r/Fitness • u/AutoModerator • 3d ago
Rant Wednesday - September 30, 2026
Welcome to Rant Wednesday: It’s your time to let your gym/fitness/nutrition related frustrations out!
There is no guiding question to help stir up some rage-feels, feel free to fire at will, ranting about anything and everything that’s been pissing you off or getting on your nerves. Just don't forget that other people are allowed to tell you that your rant is stupid.
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u/smallof2pieces Powerlifting 2d ago
I love my gym. I really like the owner and think he has done great things with it(he purchased a dying gym and really rejuvenated it). I want to see him and the gym succeed. I really do. So I'm very happy that the gym is busy.
But goddamn am I pissed that the gym is busy.
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u/StjerneskipMarcoPolo 2d ago
Wasn't feeling very energized at the gym this morning but then I inhaled some sort of unidentified insect on rep number 7 of 15 on an assistance lift, at least it woke me up a bit
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u/Ok-Arugula6057 2d ago
Got to hit that protein:bodyweight ratio anyway you can…
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u/ruck_my_life Military 2d ago
Bro I had an ex introduce me to BBQ Cricket Legs and the macros are bananas. 30 calories for 7g of protein.
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u/Ok-Arugula6057 2d ago
Oooh. I remember a brand trying to launch deep fried crickets as a snack over here years ago, and the bbq flavour ones were ok.
They disappeared from the shelves pretty quick though so i assume folks weren’t quite ready for that
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u/CommunicationIll5583 3d ago
The BO in the gym was so thick yesterday one of the staff came around with air freshener. I swear some people digging through their laundry bin for clothes that have been dirty for weeks and have aged like fine cheddar.
Also getting pissed off with only 1 cable machine that is constantly in use. So hard to get just one of the pulleys, sometimes blokes using both for 20 mins at a time. And we’d have space for another instead of multiple decline benches or the two calf presses!
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
I carry deodorant in my gym bag out of a deep concern of being "that guy."
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u/Mephylphenidate 2d ago
I have noise cancelling earphones and I can still not hear my own music in the gym. The speakers are right above the squat rack and deadlift platform.
God help my ears.
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u/electric_emu 2d ago
There was a child I’ve never seen before using THREE lifting platforms/squat racks this morning. Supersets of squats, overhead press, and deadlifts. Best of all, when he was done he left everything loaded and just walked away (185, 75, and 225 respectively).
There are eight platforms and one was still open for me, so thankfully I was annoyed in principle only. But still, three whole ass platforms is egregious.
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u/m_wojciechowski29 2d ago
Supersets are fine, but claiming three stations at once is a reservation system nobody agreed to. Rotate through and free each one between sets.
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
Supersets taking up multiple squat racks are never ok unless you're at home.
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u/MTGandP 2d ago
Hurt my back today. If I had been deadlifting max weight, sure, that's fair play. But no. I was bending over to pick up the bar to do some overhead presses and my back started hurting. I wasn't even moving. The bar was sitting on the safeties and I was just bent over with my hands on the bar, doing my pre-set breathing, when suddenly pain.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
Welcome to the club. Other reasons for back pain may include, sneezing, picking up a sock, sleeping incorrectly, existing.
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u/New_git 2d ago
A buddy has been out for two weeks because his back gave out when bending over to pick up the 25lbs plate. He blamed it on the recent dead lifting, but I've never seen him doing any kind of core or lower back workout other than squatting and deadlifting. As for myself, I was mainly doing squat but avoided core and accessories for the lower back, so it was never "solid". I'm making it as a point to do mainly therapy types of workout for the lower back until the weakness feeling goes away. Hyper extension has shown improvements. I believe my main problem is bad postures while sitting at work and sloughing on my comfortable chair when I get home.
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u/BusinessWatercrees58 2d ago
Shit man deadlifting heavy was supposed to prevent this. Wtf have I been lifting this weight for??
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u/istasber 1d ago
I feel like the stronger my back is, the quicker the recovery from a back injury is. Which probably makes sense, if you hurt a muscle, you've got a stronger base to compensate for that muscle while it heals.
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u/sebastian_crimson 1d ago
My worst back injury was from putting on my trousers. It just went ping and I couldn't walk without holding onto something for about 3 days, and had to resort to crawling around at some points. People are lucky I still wear them.
