-- Weightlifting & Nutrition Thread -- v9.0 Optimized

Arent you supposed to constantly stimulate your body, trying to prevent it to adapt, by switching up the exercises and doing multiple variations?

More bodybuilding nonsense, imo. I suppose that method is effective in gaining MUSCLE SIZE. But muscle size does not = strong muscles. If you want to get good at something, you do that specific movement.

Olympic weightlifters don’t decide to “switch it up” and do retarded lateral dumbbell raises when they feel like their body has “adapted” to clean and jerking. And I doubt powerlifters switch up from squat to useless ass leg presses cuz they’re stagnating on their number

If you think your body is adapting, add more weight, do more reps, do more sets, don’t do some useless variation of that exercise. More volume, more intensity, different rep scheme, etc, etc.

It’s really no secret: to increase your number in any lift, do heavy weight (80-90%1 rep max), low reps (3-5), super intensity, DONT GO TO FAILURE AND OVERTRAIN, and, most importantly, proper eating + lots of rest to let your CNS recover.

Although I respect your opinion (everyone responds differently to different work outs), I dont think your opinion on sticking with one excersize and no variations will help EVERYBODY. Maybe some people, but not others.

As for me, I use to have access to a gym for a few months where I would do incline, widespread, decline, and normal benchpress. Of course at home I’d do push ups as well. Right now I just use my home gym and I’m too lazy to reset the bench angles and have had a strict flat bench routine for quite some time.

My bench press shot up a lot more at the gym then it did at home. (i stopped working out for a few months after i lost access to the gym and was VERY ill for another month or so. My bench press ended up being slightly above from when i started at the gym) I have not been able to match my results whatsoever. I use the same Rep/Set routine and have the same diet.

IMO doing different variations on excersizes like incline/widespread/decline/butterflies builds an overall even and strong chest. Having a stronger upper, lower, and middle chest helps keep the bar FIRM in place and strays away from “flying.” This results in a better form and an increase in proper muscle gain. Not to mention it helps prevent injuries also.

You can also apply simple physics. When dealing with any structure, how can you make it stronger? By giving more support around it.

However, I do agree with low rep and high weight routines for max gain. Its just that anytime dealing with heavy weight, form starts to go bad. Strengthining other areas of your chest will obviously help with that, and we all know proper form is the best way to build any type of strength

question, if i can hold a hand stand and do maybe 1 or 2 handstand push ups as well as some planche push ups should i be able to bench my own body weight or more?

i havent lifted in years…i used to lift near or above my body weight. Now i dropped weight lifting cuz i’m poor but i keep up with my gymnastics and martial arts stuff and wonder if it has helped me develop more so i can lift past it. but i havent touched benching in years.

Actually, what I said will just about help out ANYONE who wants to gain strength. The principle is simple: you want to get good at something, you do it til you get good at it. 100m sprinters do short burst running; they don’t do 10 km marathons. They don’t do 400 m relay. They don’t do hurdles. They do 100 m sprint. Olympic weightlifters who want to snatch better do snatch. They don’t do military presses. They don’t do lateral raises. They don’t do front raises. I’ve never read powerlifting article on achieving big bench numbers that suggested you should do triceps kickbacks and skullcrushers to help strengthen the “base”. They’ve never suggested doing rediculous exercises like decline and incline either. The only time you’ll ever hear of those exercises being mentioned is from a bodybuilding article or magazine.

Gee, don’t you think that “few months” of not working out, on top of a month of being “VERY ill” might have had something to do with your decrease in strength?:rolleyes:

No offense, and I don’t mean to be a dick, but once you start talking about nonsense like upper pecs and lower pecs, you sort of lose all strength training credibility. This is the type of talk that you’ll only ever hear from serious bodybuilders, and those guys aren’t exactly known for their big lift numbers, despite their size. You’ll never hear nonsense like upper pecs/lower pecs/upper triceps/lower triceps/ rear delts/front dealts from serious powerlifters, strongmen, and Oly lifters.

The thing with a big lift like benchpress is that it’s already a compound movement; any muscles that needs to be called into lifting the weight will get its share of work. So for you to spend an hour doing triceps kick backs and triceps extension, thinking it’ll improve your bench number is just flat out inefficient. Any time you spent doing those exercises should have been spent on either a) doing more benching, or b) getting enough rest). Besides, deadlift is infinitely superior exercise to do if you want to increase your bench.

