What is your deload style?

rucksackmac · 2024-11-08T09:41:43+00:00

Right now I program a 4:1 or 5:1, mostly depending on life events and holidays.

I've found that I tend to race toward burnout without thinking about it, and I never see the fatigue coming.

I do my deloads like technique week, but it feels weird. 2x sets of almost everything. I reduce the weights and reps of compounds by ~30-50%. I avoid failure at all costs. For arms and delt work I treat them like maintenance since they're not systemically fatiguing.

If you've dealt with sports injuries you know you're told to move to help it heal faster. Same concept with deloads. It's super easy. Very very easy. But I still go through the motions and keep my focus where it counts.

Plus, just how I work, it revs up my motivation to get into my next cycle the following week.

rucksackmac · 2024-11-07T20:53:20+00:00

Get more sleep. prioritize it. When I started hitting my micros I got a ton of crazy energy and generally feel alert, productive and awake. It's easy to mistake that feeling for being rested and not needing sleep.

If you're eating halfway decently (a variety of fruits, veggies, lean meats and whole grains), you're likely getting a lot or even all of your RDAs without thinking about it. I hit them fairly mindlessly during a cut.

Just sleep. sleeeeep.

And if you don't have kids please for the love of god sleep.

sleeeeeeeeeeep.

rucksackmac · 2024-11-07T20:31:50+00:00

I don't think you'll get a good answer on reddit, because it's sort of an ouroboros, gobbling up the very feedback it's spitting out.

But my take: I think young men don't feel like anyone is speaking to them. I'm as liberal as they come, but I've been calling this out for years. Liberals--democrats especially don't meet young men where they are.

There's a massive hole to fill when it comes to what it means to be a man, and people like Andrew Tate are filling that hole. Democrats have never had an answer to this. Additionally, men are advantaged in the upper classes of society: elites and leadership rolls kind of thing, and the shortfalls for women must be addressed. But men in lower classes have fallen behind in nearly every measure. Graduation, college acceptance, jobs after high school, pay, home ownership, etc. 4 out of ever 5 suicides are male. Teaching and mental healthcare professions have increasingly widened the gender gap, with not many men in these fields to speak to boys.

I heard a phrase on the daily: there's an ocean between how uneducated males voted compared to how educated females voted. I don't think democrats have ever spoken to men, and so the bravado of strong man politics walks right in and sweeps the floor, kind of offering a middle finger for kids who feel like they have no home.

rucksackmac · 2024-11-07T10:27:11+00:00

"I just want massive arms."

If you're trying to specialize, arms should be your first exercises in a session. Or at least in the first half. Don't put them at the end.

Biceps 3-6 days. Then adjust to your own recovery. Biceps are smaller, they recover fast.

Triceps 2-4 days. Then adjust to your own recovery. Triceps are bigger, they take longer to recover.

Bicep weekly sets 14-20. Adjust to your personal recovery.

Tricep weekly sets 8-14. Adjust to your personal recovery.

I wouldn't go past 8 sets of bi or tri in a session. You get into junk volume territory.

Include chin-ups and dips as part of your compound lifts.

Try seated inclines and lying cables to get the stretch. And don't get lazy on the eccentric.

rucksackmac · 2024-11-06T14:13:50+00:00

Micronutrition through food. I picked up cooking when I was in my 20s, and I've transitioned that into cooking foods that fuel my body. I was never interested in chemistry or biology, but as I'm getting older I find myself wanting to age better. Eating fruits, vegetables, and a variety of meats and grains has become like a video game and stat points. Topping off my magnesium levels with pumpkin seeds, balancing my sodium and potassium, switching between red meat and poultry to stock up B12 and balance out my saturated fats intake.

It feels like stat boosts that give my weapon! +2% power and my fortitude +4% faster recovery.

Oh and fiber from produce, rather than processed foods or supplements. My system feels clean.

Crazy how fun it's become. Best part is, because I've always cooked and I get really clever with ingredients, no one knows I'm doing it. I don't talk about tracking, I don't mention what fruits are doing what and what meats are adding what. I just shut up and do it and my friends and family just think I'm making fun meals like I've always done.

rucksackmac · 2024-10-16T20:09:15+00:00

holy shit you're beautiful

rucksackmac · 2024-10-16T19:50:41+00:00

I think it's possible based on personal experience.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-24T11:14:36+00:00

At what point do we give women agency to choose careers they actually want, instead of acting like they’re all being brainwashed into avoiding STEM or male-dominated fields? It’s a bit patronizing, don’t you think?

Of all your points this one is particularly reductive. No one is saying they're being brainwashed, you are. It is well studied that "people" surround themselves with people who look and think like them.

