Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

Lyrical_sl said:

At one gym I worked out, I had a guy bring in his wife and three daughters, and sit on the power rack an hour, doing deadlifts with just the bar. I remember, I asked him if I could use it to squat my 495 for reps, and he told me no. Most gyms, you'll be kicked out for using the power rack for non-power rack stuff, if someone complains. I didn't want to be "that guy."

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Its my work's gym so I'm not going to go out of my way to complain. I'm pretty used to people doing random bullshit on machines not designed for it but today the squat rack was monopolized by it. Luckily no one tends to use the bench press to do poor form workouts.

There's a guy that does weird shit with bands (stretches?) on our power racks all the time. The other week I also had to wait for one of the gym employees who was doing some kind of plyometrics with a yoga mat in the middle of the rack. That one pissed me off pretty good. My gym only has two power racks, too. Which actually reminds me of last week where this guy and his wife were both doing deadlifts, but in different racks. For one, I don't know why they couldn't find a barbell and an empty spot, but on top of that they should at least be considerate and workout together instead of monopolizing that much equipment (although to be fair, if they weren't married I guess I wouldn't complain about it outside of the fact that they were doing deadlifts in the rack).

In fact, since I have the gym at home now, I've done two workouts where I do my power rack/barbell stuff at home, then go to the gym for everything else. It's such a nice feeling to know that I won't have to go find something else to do while some ass hat finishes up his shit.

Luckily my gym is pretty upscale and you see the same people over and over. It's gotten to the point where I just walk towards the back near the power rack (we only have one) and if someone is in it will immediately tell me how many sets they have left. Pretty funny, I take a good 10-15 minutes to warm up anyway (tight adductors yo) so it doesn't bother me if someone is in there doing dumb shit. And for the most part if someone is deadlifting or doing curls I'll ask them if they can do it somewhere else and there's no issue.

Only one time did I ever have an issue. Idiot was doing like a combination of a rack pull and a row.

Yeah people at the gym know my routine as well. Generally if they see me in the locker room they'll tell me they're going to do a few sets of squats then they'll get off the machine. I have a feeling if the tables were turned I'd hate myself because I literally have my shit racked on the rack and bench for like 45 minutes. Everyone knows they can work in but rarely anyone does. But I'm pretty sure I'd bitch about the asshole who monopolizes the machines his entire workout.

any of you guys know some good treatments for tennis elbow? I literally had to stop lifting b/c of it. I'd be in pain just shaking peoples hands. Been doing Ice and have an elbow brace but I really want to speed up the healing time..

Tenks_sl said:

Yeah people at the gym know my routine as well. Generally if they see me in the locker room they'll tell me they're going to do a few sets of squats then they'll get off the machine. I have a feeling if the tables were turned I'd hate myself because I literally have my shit racked on the rack and bench for like 45 minutes. Everyone knows they can work in but rarely anyone does. But I'm pretty sure I'd bitch about the asshole who monopolizes the machines his entire workout.

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Same. I bench 4x a week and squat 4x a week, usually for about 45 mins as well. No one ever works in on squats because it's too heavy. Benching I had a dude work in and completely outrep me lmao. But my upper body is weak.

Convo_sl said:

any of you guys know some good treatments for tennis elbow? I literally had to stop lifting b/c of it. I'd be in pain just shaking peoples hands. Been doing Ice and have an elbow brace but I really want to speed up the healing time..

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All you can do is rest afaik. Perhaps some light PT if you have bands and shit, you may also want to stretch your forearms regularly. Do you do alternating curls often? That seems to be the most common way to develop tennis elbow among weightlifters. Or did this happen outside the gym?

Either way, ice, stretching, and light rehab should do the trick. Most importantly you need to figure out how it developed in the first place otherwise it's just going to be a chronic issue.

I think it happen doing triceps pulldown. Weight must have been too heavy. I do alternating curls as well. I scaled back with heavy weight and move to a 4x15 superset with 4x15 routine with lighter weight. But I did notice last time when I was doing biceps I had to stop and haven't lifted since. it sucks b/c I was in a groove.

Convo_sl said:

any of you guys know some good treatments for tennis elbow? I literally had to stop lifting b/c of it. I'd be in pain just shaking peoples hands. Been doing Ice and have an elbow brace but I really want to speed up the healing time..

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Glucoasamine Chondrotin (sp?) works wonders for me. After a week or two, I've forgotten about the discomfort. I call it discomfort, as all pain is really just discomfort. You can find a way to train around it. You can go lighter, or change the exercise, change your grip, your angle, etc.

thanks. I'm taking that as well. Sounds like I'm doing all the right treatments. I just need to lay off which kind of sucks. Been doing cardio everyday and maybe Ill do more leg days or something.

Itlan_sl said:

Same. I bench 4x a week and squat 4x a week, usually for about 45 mins as well. No one ever works in on squats because it's too heavy. Benching I had a dude work in and completely outrep me lmao. But my upper body is weak.

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I understand most guys probably don't want to work in and lower the weight. I think a bit of ego comes into play. I've never really cared personally but I'm also pretty strong for my weight so I've never really felt intimidated working in since I'm fairly pound-for-pound strong. But I could understand if they see some skinny 150lb guy benching more than they could at 200lb+ they'd probably just let it ride and not ask to work in and take off plates. Only dude who works in on my bench and reps the same weights as me is some really overweight black dude.

Convo_sl said:

thanks. I'm taking that as well. Sounds like I'm doing all the right treatments. I just need to lay off which kind of sucks. Been doing cardio everyday and maybe Ill do more leg days or something.

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Are you stretching before workouts? Warming up properly?

Like I said a few posts back, a LMT was able to do wonders for my shoulder pain.

Work around it, if it hurts stop doing what is aggravating it. I dealt with it for a year and then it was just gone. I could still do most exercises but the grip would have to vary to accommodate. Lateral raises and hammer type curls were off the table completely. Turning doorhandles was probably more painful than lifting tbh.

I never did any specific therapy, just waited for it to heal but I'm sure Google has a million and one ways to help. You can try a strap, some people report they help, didn't do anything for me. Once it's acute I think time is just the overwhelming factor, which sucks because tennis elbow is goddamn miserable.

i've tried for the last month to work around. I just feel it on everything. Even benching. Making a fist hurts heh. I'm going to lay off, it has felt better since I haven't lifted in about 5 days. i might give it 2 weeks and see if I can slowly ease back into it.

I added this to my home gym. Need to fix my mats and get the walls finished. Leveling a garage gym was not easy.

Convo_sl said:

i've tried for the last month to work around. I just feel it on everything. Even benching. Making a fist hurts heh. I'm going to lay off, it has felt better since I haven't lifted in about 5 days. i might give it 2 weeks and see if I can slowly ease back into it.

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Mine would cycle in severity throughout the year. Some weeks hardly noticeable others just breathing hard would aggravate it. Sometimes a hard break does help

Warmuth_sl said:

Work around it, if it hurts stop doing what is aggravating it. I dealt with it for a year and then it was just gone.

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Everytime I have joint issues, they just go away in a couple of weeks. I just work around it. Although it can be emasculating.

was just talking to a girl i know who learned to rub the area out with a golf bar. swears it really helps take away the pain. I'll give something like that a try too

I feel like Brahma, I had some dude spot me on militaries, and he tries to make me rack the bar after the first rep of 225. He absolutely lost his shit thinking I was going to wipe, going down to the middle of my Adam's apple. it kind of ruined the set, but I did three reps, no pain.