2024 Training/ Exercise Goals

[GlasgowJock]

A slightly more nuanced title this year as a chunk of us lifetime intermediates/ strength enthusiasts probably just lift to stave off the inevitable decline towards death rather than progress, compete etc (don't think I've trained since Sept' 2020 tbh).

I've steadily gotten - more - fatter the past 6 months due to #reasons; tipping the scales at ~245lb with a 39in waist at a mere 5ft 9in this isn't a great place to be for a bloke in his late 30s.

I'm not really looking to push my lifts further though would like to increase total volume as I've been doing the bare minimum to maintain my top end strength. I'd like to drop 30-40lb again in bodyfat and rock a more comfortable 35in waist as I was ~3 years ago.

What about everyone else?

[OverheadDeadlifts]

Feet up bench 3 plates
Deadlift 250kg for a double
Pin squat 3 plates for 12 reps
Close CoC no3
Find an old school 20kg plate to try and officially hub lift it

[DCR]

Be less fat. If I'm being honest, it's really the only goal that actual matters. How much less fat? A stomach that doesn't exceed my chest. I dgaf about whatever numbers that may mean.

[AuthenticWacky]

Current relevant stats: 5'5", 165, 35-ish waist, 235 bench. 2024 goals:

33” waist
Arm size +1”
Under 160 pounds BW
2xBW Front Squat/SSB/high bar back squat
275 bench press
20 chin-ups/pull-ups
Running - at least 2 of these
- 25:00 5k
- 7:30 mile
- 12:00 1.5 mile
Rowing
- 1:45/500m
- 8:00/2k

[omaniphil]

I always do one of these, and then never follow through. Hopefully this is the year!

I successfully un-fatted myself this past year, pretty effortlessly dropping from 290lbs to 225lbs (with the help of tirzepatide). I'm about 15lbs away from my goal weight of 210, and am currently losing about a pound a week. I currently have a 39.5" waist, and I'm hoping at 210 it will be closer to 38", which I would find acceptable.

I've been training regularly for the past year for the first time in quite some time, but since I've been on a heavy cut, I've mostly gone without a plan, and just trying to hit volume to keep as much LBM as possible. My upper body strength levels have plummeted, but I've mostly kept my squat and deadlift level during the cut.

My most recent lifts I went:
Squats: 6 sets of 3 315lbs @8
Deadlifts 3 sets of 5 365lbs @9
OHP 5 sets of 5 135lbs @8
BP 5 sets of 5 185lbs @8

Once I hit the goal, I intend to start a program, but haven't decided what. Probably one of the Nuckols programs like AtS 2.0 which I already have. I also intend to start logging here daily, which I definitely haven't done regularly in some years.

[5hout]

I don't know what my specific goals are, but I need to make weight loss, cardio and "health" a priority. Today I went back through some of my old lifting notes and holy shit, was I optimistic about my ability to bulk and then cut. 4 years later I've fat AF, but have shown 0 ability to cut since having kids. So I need to work on that. OTOH, my shoulders/arms have more definition as a fat 235 than they had at 185/195/205, so at least something worked partially.

0. Have fun lifting/cutting which for me means be a diet obsessed nutter. All my best gains/cuts/fencing/everything has come when I've allowed myself to be an annoying crazed nutter about stuff. In retrospect I'd rather by a lean(er) bore than fat and jolly.

1. Cut to under 200 again. Ideally I'd like to cut to under 190, but we'll see. I'm planning on hunting N. Manitou island with some people, and it's basically "we drop you off and pick you up a week later, have fun mofos!", so I need to be a relatively lean 'n' mean fighting machine for that weight wise.

2. Cardio 4-5 times per week. I think my goal is 208 cardio session this year. I did 30m of sled dragging yesterday and 20m rowing today, so 206 sessions to go!

3. Chin ups. If I can get back under 200 I'm pretty sure I'll magically regain the ability to do chin ups, but I'd like to get back and surpass old "record" so maybe 3x8 with a reasonable break by end of year?

4. Focus lifting on upper back, shoulders and lower back. I think weak upper back/shoulders is actually a source of a lot of problems I've had in squats/deadlifts, and so correcting this should help if I want to go for SBD records in 2025 (at a lower BW).

5. Based on how fat I got and how hard it has been for me to rebuild my healthy/lean eating habits I think I need to cut and then recomp/wheel spin, I'd rather fail via not getting bigger muscles than getting fatter going forward so I guess goal #5 is recomp if I can cut to 190. I'd note that if I walk around at 190-193, I can consider competing (a long term goal) at -183 with a very reasonable water cut, whereas when I was walking around at 185 or 205 I was in a terribly suboptimal spot for this. I fully admit to this being stupid, but I think about it.

[SeeMac]

Easily attainable goals
- 315 Front Squat
- 300 Bench
- 200 OHP
- 365 Back Squat
- 500 deadlift
- 645 trap bar
- +170 weighted chin
- Bulk to 215
- develop a cardio routine

Stretch Goals
- 365 Front Squat
- 315 Bench
- 225 OHP
- 405 Squat
- 545 deadlift
- 675 trap bar
- one arm chinup

[EggMcMuffin]

21 minute 5K (possibly attainable, run one in 24-25 minutes on a good day, haven't really trained for speed)

Run another marathon

PR Half Marathon (so beat 1:54)

Drop down to 155lbs

Deadlift 405 1x5 (probably going to be hard given that I'm turning into a skeleton again)

Bench press regularly enough that I can get to a bodyweight 3x12 (so mostly likely 155 3x12) fairly casually

IDK I feel like I should get into rock climbing this year some veteran rock climber (old Chinese hippie lady lmao) tried to sell me on it in March she was like "you're small and strong you'd probably be really good at it"

[Hanley]

Context:
I hurt my elbow going for a 440 tng bench single in late 2022 & I somehow fucked my back around the same time, so much of 2023 was spent spinning wheels, doing rehab and maintaining baseline strength.