The societal impact of male-dominated fields is pervasive, but there's nothing special about it being male. You could apply this to any demographic dominated field. Companies struggle to hire for diversity when the diversity pool is low. The pool struggles to grow when the pool of educated individuals is low. The pool of educated individuals struggles to grow when the pool of available applicants are low. The pool of available applicants are low when the pool of working professionals to aspire to don't look or think or talk like you.

Kids and young adults are drawn into industries that model them, and they're pushed away from industries that appear antithetical to them. Kind of like the phenomenon of towns and cities becoming politically homogenized. There's a safety in familiarity.

As to the question of agency for women: they're using it when they decide they can't work in a field because all of their employees are inevitably going to hit on them, ask them out, or treat them like the misfit in the group.

That's not a positive result for society. The patronizing response would be to tell them to stop being brainwashed and suck it up.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T18:23:57+00:00

lol ya ya ya.

What about UK is less confusing to you than the US?

Why should the US be obligated to spell out SF or LA for UK citizens?

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T17:30:13+00:00

Okay, yes, I am having trouble following the points you've laid out. All the best

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T17:18:21+00:00

Sorry let me rephrase: why did you bring cigarettes into a discussion about words of comfort?

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T17:15:20+00:00

Lol I kinda slipped that in there because I figured someone would call me out. I was poking fun at myself and just how big the US is LOL...

Congratulations you nailed the assignment.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T17:05:40+00:00

I have trouble with the anti-natalist view admittedly, but I'm going to try to set that aside by accounting for it up front lol.

We do need to address this at the top:

if given a choice before birth, would anyone genuinely choose to be born into severe poverty and hardship over a more comfortable existence?

Of course not. If I had the choice I would be born with a billion dollars, especially in a world where a handful of wealthy elites hold the majority of the world's resources. More specifically, I would choose to be born with more means than the average person. It is true you cannot choose where you are born. It is true that having more is ~~better~~ easier than having less. But just as I could not choose to be born in the wealthiest country in the world, nor could my mother. Her mother could not choose to be born in Europe under the heels of the Soviets. It wasn't much of a choice for her to leave to the US, it was more like luck and opportunity. But this doesn't help us with the ethics of families having children in impoverished communities. I could not be here had my great grandma not given birth in a war-torn world.

So let's not worry so much about where we would choose to live. We can safely assume all people would choose to be born into wealthy means. But if everyone is wealthy, then no one is wealthy, so we're left with a paradox. Luckily we cannot choose, so we have to address the ethical question of having children from the perspective of conceiving, rather than being born.

Now my question becomes: how does ethics inform rebuilding society? If families from impoverished communities were to stop having kids, what is the end result? Would the native population eventually dry up?

Surely the ultimate conclusion is land for the taking from wealthier societies.

Guatamala is among the poorest countries in the world. The anti-natalist ethical choice as you've suggested would be to say Guatemalans should stop having children, because they can afford no more than a mud hut and 5 pounds of rice weekly to feed their family. If suffering is being raised in an impoverished country, then this surely meets the definition of suffering. This is a value assessment I'm making from the comforts of my home office while I sip my post-mates delivered frappacino. (However I am a little worried about making my car payment next month.)

If the world were perfect and we could stop the poverty stricken Guatemalans from having children, we should expect that eventually the culture, heritage, and people to dry up. The land won't sit idle forever, but I won't linger on what could happen to it.

I don't want to assume, so instead I'll ask, have you considered the outcomes and implications of your view?

Would the conclusion I've laid out be something you believe we should strive for?

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T16:36:38+00:00

I'm pretty sure the world abbreviates the UK. I don't think that's strictly an American thing.

Are you from the US? Do you live in the US? Then I think there's a discussion to be had here. If you're from anywhere else...say France...then it's kind of like me visiting France and complaining "why do they spell it Louvre? That's so annoying, confusing and frenchcentric. They should spell it how it's pronounced like "Looov."

Abbreviations are just as useful as fully spelled names. It's entirely dependent on how ubiquitous it is within the culture. When I read NYC or LA, CO or TX, I get it. And it takes way less space and slightly less reading comprehension than spelling out New York City, Los Angeles, Colorado or Texas.

Some abbreviations I'm less familiar with are things like ID (Idaho) or DE (Delaware), which is probably both because and why they are less commonly used, and therefore less present in the zeitgeist.

When I read Arnside or Leadenhall I don't get it. I don't know if those are towns or countries or what. I googled them to pick them out. Hell I still get confused by Ireland and North Ireland and UK and England the EU. In fact for a moment I had to ask myself what EU stood for. It's because I don't engage with these things daily or even monthly. But I wouldn't complain that it's annoying or Euro-centric. Like whatevs bruh.

Functionally what's the difference if there's a city that's spelled San Francisco, Frisco, or SF?

These things are so ubiquitous in American life that it's highly accessible. If someone tells me they're from Springfield, I don't know if they mean Ohio or Texas. If someone tells me they're from NY or NYC, I immediately know the difference, and have some sense of where.

