Month: August 2012

I’ve been playing Dark Souls and brought up a character to about level 60, specializing in strength, vitality, and endurance. My character is gimped and now I have to reroll.

The reason is that every weapon in the game is effective. The tradeoff is between size and speed basically. Furthermore, you can use every weapon without specializing in a primary attribute anyway just by upgrading it to lightning or fire, which removes stat scaling.

If your primary attribute is strength or dexterity, slightly increased damage for those weapon types is all it is good for. If you specialize in faith or intelligence instead, you get the slightly increased damage too, and CAN USE MAGIC WHICH PUTS THE GAME IN EASY MODE.

1. Most enemies are vulnerable at range.
2. You are at risk in close
3. Weapon primary attributes are evenly distributed among the types of weapons available.
4. Strength and dexterity provide no other benefit

Conclusion: You’d be foolish to specialize in strength or dexterity because you can no longer effectively use magic but still have access to the same weapons

Resistance is just a useless stat, when compared to the same attribute point in vitality, endurance, intelligence, or faith

The only equipment I have is adjustable dumbells, a tree with a low branch for pullups, and a fitness ball. This is what I do on a typical workout:

Start with lateral and front deltoid raises, sometimes combined
Pullups
Bench press or Chest fly
Biceps Curl
Kneeling one arm row
Upright row, sometimes continue into a shoulder press
Sometimes triceps extensions
Wrist twist
Arnold press, usually replacing one set of shoulder press
Shoulder shrugs

On off-days I may do
Side / front plank, passball
Pushups
Ab rollouts on the ball
Back extensions
Burpees

For legs I do interval training sprints and ride a mountain bike. If I use weights it is with deadlifts and lunges. However, the weights are too light so I usually have to go to the gym to really work my legs.

I’ve stopped working with trainers after 3 years of not seeing results (*). I originally bought the Powerblock dumbells for home use as they were only $250. However, due to the shape you can’t grip them to do high-weight pullovers. I returned them and bought Bowflex 552s for about $300. The dial makes them easy to adjust. I also bought a Powerblock branch bench just because it was the floor model, about $150, and they are all basically the same.

7/19/12 these were a few of my numbers:
Dumbell bench press: 40
Dumbell biceps Curl: 25
Dumbell shoulder press: 25
Pullover: 40
Side plank: 40 seconds

8/16/12 these are my numbers:
Dumbell bench press: 50
Dumbell biceps Curl: 30
Dumbell shoulder press: 30
Pullover: 45
Side plank: 60 seconds

Similar results for other exercises. Except for the pullover I got a 20% strength increase in one month by taking over my own training.

(*) With my first trainer, at one point I could do a 60 pound biceps curl 5 times. However, I was injured every month. After the last serious injury that took me out for 6 weeks I stopped using him. With the second trainer we’d do 3 warmup sets, conservative weights, and spend the whole hour on a few muscle groups, hitting each group about once a week. However, after 2 years I was no stronger than when I started. I need to workout my entire upper body every workout and to keep going up in weight. to see results.