I felt puny, but not mechanical

tremere · 25-Nov-03, 08:39 PM

Tonight I made the leap back over to using barbells and dumbbells

It's been about 8 years since I last lifted for any amount of time, and seriously. Now I am 31, so I have pretty good incentive to stick it out this time. While I felt so tiny compared to the jocks there (some of them were single-arm curling what I had on a barbell), the more important thing was how great my arms felt between sets. I feel I got more out of my workout tonight than I did in over a week of working out on the machines. For me, "no pain no gain" is the way to go!

DaRkAnGel · 25-Nov-03, 08:41 PM

Don't ever compare yourself to what others are doing. Sure its nice to desire how much they are curling and what not but stick to what you are doing and you will get there eventually, no need to do more than you can do and end up injured. Im glad that you are excited to start lifting again, keep it up.

tremere · 25-Nov-03, 10:06 PM

Thanks, this means a lot to me when people give me a thumbs up! I have deep regrets for going off the wayside in my early twenties, and it won't happen this time.

My wife is struggling with her physical condition, too, trying to lose weight. If I post pics of her I will NOT tell her about them. She'd kill me. She is 5'2" and because I don't know her weight (I made a chart for the two of us, so we can track our weight and bf%) I'm guessing she weights 200-220. She started crying tonight, because I told her that she shouldn't work her legs every day just because her upper body is hurting and she wants to lift weights. Right now she is in a fragile stage, and frankly, I don't know how to help her yet refrain from being pushy. I feel bad for her, because unlike me, she is just trying to move to forward so she can move forward :/

trebla · 25-Nov-03, 10:21 PM

Well done Tremere, good move to get back into exercising.

I know the feeling when you see all those great bodies in the gym, and wish you had a body like that. Stick to you workouts and in time you can also lokk like that.

Why not get your wife to start reading some of the journals on this site. It helps keep me motivated and is good to see the changes in the photo's. Take a look at Aar's journal, that is enough to motivate and inspire anyone.

I think posting her picture might not be a good idea, what if she sees it?.

Good Luck.

**Luca Brasi** · 25-Nov-03, 10:54 PM

Tremere, of all the routines, diets, supplements, drugs, fads, magazines, equipment out there...it is my honest belieft that nothing compares to lifting with a good partner.

A good partner is there to motivate you to get off the couch, put on that extra 5 lbs, or finish that extra rep.

A good partner is there to scream "c'mon, pussy!" when your veins are popping through your skin and you can barely stand.

A good partner is there to say "don't eat that!" as much as your inner desire may be.

I know that I wouldn't be in the state that I am in now if it weren't for my workout partner, and I know he wouldn't be there either.

Unfortunately I've never had the opportunity to work out with a wife or girlfriend, but I've seen many people in the gym do it. They seem to be on an even higher level of motivation. I would love more than anything to find a woman who shares my interest in fitness and bodybuilding, and maybe someday i will.

You and your wife obviously got married for a reason, now take it a step further and hit the gym together, keep each other motivated. Not only will your body & health improve but quite possible your relationship too!

Good luck!

TsiTalon · 25-Nov-03, 11:55 PM

yeah stick with it man. As far as comparing yourself everone does it but when i see a guy lifting all this weight instead of tearing him how i just say damn thats awesome. Just the other day theres this old guy hes like 60 gray hair and all and him and his buddy as have like a 1 rep chest benching contest between them. I watched this guys do 6 plates !! im like holy @#$&. I just say good for you and with hard work i will be there also.

B.A. · 26-Nov-03, 05:13 AM

The only person worth competing against is yourself. Congratulations on your new found motivation, and I hope that you stick with it.

- B.A.

tremere · 26-Nov-03, 03:55 PM

Last night my wife and I got in an argument about this. She feels I am critcizing her for eating a pizza and drinking lots of diet pepsis (though to her it's justified because she drinks water, too), and that I tell her that if she isn't feeling sore a day or two later after working out an area of her body, that she either didn't do something right (in which case she might be feeling sore because of injuries) or she isn't using enough intensity. In a nutshell, my wife isn't very intense

I love her very much, I really do. That will never change. As far as getting her butt to the gym, she seems to have a much easier time getting out of the house than I do. However, once we hit the gym, I am by far more aggressive and intense than she is.

We tried working out together, but I really dislike using machines and the machines they have take too much time IMO to set up for she and I to be able to get anything out of our workouts. We spend more time adjusting the seat, feet and other contraption settings and handing each other our paperwork and pen than we do in actually lifting weight. It just doesn't work for me. Even if we were to use the free-weights, it still would take too much time to change the amount of weight for each other's needs.

One way that I can see this working is for me to come in and spot her on the days that she works out (that way she can concentrate on just lifting, I can handle logging the sets, weight, reps) and for her to do the same for me. Even that might be too much, because then we would be at the gym nearly seven days a week, and knowing me I would burn out quickly from that. Same for her.

Another alternative, as I see it, is to spot her during her workout, then after that she spots me. The problem with that is that we would be at the gym 1 1/2 - 2 hours at a time, to cover both workouts. I figure this would be (I call her sweety, she calls me honey):

15 mins -> (walk on treadmill) sweety & honey
30 mins -> (workout) sweety
15 mins -> (walk on treadmill) sweety & honey
30 mins -> (workout) honey
15 mins -> (walk on treadmill) sweety & honey

That way, we would only be coming to the gym 2-3 days per week. Of course, if one of us started to plateau for any period of time, we could come up with a new routine or use an older one.

