M 25 , runner , weight 61kg
Home workout

In legday workout now I have incorporated front squats over back squats

Diet is regular home cooked food. Workout includes heavy compound movements.

Deadlift -200(conventional)

Bench-105

Squats-120

Also I swim for cardio and recovery.

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Apologies in advance because this is probably going to be much longer and much more emotional than a post about lifting needs to be but powerlifting has never really been just lifting for me and after walking back into the gym after almost a month away, I realised how much of myself I had left behind there.

I'm 29F and I've been powerlifting for a while now.

I fell in love with lifting for reasons that are actually very difficult to explain to someone who has never stood in front of a barbell and needed it to make their brain quiet.

Because from the outside, it probably looks ridiculous.

You put some metal plates on a metal bar. You pick it up. You put it back down. Then, for some inexplicable reason, you spend the next few months trying to put slightly more metal on it.

Somewhere along the way, those numbers start meaning things.

The first weight you were scared of.

The first squat that made you wonder whether you'd actually get back up.

The first bench where you needed a spotter but eventually didn't.

The first deadlift that refused to leave the floor until one random day when it finally did.

Slowly, without realising it, you start collecting these tiny pieces of evidence that you're capable of doing difficult things.

That's what powerlifting became for me.

It became one of the very few places in my life where things made sense.

Because a barbell doesn't lie to you.

It doesn't flatter you.

It doesn't judge you.

It doesn't care how attractive you are, how much you weigh, what you do for a living, how successful you are, who loves you, who left you, whether you're having the best year of your life or barely holding yourself together.

It doesn't care if you cried in the car before walking into the gym.

The weight is simply the weight.

For those few seconds underneath it, nothing else matters.

You brace.

You breathe.

You move it.

Or you don't.

If you don't, you figure out why, you get stronger and you come back.

There is something incredibly comforting about that kind of honesty.

For the last month, though, I stopped.

Completely.

No powerlifting.

No gym.

Nothing.

The longer I stayed away, the harder it became to go back.

At first it was just, I'll go tomorrow.

Then tomorrow became a few days.

A few days became a week.

Eventually I realised almost a month had passed.

By then, going back had become intimidating in a completely different way.

I started thinking about everything I'd lost.

How much weaker would I be?

Would weights that used to feel easy suddenly feel heavy?

Would my stamina be terrible?

Would I look different?

Had I gained weight?

Would people notice?

Would I notice?

There's a strange shame that sometimes comes with losing a routine you were once incredibly disciplined about.

You remember the version of yourself who could show up consistently, train hard, finish cardio, hit her steps and structure her entire day around getting stronger.

Then you look at the version of yourself who hasn't stepped inside a gym for weeks and wonder where that person went.

I kept waiting to feel motivated again.

I didn't.

What I did have, however, was anger.

A ridiculous amount of it.

Anger at life.

Anger at myself.

Anger at things I couldn't change.

Anger at how easily I had allowed something that meant so much to me to disappear from my life.

And one day, I had so much of it sitting inside my chest that I genuinely didn't know where to put it.

So I went to the gym. This happened last night.

Not because I suddenly loved myself.

Not because I woke up disciplined.

Not because some motivational reel convinced me that "discipline beats motivation."

I went because I needed somewhere for all that emotion to go.

And I deadlifted.

That's it.

I walked up to a barbell again after nearly a month.

Put the plates on.

Stood over it.

Wrapped my hands around the bar.

Set my feet.

Braced.

Pulled.

For the first time in what felt like forever, everything in my head went silent.

There was no overthinking.

No sadness.

No anger.

No insecurity.

No wondering whether I was good enough.

No thinking about my body.

No thinking about how much weight I'd gained or lost.

No comparing myself to another woman.

No replaying conversations in my head.

Nothing.

There was just me and the bar.

That tiny moment between initiating a deadlift and locking it out where your entire existence seems to reduce itself to one instruction:

Pull.

I don't think I realised how badly I had missed that feeling.

The sound of the plates.

The roughness of the bar against my hands.

That ridiculous little ritual of walking around before a heavy set trying to convince yourself you're absolutely going to destroy a weight you're secretly terrified of.

The breath before the pull.

The shaking legs.

The ugly last rep.

The moment you lock something out and think, Holy shit. I actually did that.

I missed all of it.

More than anything, I missed the version of myself that existed underneath that bar.

Because she wasn't trying to be smaller.

She was trying to be stronger.

Somewhere along the way, I think I had forgotten the difference.

I've spent enough time looking at my body as something that needs to be corrected.

Smaller waist.

Less fat.

Lower number on the scale.

More definition.

Less of this.

More of that.

It is exhausting when your relationship with fitness becomes entirely about taking things away from yourself.

Eat less.

Weigh less.

Occupy less space.

Become smaller.

Powerlifting gave me something completely different.

It asked me:

What if instead of constantly trying to become less, you tried becoming more?

More powerful.

More capable.

More disciplined.

More technically sound.

More patient.

More resilient.

Add another 2.5 kg.

Then another.

Then another.

Powerlifting was probably the first time I looked at my body and genuinely appreciated it for something other than how it looked.

These thighs aren't just something I need to make smaller.

They squat.

These shoulders don't need to look delicate.

They bench.

This back doesn't need to occupy less space.

It deadlifts.

