alternative to stronglifts forum

[piranha]

hey there.

i am doing stronglifts 5x5, started in early november. have serious mobility problems that are so far preventing me from doing proper barbell squats, so i have replaced them with goblet squats for now (at lower weights, but i am progressively increasing them). am working on improving my mobility, and am otherwise progressing well; just slower than normal. but hey, i am fat, old, and have lived a sedentary life for much too long. i don't mind the slow part, i just want to get stronger.

i signed up for the "inner circle", but i am having a hard time with it because i have plain run out of patience for sexism and homophobia. "pussy", "sissy", and "fag" are commonly used to denigrate outsiders, the former two also to exhort insiders (eg "don't be such a pussy, and work through it") and nobody sees anything wrong with it. and while i don't identify as a woman, i hate the way women are treated as well; ostensibly supported, but that often results in flirtatious calls for more booty pictures, which marginalizes fat women (because only conventionally attractive women are asked for those). the majority of women on the site are silent, the only ones who participate are the ones who seems to enjoy all that male attention. motivational images often consist of bikini babes beckoning. in short, the place oozes testosterone poisoning.

there is also not much room for people who diverge from the basic program; if you pursue other sports and activities you're lucky if you don't get written off or insulted (don't mention crossfit. ever.). doing your own research to find what works for your own body is frowned upon. i understand some of that -- a lot of the guys come from self-designed gym routines that never did much for them, so the thrust is "stick with the program and don't mess with it". but i have to "mess" with it because i am not a healthy, young guy.

nutrition-wise the place is a total mess, with broscience paleo clogging every artery. no room for veg*ns.

and i find it hard to justify supporting those attitudes with my money. but i am in need of support, advice, and encouragement, something at which that forum is pretty good (if you can overlook the above problems). nobody in my circle of friends can provide that. do any of you know of a decent forum that's less macho?

Comments

[abyssinia]

*nods* That is a tall order, though it would be awesome if such a thing exists. A lot of it sounds like coaching - I wonder if there are people who will coach online (the ones I know about are more for advanced lifters and Oly or crossfit focused)?

And, yeah, it definitely sounds like you want a strength coach and not a personal trainer. I wish I knew about good places to look for strength coaches - I don't know where you live, but in the US you usually want someone who is a certified USAW (USA weightlifting) coach and you can go to their website to find gyms/coaches. I totally understand not wanting to crossfit (I love it, but it's not for everyone and my box has amazing coaches which is not true everywhere) but it could be worth checking if they have a strength coach. At our box our strength coach also does personal strength training for non-members. They might have something like this, or be able to make recommendations in the community.

I do like parts of nerd fitness, mentioned below, though there is a weight loss bent to some of it. I'm pretty good at just ignoring the parts I don't want to focus on. And crossfit as made me immune to paleo stuff - I believe some of the science from a biochemical perspective, none of it from an evolutionary perspective, and have found that paleo means different things to different people. When I convert it to mean "eat real food, as unprocessed as possible", which is the base message, it works for me.

Anyway, good luck on your search and I hope you find something that offers what you're looking for.

[piranha]

i'm in canada. i checked the website of the BC powerlifting association, but no luck there. i'll probably email them and see whether i can get a contact. and i guess it can't hurt to check the local crossfit box, even though i don't want to do crossfit. i like what crossfit has done in regards to building community, and i very much like the basic principle of becoming competent in all human movement. but i think their workouts privilege speed over form and are consequently very injury-prone, and too many of their coaches are just as badly educated as your average personal trainer. i really do like kelly starrett, however; his mobilityWODs are working wonders for me. and maybe as at your box, there's a good trainer at the local crossfit who also does private strength training. have you heard of ido portal? his philosophy is where i want to go once i have some basic strength.

"real food as unprocessed as possible" is what i eat too, but it's not compatible with what people sell as paleo. i eat almost completely vegetarian now, and that means no meat, plenty of legumes, whole grains, and some dairy. the only thing i have in common with paleo is that we all eat vegetables. ;)

yeah, upon giving it a closer look nerdfitness is ok. it's certainly much more my kind of people than the stronglifts forums. and they don't actually have the paleo police run rampant in the forums. ;) i've even found some vegetarians, and the NFers across the strait in vancouver have regular meetups.

in case anyone else reading this is interested, i've also found something called the "fit fatties" forum at http://fitfatties.ning.com/ where there is blessedly no weight loss and diet talk because they subscribe to HAES. that could be great, but it's not very active, and i think part of that is the software; it's very hard to find anything and follow conversations.