MTheads

There are no Small Gyms, Only Rigid Approaches to Working Out

I've been reading a variety of weightlifting/body building books for some new ideas and inspiration.  My problem is I have limited times when I can get to the gym and then, the equipment I want to use is often hogged up by people selfishly pursuing fitness goals that aren't mine.  And the free weight room is small.  Good luck finding space for dead lifts. 

So, I need to find exercises I can do when the one squat rack and the one bench press are hogged up.  Maybe I can do more on the Smith machine or with dumbbells.  I'm giving some of the machines upstairs a try.  Of course, the aerobic and weight machine floor is cavernously huge; always an elliptical free.  I'm doing lots more pull ups and chin ups for the back and arms.  I can always find a bar.  Whatever works.

I'm much more sanguine about which exercises I do now that I've managed to bench my body weight.  I'd of course like to lift more, but I'm not going to worry about it for awhile.  I weigh 230lb, so, nothing too heavy.  hahahah.  No, more like 110lb.  So, the bar still looks pretty pathetic with the few plates hanging off it.

And, yeah, gym rats under the age of 25 with blogs devoted to selling their midriffs and services, but why anyone would want to be trained by someone so lock-step and rigid I can't imagine, I lift heavy despite not having hours to devote to myself or by occasionally using the Smith machine.

What's the Answer?

The more the Government talks about gun control, the faster guns are bought.  Mathematically, it may be impossible to reduce access to guns.  Assuming some sort of correlation btwn restrictions and sales, we can plot out a graph that ends with the absolute abolishment of firearms leading to every person in the US having a closet of guns.  This relationship btwn the fear of firearms becoming impossible to buy in the future with the uptick in gun sales needs a name: Pry it Out of My Cold Dead Fingers curve or Say Hello to My Little Friend rate?  It'll come to me.

I just don't think we can get rid of guns.  That's impossible.  Instead, I like what I'm hearing from various experts who are advising better oversight of the mentally ill.  After all, it's not gun collectors or enthusiasts who are killing people.  It's murderers and crazy people!  I hate them. The rest of us are living and working and loving and striving and thinking and playing and then these other people--narcissistic, empty, rage-filled, stupid, or broken--show up to destroy our lives. 

I suppose our Betters will instead go after bullets, magazines, etc. as a way to get around the Inverse Property of Firearm Sales to Restrictions Law. 

 

Right to Work Wins!

Oh labour unions, Why do we despiseth thee so?

1) Your sour angry faces scrunched up in righteous indignation.  Do you sleep with that expression, too?

2) Your inability to tell the present time from the 19th and early 20th century.  Time to take off your marxist glasses.

3) Your idiotic linking together of your entrenched monopoly on employer/employee relationships with the rise and fall of the middle class.  Trust me, the middle class won't even notice when you finally obsolescent yourselves out of history.

4) Raised fist salute. Translation: Yeah, communism sucks, but I've managed to claw my way to the top of the dung heap.  And I intend to stay there, Tovarishch!

vs

5) Coordinating clothes.  Red, again? 

6) Your associates.  Red, again?

7) Your hive-minds.  And your pathetic grasp of history.

 

8) Your "silent" protests.  Hive-minders think group displays are awesome!

Which Way to the Gun Show?

Bench pressed 110lbs x 1 then several more sets going down by 10lbs

Squated 125lb x 6 ish three sets

Deadlifted 125lb x 6 two sets then went down in weight

Walking lunges 35lb dumbbells 2 sets

Seven pull-ups and then several sets of three

Sundry other exercises

 

Not bad for twice, sometimes thrice, a week workouts.  I worry about my knees but so far, so good.  Any workout that is intense is basically an experiment on how far a particular individual can push themselves.  Will lifting heavy (for me) break me down or build me up?  Does running long distances stall aging or accelerate it?  Studies seem contradictory.  Should an athlete care?  If it's health one is after, we don't have to run marathons.  I think many of us just love to push ourselves for other reasons. 

 

 

Goose Step Your Way to an Incredible Ass. Just Check Out My Photos.

Aack!  I am so jealous!  I read all these weightlifting blogs and these women are in the gym 18 times a week throwing around incredible amounts of metal, and I'm struggling to do 6 pull ups.  I'm struggling to get to the gym twice a week.  I usually go when my girls have their swim lessons, in the evenings, during peak hours, in a small gym with a pathetic lack of floor space, and usually no spotter.  Pity me!

Back when I was lifting seriously in the 80s and early 90s, we didn't have anywhere to post butt photos or brag about our incredible workouts and ridiculous diets or berate readers with our groupthink approach to lifting big.  That's what really irks me.  There are more women lifting and the community is so much better but so much of what I read is more about denigrating other people at the gym than engaging in an open discussion on all things lifting. There is no discussion.

If you read one weight lifter's blog, you've read them all.  Really.  Where's the curiosity?  Where's the recognition that maybe we haven't figured out everything there is to know on getting bigger/stronger/better or that different approaches work for different people? Not on any blog I can find.  It's just goose stepping all over the gym while mocking the people on the ellipticals.

Why should I let this upset me, you ask?  Because I want to be part of a shared experience.  I want to find like minded souls to talk with about lifting weights.  But today that means I have to buy into pre-packaged assumptions about what lifting hard is.  I could pay my way into a Crossfit community, but I don't like to workout like that.  But I can't make myself hate on others who do or on those who use machines or eat white rice.  I don't really care if other women are skinny fat or if guys are curling too much.  I care about what works for me.  I care about different ideas on workouts.  I like to see what kind of progress other people are making doing similar things as I'm doing.  But I don't care to be judged by these same people, especially by people who think they have everything figured out.

I guess I'm still on my own. 

Admittedly, a little funny.  But mostly smug.

Lifting Weights Up and Down Not So Complicated

Since moving to the DC area I've been lifting weights at the local Y.  I'm up to 105 lbs on the bench press, which is close to my weight.  My deadlifts and other lifts are still humiliatingly low; I'm not even going to post them (barely body weight).

I am up to 6 pull ups.  It's odd, but I used to be able to do 10 or more pull ups when I benched less.  Now I'm struggling to get past 6 pull ups but my bench is better.  Maybe I shouldn't do pull ups after a good upper body workout.

And I'm still looking for really good weightlifting sites.  I've found a couple of decent sites but they're mostly authored by  young fitness fascists who brook no deviation.  I can only take so many memes on lifting hard.  I get it.  If you don't deadlift/squat/paleo diet/Cross fit/favorite groupthink here, you are a pussy and Willy Wonka rolls his eyes at your pathetic-ness.

God, I miss Arnold and that generation of lifters who took themselves less seriously.