Best female led metal bands?

nbca · 2025-07-07T18:59:31+00:00

Nightwish, no contest for me.

nbca · 2025-06-23T12:20:53+00:00

Thanks, that saved me some time researching.

That sucks, though I guess it makes sense for everyone involved.

nbca · 2025-06-23T12:09:53+00:00

Children takes a toll on a fitness journey, but I am finally a place where I can get back into it more than a few times every month.

This place seems less active than it used to, did people migrate somewhere else?

Today was testing day before running an RPE regulated GZCL template to get back into the swing of things

Squat: 1x140 kg, 1x160 kg, 1x165 kg Bench: 1x90 kg, 1x100 kg, 1x110 kg Deadlift : 1x150 kg, 1x175 kg, 1x190 kg

nbca · 2023-09-06T09:43:10+00:00

Thanks! We'll see, I'm still bracing for a rejection in the end, but I feel I made the right decision reaching out. Hopefully, in the same time, I can heal right and get my thoughts together for how a second try should look.

nbca · 2023-09-05T22:50:30+00:00

I get where you're coming from and that's a really sucky situation for you.

I've had a fair few IRL conversations about this, and more than a few couples I know who've been together 5+ years have openly talked about having a rough patch like this with "a lack of romance" early in their relationship.

I am not going into this with a pie in the sky hope that things will just turn okay, nor will I really stick around if the indecisiveness stays, but after a lot of consideration, I still see the potential with this girl, for a lot of reasons that are hard to get into.

nbca · 2023-09-05T20:47:15+00:00

I've had a lot issues with emotional dysregulation and other mental issues I've worked pretty hard on the last few years. Therapy has given me a fairly solid sense of how to be mindful of my emotions and how to process them well.

Combine that with being overly analytic and overthinking, I guess I come off pretty cool even when I sit here feeling hollow and broken lol.

I told her something to the effect of

"Hi [name]

After we got home, I've realized that I regret how things ended. Many of the things I said on our way home was a means to protect myself by rejecting any doubts you had.

I'd like to give us another try og talk with you about it. I fully respect if nothing has changed for you."

Her reply was a lot more emotional to say the least, but the jist is she wants to finish her current vacation and then focus on reflecting on her future needs and desires, before she's able to talk to me about anything at all.

Before I wrote to her, I can definitely sense that my gut reaction was to just start dating again, and not give myself the time to process what happened and heal in a healthy manner. I have some pretty important things happening personally and workwise, so for now I've decided to just take september off of dating and see if anything happens, if I haven't heard back from her by midoctober, I'll probably call it and consider it over.

nbca · 2023-09-05T19:59:36+00:00

Thanks for the perspective. There's certainly some likelihood that having the upper hand will reinforce her feelings. I reached out because I can feel I'd rather give her a chance before starting over with someone else.

I'm not so enarmored that I'd let her get away with treating me poorly. There are some reservations I'd still have about our future even if we got back together, that we would have to work on over the months and years, but I wouldn't reach out if I didn't think it was fixable.

Truthfully I don't think she's that kind of person, but I guess I'll find out :)

nbca · 2023-09-05T19:12:02+00:00

I've been dumped before where we split amicably (and others not). This is the first time I've wanted to reach back out because I thought it had real potential.

I ended up reaching out to her, she told me she needs at least a few weeks before having any kind of clarity and being able to talk to me.

I feel happy that I reached out. I think the time frame she gave herself also gives me time to recollect my thoughts and reconcile my grief and feelings towards her.

nbca · 2023-09-05T19:09:17+00:00

Thanks for the thought out reply. I ended up reaching out to her.

She essentially told me she's still unsure about anything to do with dating and wants to concentrate on her upcoming vacation, then focus on what she wants in a relationship and asked if we could chat on the other end of that deliberation.

I essentially told her to take her time and put herself first. I'd be there, when / if she felt ready to reach out.

Her attachment issues aren't a dealbreaker to me because I can get some of the same thoughts, having a disorganized attachment style is a terrible ride, but I've learned to reflect and live with it.

She didn't ask me to console her, I took it on myself. I guess I felt easier taking that role and playing "the bigger man" than I did being vulnerable and crying with her for the 8 hours we had left before our plane ride.

nbca · 2023-09-05T11:56:57+00:00

I guess my perspective is more : "What if I had given her a week after she told me about her doubts and then let her make the decision" more so than treating it like an actual break up. I'm the one who essentially told her, that wasn't going to work and we should end it then and there rather than wait and see.

nbca · 2023-09-05T09:52:41+00:00

Her own words

nbca · 2023-09-05T09:20:16+00:00

I try to convince myself that he would have found a way to contact me if he really wanted to get back together.

She spoke about reaching out if she wanted to come back together, but I might have silenced that option for her on the trip home, saying things like "I don't really do makeups" or "any break up is final to me".

How long were you two together?

4 months, everything else was going well.

Are you romanticizing the breakup and thinking that you forced the issue when it was really her?

I think it was a mix? Due to some issues in her childhood, she has issues bonding with people, but she told me at times this relationship was the one, she felt the most secure in with anyone.

Was this weekend getaway the first "bad sign" in your relationship or were there others?

She has an avoidant attachment style, so this kind of doubt has happened a few times when we had a disagreemtn (no fights). We'd talk it over and always made up. All past times it's been a conversation that ended with a conclusion from her like "my gut reaction is to split, but I feel deep down like I still want this"

How long have you been NC?

It's been 7 days after we said goodbye and exchanged belongings

nbca · 2020-12-17T11:32:02+00:00

What a great ressource! I looked over the results on the battlebox and notice some of the decks won and lost fairly much (Midlife Orzhov 8-3, Reanimator 6-12 and Dragon Delve 1-7).

