moves.
I will also add things like many have mentioned, cardio. I never know if I might have to walk 20 miles out of the backcountry and I want to know that I can.
May I elaborate on your question @TrainForPain?
(My question assumes you keep all exercises, reps, etc. as written)
What about programs with recommended diets?
Deep Water is an easy example here. If you do not follow the recommended diet are you not on the program? Or Building the Monolith if you don’t eat one dozen eggs and 1.5lbs of beef daily are you not on program?