Also it makes me look way less chubby that I am. I am not ashamed to admit that.
So these my 34s in comparison to my roughly 6ft frame. It's hard to judge how comically large they are just by themselves. Did sets with them today and could only manage sets of 7. A year ago before I stopped doing curls I was doing 4+ sets of 10 so I got a ways to work back to.
Deadlifts and bench presses went well today. Increased deadlift weight to 185. Managed 5 sets of 8. Might could have pushed some of those to 10 but no need to chance it. My goal is to build up to 205 then work on a little fat reduction before going back into muscle gain. Bench presses did good. Weights 155 and manged 2 sets of 10, 1x9, 2x8.
Quick note about stretching. It is completely possible to stretch too much. I recently realized I had been over stretching my right piriformis muscle. I started having sciatic pain in my right side. I've had similar pain I'm that side for a while but this was different and I also had it in my mid glute. Got to looking into it. It matched perfectly with what is described as "long piriformis syndrome." Basically it's stretched too much and become irritated when overworked because it's weakened from being stretched.
https://squatuniversity.com/2017/11/21/how-to-correctly-treat-piriformis-syndrome/
This is a good article I found on it.
This is not saying you shouldn't stretch. Just a caution as to not overdo stretching.
Oh absolutely. Would never show my face and the only place I post any of this shit publicly is here. The few friends I have that have seen this stuff are either on the left with me or have no idea this site is even a thing. I edit out as much background and identifiable stuff as I can. It's why I never took a pic of my full bar setup. As I suck at editing and don't want to deal with blurring out all the shit hanging up in my garage by my rack. lol.
need to teach me how you made your weights
Edit: I'm not joking this is mandatory
I will write up how I should have made these. So I didn't weight out like I should have but luckily I got pretty close with each. What I did was take a piece of pipe and cut two pieces out of the same length for the handle. Handles go to the end of each can plus the width for the handle part. I drilled a hole through the end of each pipe and ran a bolt though to act like an anchor once the concrete cured. Next I filled one end with concrete and used some blocks of wood to hold the pipe straight. Once that was curred I made a little stand to hold the now cured weights upside down for when I them poured and cured the other side. Now I got super lucky and both came out pretty on par with one another despite not weighing very well.
Something I would do in the future is: Divide each set of components in two. Weight and label each piece and separate by set. Such as "A" and "B" or whatever. Then get the total of the components for each. Subtract that from the end weight you want. When you pour the first side first tare the scale for the can. Pour in the concrete till you reach the half amount you previously calculated. Then add the handle in. Push it down slow and rotate it to help it down all the way to the bottom. Once that's cured make some kind of stand to hold the cured weight upside down over the other can. Just enough so it reach close to the bottom. Tare and fill the other can and then set the handle down using the stand to hold it in place. This should yeild a more accurate weight and allow you to tailor it. Want lighter weights? Just fill up with less concrete.
NOTE!!!!!! Concrete looses, what I have noticed, about 6-8% of it's wet weight once curred. So a 10lb weight after about a month cure usually comes out around 9.3 lbs or so. So keep that in mind.
I hope this makes sense. lol
I fucking know right? I had this shit for years and while I do have some disk problems stretching sometimes worked and sometimes made it worse if I kept at it too much. If you sit a lot for work you are already stretching the piri muscle a good bit and would benefit more from strengthening exercises. I'd look up some videos about it. Also don't cross you legs at a 90 degree angle for extended periods of time. This is actually a part of piriformis muscle stretching. Incidentally I would always side the my right leg crossed like this. And that's the side with all the problems.
piriformis is fucking awful! i got it from tossing ice bags into the cooler at work. i went through 2 pallets (so about 1 ton of ice) and was overstretching my body as i tossed them. i've had back injuries before but that was something new. came with the usual sciatica but there was no relief from it...not sitting, not standing, not laying. couldn't sleep for 2 weeks. downed tons of kratom, advil, muscle relaxers, etc just to function and finally got on cortical steroids and it went away by week 4 almost instantly. one day it just felt like the clenched fist of muscle between my ass and groin just let go.
Mines not that bad. Just a soreness in my right bum and the sciatic nerve was pissed off and I felt it through my leg for a few days. Because of the way my hips are I have to take a wide stance when squatting to get lower. I sat with my right leg crossed for years so that side just naturally wants to turn due to the stretching. I had been increasing my stretch routine and added certain stretches that stretched the piri a little too much then the squatting in combo aggravated it. I stopped those stretches altogether and I feel much better. I don't really need them cause of how much I have to sit for work. Now I try and like, air hump in my chair every so over then to flesh them and tighten them up a bit.... lol
i'm glad that you found a technique to avoid it again! i need to get back into stretching again when i pick up my workout again after my blown back muscle heals. getting too old now i probably need to start stretching before work lol.
Active stretches before and static stretches after. Lots of good videos out there of good ones. Static stretches before will weaken the muscles temporarily and could actually increase likelihood of injury.