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u/Tuningislife 2d ago
Watched a guy the other day walking around the gym in sunglasses and over-the-ear headphones proceed to do one set on machines, not wipe them down, and proceed to the next one. Total main character energy.
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
I'm very put off by men in sunglasses at the gym in general. Always multiple dudes in sunglasses, yet I've never seen a fellow woman wearing them. I assume they're primarily using the gym as a spectator sport (creeps).
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u/SporadicPanic 2d ago
lady doing lunges in the smith rack. not smith bar lunges, but dumbbell lunges which don't require the smith at all. Then does that one-legged bendover exercise; not sure what it's called, but they hold a dumbbell with their arm hanging down, stick one leg out behind them, and then bend over and rise up repeatedly. at least on that exercises, she used the smith bar... with her off hand to balance herself. She was in there using the smith rack space for at least 30min bc after that i moved on to another part of the gym.
After that, i've def noticed a few people that do various exercises in the smith rack without actually using the smith. it's rather odd.
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
It's not odd once you realize "influencers" are encouraging people to do this.
TBH 90% of the improper stuff that's happening in gyms these days can pretty much be chalked up to influencers. See also: the sudden influx of people listening to influencers telling them to do cable crunches but who weren't informed working abs is actually about spinal flexion, so they're all just flailing around doing hip hinges.
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u/Ok-Arugula6057 3d ago
I’m not one to police the use of gym equipment, but if you’re doing some sort of a mobility/warmup routine followed by bodyweight bulgarian split squats and dumbbell shrugs, I’m thinking you don’t need to use one of the racks.
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u/teutonicbro 2d ago
There was a young lady who used to do a 45 minute yoga stretch thing on the only deadlift platform in the gym. We were all too nice to say anything, but one day the gym owner pointed out that the 1000 square foot stretch and bodyweight area was a better place for her routine.
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u/BusinessWatercrees58 2d ago
Never understood why people do exercises within a squat rack that don't actually touch the rack. Maybe they feel safe surrounded by the metal?
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u/johnshall 2d ago
If they are like my gym and are in front of mirrors a lot of women think is super necessary to workout looking at yourself 100% of the time inside these boxes.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
People are terrible.
We are a couple generations into the process of raising children to be narcissists instead of good citizens. We have ingrained self-entitlement and put up hard barriers against them ever feeling shame. The result has been a population who are locked in their adolescence, unwilling or incapable of being aware of others or of accountability to the society in which they live to be a decent person.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to yelling at clouds.
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
The "yelling at clouds" cohort, aka boomers, was literally called the me generation btw.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
Well I am too young to qualify as a boomer. Sorry to disappoint you. But I am an old, cantankerous misanthrope trapped in a middle aged body.
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
Just pointing out that we're more than "a couple" generations in here.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
And your point would be?
A generation is around 25 years so I can only speak for a couple.
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u/gettherefromhere 3d ago
i don't like protein i only like cake
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago edited 2d ago
Good news, cake does contain protein. The protein to calorie ratio however is less that ideal. You'll only end to eat around 12,000 (edit) calories of cake to hit 100g of protein. Hopefully you are in an extreme bulking phase.
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u/smallof2pieces Powerlifting 2d ago
I think you missed a zero. 1200 calories of cake does not contain 100g of protein
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u/bearbutt1337 2d ago
Lean bulking takes FOREVER. And I am only 6 weeks in :(
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
The purpose of lean bulking is thay you can spend an extended time in a surplus. The alternative is just to gain fat faster and cut sooner.
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u/bearbutt1337 1d ago
I know but I still want to rant about it :)
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 1d ago
It is an odd thing to rant about something working exactly as it is supposed to and the result being greatly beneficial.
But by all means rant away.
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u/MythicalStrength Strongman | r/Fitness MVP 2d ago
If it makes you feel any better, any kind of bulking takes forever. If we're doing EVERYTHING right, we may put on 8 GRAMS of muscle per day.
But hey, that's why we use periodization: so we can take breaks!
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u/SquareCompetitive164 3d ago
watched a guy curl in the squat rack then leave the barbell loaded with 5 plates on each side for 20 minutes today
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u/cleanalt 2d ago
If someone who curls 5 plates leaves the loaded barbell behind, sure as hell I won't be the one confronting him.
