Agree. Elden Ring is the only one I’ve liked personally. And a big reason is being able to fuck off and go do something else if you find a boss battle or section of the game too difficult. There’s so much to do and explore and check out that it didn’t feel like I was “grinding” ever.

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Thanks. And yeah, I agree. There are some seriously strong folks here and it’s nice to see.

At this point, age I think. Don’t want to doxx myself, but I’m thoroughly middle aged and I think I’ve maxed out what I can do without gear given my age. I’m almost at a three plate one rep max for bench, 435 lbs squat, almost 500 lbs deadlift. Without juicing or at least testosterone supplementation, I think this is probably about the best I can do. Which is fine, I’m plenty strong for someone that just wants to be strong and isn’t an athlete or something.

I would agree with @[email protected] again and say you’ll want to focus on big complex lifts then. Bench, overhead, squat, deads, barbell rows, etc. The dips you’ve got are good, and I’d add some sort of pull/chin-up. Wide grip is the most effective in my opinion, but they are rather difficult and you do have lat pull downs, so neutral grip could be good too.

Once you get more comfortable with lifting, I’d say Olympic lifting might really be where it’s at (assuming you have the space/equipment for it). Moving bigger weight with a wide variety of muscles is a great way to build mass and health. We all love curls and having pump in the arms, but for health and mass, you can’t beat a powerful clean and press. Big weight, lots of muscles involved and puts a good amount of stress on your cardio system for health.

You have some good specific recommendations from @[email protected], so I’ll talk more about high level, type stuff.

I’d worry less about the specific amount of weight and reps and more about RPE (rate of perceived exertion). Make sure you are pushing yourself to change through progressive overload. I don’t know what your progression plan is, but if you don’t have one, you should consider having a plan in place. You need to stress the body to change or it won’t, that includes muscle growth, strength or whatever your goals are.

That leads to my other point, it’s great to get active and improve your health, but part of what will inform a good program is what your goals are. Are you looking at health, practical strength, sport, aesthetics? There’s overlap in all of those, of course, but knowing what you want out of your time at the gym can better inform what you want your routine to look like.

Yeah, there’s a lot to be said for optimized training and getting the most out of your time in the gym. But the best program is the one you’ll actually do. Especially for those of us that aren’t like, professional powerlifters or something and need to hit certain lofty numbers.

My bench has always been my worst lift of the big four. I’ve never tested my 8RM, but my 1RM is 280 lbs. and has been for years. Would love to get up to three plates, but I don’t know if I ever will at this point. But, I’m also addicted to trying out new programs, maybe if I really sat down and picked a bench focused program like Smolov Jr. or something I would get it moving. I’ve been program lifting for almost a decade, to at this point the actual workout being fun is more important to me than hitting bigger numbers and I don’t know if heavy benching four days a week is all that appealing haha

I was in pretty OK shape when I started on this, though the lockdowns had already been in effect for about half a year when I started and I definitely lost a step trying to figure out how I was going to keep lifting. But, before the the lockdowns I had been program lifting for about five years mostly around powerlifting and had the following 1RMs: back squat 435 lbs, bench press 280 lbs, deadlift 465 lbs, overhead press 175 lbs. Nothing crazy for that length of time, but being natty and just doing it as a hobby and not “professionally” while also being a dad and having a job, I was happy with where I was.

I would say you could definitely do this on a lower weight than 53 lbs and still get a lot of benefit. You could replace the dips with push-ups, the chin-ups with inverted rows, stuff like that to make it a little easier for you since you are a little early on your fitness journey. Dan John originally made this program as a sort of challenge to regular lifters as a break from traditional lifting to try something different and clear their heads/bodies of the grind of traditional programming. So, it is designed with the experienced lifter in mind. But I think you could modify it to the point where it’s still a challenge, but it’s your challenge.

Then, over time, make it harder in one of the following ways each week:

-More reps

-more sets

-the same reps in fewer sets

-less rest time

-more weight

This right here is very important for seeing progress when working out, OP. The technical term for it is “progressive overload,” if you want to look up more about it.