And once again, the poster was asking how to improve his bench number, not how to put more muscle mass on his chest. They’re two different things.

No man, heavyweights don’t encourage bad forms. Weights you can’t handle encourages bad form. There’s a big difference. 80-90% of your 1 rep max means 80-90% of your 1 rep max that you can do with good form.

Er, a handstand calls for very little chest muscle. It’s mostly triceps, shoulders, ab/core stability and balance. It’s really hard to determine your bench number based on your hand stand strength.

Gymnastic is amazing for bodyweight/functional strength, but lifting heavy ass weight is something else entirely different. From what I remember reading in some articles, Olympic gymnasts, despite having insane bodyweight strength, don’t exactly have big lift numbers.

Best way to find out what you’re benching is… well, bench.

How do I get rid of love handles? I’ve been eating good and doing random exercises, but I can’t get rid of these damn things. They aren’t bad, but I know they’re there and it drives me nuts.

The thread Search function isn’t working for me right now, so if this has already been answered, just redirect me to the answer.

well I’m not expert but I’ve been reading this thread enough to know most people here are gonna tell you this:

you can’t target where you lose weight. so instead of random exercise you need to start doing it regularly and doing some type of cardio is going to help too. and of course eating good, but you said you’re already doing that.

Truong… I am not spouting body building nonsense when I talk about alternating exercise (conjugate training)… that is the philosophy of the Westside Barbell club… and they have been (still are?) unrivaled in producing the strongest power lifters around…

Not to the extent as some have mentioned here, but they do alternate…
so for example, for ME lower body, they would alternate between squats, deadlifts and good morning, and to add even more alternatives, they would use chains and bands, different starting positions etc…

Definately agree that Max Effort exercises (80-100%) would produce the highest results in strength as opposed to the body building high rep type of exercise… but for smaller people/beginners, it is necessary to build hypertrophy (low weight, high rep) while strengthening the muscles (high weight, low rep)… and so a combination of the two would be optimal…

Another aspect of the Westside Barbell “regimen” is that in order to improve your lifts, you are going to have to target your weak spots.
"A great example of this is the bench press. Lets suppose your triceps have the ability to bench 300 pounds, but your shoulders can only handle 250. How much do you think you will bench? I will guess and say 250. Now, if you bring up your shoulders to match your triceps, how much will you bench? Probably 300"
And this is where the “accessory” body building type exercise come in… to fortify your weaknesses (Doing too much ME exercises will take its toll)…

i can’t bench for shit, maybe i should incorporate a coupole of weeks of truongs back to basics training. Then again i dont really train for strength, although it’s always nice to have

Well, when you put it like that, it’s a world of difference. When you said variations, I cringed and thought you meant variations such as upright rows, “rear delts” triceps kickback, 500 variation of curls, and calf raises lol. Typical bodybuilding crap.

I think we’re both misunderstanding each other, but preaching the same thing.

There’s a difference between doing varying bench pressing with chains and bands, and varying bench pressing with something useless like flies, cable cross overs and shit. You know what I mean? Benching with chains and resistance band is still benching. It’s gonna build crazy strength. Doing flies/Cable cross over/decline benching is just useless for strength gains. Doing movements to hit a certain part of a muscle is just ridiculous.

And I don’t agree with beginners and hypertrophy/low weight, high rep concept. Bill Starr’s 5x5 program is one of the classic program for beginners and it doesn’t preach hypertrophy(going to failure) one bit. It’s the exact opposite, actually.

For ANY new lifter serious about making strength gains/size, read this article. It’ll sway you away from the evil path that is bodybuilding into the right path of strength training: http://www.eclipsegym.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=57

That link should be stickied on the very first page or something. We’ll won’t have new lifters coming in asking “how many useless variations of the EZ Bar curls can I do? And are triceps kickbacks a good exercise (answer: fuck no)”.

Right now it’s June, so most likely since April.

Thanks Truong on your input. :tup:

I think I wanna change my program from size and instead to targeting strength & endurance. Tips and advice? Truong’s outline for chest would give me strength, but what about endurance?

