Power Lifted at the Gym

9:49 AM (of Saturday, June 22nd 2024)

Today is Friday, June 21st 2024 and I mainly just worked today. There was something I was supposed to turn in by 3 PM today for a client, and I have been working on it little by little throughout the week, and today it took a few hours of extreme concentration, but I finished it for them. They'll test it out on Monday.

After that, I chilled and played some Trivia Crack. Throughout the day too actually, I'd also complete my brain training, and I'd do some cleaning here and there. I ended up winning another game of Survival while getting 2nd place a few times. I'm ranked 2nd in my Survival group out of 50 people, and I am now undefeated to 7 people who played matches against me in Classic. There are 3 people new who have challenged me, but I do have hesitation in accepting their invitation, because I don't want to ruin my undefeated 7 game winning streak.

Later at night, I went to the gym with Eric and Gus (not Guy, Guy is someone different and he didn't show up today). They arrived there first and they were doing 1 rep maxes when I arrived. 1 rep max is the maximum weight you can do just 1 repetition of. In terms of working out, repetitions are the amount of times you do that workout, like 10 squats counts as 10 reps, 10 pull ups count as 10 reps. There are also sets, and it's the amount of times you do those reps, so you can do 3 sets of 10 reps of pull ups, which means you do 10 pull ups 3 times in a row, taking a break after every 10.

The 1 rep max is a strength sports term where you try to just lift the heaviest weight you can, once. So they were doing this workout called the deadlift, where you lift this barbell with some weights on it, from the ground up to waist level. I saw Eric doing this weight, and I think his form wasn't correct, he mainly used his lower back I think, to lift the weight, and I'd later tell him this, after asking for him to send me his video of his 1rm (the abbreviation of 1 rep max is 1rm). He lifted I think 230 pounds, so I tried it too, and it went up easily. I didn't really even get a chance to warm up prior to this, which is bad, not warming up is the leading cause of injury. Stretching before workouts is bad too, it should be done after, but warming up is good.

Anyway, I lifted up 230 pounds pretty easily, and it's the heaviest weight I've ever lifted. After that, we did 250 pounds, and I lifted that as well, but it wasn't easy at all, it went up much more easily for him. You are mainly supposed to use your legs for this workout, you feel it the most in your hamstrings and buttocks area. I felt it heavily, which is good. You don't want to feel anything in your lower back, because that can be a risk for injury, lifting up something as heavy weights as 250 pounds.

After that we did squats. We didn't do any 1 rep maxes for squats this time, but my max in squats so far has been I think 205 pounds, or 225 pounds, let me check. 210 pounds if my mental math is right. (45 * 2) + (25 * 2) + (10 * 2) + (2.5 * 2) + 45 = 210 pounds, yeah, I'm right. I can do mental arithmetic pretty quickly, I'm ranked 9 worldwide in this game called Quick X Maths, developed by a friend of mine (also vegan), and yeah I just do mental arithmetic pretty quickly. I'm not great at calculus or algebra (mainly because it's been years since I've done them), but I can do mental math pretty quickly, at least that's what my friends tell me, and my ranking in arithmetic math games.

The weights for squats I did was just 165 pounds for 3 sets of 5. After doing that heavy 250 pounds 1rm for the deadlift, honestly, these squats felt heavy. Doing that extremely heavy 1rm, whew, it was quiet the workout. After doing that 250 pound deadlift, I felt it in my legs a lot, mainly my hamstring and buttocks area, it felt like, how can I describe it? It was sort of a good feeling, not pain, it felt like tension, but a good tension, and stiffness. It was a very glaring feeling too, like it was basically the only thing I felt, all other physical feeling from my body disappeared, except for that area. So, after such a heavy deadlift, doing these squats felt heavy.

After that we did some box jumps and then some leg raises. Oh yeah, prior to the squats, we did lateral arm workouts horizontally and in the front. I don't know the exact name for this, but it's the workout where you stand with weights and arms at your side, and then lift them up laterally from the side, into a T pose, then lower them slowly to the starting position, and repeat this 10 times. Then do it from the front, lifting the arms in front this time, basically the same thing. That's our power lifting routine for tonight.

Both Eric and Gus are extremely fit, both have six pack abs and lots of muscle when they flex, especially Gus (both are vegan as well). Gus is able to do multiple reps of a heavier weight than my 1rm in the deadlift. He did that today for I think, 4 sets of 4 (16 reps total). I don't know that exact weight since I'm not jotting down how much they do, just what I'm doing and able to do, but yeah he did reps of a heavier weight than my 1rm. I think I would be just as muscular, if I lost all of my body fat. I'm still very fat, like I have a big belly and a round face, and that's what I'm unhappy with.

At home I ate some rice and lentils with a Beyond Burger. I also drank a smoothie and made a protein powder meal. I mean, this workout really affected me, so I ate a lot. I texted Ali at night (is that the nickname I gave him? Or it could be Ami). Ali was my weight when I first met him online (he is also vegan), but he started working out and lost 30 pounds in a few months, and became muscular, with abs too. His 1rm for the deadlift was 285 pounds, which is much heavier than mine and Eric's, and I just talked to him about working out and asked for advice and so on.

I told him about Eric's form on the deadlift, and how I had a hunch that he was using his lower back too much instead of his legs. So I asked Eric to send over the video of him doing his 1rm, and we both analyzed it. His conclusion was inconclusive, but he said it does look like Eric uses his lower back too much, especially in the starting phase of the lift, but also throughout. So I sent Eric these opinions and he hasn't replied yet, if he ever will.

Anyway, I take for granted my abilities in push ups and other workouts like chin ups and pull ups. It's interesting because I've had "debates" with people online, just random trolls in my opinion, who are not open to reason or objective information. They will argue how meat protein is superior, link a study, and in their own study, literally their own study, it concludes saying it found no difference in terms of resistance training improvement whether the protein was from plants or animals. I have not eaten meat in 11 years, so all of my gains such as being able to do 8 pull ups in a row, 8 chin ups in a row, 40 push ups in a row, all came from plants. When I was eating meat and when I was a teenager, I wasn't able to do any of these, I couldn't even do a single pull up or chin up, and barely any push ups.

I don't think it's a good idea at all to harm and kill animals to eat their bodies, nor is it a good idea to pay someone else to harm and kill animals, to buy the chopped up body parts from them later. Anyone rational and objective, will agree that if they are against animal abuse, they will not pay others to harm animals, which meat eaters do each time they buy an animal's corpse off someone.

Anyway, I am enjoying life being vegan, choosing to not harm animals in my daily living. I do want the entire world to adopt this mindset as well, since anyone in any position can do it. All of my career and business success, all of my fitness success, all of my rank 1 positions in video games and all of my accomplishments in general from the past 11 years, were on a plant based diet. I went from broke, in debt, obese, unemployed, and so on, just one of the worst positions to be in, to where I am today, without animal abuse.

I still have problems of course. I am still so unhappy with my stomach. I have many friends who have six pack abs, my crush Wahl (also vegan) has six pack abs. My closest friends have six pack abs, not just Eric and Gus, but Guy has them as well. The random people I talk to online have six pack abs (pretty much all of them are vegan too). I feel like it would be nice to have, I just fear being too attractive. That is actually a fear of mine, just being too hot. I've never experienced what it was like to be attractive, maybe I never will, but I think I look fine the way I look now even if I'm deemed unattractive by most, but that being a normal weight and having six pack abs would make me look too good.

Anyway, I still need to continue working on and improving myself. That workout was invigorating. I feel so alive now as I write this the next day.

Anyway, that was my day today.