Luis Alves Fitness

Nearly 500 (currently on 495) days ago I had a brilliant idea 💡, why don't I workout everyday?!
And so I did...

What it thought me:

Our bodies can do way more than we believe! We all have self limiting beliefs and there is some fear mongering towards anything that escapes "normality".

I wasn't ready for the amount of calories this would require, initially I dropped nearly 10kg just from my energy expenditure being higher than my appetite, took a bit to adjust and for me to figure out intuitively how much food I needed.

It challenged my as a trainer to program this in a way that would enable enough recovery and allow for progression. I wanted to progress on olympic lifts and quickly understood my hips were taking a long time to recover to the point having a jerk day (with accessories) wasn't allowing me to sn**ch deeply as my hips were always tired.

There is somewhat of a debate around what is overreaching and overtraining, if they exist, what they actually are Vs what we say they are and so on. I have to say I've never experienced this amount of prolonged fatigue, it's way more than when doing a typical strength block, as it doesn't fade, at some point I had to hit 2 deload weeks in a row to regain some comfort. Despite all of this fatigue, I managed to have good workouts, after warming up sometimes I would be perfectly fine, some other times the first lift wouldn't be great as my CNS wasn't rested enough for the effort and rarely was I too tired for accessories, actually many times I make progress on accessories when I'm fatigued to improve my main movement, it's a trend for my body, do you experience the same?

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#500

Good morning! 🤘

Everyone wants to be better, nobody wants to put in work, to go through moments of effort and to struggle, what else is new

Instant gratification is probably not the way, but if that's your drug, you do you

Day 218 of working out everyday, drive to workout is high, food requirements are higher, we keep going forward ♈

Working out helps greatly those with louder minds, by doing so your neurotransmitters balance is forced to change, your mind is forced into the present moment and the task at hand, it's of great help to those with light to moderate anxiety and depression.

Sometimes simply walking, breathing and keeping your phone away can do the trick.

Stay calm, stay balanced, stay healthy 🤙🧘‍♂️

(And don't take my word for it, do your own research 😁)

Have you been struggling with reaching your goals? Let me help you!

Let's address what's causing you to fall short of your goals and start taking steps in the right direction.

Drop me a DM if you would like to know more!

Has been the motto for the past month and a half

Tackling other physical challenges due to the pandemicopolitic situation

222 and 225. Both PRs 🎉

Despite signaling I was done after 225 due to the influence of my friend I decided to challenge my body's feedback and go for 227, it came off the floor but I was too tired to finish it.

There wouldn't be a video of it anyways, so it's not like it would even be a real PR 😅

Next block I'll show the dark side and pull sumo with straps. I'm naturally weaker on sumo... trying to balance both while I give my body a rest from this loading angle.

132,5 and 135, both PRs 🎉

Next block I'll be pause benching as my main horizontal lift

Mindset is getting serious when you quote Louie Simmons...

Not sure if I should rant about fellow trainers and coaches that workout without programming or with improper programming for their goals or not... Guess I already did a bit

Have an awesome day and double down on your programming everyone

190 and 195. Both PRs! 🎉

Depth on 195 a bit meh, but I'll take it.

The less resistance to this statement the healthier the human. Or so I think

Quote from Kingdom of Heaven

Have a nice day everyone! 🤗

"You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like." 😅

It always made more sense to me to bulk slowly and for a longer period of time than to do an yearly yo-yo. Although temperature can play a role on an yearly variance of food intake, it doesn't actually compare to a forced bulk and/or cut.

Bulking slowly also allows your body to adapt to your heavier weight and higher food intake progressively instead of just slapping several kgs of fat on top of it, which besides unhealthy serves no purpose.

Do you need to bulk to build muscle? No
Do you optimize your recovery and performance by bulking? Yes

Fat also seems to be secondary in terms of health when compared to exercise, by this I mean, active obese people have better health indicators than sedentary lean people.

This is not a recommendation to bulk until you're obese, it's simply that bulking is useful if you have an healthy relationship with food (emotional and situational triggers) and have performance goals/ want to improve as fast as possible as a strength trainee.

The whole post is written from a about strength performance and muscle building perspective.

The photo wasn't edited, duh 😂

💪

What's important to you?

With limited time and energy I feel it's important we understand what's important for us, what's meaningful or what gives us purpose or meaning and devote ourselves to it, for "tomorrow" might be too late...

Have a nice one! 🙏

Quote by Albert Einstein

First, you got to love yourself

So you want to achieve this and that, help others, have a significant impact on someone's life, save the world... But do you even love yourself? All answers are truly within, people and situations are just what's needed for you to reach them.

If you want to leave the world a better place or at least in the same state you found it, and not worse, you have to love yourself, otherwise you'll just shower everyone with your unpolished and often times unwanted energy.

This is not about being always happy... Everyone feels happiness and sadness, they are just emotions, don't cling on to them, let them go, focus on how you can love yourself instead. Sometimes you might need to discipline your mind, other times to cut off some of your slack, other times to set boundaries and another times to indulge on some activity you've been putting off.
If you have trouble knowing when to do what, think about what would I want for someone I love. If you end up a mess it's because your mindset and priorities weren't balanced/wise enough, try again, as far as I'm concerned maybe you're alive for this very pursuit.
Whatever the case may be, keep moving, your life is only going forward...

You'll find yourself, you'll find your balance... or you'll breathe without finding anything at all

You, you and a bit more you

Although we're not all as blessed mentally, physically, emotionally, materially, etc You're accountable for your life, your happiness and your everything else

Find your truth, reach further, be happy.

Have a nice one everyone! 🙌