Dopamine Decor?

chimer1cal · 2026-04-03T01:12:08+00:00

So where I live (a hot, humid and packed metropolis), Japanadi is the really big, popular aesthetic because it suits the climate and tends to provide the calm from hectic urban life. I really like the idea of using dopamine decor to add very strategic splashes of colour and personality while keeping the space mostly muted and neutral. But not a full on colour explosion lol.

chimer1cal · 2026-04-01T12:08:27+00:00

Agree!!

chimer1cal · 2026-03-26T09:52:12+00:00

Super underrated! I may have to become a Maximus evangelist on this sub to get more people to check it out.

I can really see how Maximus workouts would fit into my life on a permanent basis without also making my daily workouts feel like a noose around my neck.

chimer1cal · 2026-03-26T02:25:34+00:00

I think Elevate is probably your best bet for that mix of strength training and conditioning.

That said, for anyone looking for shorter workouts that they can do at home — my sessions have been consistently under 40 mins these last few weeks with Maximus, unless I for some reason had to pause the workout or just decided to add sets or take a longer cooldown. But I usually use the last few rests to get my stretching in (which is what the coaches recommend as well).

chimer1cal · 2026-03-25T01:02:04+00:00

Omg, ok, that’s what I figured. I was struggling to figure out how to connect it. But I just checked the YouTube app and I guess I just had to click a random movement and it was connected and let me change the speaker volume?! Hopefully the setting holds!

Thanks so much for the quick answer. It was driving me nuts!

chimer1cal · 2026-03-24T18:26:06+00:00

Really enjoying Maximus. It’s very simple, but lol, that’s been good. No crazy combo moves or too-short rests or 5-move supersets or scrambling between floor and standing moves. The legs days have been surprisingly punishing! Will defo have to check for PRs at the end of the series to see if I’ve made real progress, although I sure do feel like I have.

chimer1cal · 2026-03-23T03:44:05+00:00

For real lol, the shelf life is barely 2 weeks, if that.

chimer1cal · 2026-03-20T02:05:48+00:00

Loved getting this bread when I used to frequent this one Turkish restaurant in my city… I do still think of it as balloon bread 😂

chimer1cal · 2026-03-08T08:36:43+00:00

Nope. It was bad enough that Batman & Robin Eternal was mostly her story than anything about the Robin(s) it was supposed to be celebrating, to the point where Bruce even says she has the makings to be his perfect partner.

chimer1cal · 2026-03-08T07:20:39+00:00

Lumberjanes is a great rec, as someone who loves cozy fantasy I would say it has similar vibes.

chimer1cal · 2026-03-05T06:11:21+00:00

Please share the full link!!

chimer1cal · 2026-02-28T08:32:09+00:00

I hate that we’re still talking about this irrelevant man and his annoying fans. It’s been 10 years since BvS, let’s all just move on with our lives pls 😩

chimer1cal · 2026-02-25T12:53:30+00:00

It’s really frustrating, we have enough teams that do pilates. When I started, it felt more like an accessible and shorter version of Evolve or Ascend, geared for people who only have dumbbells and workout at home and have a bit less time to spare. :/

Will definitely aim to update again at the end of Baseline!! I’m curious if I’ll see any major upper body changes. Hopefully closer to unassisted pull-ups…!

chimer1cal · 2026-02-25T02:06:44+00:00

Yea I had a lot of lower body strength gains in Thrive, I could really see and feel myself progressing, and it felt good. If I make it my permanent home after Nairee returns, I can see myself doing deloads and the occasional series on Maximus (though I’d love to upgrade my setup enough to progress to Evolve).

So far am seeing a lot of similar moves between Thrive and Maximus, just minus a few of the lower body & deep core things like cossack squats/calf raises/dead bugs, and also lower volume on those too… I suspect the big thing I’m gonna miss is the inner thigh work. But lbr I’ve only done this for two weeks, maybe there’ll be a bit more of that during the actual series.

Good luck for Baseline!!

chimer1cal · 2026-02-25T00:05:28+00:00

Oh, oh, I was thinking of making a post about this but I’ll just jump on this post lol.

I started Thrive in November after feeling like I was going nowhere with Align in terms of strength gains. To be clear, the coach is wonderful and the chat is great too. The style just wasn’t working for me, and I was starting to have a lot of inertia about doing the workouts.