I think I’m ready for some performance metric goals for 2024, though.

1. Bench 440-450 ( I was reeeeaaaallly fucking close to getting 440. This is 430 for reference:

2. Lifetime Dead PR (currently 608#). I think this should be pretty doable. I just haven’t pushed for a PR in years. I’m working on new mechanics (pulling with a VERY rounded t-spine) and it feels like cheating. Cheater-mechanics + TRT (actual trt doses, bitches) should yield some pretty big results.


3. Unfuck cardio-respiratory health. I’m so out of shape. Must change that.

4. Cut from 220 to 205-210 (wouldn’t be hard…but goals 1 & 2 make it a bit tricky).

[KarlM]

Squat 200 kg, pull 500 lbs again, and bench 300 lbs all under 180 lbs bodyweight.

[houzi]

Well I have successfully managed to never quite achieve any goals i set in all of these goal threads, so im going to keep it very conservative.
1. Dont get injured/more injured
2. Chip all my best ever SBD 1RMs by +2.5kg. This would give me a 240kg Squat, 182.5kg Bench and 252.5kg Deadlift. Lets see how this plays out....

[AlanMackey]

Context:
I hurt my elbow going for a 440 tng bench single in late 2022 & I somehow fucked my back around the same time, so much of 2023 was spent spinning wheels, doing rehab and maintaining baseline strength.

I think I’m ready for some performance metric goals for 2024, though.

1. Bench 440-450 ( I was reeeeaaaallly fucking close to getting 440. This is 430 for reference:

2. Lifetime Dead PR (currently 608#). I think this should be pretty doable. I just haven’t pushed for a PR in years. I’m working on new mechanics (pulling with a VERY rounded t-spine) and it feels like cheating. Cheater-mechanics + TRT (actual trt doses, bitches) should yield some pretty big results.


3. Unfuck cardio-respiratory health. I’m so out of shape. Must change that.

4. Cut from 220 to 205-210 (wouldn’t be hard…but goals 1 & 2 make it a bit tricky).

I noticed you use a somewhat close-ish grip (I do too). Why is that?

In my case it's because my shoulders feel better this way.

[quikky]

Can move this into a separate topic if needed, but curious how some of you guys got on TRT. Did you have a lot of symptoms, was it just some low T blood work, was it secretly a hope to improve lifting? Been seeing more and more guys using it and was curious how it typically came about medically.

[EricK]

1. Start lifting again (which I will arbitrarily quantify as completing at least 6 weeks of a training plan, more is obviously better). Outcome goal of getting back to 2/3/4/5 lifts by the end of the year.

2. Unfat myself. Outcome goal is getting under 190 and staying there for at least 6 weeks. Ideally I'd like to be in the low 180s or even in the 170s. May interfere with the above goal but I think this one is more important.

3. Get serious about guitar playing (arbitrarily defined as 6 weeks of consistent practice and practice journaling/reflecting). Outcome goal of the ability to play and sing at least a dozen songs by the end of the year.

I have some others I put in my log that may not be achievable this year given the above goals, but they should provide motivation to keep training throughout this year and hopefully into the next.

[Hanley]

I noticed you use a somewhat close-ish grip (I do too). Why is that?

In my case it's because my shoulders feel better this way.

It's a workaround to avoid pain from old shoulder injuries. BUT, the narrow grip was probably what aggravated my elbow, so I changed mechanics to a wider grip and I'm doing a bunch of shoulder prehab shit now

[Hanley]

Can move this into a separate topic if needed, but curious how some of you guys got on TRT. Did you have a lot of symptoms, was it just some low T blood work, was it secretly a hope to improve lifting? Been seeing more and more guys using it and was curious how it typically came about medically.

Honestly, I was just curious about the potential benefits (and my superpower is that I can willfully suspend awareness of any risk [I also ride motorcycles without a helmet and my carry weapons don't have safeties]).

[quikky]

Can move this into a separate topic if needed, but curious how some of you guys got on TRT. Did you have a lot of symptoms, was it just some low T blood work, was it secretly a hope to improve lifting? Been seeing more and more guys using it and was curious how it typically came about medically.

Honestly, I was just curious about the potential benefits (and my superpower is that I can willfully suspend awareness of any risk [I also ride motorcycles without a helmet and my carry weapons don't have safeties]).

Have you noticed benefits?

[Hanley]

Can move this into a separate topic if needed, but curious how some of you guys got on TRT. Did you have a lot of symptoms, was it just some low T blood work, was it secretly a hope to improve lifting? Been seeing more and more guys using it and was curious how it typically came about medically.

Honestly, I was just curious about the potential benefits (and my superpower is that I can willfully suspend awareness of any risk [I also ride motorcycles without a helmet and my carry weapons don't have safeties]).

Have you noticed benefits?

Oh, certainly. Let’s spare this thread & shift to DMs though.

[AlanMackey]

I noticed you use a somewhat close-ish grip (I do too). Why is that?

In my case it's because my shoulders feel better this way.

It's a workaround to avoid pain from old shoulder injuries. BUT, the narrow grip was probably what aggravated my elbow, so I changed mechanics to a wider grip and I'm doing a bunch of shoulder prehab shit now

Oooooh... fuck!

[ChasingCurls69]

Last year I got close to squat and deadlift goals, but not quite there, with a 430 squat and 645 deadlift.

I think this year I'd like to squat 450, pull 661, PR my bench press in a meet, and do 5 strict ring muscle ups unbroken.