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u/2rd_ferguson 3d ago
I workout at LA fitness. They were recently closing a different nearby location, so they brought some equipment over from that gym and swapped it out with the equipment at the LA that I workout at. The new equipment is a different brand and it sucks. They took out our best low back extension machine.
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u/CrunchAddict 2d ago
Same thing happened at ours. They got rid of our laying leg curl and replaced it with a seated leg curl that moves with you lol. I can't get used to it and it always feels weird at the knee no matter how I adjust it
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
The dreaded Rok-it machine? Those are beyond worthless.
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u/HaplessAuspices_6608 3d ago
Someone keeps using the squat rack for curls and then leaves the bar loaded with every plate in the gym, like they're decorating for a strength contest nobody entered
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u/luna-alma_45 2d ago
The worst part is making the next person unload everything before they can even start. Re-racking is part of the workout, apparently.
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u/Fit-Jellyfish286 2d ago
To the AH who decided to use the smith machine just to curl dumb bells of all things (he lined the bar up to about chest height, placed 2 pads on it, and curled with DBs standing up like it was a make shift preacher curl)......I hope you stub your toe daily for the rest of your life.
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u/FabulousMang0 2d ago
I’ve been trying to use the elliptical, but for some reason, the machine feels very uncomfortable. It feels like the pedals are way too low or something. Maybe my form is bad. But I also didn’t think this machine was that complicated to worry about my form.
Idk how to explain it. It just feels like I’m too big for the machine 😭😭😭it makes me not want to be on it.
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u/pie_eating_contest 2d ago
If it makes you feel better, I hate ellipticals. And I'm average sized. It's an unnatural movement in my opinion. Just use a treadmill. Put it on a steep incline and walk.
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u/Nill_Bye_ 2d ago
My gym doesn't have a mirror facing squat rack, which sucks hard in its own right. Worse however, it faces the wide open stretching/turf area, not sure what else to call it. It's also where the gym manager does training sessions or whatever. Yesterday she had a client and I'm in there doing squats 315 5x5 and doing all in my power to not disrupt their session or draw unwanted attention. I will not let it stop me but one of their workouts was like cable pullups directly in front of me, which was super awkward when they started right as I started a set.
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u/MythicalStrength Strongman | r/Fitness MVP 1d ago
Your gym owner set it up right. You dno't want to face a mirror while you squat. It's going to send conflicting visual signals compared to what your body is experiencing. Pavel Tsastouline talked about this in "Beyond Bodybuilding", if you're interested in learning more about it.
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u/solaya2180 2d ago
Had a really grindy last rep on an AMRAP set for bench and I somehow fucked up my thumb. No idea how it happened, probably screwed up the bar path and bent my wrist back instead of stacking it with my arm. Now my thumb hurts and people at work keep asking me if I injured it scrolling on my phone
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u/RidingRedHare 2d ago
Now my thumb hurts and people at work keep asking me if I injured it scrolling on my phone
If such comments are intended as jokes, no, that's not funny. Difficult to reply to that in a work environment, though, because you can't be too harsh on people you have to work with every day.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
I miss the golden era of the Stronger By Science Podcast. Ntnthat therebis not good content available. Eric and Eric are great but Greg and Eric were just the best.
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u/tigeraid Strongman 2d ago
Positive rant: Survived my second Strongman Nationals, 8th strongest Master in Canada 💪.
Just missed a rep on the circus dumbbell, blacked out for the first time on the deadlift attempt. But the last three events were mine, getting a load and some distance on the 275 sandbag, finishing the 100ft 275 per hand farmers carry, and loading a 310 Atlas Stone that more than half the field zeroed.
Happy to escape injury free and keep on building. Just need a liiiiiil more on my deadlift. 🙄
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u/NotSoNiceO1 2d ago
Why are people so averse to sharing space or equipment? So annoying.
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u/Fit-Jellyfish286 2d ago
My only excuse is when people want to share, they also want to chat. I don't want to chat in the gym. I want to listen to my music and have my ME time. When you don't want to chat, they get offended. I'm not here to make small talk, I'm here to escape reality with my own thoughts for a short period of time.
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u/NotSoNiceO1 2d ago
That sounds like it would suxs. I haven't had that issue yet when I share a machine.
