Gaining Levels

Since joining Fitocracy a few weeks ago, I've risen to level 15 with about 23,000 points. It has been fun to have a place to log workouts, although it can be a bit time consuming if you aren't smart about saving common routines. The point awards are definitely unbalanced in favor of heavy lifting, but it’s still nice to receive some sort of reward doing workouts. I've starting using a more free weight in my workouts to add variety and earn extra points. I like body-weight exercises for their accessibility, difficulty that scales to body size and relatively low injury potential, but it is hard to find substitutes for certain exercises like squats. If you want really strong legs, you kind of have to move some heavy weight around.



I've been starting off slow to avoid straining myself too much and make sure my form is in good order. So far, I'm up to 250 on my deadlift, 210 on my squat and 205 on my bench press. Since I have no spotter and don't have a proper power rack (re-racking weight after squats takes a fair bit of control over the weight), I'm not planning to raise my squats. I'll mostly look to increase reps. I don't plan to bench on a regular basis, since I don't want a huge chest and find pushups and dips to be adequate for the most part. High maximum strength is less valuable to me than having a good amount of strength per pound and good stamina.