The thing that we were arguing about is that I told her that it looked like she wasn't having much fun at this (she isn't as shy as me around others, but she doesn't carry herself with great esteem, either), that it just looked like she was going through the motions. She hardly seems to break a sweat. So, how do I encourage her and at the same time motivate her to do this? I guess that if I were in her shoes I'd be dying to get to the gym, to eat right, and I feel that I would have a hard time getting burned out when there is so much to be gained everytime I dropped a pound in weight.

There probably isn't a person, that knows me, that doesn't consider me to be a "blunt, too serious" personality, so I really didn't know any other way to tell her that "eating pizza when you are trying to work out is the LAST thing that you want to do....why go to the gym just to stay at ground zero?". How else could I have worded this?

She knows about this site, and last night I told her that I enjoy reading the posts here (the health food section is really nice, too), but I just don't know if this is the kind of site she would spend a lot of time on. One thing that worries me, as far as eating right, is that she is a pretty darn good cook. I love her food, most of it. I just don't know that the stuff that she cooks would be conducive to her losing weight. Often we will eat baked chicken, English Muffin pizzas, spaghetti, lots of other things. Over time I have grown to NOT like meat all that much. The other day I read about some time of bodybuilder, where a person eats only veggies, poultry and dairy. That sounds a lot like me, but not like her. She is more of the person that likes steaks, pork (which I literally can't stand) and whatnot. Are we eating right?

The other day when walking out of the gym, I told the guy at the front desk, that one thing I have learned is that eating right and working out go hand-in-hand. For me, I found it very difficult to stay motivate to eat right, when I wasn't working out. Conversely, it would be a waste of my time to work out and just un-do all the great things I did in the gym.

Sorry, this post has been long-winded, hopefully you guys made it all the way through it

**Jaster** · 26-Nov-03, 04:09 PM

When I hit the gym I don't want my wife near.
I rip into the weights like an animal!
Hell sometimes my traning partners slow me down.

ajarvis · 27-Nov-03, 09:07 AM

I don't like working out with anyone either, I find it distracting and I like to just go in and get it done, no chit chat no nothing just hard work. If you and your wife are on different pages maybe you should find someone at the gym to work out with. Maybe your wife would benefit from taking a group exercise class, I've noticed a lot of women start off in the group classes and end up finding partners there to do strength training with. They are also good for someone starting out as they can teach proper form on basic exercises and stretching.

Trias · 27-Nov-03, 07:19 PM

Bear in mind I'm a newbie at lifting and gym in general but I have has a partner for the 7 months I've been at it. I can say I think having a partner who's at too different a level to your self would make things harder. I doubt I could workout with my wife.

Bear in mind your wife is probably feeling self-conscious. Gyms are stressful places for most fat ppl, I would know as I am fat. It's very possible she really doesn't want to be there and indeed I think it might be the core of the whole problem. People really only workout or eat properly if they really want to. You would know this from your own experience. It's the same for your wife. If she wants to workout and eat well she will, if she doesn't she won't. I think it's overall a poor idea to forever push someone to do something they really don't want to do. It's too draining and causes fights.

I think you need to encourage her so she decides for herself this is something she wants to do or let go if you can't do that and focus on yourself. This might involve being blunt but being subtle can be useful too. You're going to have to be blunt about her little water cancels the calories lie though. I gotta say she was right you were probably "critcizing her for eating a pizza and drinking lots of diet pepsis ". Too bad if you were eh

tremere · 28-Nov-03, 05:41 AM

The last thing that I want to happen is for her to decide that she doesn't want to eat right and lose the weight, because that could spell trouble in our marriage. Her losing the weight is more important to me than her working out, but I wouldn't want her to starve herself to do so. But, really, I feel I deserve better to have a wife that chooses to not maintain control of her weight. I love her deeply, but there has to be more to it than loving her internally.

ajarvis · 28-Nov-03, 07:42 AM

Is there an all woman's gym in your neighbourhood? It may make her feel more comfortable, a few of my friends have decided to got that path and felt it helped them get comfortable in the gym to the point they were comfortable when they decided to go to a bigger "coed" gym.

tremere · 28-Nov-03, 08:27 PM

We got into a big argument tonight over this. I think she is a bit defensive when it comes to my suggestions in how to make better use of her workouts. Clearly I don't think she is enjoying this at all, and that is not a good thing when we're talking about something like getting control of your weight. I agree with her that I can be a bit hard in offering advice, perhaps maybe even discouraging her? I just told her that the most important thing here is that she be able to visualize successlly reaching her goals, and that it will be necessary to have that "drive" in order to sustain herself in times when "it's no fun at all".

tremere · 28-Nov-03, 08:29 PM

There is a Curves here in Pittsfield, MA, but she kind of let on that they spend time chit-chatting to each other, and I know her well enough to KNOW that with not having even seen her work out at Curves, that she isn't pushing herself to a sweat. I saw no real benefit in the month or two (I think that is how long she attended Curves) she went there.