The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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I've done the most clichéd thing ever and bought a gym membership in the first week of the new year, and I'm looking for suggestions for exercises and routines to follow.
My main motivations for working out are to improve my mood, and vanity. I'm not interested in getting "huge" or "shredded", but I would really like to get rid of my beer belly and look generally leaner and more toned. I'm also planning on running a marathon at the end of this year, so any exercises which would assist with that are also welcome.
I don't really know anything about strength training, so currently my only goal is to be able to deadlift my body weight (~83 kg) in a few months' time.
https://www.themotte.org/post/269/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/49044?context=8#context
This comment from @JhanicManifold yesterday is a better knowledge dump than I can give you.
https://www.shabu.co/
This is pretty much the rock solid basic beginners lifting program. It's worked for others, it will work for you. You can critique it or try to optimize it, but it works. And once you graduate, you'll be ready for anything else.
The only other thing I'll say personally, is that the number one thing is to believe in the program you're doing and stick to it. There are literally dozens of varieties of good programs out there, high frequency and low frequency, high intensity and lazy bear, work out twice a week for two hours vs work out every day for 30 minutes, One Lift a Day vs ten lifts a day, focus on one lift vs body part splits, bodyweight and barbells and kettlebells. They can all build you a bad-ass body if you stick to it and believe in it. 90% of the value of all the fluff about "scientifically proven" "Soviet sports science secrets" "Ah-nold did this back in the day" "Navy seals workout" whatever the fuck is just to get you to buy in, the effort is what counts.
Also, don't hurt yourself, getting injured is the best way to stall progress. Ask me how I know. At the same time, don't be a weenie and worry forever about every ache and pain and form question. Take your time, it's a marathon not a sprint, I know guys in their 50s still hitting new PRs in powerlifting.
Any workout is a Navy SEAL workout if you fix your hair in the middle and then write a book about it.
"Operation Glute Force: My War in The Squat Rack"
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Thanks a lot!
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