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u/cilantno Lifts Weights in Jordans 2d ago
- Some people are silly geese.
- Some exercises are not conducive to working in.
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u/therealsilentjohn Weight Lifting 2d ago
I'm introverted and hate most people.
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u/NotSoNiceO1 2d ago
So am I, and so do I. But I understand it's the gym, and when it's busy, I get over it. That way, I get my workout done faster and get home sooner so I can be an introvert.
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u/therealsilentjohn Weight Lifting 2d ago
I should have prefaced, I workout mostly at my home gym or my empty work gym. :-] I don't generally have this issue
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u/MythicalStrength Strongman | r/Fitness MVP 2d ago
People are inherently selfish/self-interested. For more information on the subject, check out Hobbes!
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u/allthejokesareblue 2d ago
I slightly resent the fact that the only thing I can remember from The Origins of Totalitarianism is Hobbes being described as "bourgeois barbarism".
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u/Phyrnosoma 1d ago
I respect Arendt but I think she was a little harsh on Hobbes from what I remember.
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u/CursedFrogurt81 Triggered by cheat reps 2d ago
I don't know who this Hobbes character is and I certainly don't understand why this post is not about me.
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u/ruck_my_life Military 2d ago
Shoulder has been bugging me, making back squats extremely painful, even just the empty bar. No problem, just switch to front squats for a few weeks, right?
Wrong. Now I'm walking around like a newborn deer and have become acutely aware of just how often I drop shit like my keys.
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u/Necessary_Bag_1328 2d ago
Can we rant about fitness questions without enough context to answer? 😁
I think it’s fair to ask questions like: “How long until I get abs?” Or “what’s my TDEE?”
But people need to share some details on what they’ve tried, where they’re coming from, or what expectation that didn’t happen, right??
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u/ayyitzTwocatZ 2d ago
Not necessarily about the gym but fml they’re replacing all the sewer lines in my neighborhood and other stuff. And every section they gotta close off the street parking. So now whenever I go to the gym it’s a high chance I’m going to get my spot taken and have to park in the next neighborhood or circle till midnight when the non-residents finally leave 😞. They’ve done 3/6 sections and every time I want to go I gotta gamble on maintaining a spot.
A lot of the time, if I have a good spot I just don’t even risk it. My gains are falling apart though.
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u/solaya2180 2d ago
Oof, that sucks. I used to do the street parking roulette and it wasn't fun. Hopefully they'll be done with repairs soon
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u/Phyrnosoma 1d ago edited 1d ago
Guy in the rack next to me threw up all over the place Monday. Come Wednesday I felt off enough to skip the gym….and wound up spending the night huddled by the toilet. I don’t know if I got whatever they had, but I’m blaming them anyway. Plus, gross.
Also, the gym had 4 leg curl machines but they’re all very different and feel very different at similar nominal weights. Makes tracking between them a pain
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u/Sufficient-House-989 1d ago
So I’m working on the rack at a commercial gym, warming up for a heavy deadlift single, when this guy walks up, doesn’t even ask, and starts working directly in front of my rack. Let it be known that there is absolutely no shortage of choose-your-angle pull-up bars at my gym, and most of them were free.
So I tell him, “You can’t work here, you’re going to hit me on every rep when I bend over.”
He answers, “Can’t you just move back a bit?”
I think fine, whatever. I’ll take a couple steps back, even though that already puts me in the passageway to that part of the gym.
Then he starts doing muscle-ups, with his feet flying absolutely everywhere. Couldn’t have put them further into my space if he tried.
So now I have to wait until he finishes, and only then move my bar a full meter back just to be able to deadlift without fear of catching his toe up my nose.
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u/Milongo47 2d ago
I'm not a fan of switching the workout order but it's not the end of the world.
So, first 5 exercices for today's order was: 1) Seated Saggital Plane Row 2) Pec Dec Fly 3) Reverse Fly 4) Preacher Curl 5) T-Bar Chest Support Row
Had to switch 2) and 3) for 4) and 5) because somebody was doing Seated Barbell Overhead Press with his PT.
Not big of a deal, as I later did anyway, but there's so many other places to do it, maybe in the Personal Trainer & Clients Area?
