My current workout life is going well.
I've actually reduce my bench press from 50 down to about 45 because I got myself a new bar which is a bit wider, and it turns out having the proper width grip is remarkably more difficult.
Also, the theme for February for me is improving my form, which involves more range of motion, making each rep quite a bit more difficult.
But overall I thought my home routine was pretty great, and covered all bases.
Reviewing my options and seeking perhaps more efficient alternatives to maximise... muscle profits? (I don't have gym bro lingo), I came across 'rear delts'.
Wtf are rear delts?
Turns out we humans have muscles on the back of our bodies too. I was unfamiliar with this concept and assumed it was just a layer of skin on a plate of bones back there.
Rear delts are some oft-ignored muscles on the back of our shoulders.
Well, I casually added some 'Rear Delt Flies' to my routine and dear god was I in for a shock!
While my bench presses are approaching mid-beginner levels that could kill me if I dropped it on myself, and my bicep curls were approaching 20kg per arm, this new workout exposed me for the fraud I am.
I STRUGGLED with four kg on each arm. It just so happens my rear delt muscles are indistinguishable from wet tissue paper. Pathetic!
It was in this moment I had a huge epiphany. These muscles had been abandoned my whole life and with devastating consequences that have rippled out for decades.
I remember in my early 20's, my very first gym membership. Everything was going well until I did this one gym machine that, now in hindsight I know, targeted these same rear delts. I remember it explicitly because I was shocked that I could barely do 5kg while the other workouts seemed like normal human amounts. Why was I struggling so much??
Nevermind, I quit soon after because a Korean guy came up to try and be my friend to learn English. F*** that sh*t.
Now, 15 years or so later, I pay attention to myself enough to notice the exact same problem is still there.
And you know what has been a massive burden on my life the entire time?
When younger as a teen, I remember struggling to sit up. It was a genuine struggle that ached, so I'd slump over. I couldn't do the whole sitting on the floor thing at Japanese restaurants and such. I hated picnics trying to sit without something to lean back on.
Then my spine's discs slipped in my early 30's and I had to take things more seriously, sorted a lot of it out. But to be honest, the damage was already done at this point and seeing myself in the mirror, I can see my shoulders are all rolled forwards, one is higher and wider than the other.
When I wear a suit, I see my tie never quite aligns, something I once put down to dodgy cheap shirts or my inability to tie ties properly.
Now I can't escape it. It's all I think about. And the final missing piece has been put in place: My rear delts.
By building those completely abandoned muscles (along with even more forgotten ones in between the shoulder blades, the 'Rhomboids' which I guess I'll look into next), it helps roll my shoulders back to where they belong and basically fixing almost everything at a base level that I've struggled with forever.
You really have to have just given up on health entirely in life like I have to not have noticed such a thing. I'm grateful that I'm turning it all around now, but damn I wish I was more self-aware of these things 10 or 15 years ago.
So yeah, hopefully by Summer I'll have my posture vastly improved and I might walk around like a normal human for once. (tbh I don't think anyone notices; it's a lot more subtle than I'm making out, but still, I do ache... all the time)
ADvice from a middle-aged man: GO TO THE GYM
