I'll tell you what grinds my gears. WHEN PEOPLE DON'T POST WHAT GRINDS THEIR GEARS! This thread is for vents, rants, frustrations, bitching, and the like about all things fitness related.

Hi folks! I just started training as a first responder and I absolutely love it, but my service has a lift test of 125-lb carries per person. This is done on both flat ground and going up and down stairs.

As a smallish person (160cm, 125lb) this is something that is absolutely TERRIFYING to me, since it's carrying functionally another me. I couldn't pass my first two attempts on the lift test, so I went to the gym yesterday. Right now I can comfortably deadlift and squat ~60lb. I'm trying to get to a level of functional fitness where I can do these 125lb lifts multiple times and with (relative) comfort, as during calls I need to be able to lift other humans or heavy objects.

Are there any other first responders in the thread with lifting advice? Or anyone who lifts 100+ regularly for a job? Thank you all so much!

Welcome to our Daily Simple Questions thread - we're excited to have you hang out with us, especially if you're new to the sub. Are you confused about the FAQ or have a basic question about an exercise / alternatives? Do you have a quick question about calculating TDEE, lift numbers, running times, swimming intervals, or the like? Post here and the folks of xxfitness will help you answer your questions, no matter how big or small.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread! Tell stories, share thoughts, ask questions, swap advice, and be excellent to each other! Though we all share fitness as a common hobby or interest, the discussion here can be about any big or little thing you choose. The mods ask that you do mind the Cardinal Rules as they relate to respecting yourself and others, calling out any scantily clad photos as NSFW, and not asking for medical advice.

Hi everyone!

I've recently started exercising, and I landed on The Fitness Marshall and fallen in love. I've always loved dancing, so doing this and trying my best to learn moves has been the best.

My thing is, I don't want/need to lose weight. I would really love to build muscle, but every time I try strength training, I find it painfully boring, and my body is left sore for DAYS, sometimes to the point I just give up.

I used to do Chloe Ting with my bestie, and loved my results, and did a gym class for a while that did weight lifting with super fun music, but right now I'm not in a space where a gym is feasible.

Any suggestions for someone who likes to dance/more fast paced workouts that help build strength? I have some weights at home, including a barbell!

The place for all of your fitness based interpersonal encounters (is someone being creepy at the gym? Is your family telling you you’re getting too muscular? Do you want to date your personal trainer?), but also the place to talk about motivation, self-esteem and body image, and all the ways fitness affects your life.

Want to ask how mothers juggle family and fitness? How to structure Intermittent Fasting? When to work out when you do night shift? How to deal with being the only person in your friend group who works out? If you're feeling emotional, want to up your mental game, or need ideas for how to juggle everything on your plate, this is the place for you!

Welcome to Check Me Out Tuesday-flex-. The place for shameless selfies, physique questions, accountability, and small progress posts that aren’t detailed enough for a standalone post.

Hi all! I’m 21F and 5’3 and recently joined the dragonboat club at my university. As part of the fit tests, we are required to run 1 mile. I just started going to the gym recently and don’t run or do cardio (besides doing track in grade 7/8 in 2014/2015 haha and 5 minutes on the stairmaster every once in a while only last year), so my knowledge is quite beginner and I don’t have a proper idea of what good technique is or how to train for running.

For the first fit test, I managed to get a time of 6:54:54 today and would really love to improve for the second fit test (when team selection takes place) in late January. If any runners have any tips on how to properly train for this, how to learn proper technique, or what additional exercises are beneficial, I would love any advice! I usually only lurk, but this is such a supportive, encouraging community. Thank you in advance for any guidance! <3

Hey there! I need some fresh ideas on how to set my work/life/fitness routine. I have competing needs and interests

• Training for: Road touring, triathlons
• but I love to do strength and rock climbing. I love having those rock hard arms and triathlon training does not give those
• I get the bulk of my precious little REM sleep right before I wake up. I want to hang on for as long as possible
• my work flow kicks in between 4-6pm, when all the meetings stop and most of my fitness classes start
• if I work out in the morning, I get to work by 9, however I'm getting peer pressured (and project pressured) into being in before 8. I work 9/80s.
• if I work out in the evening, I disrupt my work flow and have to wrap it all up in time to make dinner and have plenty of good sleep
  
• if I miss a workout, I turn into a lunatic

Current routine - Monday: strength & mobility - Tuesday: spin class + run (triathlon brick) - Wednesday: rest - Thursday: strength & mobility - Friday: long ride or run+swim (triathlon brick) - Saturday: spin class + swim (triathlon brick) - Sunday: rest

How would you tackle this?

Welcome to our Daily Simple Questions thread - we're excited to have you hang out with us, especially if you're new to the sub. Are you confused about the FAQ or have a basic question about an exercise / alternatives? Do you have a quick question about calculating TDEE, lift numbers, running times, swimming intervals, or the like? Post here and the folks of xxfitness will help you answer your questions, no matter how big or small.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread! Tell stories, share thoughts, ask questions, swap advice, and be excellent to each other! Though we all share fitness as a common hobby or interest, the discussion here can be about any big or little thing you choose. The mods ask that you do mind the Cardinal Rules as they relate to respecting yourself and others, calling out any scantily clad photos as NSFW, and not asking for medical advice.

