Started weight training again (1 Viewer)

[CLAX1911]

Good deal. Totally my pleasure.

You're not bothering people - it's a normal part of gym etiquette to ask for spots and give them when asked. No one should be bothered by it. Just return the favor when needed.

and side note - a good spotter isn't there to save you. His job is really to give just enough help to keep bar moving if you're stalling. If the spotter has to deadlift the bar off of you either you really went overboard with the weight or they let the situation get out of hand. My wife, who's a tiny woman, spots my bench presses when I need one.

Yeah gym people seem to be very friendly even though they mostly wear earbuds and keep to themselves. I like the culture.

I wonder if part of having a spotter is psychological

 

[Gaius46]

Yeah gym people seem to be very friendly even though they mostly wear earbuds and keep to themselves. I like the culture.

I wonder if part of having a spotter is psychological

In the sense of making you feel more secure? Absolutely. Knowing that a good spotter
is covering you so you don't have that nagging fear in the back of your mind that you're about to kill yourself allows you focus completely on the task at hand.

Being in the warmup room at a meet watching
guys psyching themselves up for their attempts was always interesting. As many rituals as there are people. Some guys yell, some would have a coach slap them, or slap themselves. One
guy I remember would bang his head on the wall. Another would just sit holding one of his
kids in his lap.

 

[CLAX1911]

Up to 195. Can't get more than 3 sets of 3.

 

[SayMyName]

I did this back in my 20s and a pretty good and for whatever reason stopped. I've been wanting to get back into it and I did recently. Taking it slow.

I had an injury that seems to be unrelated, minor a strain in my back. Because I'm older now they take a little longer to heal.

Is there anybody else that a weightlifter in their forties and how long do you take off for an injury? How long is too long? I started feeling a lot better and I'm missing it.

Take the time you need to heal. In the meantime, you should try and see if these exercises pictured below speed recovery. I used to have back pain. Not anymore. I am in my 60's and have been lifting weights for over 40 years. Weightlifting (not to be confused with bodybuilding) is one of the best forms of exercise people can do as they get older. The loss of muscle mass and strength are a contributing cause of so many accidents and ailments in seniors. There are countless studies you can search online about this. If the below exercises do not nip the back pain in the bud in a few days, time to see a doctor. Only thing is, they will tell you to rest, give you a prescription, or recommend surgery. I instead went to the 3 exercises below 20 years ago and that was all she wrote. Make sure to include a lot of walking once you are better. I live in an inner city environment and walk everywhere. Even when I travel, which is often, I walk or hike. Combined with the three stretches below, and a few others, and you got wood into old age.

The first one is difficult in the beginning. It will shock the hell out of your back and you will shake. Relax into it. Work up to a count of 20. If it helps, think about going deep in her. Work on relaxing and breathing normally. Then, go to the second pose. Feel the stretch. 20 seconds. Repeat 1 and 2. Two sets should be fine. Get up, walk a bit, then go to that squat in the 3rd picture. Sit and relax. Hold for a couple of minutes.Tilt to one side and the other. Raise an arm and stretch to one side then the other. You will feel it all the way down into your hip and butt. Great stuff. If everything is going well, you should already be feeling like a new man. In time, add forward leaning hamstring stretches and push the wall calf stretches. They all work together to get you naturally aligned, thus preventing injury.

Hope this helps.

 

[CLAX1911]

Take the time you need to heal. In the meantime, you should try and see if these exercises pictured below speed recovery. I used to have back pain. Not anymore. I am in my 60's and have been lifting weights for over 40 years. Weightlifting (not to be confused with bodybuilding) is one of the best forms of exercise people can do as they get older. The loss of muscle mass and strength are a contributing cause of so many accidents and ailments in seniors. There are countless studies you can search online about this. If the below exercises do not nip the back pain in the bud in a few days, time to see a doctor. Only thing is, they will tell you to rest, give you a prescription, or recommend surgery. I instead went to the 3 exercises below 20 years ago and that was all she wrote. Make sure to include a lot of walking once you are better. I live in an inner city environment and walk everywhere. Even when I travel, which is often, I walk or hike. Combined with the three stretches below, and a few others, and you got wood into old age.