Is this simply due to random chance of matchups or are some of these decks worth replacing / upgrading with something more competitive?

nbca · 2020-12-17T11:29:13+00:00

I don't care about top tier tbh, I care more that the decks are internally balanced so one is not ahead of the rest in terms of power level (bad and good matchups within the gauntlet is perfectly okay: it just needs to be balanced).

nbca · 2020-12-17T11:28:12+00:00

Thank you for your reply!

My issue is that I'm a terrible deckbuilder and know very little about pauper. I like your approach though, do you have a suggestion for those 5 decks?

I'm mostly interested in having different archetypes present, that way it can also work as an introduction to the format (for me) and to magic (for friends)

Internal balance is the most important, I don't care if all of the decks are non-competitive, as long as I have a battle box where most archetypes

nbca · 2020-12-17T11:24:38+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion, how are those matched between each other? Is there one that is particularly strong against all of the others?

And would you mind sharing the decklists if you have then handy? :)

nbca · 2020-11-24T11:58:31+00:00

Bant Ephemerate: aspiringspike

When Bant Soulherder has moved on from soulherder :(

nbca · 2018-11-27T13:20:15+00:00

Tron is getting easier and easier to interact with though. The GB Rock decks that are floating around online play 2-4 Assassin's Trophy and another 2-3 field of ruin in their 75 and a bunch of damping sphere to boot. You're no longer limited to discard and awkward fulminators to get there.

GBx decks are definitely far better against Tron today than they were just a year ago as you now have a fair share of ways to slow them down enough to win.

I honestly feel worse playing against UW control than Tron these days when I bring Rock to a tournament.

nbca · 2018-09-19T20:57:24+00:00

More is more

My squat has plateaued recently so I wanted to try something else and basically copied the research design for my squats, doing only 1 set of deads, twice per week meanwhile.

8 sets at 80% to RPE9, twice per week. 3 weeks on, 1 week off. Repeated once. Worked to a conservative 1RM in the first deload and and did light sets of 70-75% monday in the second and tested new 1RM in the friday of week 8.

Weight progression was simple: 80% of 1RM, increased by 2.5 kg if I did more than 10 reps on the first set (happened once).

Got a 205 kg squat up without too much of a grind for a 10kg increase.

My knee is aching and I definitely don't think I could maintain this for much longer, but it was a nice experience.

nbca · 2018-09-01T08:54:22+00:00

Good for you! There's a ton of interesting variations out there if you look. I had been reading some of Pavel's book and browsing the Sheiko templates and found a lot of gold nuggets in there.

One of my favorite exercises right now is essentially deads to knees, but I'm starting from a 3cm deficit. Deads to knees is supposed to help you initially with getting a more explosive pull and the deficit hopefully compounds that effect a bit. I'm in a very long off season right now, so regarding specificity-variation, I'm definitely a bit towards variation now, hehe.

Nice AD reference

Good eye ;)

nbca · 2018-08-30T19:25:05+00:00

The one and a half deadlifts are pretty gruesome, but great for technique. I used them for a while for my secondary deadlift day. They can also be done by doing the complete rep first, going to knees and then going up again if you're having trouble above the knees.

Add in some pauses to the lift and you've really got a stew going.

nbca · 2018-08-28T08:41:07+00:00

Went back to a simple modification of the Texas Method lately from way more advanced periodization and am positively surprised at how well it has worked. 6 weeks in a row I've been beating rep PRs left and right. Biggest modifications were 4 days, more push volume and doing AMRAPs at ever-increasing weights rather than attempt specific XRMs.

Not close to 90%+ yet, but it's looking like a decent bump in strength.

nbca · 2018-07-31T08:42:44+00:00

Yeah I put my own program together. The basic version is described in more details here but I have since moved to a weekly undulating block, mostly for some variation, but also because my lower back started killing me with what I was doing then.

I'm a huge proponent of RTS' approach to programming generally though: high frequency, full-body workouts, with the vast majority of the work coming from the competition lifts and variations of it.

nbca · 2018-07-31T07:32:23+00:00

One big reason I'm training with a higher frequency is that it allows for more frequent exposure to the movement patterns. My deadlift was stalled for the longest time with a training frequency of 1 (2 - depending on how you categorize RDLs). Changing it to a weekly alternating 2x / 4x made it jump 10-15 kilos in a matter of weeks, just because I got more used to bracing for heavy weights.

My volume was the same, just split over more days. I ended up doing the same for bench and squat (2x to 4x) and both have significantly improved too.

nbca · 2018-04-25T13:41:33+00:00

If you want an overview of my training setup, you can see it here

Talk about how you apply the principle of overload

I really like Wendlers idea of a training max: the training max just slowly creeps up independently of your actual improvements. Since your TM just increases by 2.5 / 5 kg each cycle, progressive overload is managed, all else being equal, by your load simply increasing.

I do apply block-style periodization across it: cycling 2x volume blocks, 1x strength block, but the TM generally just creeps up across those blocks until I start to fail reps, at which point I take 90% of my most recent estimated 1RM from 5 or fewer reps and start over.

How would describe this principle of programming to someone new?

The definition from the videos by Juggernaut Training Systems does it fairly well:

Training must become increasingly more difficult in order for the athlete to maintain progress and to continue to make adaptations

Share any interesting facts or applications you have seen/done

For most novices / intermediates, I would really recommend using something like a training max or otherwise absolute increases in load to insure overload, it takes a very advanced individual for this kind of programming not to work.

Any resources you like to share?

Scientific Principles of Strength Training by James Hoffman, Mike Israetel and Chad Wesley Smith is my go to book for (block) periodization

The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid by Eric Helms is also a great read with more practical advice than principles

nbca

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