Also, there’s a fitness com that’s not used often. You should definitely post more stories there.
Lifting is fantastic and definitely gives me that “runners high” effect. Particularly kettlebells, there’s just something very cool about doing all these athletic movements with 62 lbs of iron wrapped around your forearm. The sort of “move your arm around the bell rather than the bell around your arm” thing of stuff like cleans and snatches just feels cool once you master it.
Circus lifts are fun too. I really enjoy figure eight based movements, slinging the bell between your legs from one hand to another and then back again in front of you is great fun. Flip swings are great too, but I need to do those over grass, still not good enough to not drop regularly.
But I will say there’s something very cool about powerlifting too. Loading down my shoulders with like 400+ lbs and squatting feels raw and primal. Also like instant ego death, you don’t think about anything but moving the weight.
Just wanted to recommend this free program from Stronger by Science if you're looking for a powerlifting based program. It's a little wonky, the 28 "programs" are basically modules for the press (bench or overhead), deadlift and squat divided up by frequency, intensity and/or volume. You then combine them together for a program.
I have an incredibly hard time building upper body strength and size. My legs have always been good to me, I hit a 440 lbs squat during this for example. But I have never seen my arms peak above 16 inches around until after two months on this program where I went from about 15.75 to about 16.25 inches or so.
My legs also blew up over 27 inches around now, and that's fine and all. But it's summer. Suns out, guns out and all that.
Just wanted to pass it on if anyone is looking to for a change up in their lifting.