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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1357 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for October 28, 2026

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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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Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

"becoming swole as a woman" - "becoming swole as a woman"
"requires serious dedication" - "requires serious dedication"
"and usually anabolic steroids" - "and usually anabolic steroids"
"so let's do some squats with a body bar" - "but I don't want to have big quads!"

From my understanding of the literature, it is possible for women to get bigger quads on a relative basis to themselves and other women, though, of course, they are unlikely to end up with "manly" quadz. From the addendum on sex differences in training:

A recent study by McMahon et al. had men and women train their quads for eight weeks. Physiological cross-sectional area increased by about 23% for men and 30% for women, and knee extension torque increased by about 14% for men and 22% for women. These differences were not significant.

IMO, trained legs look more "toned" and generally aesthetic based on shape, which is arguably more important than absolute size. I do, however, generally prefer a more hip-drahve-oriented squat for general training. I think it both produces a more aesthetic physique and more useful general physical preparedness for becoming a human forklift.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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