So, who's been up to what lately?

[rydra_wong]

In the last few weeks, I've been going to the gym for the first time in ages.

In the past few years, I've generally been doing bodyweight and kettlebell stuff at home as strength training, and now I've decided to get some barbell work done again, and in particular get back to deadlifting -- partly because I've been having a run of back aches and would like to build up my back strength again, partly because I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy deadlifting.

So I thought I'd check in here and see how everyone else is doing: getting into anything new lately? Learning some new things? Switching training plans? Buying, making or enjoying any new heavy things? Re-starting after time off, or looking to get started? Lurking shyly in the comm?

Comments

[rydra_wong]

Do you have any recs for no-equipment strength training?

Absolutely! Off the top of my head, for shoulders I'd recommend trying push-up progressions and handstand push-up progressions. The important word here is progressions.

Doesn't matter if you can't do a push-up (let alone a handstand push-up!); you find the appropriate stage in the progression and start there.

Stumptuous has a great guide to push-up progressions, starting with wall push-ups:

https://stumptuous.com/mistressing-the-pushup

Handstand push-up progressions are very similar, except that the direction of push is in a straight line above your head, rather than outwards from your chest.

http://www.startbodyweight.com/p/handstand-push-up-progression.html

If you have a sturdy table you can lie under, you can also do inverted rows:

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/inverted-row-are-you-missing-out-on-this-great-exercise/

These will all work your arms and chest (or back for the inverted rows) as well as your shoulders, but that's not a bad thing. *g*

Exrx recommend incline side bridges for the lateral deltoids:

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Obliques/BWAngledSideBridge.html

If you have any cans of food or water bottles at home, there are lots more shoulder exercises you can do -- the deltoid muscles themselves are quite small, so you can get a lot out of relatively little weight. Let me know if that's of interest and I'll start listing more things!

(Warning: I'll probably start talking about Turkish get-ups.)

Important note: if you want your shoulders to get bigger (hypertrophy) as well as stronger, you have to be getting enough calories, and especially more than enough protein. Your body won't build new muscle mass unless it's got plenty of fuel and building supplies.

You can also tweak the sets and reps range to focus your training on hypertrophy: as a very rough rule of thumb, you probably want to aim for at least 3 sets of 8-12 reps.

This is also the perfect set/rep range for anyone who's starting with strength training, because it means you'll get stronger and build up some muscle mass, while not doing anything super-heavy (e.g. things where you can barely do 3 reps) where you might be more likely to injure yourself because you're still figuring out what you're doing and your connective tissues and joints are just getting used to the extra stresses.

Does this sound useful/appropriate? I don't want to bombard you with too much stuff!

[dhampyresa]

This is super useful, thank you!

I've been doing some push-ups this past week. I can just about manage ten in a row -- today I tried to push myself and did two sets of ten and now everything hurts :(

If you have more info on any of this, I'll gladly listen.