denise4god
New member
Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice day.
I've been back at the gym focusing on recomping after a pandemic hiatus and wanted to share my results with you. I'm no longer doing progress photos, but have a lot videos of my lifting in the past few months and what you see in that first image is the screenshots of me deadlifting and squatting from begining to now for comparison. I'm going to try to be as detailed and forth coming as I can be, so sorry if this post gets super long!
My background:
30 year old cis-woman (turning 31 in a few weeks) with prior experience in strength traing in her twenties. My training before may have not been the most optimal. I didn't follow any structured programs for the majority of it and didn't have the best nutrition but I had some gains. I could squat 135lbs, deadlift 165lbs, bench 85lbs and do 3 chin ups. Here's some photos on how I looked back in November 2019. Also may be of interest to some, my first post on r/xxfitness after one year of lifting in 2017. When the pandemic hit, a lot of things were happening in my life and gyms were closed for a really long time. I became completely sedentary for two years and I could see the impact on my body. Even though I weighed almost the same (When I finally hopped on a scale, I had actually lost a few opunds), clothes were not fitting me the way they used to, too tight around my belly and thighs. I checked around September 2021 and I could only barely do a single chin up. My body constanly had random pains and aches and I'd pull a muscle in my neck from sitting all the time or I'd feel some back pain from just doing the dishes. My posture had also gotten worse. I missed working out but struggled to keep up an effective program at home. I decided I'll go back to the gym as soon as I can, so after getting 2 vaccine doses and gyms opening up and also moving to a new place, I signed up for a gym around November 2021. I also found an amazing online coach to help me with some of the foundations I had struggled in the past with. I'm talking about things like good technique, proper focused programming and the basics of nutritional requirements for strength and muscle.
How the progamming has worked with online coaching:
I feel like I've seen so many posts here on getting cookie cutter templates sold for online coaching and wanted to share with you guys how the experience was for me. I'm very happy with what I'm getting for a personalized program with online coaching.
I get my workout program for the week by my coach. We also do a weekly checkin.
I do a 3 days a week program focused on strength. I do two of my main lifts every session for a 3 to 8 rep range (squat, bench and deadlift) and 2 to 4 other accessory workouts afterwards that are in the 10 to 15 range. I film myself and upload so she can see my form. My coach has changed the structure and workouts a bit as we move along and she sees what I need. For instance after a few weeks, regular squats became tempo squats to focus on not falling into the bottom half of my squats and it has improved my technique so much!
Did I mention I used to get spasms in my neck and have terrible posture? Well after consulting with my doctor and a chiropractor the diagnosis was I'm firstly just very prone to rounding my shoulders and secondly I have tight upper traps. I aslo am hypermobile go figure! The verdict was I should focus on strengthening my posterior chain and shoulder stabilizers. After sharing this with my coach, again the progam changed to only 1 bench session a week to make room for other workouts like back extension and suitecase carries and also adding some rest day shoulder health work. It has so far made a big impact, I think part of the visual improvement I see is the posture improvement not just recomp.
Another note on online coaching, one of the best things that has come out if it, is the habit of filming my lifts. Most of the time I'm doing it to check for myself not just to send to my coach. As not so technically experienced lifter, so many little things that I wouldn't even notice, can be improved by just seeing my lift afterwards and trying to correct it the next set I do.
A sample day in my program:
Barbell bench: 70lbs 6x4
Barbell deadlift: 40kg 5x7
Back extension: 3 sets of 15
Dumbbell seated shoulder press: reverse pyramid sets 20lbs 6 reps|15lbs 10 reps|10lbs 8 reps
Knee pushups: 25 reps
One legged balance: hold for 10 deep breaths on each side. I do these to practice keeping the archs of my feet up and strong during my squats.
Nutrition:
I started tracking my calories and macros at first to get a benchmark idea. I was eating 2000Cal on a daily average and somewhere around 50-80 grams of protein. The goal was always to recomp, so I started increasing my protein intake slowly every week. First weeks I made it to 100 grams of protein and then I made it to 120 grams of protein a day. Right now I'm eating 130-140 grams of protein per day (not going any higher than this!). When I changed the macros initially and started eating more protein, it actually surpressed my apetite a lot and I was only eating 1600-1700Cal per day but now I'm back up to eating on average 1900-2000Cal everyday.
