gwenbasil: (Default)
gwenbasil ([personal profile] gwenbasil) wrote in [community profile] lifting_heavy_things2012-06-17 01:01 pm

(no subject)

Hi everyone,

I'm new! I used to work in a grocery store, where the job was awful, but some of the physical work made me happy - I did several sets of "rotisserie chickens" a day, and was proud of my "box of five watermelons" deadlift.

Now I work at a desk, and the pay and treatment are better but I'm getting restless. So I'm shopping for a gym membership - help, what am I looking for?

Also, I don't have the monies to pay a TRAINER - where do I start with the exercises? I can get over-enthusiastic in step 1 of anything I do, so even though I intellectually know I need a sort of limited program to stick with, my instinct is DO ALL THE EXERCISES and I don't think that's right.

My goals are to get stronger, especially in the top half - and not gonna lie, LOOKING stronger, with poke-outey arm muscles eventually is a motivation too. I'm 5'9 and 150 pounds-ish, eat what I want, turn a big stink-eye on beauty-standards-for-women, and am completely uninterested in weight loss (though I know I am probably going to have people talk to me about it at every gym I go to) I FEEL skinny, as in skinny-with-the-negative-connotations. I'm accepting diet-to-go-along-with-sudden-interest-in-gaining-strength suggestions, cos I think y'all probably get where I'm coming from.

Right now I can't do a pull up, I can do about one push up, but I can walk pretty much infinitely.

The idea of running for a reason that isn't fleeing danger makes me go ugh and roll my eyes, but I'll do it if it's in service of some other goal.

I've lurked on this blog for ages, being impressed by you all, so I've suddenly decided to jump in! I know a lot of the things I've mentioned are repeated in your archives, but 80% of the motivation of this post is "State your plans in public, so you aren't tempted to weasel out" ;)
belleweather: (Default)

Re: Opinion, I haz them

[personal profile] belleweather 2012-06-19 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
No, that's totally helpful. I don't need to pass any sort of physical fitness test, I just don't want to be the guy panting on the stairs when you're running for the safe room and the elevators have gone out, you know? I don't really foresee a whole lot of endurance jogging in my future either way, so since I'm also bad at jogging I'll focus on strength, and sprint/interval training instead until someone professional convinces me differently!