Okay, this thread is meant to be more then just a weight loss thread or an inspiration thread. This thread is about accountability. Namely, YOUR OWN.
Basically what gym goals are you working on, where are you at currently, and what would you like to achieve in the next month, six months, year (whatever). At the appointed date (or around it), check in and share your progress with the goals.
Note: Don’t include any info you don’t want to.
My stats, as of 9-17-2010
Height 5’ 11"
Weight 250
B: 250 x 4
S: 250 x 5
D: 295 x 3
My Goals:
By 10-18-2010
Weight: 240
B: 275 x 1
S: 275 x 1
D: 315 x 1
Note, I could probably get the weight numbers now - I think - but if I’m going to lose weight, then my strength might go down (probably).
My Goals:
By 1-1-2011
Weight: 220
B: 295 x 1
S: 295 x 1
D: 325 x 1
The strength goals here are a little more ambitious (again, with the notion of cutting), but I’d be happy with the weight goals being achieved.
I’m 62 and go to the gym about five days a week. My goal is to continue to be active and healthy as long as possible. I’m figuring that at my age my heart is the thing I should be working on most. After all, if you blow out a quad you limp around for a couple of weeks - but if you blow out your heart they carry you off in a box. I don’t like boxes
So I spend thirty minutes pumping away at a stationary bike as hard as I can, then twenty minutes on the weights. I’m afraid that I don’t have BS&D figures, as I tend to use machines.
Height 5’ 8"
Weight 180 (should be 160; I like to eat too much)
I’m the white-haired old geezer sweating like a pig on the stationary bike.
Fair enough. I think that working on the cardiovascular system is very important, btw. It’s something that should be started young and continued.
I went through a period where I worked out and was in reasonable shape and then I stopped and got REALLY out of shape (330+ pounds). I’m not totally in shape now, but I can run a continuous distance and I no longer have high blood pressure.
I used to feel my heart pumping ferociously almost all day long when I was in the 300’s. It sucked. So I can appreciate the heart comment.
That’s cool - I intend this thread to be about goals - whatever you feel like working on. So if you don’t want to work on your BSD figures, don’t.
However, if you want to have a goal of getting on the stationary bike and doing it for 40 minutes at maximum effort by October, then the intent of this thread is to put it down here and come back in October to say what you did.
Heh, I share that eating problem…
Cool, so what is your goal for the next few months?
Good point. Let’s give me the goal of dropping two pounds a week for the next eight weeks. That would get me below 165 and would make my doctor very happy at my next annual physical in March.
(all, of course, while keeping the gym habit going.)
Deadlift and Squat: 62.5kg/137lb x 5
Bench: 40kg/88lb x 6 - I used to do 42.5kg to just below parallel but I dropped the weight because I want the bar to touch my chest
I stopped progressing in my big lifts (my eventual goals are to dead and squat 1.5x bodyweight and bench bodyweight) and now I’m trying to focus on power. I’m learning how to do barbell cleans and dumbbell snatches. For the cleans I’d just like to be able to get the technique right - I’m currently a bit “loopy”.
My favourite lift at the moment is the overhead squat. None of the lifts tire me out like overhead squat does, and it’s just fun to do. I did 25kg x 8 last night and my goal is to get to the big plates (40kg). Though given that I can only overhead press 22.5kg it’s a long way off.
It’s probably been a year since I’ve been to the gym. My goal is to go tomorrow and start at least 3 times a week of some kind of exercise. Would very much like to lose 20 pounds. (and after that another 15). I’m 49 year old male.
I’m curious, this seems to suggest your sticking point is at your chest, +/- 2 inches or so, correct?
I have similar goals, so I’m probably going to start on 5/3/1 in the winter. I’m not very flexible or dynamic (if that’s the word for it), so I haven’t done any olympic lifts in over a decade. They are fascinating to watch though.
No one in my gym actually does any O lifts. After a year, I finally caught someone doing rack pulls.
Then there is the squat.