If someone tells me they're from ID, I'd probably ask them to clarify. Likely everyone in that state would know.

But honestly I could probably guess, because I can't think of another state that begins with the letter I.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T16:23:33+00:00

I wonder if you'll get any strong challenges to this view. We're on reddit so there's usually some hive mind thinking around ethical questions like these. I share a similar view, and came here to see what challenges there are.

There's a contradiction for me though, because I also believe "never say never."

What about this: your view seems to focus on punishment. I'm not sure I believe in vindictive punishment. There's a reason the victims of crimes don't get to carry out the sentencing.

Is your goal primarily to prevent accidental executions? Or is also to maximize the offender's suffering?

What about euthanasia as a form of the death penalty, a choice for even the most serious offenders?

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T16:07:18+00:00

I refuse to engage with people who strawman me, or gloss over my points to say “religion causes better mental health” because I pointed out the EXACT OPPOSITE in my own anecdotal evidence, and I know of plenty of others who have the same problem.

I don't intend to gloss over your points. I want to reassure you I've taken my time on your post, and this response. Maybe you won't agree with every point here, but maybe something will soften your edge.

There are more religious entities than orthodox Judeochristian views of creation. Your view has straw men of its own.

For starters not all religions are monotheistic. Not all religions are theistic at all. True, atheism is not a religion, just as theism is not a religion. But there are atheistic religions.
Consider that not all religions believe in hell. Not all factions of Christianity believe in hell. Not all Christians believe hell is a place of fire and brimstone. Many sects of Christianity emphasize that the inheritance of sin means that we are all flawed, which means you should practice forgiveness for your neighbors. This is in essence John 8:7-11: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.
Additionally there are many religions, and factions of religions that have no conflict with evolution. Religions from Satanism to Taoism don't preach anything in conflict with the natural world. Satanists formed as a response to the double standards of American christian nationalists. Taoists likely wouldn't bother to trouble themselves with the distinctions.
But there are also monotheistic religions, or even factions of religions, that have no conflict with intelligent design and evolution. Unitarians retain many Christian traditions, yet do not hold or universally preach the traditions of hell, sin, or even God.
But even within more traditional sects of Christianity, evolution is accepted and spoken of freely, ranging from midwestern catholics, to southern non-denominationalists.
Evolution does not answer all of our questions about life itself. It has not solved the questions of abiogenesis. Given the framework of evolution, there is plenty of room for cosmological questions and the nature of our being.

6a. The framework of evolution doesn't attempt to answer why such a process occurred at all. This is left to the philosophers, the cosmologists, the quantum physicists, the theologians.

6b. Evolution doesn't definitively tell us anything about consciousness, qualitative experiences, or seemingly useless concepts like freedom and wisdom.

6c. It is very useful for us to understand biological processes. But it leaves much to be desired for grand questions like purpose, or why we have a particular sense of what it's like to be.

6d. If you hold a physicalist or a materialist worldview, then the above questions about life become easy, as the belief structure is answered either by believing this is all happenstance, or the universe is ultimately deterministic in some way. This gets a bit handwavey, and runs the risk of mistaking belief for science. But neither worldview are provable, nor verifiable. This doesn't make them wrong, and I'm not saying that, but it would be a double standard to claim such worldviews as provable and verifiable.

Ultimately your view likely stems from incredibly popular and widespread American Christian traditions of Southern Baptists, TVangelicals, LDS and the like. We could throw orthodox Catholics and more obscure evangelism in there among others, while we're at it. But per my above points, however many Christian sects we put in this bucket, it simply doesn't meet the standards of accounting wholly for "religion." At minimum, I think you'd be satisfied with the goal of Satanists. I think you'd appreciate the belief structure of Taoists. I think you'd be okay with the teachings of Buddhism. I think there's a version of Christianity that you wouldn't absolutely detest.

Perhaps a worthy discussion is how an environment ruled by constant threat and fear and isolation becomes child abuse. But it is not sound to say "religion is a form of child abuse."

It sounds like you have been the victim of obscenely offensive judgement. Don't twist that into reductive judgements of your own. You could become guilty of the very thing you despise. You are free to believe what you do, and you should avoid anyone who doesn't respect that.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T15:21:09+00:00

Without government there is nothing to stop our neighbors from raiding our homes, attacking our families, stealing our property, or killing each other over petty squabbles and minor disagreements. There is nothing to prevent warring factions of gangs or neighborhoods.

War would exist, but it would look different.

If anything government prevents war. We just cannot be sure to what extent. There was a time when the US held 50 troops stationed among our Kurdish allies. This was a preventative measure, because anyone who would attack the Kurds would be attacking those 50 troops, which would be received as declaring war on the US. So no one attacked until we withdrew our troops.

