Our Physical Fitness

Saturday Upper
Saturday, Oct 11, 2025 at 10:13am

Bench Press (Smith Machine)
Set 1: 245 lbs x 6
Set 2: 225 lbs x 10
Set 3: 225 lbs x 10

Lat Pulldown (Machine)
Set 1: 200 lbs x 12
Set 2: 200 lbs x 12

Seated Cable Row - V Grip (Cable)
Set 1: 175 lbs x 12
Set 2: 175 lbs x 12

Shoulder Press (Machine Plates)
Set 1: 180 lbs x 14
Set 2: 180 lbs x 13

Bicep Curl (Cable)
"New pulley"
Set 1: 67 lbs x 12
Set 2: 67 lbs x 12

Triceps Extension (Cable)
Set 1: 62 lbs x 15
Set 2: 62 lbs x 12

Ugh. We got there but that's about all that can be said.

Too busy.

Leg day today:

Barbell Squat:
Warmup set with bar only
Warmup set of 115 lbs
5 x 5 at 165 lbs

Hip Thrusters:
4 x 10 at 225 lbs

Seated Leg Curls:
4 x 10 at 115 lbs

Hip Abduction:
3 x 12 at 175 lbs

Seated Calf Raises:
3 x 12 at 165 lbs

Reverse Crunches:
3 sets til I wanted to die.

Just benched my first 400. Feels good.

Divine2021 said:

Just benched my first 400. Feels good.

Click to expand...

Wow, huge. I literally cannot imagine.

Divine2021 said:

Just benched my first 400. Feels good.

Click to expand...

Awesome. My best friend texted me when he did that, and I wrote back "Awesome! That was your goal, right?"

To which he responded "Well, my GOAL is to be The Hulk..."

Great milestone.

Saturday I hiked up a small mountain to a fire tower.

Sunday I got back to the gym for three circuits of dumbbell bench, dumbbell inclined curls, and seated lateral raises, all with drop sets. Then did two of leg press and calf raises, but I started to feel a bit sick (underslept and too much caffeine in the morning), so cut it there. Still a pretty good workout.

I feel like I'm on a bit of a hamster wheel lately. I know I need to track calories and protein, and I've done so successfully in the past. Lately, however, when I get a day or two in, the wheels fall off completely.

Because I'm not tracking that stuff, I feel like I'm not making meaningful progress. I'm not bulking, so I'm only seeing incremental (at best) gains on the bar. I'm not cutting, and I can see myself getting fatter.

I'm thinking a dedicated cut is in order, but the definition of crazy being doing something over and over again and expecting different results, I'm unsure how to proceed.

Evaniel said:

I feel like I'm on a bit of a hamster wheel lately. I know I need to track calories and protein, and I've done so successfully in the past. Lately, however, when I get a day or two in, the wheels fall off completely.

Because I'm not tracking that stuff, I feel like I'm not making meaningful progress. I'm not bulking, so I'm only seeing incremental (at best) gains on the bar. I'm not cutting, and I can see myself getting fatter.

I'm thinking a dedicated cut is in order, but the definition of crazy being doing something over and over again and expecting different results, I'm unsure how to proceed.

Click to expand...

This was how I felt over the summer when a lot of trips (vacation plus work trips) were going on and I couldn’t get back to a normal pattern of diet and exercise. I will say the only saving grace for me was that I kept tracking my diet strictly using an app. It meant that before I went too far off the rails, I could do enough to keep myself on track.

I feel a lot of this. I had most of my newbie gains between 2020 and 2022, and my actual advances in strength the last three years have been pretty minimal on the major muscle groups.

PT for a couple of injuries has gotten me working a couple of neglected areas which have come up a bit, but between early 2023 (PT in Spring after injuring my back deadlifting in Nov 2022) and early 2025 I was pretty well plateaued, and between stress and some of the worst sleep of my life in 2023-2024, I added some weight and fat without adding much of anything for strength. Got up to 195 in the first half of 2024 (heaviest I've ever been, after being mostly steady around 180-185 since I started lifting).

This year I've managed to drop down to around 170 while mostly recovering my previous strength peaks, or slightly exceeding them for a few lifts. My cheap digital scale estimates me around 18% body fat, and I keep waffling on whether I want to do an actual strict and structured cut to try to get genuinely lean, or plan a mild calorie surplus to actively bulk. It also doesn't help that I feel relatively exhausted and take what seems like a lot of time doing a fraction of the sets some of you guys do. Lately I've been pondering whether I need to add regular cardio not just for heart health, but to increase my stamina for and reduce my rest/recovery time for lifting!