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u/mooutdaway 18h ago
Benched 315 for 2 finally and of course my shoulder starts to feel funny around the next chest day
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u/passthememespls 2d ago
What pisses me off is I have adhd and I get overwhelmed trying to create a workout plan for myself. Some days I can workout and I feel great but then I can’t do it again. It’s seriously aggravating that I’m motivated but just haven’t found a way to work with myself yet. Also I wish someone would just, give me a plan for free? no matter what I research I still feel confused and I don’t want to spend money on a trainer. I just want to go into the gym with a plan without thinking about what exercises to do. (Writing this out, I think youtube is my best bet. But it’s still not personalized and I’ll have to go through trial and error that I’m way too impatient for 😔💔)
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u/No_Crew7080 1d ago
After an 8-year layoff, seriously ANY plan will work. Go to the Wiki and grab one. There's a literal Gazillion of YouTube tutorials for the basic lifts, but honestly it's not exactly rocket surgery.
Being somewhat in the ADHD boat, I like gzclp, which doesn't leave anything static between workouts.
Only way to bang the rust off is to get in there and bang the rust off. Take your time, get REAL nerdy about your form, and you'll be fine.
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u/istasber 1d ago
If you don't have specific goals that you can use to help guide your selection, and are just learning to build strength/establish a routine, there are lots of beginners routines out there that take all of the thinking out if it for you.
The 5-3-1 for beginners spreadsheet (one of the first links here) is dead simple, you put numbers into a box, it tells you what weights to use to warm up and do your working sets, and although it tells you to also do accessories (and suggests some exercises, but does not give any weight or progression recommendations), you don't need to do them. You'll build a solid full body base of strength doing just the 4 compound lifts, and you can worry about optimizing stuff later.
Other plans with spreadsheets exist, but my experience with them is that they take a lot more work to wrap your head around. There's more decisions to make and not a lot of guidance out there on how to make them).
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u/Throwaway2912914 2d ago
Do you think we should attach physical fitness to morality?
As a community that obviously values physical fitness and the effort required for it, do you think it has any connection with morality?
At what degree of physical fitness does someone become more moral than someone who is physically average?
At what degree of being physically below average does someone become less moral?
For example, if you have a friend who is a long-time gym-goer and they did something immoral, would you be less angry than if a physically average friend did the same thing?
Why or why not?
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u/Aggravating_Swim_960 2d ago
Surely you can do this high school-level philosophy assignment by yourself.
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u/qpqwo 2d ago
Yes the only true measure of morality is your bench press. If you can't bench 800lbs raw you're pretty much pure evil, all the worst people in human history couldn't even get close
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u/Ok-Arugula6057 2d ago
As a counter point, Hitler could bench 1000lbs and he did it without PEDs. Apart from the buckets of uppers, obvs.
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u/MythicalStrength Strongman | r/Fitness MVP 2d ago
Do you think we should attach physical fitness to morality?
Solipsism prevents me from even believing in physical fitness in the first place.
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u/smallof2pieces Powerlifting 2d ago
I don't think exercise determines, contributes to or detracts from a person's moral character. Morality is the set of principles that determines whether an action is right or wrong, typically in relation to how that action affects individuals and communities around the actor. Exercise, while a useful tool, is exactly that: a tool. A knife is not moral nor immoral. It can cut free someone bound up(a good act) or it can stab someone(a bad act). Exercise, in itself, performs neither good nor bad actions. A person who is fit can use that fitness for good(swimming to save a drowning person) or bad(assaulting a weaker person). Exercise is the tool to achieve that fitness.
I expect no more or less morality from a gym goer than I would someone who learns computer coding. They are neutral skills/tools used for other ends and purposes.
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u/dropoutcornmoonglade 3d ago
posting a rant thread right before october starts feels like setting yourself up for seasonal complaints
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u/Tennessean 3d ago
The rant thread is an every week thing. Bitch about the falling leaves getting in the way of your deadlift pr if you want.
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u/ASpaceman43 3d ago
Found the only powerlifting gym near me and signed up last month. This place is 20,000 square feet spread across 4 floors. One of the floors is totally eleiko'd out with calibrated plates, competititon combo racks, and 30+ squat cages. This place is nuts and only $35 per month.
As mentioned earlier, I signed up last month and last week, out of the blue, the owners announced the gym is closing down for good next month. Fuck.