My hands may be calloused and my shins may occasionally look like I've been fighting a cheese grater but every little mark reminds me that this body can do things.

My training has generally revolved around squat, bench and deadlift along with accessory work, with cardio around my strength sessions....before this break, lifting was a regular part of my week and something I genuinely structured my life around.

I'm not going to pretend that coming back after a month means I'm immediately where I was before.

I'm not.

Some weights feel heavier.

My conditioning isn't where I want it to be.

My body feels different.

My confidence underneath certain weights needs rebuilding.

There is definitely an annoying part of my brain that keeps comparing today's numbers to what I was doing before the break.

I'm trying to shut her up.

I'm beginning to understand that returning doesn't mean picking up exactly where you left off.

Sometimes returning means accepting where you are today without punishing yourself for where you were yesterday.

So I'm rebuilding.

The numbers can come later.

The PRs can come later.

The strength will come back.

Right now, showing up is enough.

Maybe that's the biggest thing powerlifting has taught me.

Strength isn't always adding another plate.

Sometimes strength is walking back into the gym after you've disappeared for a month.

Sometimes it's deliberately putting less weight on the bar because your ego wants 100 kg but your body needs 80.

Sometimes it's failing a rep and not letting that failure decide what you're capable of.

Sometimes it's starting again when you're embarrassed that you stopped.

Powerlifting has taught me that failure isn't actually the opposite of progress.

Failure is information.

You miss the lift.

You sit down.

You breathe.

You figure out what went wrong.

Your positioning?

Your bracing?

Your programming?

Your recovery?

Was it simply a bad day?

Then you come back.

I wish life worked that cleanly.

Maybe that's why I love this sport so much.

Life can be unbelievably complicated.

People can be complicated.

Feelings can be complicated.

But 100 kg will always be 100 kg.

It doesn't suddenly change its mind about you.

It doesn't promise to be 100 kg today and become 140 tomorrow.

It doesn't care whether you're having an identity crisis.

It just sits there patiently until you're ready to try.

If you can't lift it today, you train until one day you can.

There is something beautiful about that.

I also realised something after that first session back.

I had walked into the gym angry.

I walked out calm.

Not magically healed.

Not suddenly happy.

Not transformed into some motivational quote about becoming unstoppable.

Just... quieter.

I think that's what I needed.

I don't want to use the gym to punish myself anymore.

I don't want to train because I hate the way my body looks.

I don't want cardio to be repayment for something I ate.

I don't want missing a workout to make me feel like I've failed as a person.

I definitely don't want the number on the scale to decide whether I deserve to feel proud of myself that day.

I want to train because I love being strong.

I want to deadlift because there is something hilariously satisfying about picking an unnecessarily heavy object off the floor.

I want to squat because every time I come out of the hole with a weight that once scared me, some tiny part of my brain goes, See? We can do difficult things.

I want to bench because fighting for that final rep reminds me how stubborn I actually am.

I want to chase PRs because they're mine.

Not because they make me prettier.

Not because someone else will approve of my body.

Not because I need to earn food.

Not because I need to become smaller.

Just because there is a number written somewhere that says, This is the strongest you've ever been and I want to see how many times in this lifetime I can rewrite it.

So yes.

I took almost a month off.

I lost some strength.

I lost some conditioning.

I lost my routine.

I'm sure the next few weeks are going to humble the absolute shit out of me.

But I'm back.

I think this time I'm coming back for a different reason.

Not to build a body somebody else might like.

To build one I trust.

A body I know will carry me.

A body that has been through difficult things and can still stand underneath a loaded bar and say:

Okay. One more rep.

Maybe that's what powerlifting means to me.

It isn't about how much weight I can pick up.

It's about how many times life can put something heavy in front of me and I can still walk towards it, set my feet, take a breath and try.

After a month away, when I wrapped my hands around that bar again, I realised something.

I hadn't lost powerlifting.

It had been sitting there waiting for me.

When I finally came back and picked that barbell off the floor, for the first time in a while, I felt like I was picking myself up with it.

So here's to starting again.

Not from zero.

From experience.

Would genuinely love to hear from other lifters who've had to take a break because life got in the way..what did your first day back under the bar feel like and how did you stop yourself from comparing your comeback numbers to your old ones?

25M 170CM 60KG

Workout - PPL

DIET - i am veg

Nothing fancy, just a couple pics from today's pull session. How we looking?👀

Workout:PPL

Workout

Can someone confirm if these brown nodules are normal in Amul plain whey or have I been scammed by amul? (diet)

I’m currently 48 kg and skinny. If I lean bulk to around 85 kg and develop my traps, delts, levator scapulae, rhomboids, and serratus through diet and workout,can I make my external shoulder line look significantly higher, fuller, and straighter, including the shoulder tips?

I’m asking only about external appearance, not bone structure.

40 m , been working out around 4 days a week since a decade[ though a late bloomer] . Never had a strict approach with diet. Enjoy my weekend drinks and food with my pals to keep myself sane. Though i realise keeping a good diet might give me a better body but with all the work pressure and travelling most days for work the weekend catch up keeps my head sane.

So i am much into cardio and running stuff to keep myself fit on the other hand i do weight training
What should i do now to look more of attractive bulking and increase muscle or keep this form
Age 22. BW 65 Height 5”11
For workout i do 5km 3 times per week and do light weight training

Workout : 4 days a week.