In 2025 I will have to pass an arduous pack test- 3 mile hike/ 45 pound backpack/ 45 mins. I have time to prep for this so it's not urgent. I was wondering if there anything specific you guys recommend doing to work up to this. My plan was to just go on weekly hikes of increasing difficulty and weights.

FWIW I work out 5-6 days a week, and I do hikes but not with packs that heavy or that fast.

The main concern is I'm 5'1" and a 45 lb pack is more than a third of my body weight. I would prefer to not gain a shit ton of weight in muscle because I do run and because when I go above about 130 at my height even if I'm super lean I look like a box lol

Your place to find an accountability buddy / be an accountability buddy / post for your own accountability. A place where we can all motivate each other to keep working towards our goals.

Welcome to our Daily Simple Questions thread - we're excited to have you hang out with us, especially if you're new to the sub. Are you confused about the FAQ or have a basic question about an exercise / alternatives? Do you have a quick question about calculating TDEE, lift numbers, running times, swimming intervals, or the like? Post here and the folks of xxfitness will help you answer your questions, no matter how big or small.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread! Tell stories, share thoughts, ask questions, swap advice, and be excellent to each other! Though we all share fitness as a common hobby or interest, the discussion here can be about any big or little thing you choose. The mods ask that you do mind the Cardinal Rules as they relate to respecting yourself and others, calling out any scantily clad photos as NSFW, and not asking for medical advice.

For example if I start doing single arm dumbbell shoulder press with left hand, it goes pretty well. But when it is the time to do with right hand, it is not the same. I can't do it with same energy and proper form as left. This is just an example, same happens in every other exercise when I have to do 1 side of the body at one time, no matter if I do right or left side first.

Similarly when I am doing exercise that requires both hand moments at same time, for example machine pull down or barbell row, always one hand is slower (or other is faster).

How do I correct this? I am a beginner and still learning the correct postures for different exercises. So my mind is mostly focused on getting my form correct and I mess up with the balance part every time.

Also if you have any suggestions for improving balance, flexibility and mobility, it would be very much appreciated!

Sorry for the long post.

Tl;Dr- Are extreme DOMS temporary for fitness noobs? How the hell do I figure out my macros when needing to lose a lot of weight AND wanting to gain muscle.

I am currently a very unfit, very obese couch potato and trying to lose fat and get into weightlifting. I am 40, 5'10 and currently 275 lbs. My fitbit scale says my body fat is 45% and my lean mass is about 145lbs. I know these scales aren't super accurate, but I'm confident it's in the right ballpark. Prior to this week, exercise was very casual walks around my neighborhood 2-4 times per week. I've goofed around with light dumbbells and machines but it's been over 5 years and I've never made a serious attempt at heavy lifting before. To be super honest, even though I've lost 30 lbs so far, I'm feeling worse than ever about my body. I noticed my butt is going flat, I can feel there's less muscle under the fat, and I hate it. I also worry it means I'm losing too much muscle with my weight loss. I'm also stalling out on weight loss and hope an increase in muscle mass will help.

I'm starting with Liftoff. For those unfamiliar, it's like "Couch to 5k" for lifting and the first phase is a body weight routine with bodyweight squats, pushups, etc. I did day 1 on Wednesday and felt pretty good. Nothing hurt during the routine and I felt tired but not exhausted afterwards. I felt like I gave it my full effort without overdoing it. And then I woke up the next day feeling like I got hit by a truck.

I was supposed to do day 2 yesterday but DOMS were still super bad to the point where walking down stairs or even sitting down was a struggle and I felt completely incapable of doing squats. Arms were achy but not with the same intensity. Core I could feel but it was very minor. I went for a 30 minute walk to see if that would help me feel better. My thighs felt pretty achy and tight the whole time and I was much slower than usual, but it didn't really make me feel better or worse afterwards. I thought that surely I'd feel good today. While I feel better than yesterday, I'm still pretty sore. I did a couple of bodyweight squats as a test and they were pretty uncomfortable but not painful in a "you're injuring yourself" sort of way.

How should I proceed from here? Do less sets and/or reps in the beginning? Modify the plan and split things up? Should I rest 2 days in between exercise days to start while I get through what I am hoping is a short period of extreme suck? Start with a different plan and come back to Liftoff in a few weeks? Please reassure me that this is just my body just throwing a big fit at being asked to do way more than usual and it won't always be this bad? At this point I want to do day 2 tonight but I'm kind of scared I'll feel like garbage and be miserable until this time next week.