I've been wondering why I was not gaining weight if I was eating 2000Cal before and being totally sendentary compared to now that I lift regularly. My best guess is that I probably had a day or two every week that I would forget to eat much. When I get stressed out, I tend to skip meals so maybe wasn't truly eating 2000Cal if you look at the average.
My Lifts:
I'm not still lifting what I did pre pandemic, but honestly I think I'm getting there.
Squats: I'm squating 110lbs to below parrallel with good form these days and feel like I'm improving every week. Sure I may have squated with 135lbs on my back before pandemic but honestly did I do them to depth? I don't think so.
My deadlifts are at 55KG. Sorry for the sudden unit change, I use the olympic bumper plates at my gym for deadlifts and they're in Kilos.
Bench: This was the one lift that seems like I didn't lose a lot of strength on in two years off, I guess the bi weekly "let me do a few pushups see if I still got it" had some role to play. I was able to bench a clean 80lbs a few weeks ago, but based on my shoulder health requirements, I'm back to benching 70lbs and focusing on increasing the reps for now.
Recomp, progress measurement and weight fluctuation:
Back in December, I weighed 125lbs. I don't have a scale at home, I weighed myself once or twice a week at the gym. My focus has been to maintain my weight. I'm overall really happy with my 4 month progress. I can see I've gained muscle and lost fat based on my strength and the screenshots from my lift videos I shared earlier. I now weigh somewhere around 123-124lbs, so exactly what I weighed around 2017, but probably a bit more muscle or I would hope since I'm lifting very close to what I did at 128lbs.
Where I wanna go from here:
Longevity and a sustainable liftestyle is my biggest priority while I enjoy lifting and getting stronger. I'm already comitted to eventually bulking when I hit a plateau. I want to see how strong I can get! For now I would love to find the time in the day to add some moderate intensity cardio into the mix at least once a week. After that I would also love to move to a 4 day lifting program but I have to see if that fits into my schedule.
Now if this was 5 years ago I may have already decided on some numbers I want to hit in the gym or a body fat percentage I want. But after many years of being too goal oriented and driving myself into anxiety, I just want to give it the most I can and enjoy the process. I'll celeberate the strength gains as they come.
I've been back at the gym focusing on recomping after a pandemic hiatus and wanted to share my results with you. I'm no longer doing progress photos, but have a lot videos of my lifting in the past few months and what you see in that first image is the screenshots of me deadlifting and squatting from begining to now for comparison. I'm going to try to be as detailed and forth coming as I can be, so sorry if this post gets super long!
My background:
30 year old cis-woman (turning 31 in a few weeks) with prior experience in strength traing in her twenties. My training before may have not been the most optimal. I didn't follow any structured programs for the majority of it and didn't have the best nutrition but I had some gains. I could squat 135lbs, deadlift 165lbs, bench 85lbs and do 3 chin ups. Here's some photos on how I looked back in November 2019. Also may be of interest to some, my first post on r/xxfitness after one year of lifting in 2017. When the pandemic hit, a lot of things were happening in my life and gyms were closed for a really long time. I became completely sedentary for two years and I could see the impact on my body. Even though I weighed almost the same (When I finally hopped on a scale, I had actually lost a few opunds), clothes were not fitting me the way they used to, too tight around my belly and thighs. I checked around September 2021 and I could only barely do a single chin up. My body constanly had random pains and aches and I'd pull a muscle in my neck from sitting all the time or I'd feel some back pain from just doing the dishes. My posture had also gotten worse. I missed working out but struggled to keep up an effective program at home. I decided I'll go back to the gym as soon as I can, so after getting 2 vaccine doses and gyms opening up and also moving to a new place, I signed up for a gym around November 2021. I also found an amazing online coach to help me with some of the foundations I had struggled in the past with. I'm talking about things like good technique, proper focused programming and the basics of nutritional requirements for strength and muscle.
How the progamming has worked with online coaching:
I feel like I've seen so many posts here on getting cookie cutter templates sold for online coaching and wanted to share with you guys how the experience was for me. I'm very happy with what I'm getting for a personalized program with online coaching.
I get my workout program for the week by my coach. We also do a weekly checkin.