Now, I need to work on my flexibility and I have a lot of room for improvement, so I’m not trying to bash anyone for not being perfect. There are a lot of people who are trying to do the squat at my gym and I don’t fault them for it.
There is one guy, however, who loads the bar with 200+ and moves about 2 inches. I don’t think he even pushes his hips back.
I’d like to do that one - but I have an impingement that I’m almost through working through. I have just slightly reduced ROM.
I had a leg day yesterday and I went for squats. I got 275, so I’m stoked.
Now, my plan is to keep my strength while cutting. I’ve been losing 2 pounds a week +/- for the last few weeks, so I hope to keep that up. It would be nice to be in the 240’s again…
My goal is to do the Starting Strength weightlifting program all the way through to the end of the novice stage. I tried this in January, but couldn’t get the form right for the squat or deadlift (I was always putting my lower back into flexion). Went in for the first time today, and I hope to keep doing better this time.
Meatros I think you can keep your lifts stable (or even improve them) as long as you cut at a reasonable rate. I went from 61kg to 50kg (so a loss of over 20% body weight) in under 6 months and my lifts stayed the same - they dropped a little at the 53kg mark for some reason, but I was able to get them back up to where I was before. On the plus side, pull-ups get easier!
Pretty much. My husband tells me to bench faster to get through it (my bench is glacial) but I’m not really capable of doing it much faster than I currently am. I think it comes back to my lack of power - which will hopefully be corrected!
I’m finding cleans very technical. I picked up the squat and dead pretty easily, but there’s just so much to remember for cleans. I’ve been videoing my early attempts to try and eliminate any bad habits at the start, and they’re looking better than they were last week. I’m fortunate that one of the instructors loves the oly lifts, so he’s given me a DVD and heaps of pointers on form. He recommends starting with front squats, so if you eventually want to try cleans that’s something you can do now.
I tried that program - it’s pretty good. Also, squat and deadlift are hard to perfect, so I feel your pain. If you are interested, Eric Cressey has some stuff out on how to perfect the squat. I’d imagine that he also has some videos on deadlifting as well.
I’m hoping that this is the case. I tested my deadlifts today and I pulled 315. I’ve already lost a lot of weight and it seems to be harder the more weight I try to lose. I’m not trying to severly cut my caloric intake though and I’m shooting for around 2 pounds a week.
I HEAR you on the pull ups, btw. When I was at 330, I couldn’t do one. I don’t think I could even hang. Now I can do two or three. Not perfect, but I’m getting there…
When you are giving maximum effort, it’s hard to just try to do something faster. That said, I have read a little bit about some ‘power’ programs where you go to something like 60 % of your max and you attempt to do 10 reps (or whatever) as fast as you can. That is supposed to help with power. I’ve never done it though, so I can’t speak to it myself.
I love the way cleans look - when someone nails them it looks so effortless. The truth is quite the opposite though.
I haven’t perfected my form for squat or deadlifts (getting better though), so cleans are big time intimidating for me.
I like front squats, but I’ve found that my knees are really sore (not really a ‘muscle soreness’) for a few days afterwards. So I’ve cut back on doing them. Do you think this is an indicator that I’m doing them wrong?
Maybe I’m approaching it all wrong, but I don’t really have any goals. I have a one-hour routine that involves cardio and resistance training that leaves me, at the end of the hour, panting and sweating and completely worked, muscle-wise. I’ve been doing this routine for a few months, changing around some of the exercises every now and then and substituting this for that. I know I’m getting a great workout from the way I feel when I’m done, and I can see the results in the mirror, but I can’t say that I actually have any goals other than to continue getting my ass to the gym 2-3 times a week, and if it gets too easy, to add some difficulty.
Most of my resistance training is body-weight exercises- pullups, pushups, dips, crunches, squats, lunges, several varieties of burpees… that sort of thing.
That sounds like a fine set of goals to me. I heard one instructor say to his senior citizen gym class attendees a couple of years ago “you folks are already in the top fifteen percent in terms of conditioning just because you regularly drag your weary butts into a place like this”.
