Progress report
Apr. 9th, 2012 02:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weirdquark Somewhat earlier in the year someone posted a link to a weight lifting community on Dreamwidth and mentioned the New Rules of Lifting for Women. The former was full of (mostly) women talking about how awesome lifting weights was. I checked out the later from the library and decided to give it a try.
For my first workout, I hadn’t bought any weights. I had two five pound dumbbells that my roommates and I had bought for some reason and a gallon of milk. I had no idea what sort of weights I should be using so I used what I had. And on my rest day I went out and used a gift certificate my parents had given me for Christmas (yes, I had not gotten around to using it by April) and bought two boxes of adjustable dumbbells. I thought that would hold me for a while. After a couple of months I figured that I was going to stick with this weight lifting thing and got some bigger plates and a standard size barbell. (The dumbbell set that I originally got had 1” plates so I didn’t want to get an Olympic bar and have to get an entirely new set of plates -- with the standard bar I could use the plates that I had.) More time past and I got more plates. For Christmas this year my parents bought me a small squat rack and a bench. The rack is rated for about 300 pounds, which is more than twice what I weigh, so I figure I’m not going exceed its limits any time soon.
Lifting is still fun and I can do so much more than I could when I started. I had trouble doing twenty bodyweight squats a year ago. At some point last fall I tried doing fifty squats with half my bodyweight on a barbell and succeeded. I tried to see how many bodyweight squats I could do at some point -- I forget when -- and stopped at one hundred because I was bored and didn’t want to do squats anymore, not because I was physically tired. I feel strong, and for the first time ever I actually feel like I’m in pretty good shape. I ran a mile without stopping for the first time in years without having practiced running. And I did it in under eight minutes, which was as fast as I ever ran it back in junior high and practicing to run a mile in gym class every day.
Some days I don’t want to get up and lift, but as soon as I start I get a buzz and can’t wait until my next lifting day. Today I’m resting but tomorrow I get to lift heavy things over my head and pick up things that weigh more than I do. In fact, picking up something that weighs as much as I do is now a “light” weight that I do for higher reps. I’d say, “how did I get to where a bodyweight deadlift was easy?” but the answer is: I started lifting weights a year ago today.
For my first workout, I hadn’t bought any weights. I had two five pound dumbbells that my roommates and I had bought for some reason and a gallon of milk. I had no idea what sort of weights I should be using so I used what I had. And on my rest day I went out and used a gift certificate my parents had given me for Christmas (yes, I had not gotten around to using it by April) and bought two boxes of adjustable dumbbells. I thought that would hold me for a while. After a couple of months I figured that I was going to stick with this weight lifting thing and got some bigger plates and a standard size barbell. (The dumbbell set that I originally got had 1” plates so I didn’t want to get an Olympic bar and have to get an entirely new set of plates -- with the standard bar I could use the plates that I had.) More time past and I got more plates. For Christmas this year my parents bought me a small squat rack and a bench. The rack is rated for about 300 pounds, which is more than twice what I weigh, so I figure I’m not going exceed its limits any time soon.
Lifting is still fun and I can do so much more than I could when I started. I had trouble doing twenty bodyweight squats a year ago. At some point last fall I tried doing fifty squats with half my bodyweight on a barbell and succeeded. I tried to see how many bodyweight squats I could do at some point -- I forget when -- and stopped at one hundred because I was bored and didn’t want to do squats anymore, not because I was physically tired. I feel strong, and for the first time ever I actually feel like I’m in pretty good shape. I ran a mile without stopping for the first time in years without having practiced running. And I did it in under eight minutes, which was as fast as I ever ran it back in junior high and practicing to run a mile in gym class every day.
Some days I don’t want to get up and lift, but as soon as I start I get a buzz and can’t wait until my next lifting day. Today I’m resting but tomorrow I get to lift heavy things over my head and pick up things that weigh more than I do. In fact, picking up something that weighs as much as I do is now a “light” weight that I do for higher reps. I’d say, “how did I get to where a bodyweight deadlift was easy?” but the answer is: I started lifting weights a year ago today.
