It's funny you speak of getting burned out - I think I went too hard, too fast for the first few weeks, kind of hit a brick wall because I increased the weight I was lifting too fast. Realised this wasn't the way to go - and I pulled it back somewhat and forced myself to work on technique more than brute force (which probably would have resulted in an injury or ragequitting). Pretty sure that's why my grip strength was fucking me over, because I didn't even give myself a chance to get used to what I was doing before I increased the weight again.
Edit: You should make a fitness subverse here. Pretty sure there'd be at least a bit of interest.
It's quite all right to lift light, listen to your body, and pay no mind to lifting heavy for ego points so I'm glad you pulled back a bit before an injury happened. Even with light weight, or calisthenics you will be able to make good progress since all lifts will have a degree of transfer to other lifts and it's nice to let tendons grow so there are no surprises there. Tendons take a long time to grow even if strength progresses but a tendon injury will take one out for at least 6 months. I know you're not injured, but if you ever have an injury, my best advice would be to work around it. Like if grip is failing continuously for weeks, take time to just focus on legs.
I'm absolutely retarded though and always say I'll go light and do isolations for certain weeks but something usually happens to make me want to pick up ridiculous weight. It's usually just someone nearby I want to mog or anytime my gym nemesis is around.
As far as a fitness sub, I would definitely participate, but I'm terrible with social media and usually leave the entire internet for a few days before I decide to come back to see what's going on in the world.
Thank you for all of the advice, I appreciate it very very much. Having only done this for a bit over a month I'm still trying to get my head around exactly what I should be doing. I have no intention whatsoever to ego lift, or even to attempt 1RM's any time soon. I've progressed from lifting only the bar for squats/bench press/deadlifts on my first gym session with varying results (which is like 1/3 of my bodyweight), to being able to lift roughly 2/3's of my bodyweight for the squat and deadlift, and just under 1/2 my bodyweight for the bench press. Those current numbers are difficult, but not impossible, though I think I need to sit on them a while longer before I go further. I think that's pretty decent considering that before the beginning of last month I'd never lifted before in my life. You have a gym nemesis? That's hilarious. When I'm there I'm completely in my own little world, only focusing on what I need to do whilst there.
I go to 4 different gyms and have a nemesis at each one. Never spoke to them, but they are all DYEL half breeds with features of africans but with red hair, pale skin and freckles. I just have an aversion to them and feel disgust when I see them. 3 of them actually look like clones of each other.
I like being in my own world while there for the most part. It's comforting since I'm there to just lift and better myself but I remember pre covid, all gyms were different in terms of more people talking and helping each other if needed.
Some lifts don't progress quickly at all so get used to that too. Microplates are a Godsend to help move past plateaus though. 2.5 - 5lb plates will help a lot if you just want to keep progressing. And don't get discouraged if others lift more than you in a shorter amount of time. As long as you are better than you were yesterday, you are doing things the right way. We are all going to make it :)
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