3x5 100kg on squats today. Would normally have stopped there, but i was encouraged by a friend to give 110kg a try and was pleasantly surprised to get 3 decent reps out. I've always been relatively strong on squats but never normally push myself like overly hard as i'm not comfortable failing (i've actually never failed a squat rep in my life so far). Now i'm curious to see where my 1RM is on that. As it though i'm very happy with my progress so no rush and no need to give myself a pointless injury by ego lifting.

Chest day tomorrow. Let's see if i can improve on last week's performance.

Glad I posted that, cheers for the advice! Makes sense that as a beginner I'll gain no matter what I do, but yeah if I want to bench more probably the best thing to do is bench more. Increasing my numbers is def my primary goal atm.

Seeing him today so will let him know what you guys have said. We're doing a back session which I'm starting to think I can probably do on my own. Might be worth the £17 just to get me through the door after work though.

2x5 60kg on the bench yesterday. That's a huge improvement! The energy I found might be in part due to the large glass of coke I consumed 15 mins prior to training went for the 3rd set too but was gg after 3 reps. Was pretty pleased though.

PT doesn't suggest going for new bench PB's every week. Instead we'll hit dumbbells for our next session before benching 60kg again the week after.

Honestly Matt your bench numbers are absolutely insane!!

After hitting my 100kg squat goal for the year i've shifted more focus to the bench. Last week i managed 3 reps of 60kg (for me this is hugely heavy and took a ton of effort). I want to keep pushing this until i get 5x5 out at the 60kg level. No real time frame for this, just want to get it done by the end of summer if possible but i won't beat myself up if i won't. Bench has always been a weird one for me, i see 95% of my gym warm up with weights i couldn't push out a 1RM for and i just wonder why/how. Just one of those things i suppose. Tbh i would probably swap my bench and squat numbers if i had the chance  

Everything else going pretty well with my PT, really happy with him for the main reason that it's led to consistency this year. Also soooo nice to have someone else set up & rerack your weights haha. Hasn't been a great deal to report really but i probably look as good as i've ever looked though the body fat is still there. Happy to be patient and just see what happens by the end of the year.

It's all relative mate, the two guys I train with are both 20kg ahead of me and another guy who joined us for half an hour on Saturday pushed out a single at 160kg after a 140kg triple. Makes me look positively weak

Your numbers look to be far better proportioned than mine are to be fair. My bench is good but I haven't squatted above 90kg for as long as I can remember. Admittedly it's partly due to some kind of injury but even if I was 100% I wouldn't be going over 120kg.

How many times do you bench per week? How's your technique? Any chance of a video for us to critique? Any chance of you meeting up with us at some point when we finally manage to arrange something?

Happy to try to help you out with this if you're up for a few tips although I assume you're being guided by your PT? Do you just do as he says or do you have some input in to what you do?

Hey mate, i bench once per week. My current regime is a 4 day split with chest/tris, back, shoulders/bi's and legs. My PT has certainly overhauled my previous technique which wasn't surprising i do trust him tbf so i let him take control and he is happy enough with how i'm doing it now.

Back when i started out my numbers absolutely flew up everywhere except chest and shoulders and this still applies. I was consistently hitting new squat, deadlift and row pb's every week but hit a wall very very quickly on the bench when i got to about 50kg. Right now i can do 3/4 reps of 60 but it is HARD work. I don't even get that great feeling of pushing to failure afterwards with that, just very uncomfortable with a weight i can barely manage. Idk if this means i should work with 55kg a little longer perhaps?

I'll keep you guys updated with how i get on. I don't want to set any crazy goals for chest but as long as i see some kind of improvement either strength or aesthetically i'll take it.

Honestly Matt your bench numbers are absolutely insane!!

After hitting my 100kg squat goal for the year i've shifted more focus to the bench. Last week i managed 3 reps of 60kg (for me this is hugely heavy and took a ton of effort). I want to keep pushing this until i get 5x5 out at the 60kg level. No real time frame for this, just want to get it done by the end of summer if possible but i won't beat myself up if i won't. Bench has always been a weird one for me, i see 95% of my gym warm up with weights i couldn't push out a 1RM for and i just wonder why/how. Just one of those things i suppose. Tbh i would probably swap my bench and squat numbers if i had the chance  

Everything else going pretty well with my PT, really happy with him for the main reason that it's led to consistency this year. Also soooo nice to have someone else set up & rerack your weights haha. Hasn't been a great deal to report really but i probably look as good as i've ever looked though the body fat is still there. Happy to be patient and just see what happens by the end of the year.

How on earth has dreadful rarely played Welbeck managed to worm his way back in the England squad?  Wouldn’t get in Watford’s match day squad.  Such a below par player.

I call. I’d love to see some pace upfront for the orns. Deeney/Okaka/Gray too similar and too slow.

On relflection all three of those options are weak.  That said the likes of Welbeck and Iwobi lurking in the Arsenal squad is the reason there is no longer a big 6 imo.

+1

5x5 100kg squats with decent depth so happy with that!

It's actually one of my NY resolutions which I've ticked off in March, fair play I set the bar a little low

Arsenal fans, at what point do we just start breaking shit?