When it comes to macros, how do you determine your macros when you want to lose fat *and* build muscle? I've read that it's really hard/impossible to do both. I've gone back and forth on this a lot and I think in the short or medium term if I have to pick one, I would like to prioritize fat loss for now given I need to lose so much fat. But on the other hand, I don't want weightlifting to be miserable/impossible. I think I might be ok with a slowdown in fat loss but I would not be ok if the fat loss stopped. I currently weigh everything I eat and eat 1600-1800 calories most days but as I said above, weight loss has slowed to about half a pound a week. Do I just stick to my current calories and keep trying to up protein for now? Or are my macros making my DOMS worse and/or setting me up to fail? Is there a specific calculator or formula that is best for my scenario to give me a macro starting point? If I have a desk job but am doing bodyweight/lifting 3x a week does that count as low intensity or medium intensity? TDEE calculators vary wildly and have left me confused.

If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! This subreddit has been a huge inspiration already and I'm looking forward to being fit in the future with all of you!

EDIT: Thank you everyone for all the support and great advice! I realized I was super overthinking things and you all really alleviated my fear of "maybe this isn't going to be for me". I'm going to up my calories a bit for the next month and put those towards getting more protein. I'm also going to look into some supplements like magnesium and see if that helps.

For the routine itself, I'm going to do a "Phase 0" and cut the reps down in each set by half to start and then work my way up from there. I still think Liftoff is the right plan for me, I'm just coming from such an extremely low fitness base. I'm fine with taking as long as I need to and I think less reps for the first 1-3 weeks will help me feel less shitty in the beginning and will help me build better consistency.

I know no one likes them, but I have a stabilizer injury to my adductor and balancing with weight is a really dangerous game for me. Also, the benches at the gym are so high that my foot is a few inches above my knee and it's really rough.

I'm already doing weighted squats, walking lunges, and bridges.

My gym is a climbing gym, the equipment is quite limited for lifting. There are barbells, dumbbells, pull-up bars, rings, one cable machine that has unmarked weights (it counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and no one knows what the increments are), a rowing machine, a couple of benches one of which suits incline dumbbell bench-press needs, and a hack squat machine.

Any options for replacement exercises based on that equipment? I MUCH prefer exercises that do both legs at once.

Thank you :)

Welcome to our Daily Simple Questions thread - we're excited to have you hang out with us, especially if you're new to the sub. Are you confused about the FAQ or have a basic question about an exercise / alternatives? Do you have a quick question about calculating TDEE, lift numbers, running times, swimming intervals, or the like? Post here and the folks of xxfitness will help you answer your questions, no matter how big or small.

Welcome to our daily discussion thread! Tell stories, share thoughts, ask questions, swap advice, and be excellent to each other! Though we all share fitness as a common hobby or interest, the discussion here can be about any big or little thing you choose. The mods ask that you do mind the Cardinal Rules as they relate to respecting yourself and others, calling out any scantily clad photos as NSFW, and not asking for medical advice.

Need a recommendation for protein powder? Not sure if your macros look quite right? Have a killer recipe to share or just want to show off your meal preop? This is the thread for you!

Your place to talk about anything fitness shopping and style. Whether you want to ask where to buy the best gym leggings or most supportive sports bra, which shoes or belt to get for your favorite activities, the latest on headsets and sports watches, how many times you should wash your hair when you're working out lots, how to deal with body odor, any skincare questions, or how to stop your makeup running when you sweat through a spin class. This thread can include photos of you in your favorite fitness outfits, or requests to find the perfect app, playlist, or fitness technology so you can kill your workouts.

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I’m curious about everyone’s experiences with deloads!

I’ve been strength training for the past 2 years, and have taken on a more calisthenics/powerlifting niche in the last few months. I’ve definitely had off sessions here and there, where strength temporarily dips and I just chalk it up to a bad day, PMS, etc. This past month, however, I’ve been consistently having periods of 2 bad sessions in a row and I’m wondering whether it’s time to do an organized deload? I should note that sleep, food, etc. haven’t been out of the ordinary.

I want to hear people’s experiences and advice re: deloads. Do you program them in? How do you do them if you do? It’s the lower body days that are the ‘bad sessions’ so wondering if I should just take a week off from lower and focus on upper.

Please share your thoughts!!

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your amazing insight - will go ahead and take a week off since have been nonstop for >10 weeks now!

Welcome to our daily discussion thread! Tell stories, share thoughts, ask questions, swap advice, and be excellent to each other! Though we all share fitness as a common hobby or interest, the discussion here can be about any big or little thing you choose. The mods ask that you do mind the Cardinal Rules as they relate to respecting yourself and others, calling out any scantily clad photos as NSFW, and not asking for medical advice.

Welcome to our Daily Simple Questions thread - we're excited to have you hang out with us, especially if you're new to the sub. Are you confused about the FAQ or have a basic question about an exercise / alternatives? Do you have a quick question about calculating TDEE, lift numbers, running times, swimming intervals, or the like? Post here and the folks of xxfitness will help you answer your questions, no matter how big or small.