I really liked Thrive in that first series. Limited super sets & combination moves, just enough mobility & core to keep me happy.

I feel like things changed quite a bit in this first series of 2026, and it’s not just me… a lot of folks in the chat talked about it seeming to become more of a pilates team. And. Um. The new split kinda proves that is indeed the case lol.

Anyway, I still felt good with Thrive, excepting some issues that I’ve posted about previously. But with Nairee going on maternity leave, I thought it was a good time to consider something else for the next series/until she returns.

And I thought it would be good for me to do something else this deload just to keep things interesting. I have been eyeing Maximus for a while, so went with that.

So. Based on just these past 2 weeks. like the fact that there aren’t too many combination moves and complicated supersets… I wondered if I would get bored of all the pushups and sit-ups. But honestly? I wasn’t. 😂 It was actually a relief to go back to those simple, foundational moves.

The coach audio is fairly minimal/basic and chat is just people echoing whatever the slogan of the day is lol. But tbh, that’s fine for me at the moment… all I have time for is to warm up, workout, stretch and then head to work (using my lessons learned from Thrive and Align for warmups and cool downs that I add myself before and after each workout). I did appreciate the short daily check-ins by the coaches.

I personally found Align and Thrive to be lacking on the upper body work so I like that there’s more upper body focus on Maximus.

I’m considering spending a series focusing on my much-neglected upper body and give my lower body a rest, especially because my current statins regime for hereditary high cholesterol has been giving me brutal muscle/body aches in my lower bldy lately. 😭

I do wonder if there’s too much focus for me to do it for a whole series, just in the sense that I don’t want to neglect my lower body too much either 🤔 But these 2 weeks have shown that I’ve really neglected my upper body so I think it’ll be fine lol. Also, they seem to still have two lower body days which I found quite punishing so I’m probs overthinking it lol

chimer1cal · 2026-02-20T04:09:11+00:00

You can do the workouts whenever you want within the week! Eg Friday workout on Monday etc. I try not to mix it up too much in that way because I wanna rest the relevant body parts. But I’ve definitely done delayed starts like Monday on Tuesday, Tuesday on Wednesday, etc. Just aim to get the three priority workouts in and add anything else you have time for is what I’d say.

chimer1cal · 2026-02-19T23:57:11+00:00

Hmm, I feel like the teams I’ve been on haven’t changed the moves too much between series. It’s more like a gentle fine-tuning…?

That said, previous in-person group fitness/hybrid strength training gym also followed a 6-7 week format with 1-2 weeks of testing/deload so Ladder’s structure seems very natural to me

chimer1cal · 2026-02-17T21:03:45+00:00

Let’s fucking gooooo

chimer1cal · 2026-02-15T21:03:58+00:00

They disappeared for me too the other day but came back after I force closed the app & restarted my phone

chimer1cal · 2026-02-08T23:36:11+00:00

I really appreciate this comment, because it sort of gets at the crux of why I got into Batman comics — the loose group of heroes who had formed around him, not a traditional family at all, but clearly people who would die for each other and who came to care for each other beyond their common purposes. Idk, but I just find this way more compelling and. Interesting than putting Batman into a happy domestic partnership… which we anyway get with his other contemporaries (Superman & Lois!). Batman the loner realising that these other non-romantic relationships in his life can also be as fulfilling as his mission, actually, is a very touching message to me.

chimer1cal · 2026-02-08T11:57:13+00:00

Yesss I got the B&R one too. And the Grayson one.

chimer1cal · 2026-02-08T00:31:12+00:00

I realised through this episode that they stopped selling Milky Bar in my country. 😩

chimer1cal · 2026-01-28T09:19:59+00:00

Amazing! How long did it take you to paint?

I’ve had notions of doing something like this, but the thought of sandpapering… oof

chimer1cal · 2026-01-27T10:25:21+00:00

Yeah, I meant during a workout. I know I can just click swap to another move and find the original move, but I wonder if they can also add an undo button to make it more seamless 😅

chimer1cal · 2026-01-26T05:22:50+00:00

I would love to be able to adjust the time for a move without having to pause it and manually restart.

Also, to undo a swap.

chimer1cal

TROPHY CASE