I do a 3 days a week program focused on strength. I do two of my main lifts every session for a 3 to 8 rep range (squat, bench and deadlift) and 2 to 4 other accessory workouts afterwards that are in the 10 to 15 range. I film myself and upload so she can see my form. My coach has changed the structure and workouts a bit as we move along and she sees what I need. For instance after a few weeks, regular squats became tempo squats to focus on not falling into the bottom half of my squats and it has improved my technique so much!
Did I mention I used to get spasms in my neck and have terrible posture? Well after consulting with my doctor and a chiropractor the diagnosis was I'm firstly just very prone to rounding my shoulders and secondly I have tight upper traps. I aslo am hypermobile go figure! The verdict was I should focus on strengthening my posterior chain and shoulder stabilizers. After sharing this with my coach, again the progam changed to only 1 bench session a week to make room for other workouts like back extension and suitecase carries and also adding some rest day shoulder health work. It has so far made a big impact, I think part of the visual improvement I see is the posture improvement not just recomp.
Another note on online coaching, one of the best things that has come out if it, is the habit of filming my lifts. Most of the time I'm doing it to check for myself not just to send to my coach. As not so technically experienced lifter, so many little things that I wouldn't even notice, can be improved by just seeing my lift afterwards and trying to correct it the next set I do.
A sample day in my program:
Barbell bench: 70lbs 6x4
Barbell deadlift: 40kg 5x7
Back extension: 3 sets of 15
Dumbbell seated shoulder press: reverse pyramid sets 20lbs 6 reps|15lbs 10 reps|10lbs 8 reps
Knee pushups: 25 reps
One legged balance: hold for 10 deep breaths on each side. I do these to practice keeping the archs of my feet up and strong during my squats.
Nutrition:
I started tracking my calories and macros at first to get a benchmark idea. I was eating 2000Cal on a daily average and somewhere around 50-80 grams of protein. The goal was always to recomp, so I started increasing my protein intake slowly every week. First weeks I made it to 100 grams of protein and then I made it to 120 grams of protein a day. Right now I'm eating 130-140 grams of protein per day (not going any higher than this!). When I changed the macros initially and started eating more protein, it actually surpressed my apetite a lot and I was only eating 1600-1700Cal per day but now I'm back up to eating on average 1900-2000Cal everyday.
I've been wondering why I was not gaining weight if I was eating 2000Cal before and being totally sendentary compared to now that I lift regularly. My best guess is that I probably had a day or two every week that I would forget to eat much. When I get stressed out, I tend to skip meals so maybe wasn't truly eating 2000Cal if you look at the average.
My Lifts:
I'm not still lifting what I did pre pandemic, but honestly I think I'm getting there.
Squats: I'm squating 110lbs to below parrallel with good form these days and feel like I'm improving every week. Sure I may have squated with 135lbs on my back before pandemic but honestly did I do them to depth? I don't think so.
My deadlifts are at 55KG. Sorry for the sudden unit change, I use the olympic bumper plates at my gym for deadlifts and they're in Kilos.
Bench: This was the one lift that seems like I didn't lose a lot of strength on in two years off, I guess the bi weekly "let me do a few pushups see if I still got it" had some role to play. I was able to bench a clean 80lbs a few weeks ago, but based on my shoulder health requirements, I'm back to benching 70lbs and focusing on increasing the reps for now.
Recomp, progress measurement and weight fluctuation:
Back in December, I weighed 125lbs. I don't have a scale at home, I weighed myself once or twice a week at the gym. My focus has been to maintain my weight. I'm overall really happy with my 4 month progress. I can see I've gained muscle and lost fat based on my strength and the screenshots from my lift videos I shared earlier. I now weigh somewhere around 123-124lbs, so exactly what I weighed around 2017, but probably a bit more muscle or I would hope since I'm lifting very close to what I did at 128lbs.
Where I wanna go from here:
Longevity and a sustainable liftestyle is my biggest priority while I enjoy lifting and getting stronger. I'm already comitted to eventually bulking when I hit a plateau. I want to see how strong I can get! For now I would love to find the time in the day to add some moderate intensity cardio into the mix at least once a week. After that I would also love to move to a 4 day lifting program but I have to see if that fits into my schedule.
Now if this was 5 years ago I may have already decided on some numbers I want to hit in the gym or a body fat percentage I want. But after many years of being too goal oriented and driving myself into anxiety, I just want to give it the most I can and enjoy the process. I'll celeberate the strength gains as they come.