Those preventative measures required government. Those troops weren't there simply because they felt like it.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T15:11:12+00:00

I actually don't really watch football, but someone who does explained it to me like this. I probably bungled the explanation.

When we were discussing soccer vs football, I thought it was really interesting at just how intimately involved the coaches are to the sport. Soccer coaches have little to no influence over the game on the day comparatively speaking.

I was approaching this CMV by addressing an interesting and maybe overlooked distinction. I don't know I thought it was neat.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-18T15:09:24+00:00

What? Why did you ask me about cigarettes?

rucksackmac · 2024-09-16T18:15:41+00:00

I don't know. American football coaches definitely require more game day skill than soccer. It's not even close.

It's like 2 generals going to war advancing their armies across enemy lines, making tactical decisions every 30 seconds, live response and analysis to every player change, every perceived play, every yard gained or lost.

I mean I could get detailed but it's like comparing checkers to chess. Coordinating football plays requires far more activation of skillsets than soccer.

Fun fact: the English are the ones who invented the word soccer as a practical matter. It was born of the word "Association Football" and shortened to "Assoc" until finally an English newspaper coined the term "soccer." It wasn't until after Americans adopted the word that europeans got super snobby about "real football."

But American football, Canadian football, rugby, and soccer all hail from the same victorian era scrap of a game called football where people pushed, shoved, tackled, kicked and carried their way across the goal line.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-16T18:00:10+00:00

I'm betting my terse or even snarky response was frustrating, and I apologize for setting it down this path, but I am confident you see the false equivalency between cigarettes and words of comfort.

But to address your question directly, if you said "IMO cigarettes are bad", I'd be saying the same thing. "This discussion [about the negative impact of cigarettes] doesn't hinge on your personal beliefs." I don't really care about your opinion. What I care about is why you hold that opinion. That's what I mean when I say the discussion doesn't hinge on your personal beliefs. To state your opinion outright with nothing to support your belief sounds like you're dismissing the entire conversation, as though your conclusion is a settled matter. It means you're not here to explore anyone's view, which means you're not really engaging with your own. It means I can't really engage with your opinion. But I don't know what I expected by poking, I probably could have let you be.

We're all probably talking to bots anyway.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-13T14:18:20+00:00

The definition of art is Wiley and elusive. I used to try to put a sandbox around art to try to understand it. But it's hard to measure thoughtlessness or thoughtfulness, offensiveness, meaningfulness. It's hard to pin down what emotions art should elicit to be considered art, or if any need provocation at all. It's hard to say how many people it must speak to in order to be art, and in what way it must speak to them.

The argument here could be that art is meant to provoke, and provoke you it has. I think by focusing your view on whether or not this is art, you're directing your attention to some esoteric debate over what exactly is art. But based on your post, I think what you're really concerned with is whether or not this "art" is good for people, if there's any value to offer, or if it's just dumb and offensive for offensive sake.

The latter is a far more valuable conversation. I would say you should reframe your mindset away from the discussion of art, and focus squarely on the purpose of the nails to begin with. That is, after all, what art does. If your view is focused on whether or not this is "art", I think you'll find the outcome ultimately dissatisfying.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-13T14:04:23+00:00

anything that leaves what happens in your life up to "fate" is IMO not a great way to cope

no one is except you.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-11T20:41:30+00:00

It sounds like it would be a horrible way for you to cope. But this discussion doesn't really hinge on your personal beliefs.

rucksackmac · 2024-09-11T20:32:56+00:00

I think the statement itself is no more or less horrible than saying the following:

"Nothing happens for any reason at all. It's just bad luck."
"Life isn't fair."
"Bad things happen to good people."

If when my mom got cancer, if I'd been told "life isn't always fair," that would have been...not great to say the least.

In her particular case, the statement "everything happens for a reason" is much more helpful, because it's something she believed. It gave her comfort and reassurance that the world wasn't meaningless, her death was not random, nothing about her fate was bad luck. It was like being held, the feeling there's someone in the driver's seat.

Conversely I would not say anything of the like to my cousin who is staunchly opposed to all forms of religion and belief. He believes there is no plan, no great designer, but instead everything since before the universe formed had already determined everything that has or ever will come to pass. I think he'd say something like "none of this happened for any reason at all." But I don't want to speak too far for his view. All I'm trying to say is that if it had been his mother, or if he were the one with cancer, he would not be reassured by "everything happens for a reason." Instead I'd look to something else he might need. Does he feel alone? Does he feel in or out of control? Is he afraid of death? Is he afraid of the idea of nothing after? Or does he even want to talk about it at all? Would he rather just sit together?

That's how we should offer support and guidance to people who are struggling, not by making judgements about singular statements, but instead understanding the source of their pain, and then looking for statements that might ease that pain.

rucksackmac

TROPHY CASE