The first one is difficult in the beginning. It will shock the hell out of your back and you will shake. Relax into it. Work up to a count of 20. If it helps, think about going deep in her. Work on relaxing and breathing normally. Then, go to the second pose. Feel the stretch. 20 seconds. Repeat 1 and 2. Two sets should be fine. Get up, walk a bit, then go to that squat in the 3rd picture. Sit and relax. Hold for a couple of minutes.Tilt to one side and the other. Raise an arm and stretch to one side then the other. You will feel it all the way down into your hip and butt. Great stuff. If everything is going well, you should already be feeling like a new man. In time, add forward leaning hamstring stretches and push the wall calf stretches. They all work together to get you naturally aligned, thus preventing injury.

Hope this helps.
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Oh yeah, I do need to do more stretching and posture holding exercise. Perhaps I can learn some more and I appreciate it. My back pain was upper back not lumbar. Are these posture exercises part of yoga?

 

[Gaius46]

Up to 195. Can't get more than 3 sets of 3.

One thing that should work here is to back off and instead of 3x3 do 1x3 and then 2x5 at about 90% of whatever you did the triple at. The next time do 1x4 the following workout do 1x5. Then increase the weight - now maybe 2.5 pounds or even 1.25 if they have those plates.

Sets across - sets done at the same weight can be very taxing once you get heavy enough. The back off to 90% is still enough to cause strength gains but isn't as tough on your recovery.

You can also try alternating a lighter day - maybe 90% for 2 sets of 2 with the heavier day. As long as you don't go much below 90% of your max you won't detrain.

Also make sure you're eating right and getting rest. Fiddling with sets/reps schemes won't help if you're only getting 4 hours of sleep a night or eating poorly.

 

[CLAX1911]

One thing that should work here is to back off and instead of 3x3 do 1x3 and then 2x5 at about 90% of whatever you did the triple at. The next time do 1x4 the following workout do 1x5. Then increase the weight - now maybe 2.5 pounds or even 1.25 if they have those plates.

Sets across - sets done at the same weight can be very taxing once you get heavy enough. The back off to 90% is still enough to cause strength gains but isn't as tough on your recovery.

You can also try alternating a lighter day - maybe 90% for 2 sets of 2 with the heavier day. As long as you don't go much below 90% of your max you won't detrain.

Also make sure you're eating right and getting rest. Fiddling with sets/reps schemes won't help if you're only getting 4 hours of sleep a night or eating poorly.

I'm kind of stuck at 195. Sometimes I'll get a set with five lifts but it's everything I've got to get it. I've been lifting that for about 3 weeks.

 

[CLAX1911]

One thing that should work here is to back off and instead of 3x3 do 1x3 and then 2x5 at about 90% of whatever you did the triple at. The next time do 1x4 the following workout do 1x5. Then increase the weight - now maybe 2.5 pounds or even 1.25 if they have those plates.

Sets across - sets done at the same weight can be very taxing once you get heavy enough. The back off to 90% is still enough to cause strength gains but isn't as tough on your recovery.

You can also try alternating a lighter day - maybe 90% for 2 sets of 2 with the heavier day. As long as you don't go much below 90% of your max you won't detrain.

Also make sure you're eating right and getting rest. Fiddling with sets/reps schemes won't help if you're only getting 4 hours of sleep a night or eating poorly.

I'm getting the macros it's the extra junk that I didn't need that I'm eating. I wanted to give it a year of training before I started cutting and that's soon. I do also get good sleep.

 

[Gaius46]

I'm kind of stuck at 195. Sometimes I'll get a set with five lifts but it's everything I've got to get it. I've been lifting that for about 3 weeks.

Okay how much time between bench press workouts are you taking? If you're doing something like a M W F routine you can try just going heavy on Monday and Friday and make Wednesday a light day. At some point increasing the weight every workout - the linear progression - doesn't work any longer because you've exceeded your body's recovery capabilities. First thing to do at that point is decrease the frequency of "heavy" days. I know guys in my age range who've gotten to the point where they can only set new PRs once every couple of weeks. Nature of the beast. At that point they might be benching once every 5 days doing one workout at 90% of max, then one at 60-70% and then doing a new PR set of 5 (or even 2 sets of 3). So the weight on the bar is going up only about 5 pounds a month.