Absolutely. That was one of the first kettlebell programs I ever ran during the COVID lockdowns. Really good for your mentally too. That number of swings daily requires you to push past perceived limits and test your resolve. After week 2, I think I finally “got it” and my brain sort of properly wired itself for just staring in the alley behind my place while I did the same thing over and over again.

Kettlebells could work well for you. Front squats, Bulgarian split squats, somersault squats for quad heavy movements. Swings, deadlifts and good mornings for posterior chain. Could implement some lunges as well. Some of those movements can even be done with your dumbbells, but to me nothing beats the bell for most of those.

Would add to others suggestions on calorie counting, at least for a time. Just get a good idea of where your calories are coming from and just how much it is. For example, that 45 min swim might be 500 calories burned or so and that’s good. But one slice of pizza can easily be 500 calories as well. Might help you realize just how many calories you are stress eating you are doing and help you make more informed decisions when you do it.

Everyone’s calorie in/out will be different, so you’ll need to establish your own baseline and work from there. You can get a cheap Apple Watch for like $150, which is a lot for sure, but it’s a great investment for something that will give you an idea of what type of calorie burning you are doing.

But, as another commentator mentioned, stress eating is not a super logical thing. You might very well know how many calories are in the bag of Doritos or whatever and still choose to have it not based on any sort of informed thing but because your mental state isn’t in a place to make an informed decision. The regular sleep will definitely help with that, but you may want to spend some of your workout time doing some mindfulness instead or something like that. As someone just looking to be in shape, you really only need to exercise each muscle group a couple times a week to see progress, with all the swimming, burpees, weight training, hiking, etc it sounds like you are definitely getting enough activity. You can see more about frequency in working out here: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/more-is-more/ Stronger By Science is more targeted at folks looking to get very strong, so the big take away for you is that twice a week on a lift is plenty for you.

Last thing I would recommend is get the junk food out of your house. Force yourself to put in some real effort if you want to have some. Sometimes just putting a walk to the corner store between you and the junk food is enough to give you time to really think about it and realize it isn’t worth it. You can get yourself some healthier snacks around the house like fruit, salt-free nuts and legumes, etc. Another commenter recommend protein calories and I half way agree with that, they are more filling for sure. However, I do think you can really benefit from filling your stomach with a lot of vegetables. No exaggeration, six servings of vegetables a day can fill up your stomach and keep you from being hungry for junk food.

Good luck!

Would also add Torment: Tides of Numenera, the spiritual successor. It starts a little slow, but does have a similar super deep story telling thing. You can make it through the whole game without ever getting into combat if you want, though there are some sections you may still want to do turn based to get the timing right.

Very different feel, but Night in the Woods had a similar effect on me. It’s definitely not as poetic/high minded, but it’s got a strong POV and good characters.

Overall, I’ve liked it enough to keep listening, but it’s definitely lower on my list. Chris is a big reason for me as well. Between his almost willful ignorance of the topic at hand and the fact that he sounds like he’s super distracted every episode is kind of grating. He can be funny, but his appearances on this show have left a lot to be desired.

Yelp Guys (21), South Park Guys (18), Loss Prevention Guys (13), and History Guys (12) are probably the stand out episodes. If one of those don’t work out for you, I’d say the show is a pass.

I agree that Food Fight has its weaknesses.

And speaking of legwork, I really enjoyed Anarchy having a sort of “prep montage” mechanic that can help speed up that part of the game for the table since different build required different levels of prep.

You sound like you have a lot of tabletop experience, so you should be fine. I had a few folks at the table that had never played a tabletop game before and they were way overwhelmed when we did the food fight scenario even though they loved the overall experience and the setting. Anarchy helped out a lot for that.

The setting for Shadowrun is so good, but my table found the crunch of 5e a little too much. We ended up switching to Anarchy and had a blast, even if we did have to homebrew it a bit.

Also, there’s a fitness com that’s not used often. You should definitely post more stories there.