Was at the game today, and the only mildly entertaining part of the evening was being part of the crowd. The atmosphere was palpable to being in a strip club for 14 hours, popping a blue pill, then discovering all the brothels had shut for the night. The frustration everyone felt was crazy.

Every player on the pitch tonight was shite, but some really sucked more than others. Out of those who did you have Holding, Chambers, Elneny and Welbeck, all Wenger has spent actual money on bringing to the club. Given how crap they are it actually makes you wonder if Wenger didn't just run like absolute God when we he some put together the invincibles team. I'm convinced Iwobi has nudes of Wenger on his phone to keep getting picked like he is. It's early days but Mhikitaryan is threatening to be part of the worst deal in the history of trades, maybe ever. All in, it's the same shit year in year out.

So I want to know for those who feel the same as me, when do we start breaking shit? 

3x5 100kg squats going nice and deep. Taking my time with these but feeling good. My ass has never been perkier.

Everything else going well. I don't pay great attention during sessions with the PT, after work i'm usually pretty drained so just lift what i'm told to lift til it's time to go home. Absolutely worth the 17 quid a session and it's not close. I've performed a variety of exercises and most importantly actually gone in. I'm looking forward to seeing what we achieve by summer.

Got 3x5 100kg on the squat rack today. I'd call them three quarter squats i guess. I don't go quite as deep as when i do lower weights but probably deep enough. I imagine getting used to having the weight on my back will be beneficial anyway as when i did a warm up of 80kg it felt suuuuper light and i was able to comfortably go very deep. Hopefully 5x5 100kg next weekend.

I may have a question about lactic acid lol, or at least muscle ache/failure. Me and my trainer have been working well together and he's been pushing me on a variety of exercises. However i really feel sometimes that when we work to failure i actually have more left in the tank, but it's just the lactic acid build up and consequently the ache just becomes unbearable to work through. Could this be a thing? I often stop sets midway when the pain gets high to shake out for a few seconds and then can easily get out a few more reps.

I wonder if there's anything i can do to reduce this build up, or whether pushing through this pain barrier is simply part of the process. Or whether i'm just barking up the wrong tree entirely and this isnt relevant whatsoever

Managed 2x5 100kg on the squat rack today. Huge personal milestone for me - never done 3 figures before ever. Not even close to ATG but hopefully it still counts as a squat lol. If all the right places will be aching from tomorrow that's hopefully enough of a sign that I went deep enough for it to count haha

Mustafi - let's say there are 40 odd centrebacks playing in the Prem - really hard pushed to think of one he's clearly better than - ffs. Bournemouth performance was bad, this is even more woeful - so easy to play against if a team wants to stick the effort in against us. It migth take me 5 mins to get over this one

Seems fair when we openly tried to shift him last summer. When your strength in depth involves Mertesacker and Calum Chambers he's still somehow the best option haha #wengerforever

This really is disappointing and so piss poor.  We're moving in the right direction off the pitch but on the pitch, it's the same old crap.

You need to do what i've done and stop caring. I'll be interested again when Wenger leaves.

I'm back on the grid. After a 2017 where i made basically 0 progress due to being really inconsistent i decided to get hold of PT earlier this month (not even a NY resolution, just pure coincidence)

This PT seems great, i actually approached him after i watched him train someone else and was quite impressed. He's young, good physique, focuses relentlessly on technique and seems to be devoting his entire life to this art. I genuinely believe i may have caught someone early who's going to go on to do great things. We do 30 min sessions for £17 which i reckon is a steal for him, hence i've decided i'm going to see him 3x a week for A) chest, B) back C) and shoulders/biceps. 

There's two massive benefits for me here, first is way more efficient training as it's borderline cringeworthy now to think how wrong i was doing some things before and secondly it forces me to actually go. I reckon i would have skipped so many sessions this year due to being tired after work, but having a PT there helps get me in plus means i kinda get to just switch off my brain and just lift what he tells me if that makes sense. Also helps as he obv knows a ton of exercises, very helpful for the packed January gyms where you often have to get creative with what's available.

Legs i'm doing myself. Set myself a very achievable goal of 100kg 5x5 squats by the end of the year. I managed 5 reps of 95kg earlier today so i really should get there i'll feel happy having hit 3 figures even though i should really have got to it a while ago. Squats have always been my strongest movement.

Diet is waaaaayward, dunno what i'm gonna do there. So hard to eat clean even close to consistently when i've literally lived on junk my whole life. My body is so skinny fat right now its ridic. My PT has asked for a food diary, so far i've actually been too embarassed to share it with him lol.

So yeah. 3 weeks in so far. I have no issue paying the PT for 3 sessions a week even if all it does is help me be genuinely consistent this year. Looking forward to seeing what i may achieve in 2018. 

bizarrely GDAX requires two forms of ID to buy crypto. As I don't drive, all I have is a passport, so it seems like I can't sign up to the site.

Is there any other place to by ETH or BTC for fiat money or do I just have to suck it up and pay the coinbase fees?

I used Coinfloor as they're UK based, so also pretty easy (relatively) to withdraw to your bank account. Coinbase sounded awfully long winded to me with SEPA's and Euro accounts, plus google is filled with negative reviews about them.