I feel you on that. (also on the Covid derailing; that hit me hard last year and I injured my back coming back too hard and too quickly).One thing I'm finding as I get older is that the movements and weight ranges that tend to get me strongest the most efficiently also wreak havoc on my joints. My poor, poor knees and elbows.
Thanks for responding, and you're dead on about the ego part. It's something that I'm still trying to adapt to. Full ROM has never really been a problem for me, and it's one of those dimensions of ego-lifting that's pretty easy to circumvent. Rather, it's the nebulousness of paused reps, controlled negatives, etc. that messes with me. On the one hand, it's obvious that those are helpful; on the other, it's easy for me to get in my head about them: e.g. "Does that really count as a rep? Am I really progressing?"
I agree about cable exercises. In general, I have tried to move away from machines and mostly just use free weights plus a few cable exercises, with less weight and slower movements, as you describe. I find that when I exercise on other machines I become more prone to injury; I think using free weights or cables forces me to also employ stabilizing muscles that don't get as engaged when using rigid machines.
I sometimes feel like the decades of procrastinating, while frustrating for having missed out on youthful easy gains, had a silver lining in that once I finally started a few years ago, I had a much more sensible attitude about injury prevention. My brother-from-another-mother who finally got me into the gym and was my workout buddy was himself a high school athlete. He worked out a lot in his 20s, off and on since, and has had multiple real injuries, a rotator cuff surgery or two, a series of cortisone shots to his shoulder, etc. I went two solid years of lifting in my 40s with no significant injuries. (Before finally hurting my back 13 months ago coming back too fast from Covid, and, alas, my physical therapist thinks, because I neglected my core muscles and my back didn't have enough accessory support for deadlifting, so I can't be too proud).
Absolutely. Me too. A key for me is keeping the counts as consistent as I can. Like, count "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand" on the negative for dumbbell bench, count "one one thousand" for the pause, then just push hard on the concentric. Whereas for RDLs it's a 5 count on the descent because of the longer range of motion.
I'm hoping to make time this spring to experiment with those techniques a bit more since the goal is weight loss and strength maintenance rather than strength or muscle gain. Gonna be hard to let go of that "but I can do more!" mentality, so it helps to hear it from elsewhere.
And yes yes yes to cables. When I was younger, I disdained anything but free weights, but now--especially with isolation exercises--cables (and good machines in general) have been a godsend.
. Limited myself to 8 and q0 beers in one sitting. Until next year that's it for the more than 1-3 drinks.