TRUONG SPEAKS THE FUCKING TRUTH

wow, that’s refreshing…

When talking about gaining strength, we are talking neurons folks. The best way to get good at something is by doing it.

And about newbies gaining strength on this program vs. that program…it’s almost inconsequential…Neural adaptations will take place first almost regardless of rep/set schemes. I prefer to start clients off with more rep work to learn the exercises and develop good motor patterns…If I did use fewer rep sets, it would still be with the same 10-12 rep max.

And form doesn’t fall apart when intensity is increased. Hell, when I get set up for benching powerlifting style…I pretty much can’t move anything BUT my arms.

What KIND of endurance. If you want endurance for long, slow, aerobic sports, then just run for distances…increasing distance when necessary…

If training for anaerobic endurance, you have lots of options. But if you want to train for strength exclusively then cutting resting intervals down might be too much to ask. You can always try interval training on a treadmill, or just straight up sprints outside between workouts…You could also do GPP work (general physical preparedness) and complexes between workout days to improve anaerobic conditioning as well.

But it will be pretty taxing trying to pursue strength and endurance concurrently.

Endurance is a pretty broad and vague term man. You need to be more specific. Endurance for what? Sport? What kind of sport? Endurance for every day activities? Endurance for sex? Endurance for the Tour De France? Triathlon?

Ah in that case, you are right… it was a misunderstanding, and we are preaching the same thing…

I forgot to mention, that the accessory hypertrophy exercises are never to be trained until failure… but you may still disagree with it… the source is DeFranco and he has trained many a strong athlete but perhaps I should read the Bill Starr article first…

lol “evil path that is bodybuilding”

Magnus is right… for beginners (like me), any kind of training will illicit a growth/strength response…

Lactic acid tolerance type of endurance, isnt dyanamic lifting good for that? It will also build power

So, the guys who mentioned their bodyweights and benchpresses… thanks, and do you mind mentioning what program/philosophy you guys follow?

I have a question:

Pushups and its variants (wide stance, close, fingers, etc) are they good for someone who wants to get back in shape more and more. Right now my max is like 23 pushups at the moment (not much, but I’m kind of a fat fuck who got into better shape over 4 weeks [from 210 pounds to 195, goal is 180 (I’m 5’10", medium/large frame].

Is there a certain point where pushups stop helping you build muscle mass and instead just keep you toned and trim?

im at 135lbs and my max is 225lbs…

program and philosophy? i have been through a few…i have done the whole 1 body part per day, chest one day, back one day, arms one day, etc…then i also did back/bis, chest/tris, legs program…then i did a freestyle one, where i knew what i was going to work out but i would just randomly select exercises so it would be different everytime…and right now im one of of mangus’ programs…one day is chest and back, arms accessory…next day is legs, rest, repeat, with different exercises on chest/back and legs day 2…i also do accessory work for traps and calves…

for the current program i am on week 1 is 6-8 reps, week 2 is 8 reps, week 3 is 10 reps and week 4 is unloading 5 reps…everything at 3 sets…

i am thoroughly enjoying the program i have been on or rather…the philosophy of the program…so i think i will stick with it…

im outi

Roberth

I think we interpreted the question differently.

“Most of you guys bench well over your body weight, am I doing something wrong to be hitting a low number like that?”

When people bench press, its to improve chest strength. Not too often is it just to show off raw numbers. now considering that he said…

“Speaking of chest, what exercises do you guys do? For me bench press, db press, and incline db press have gotten a bit stale, I need to try something different.”

I wouldn’t think his goals aren’t simply for flatbench pressing. I assume he had the knowledge that its more beneficial ( leaning towards super human abilities) to do different angles. Now he’s just wondering WHY its so low, not necessarily meaning he’ll do anything to get a better bench press even if it means sacrificing his routine.

I guess you could be right in a lot of cases about raw bench pressing strength but i’m sure any “serious” bodybuilders will tell you people respond differently. It just so happens that I responded better with incline, decline, and wide spread. All the variables were the same besides the fact that I only did flat bench at home.

Not everyone speaks theoretically. I am speaking from experience. Thus why i said your mentallity and strict routining will work for some people, but not everybody. Trust me, I sleep the same, eat the same, workout the same, rotate different supplements the same, time everything the same, motivated the same etc. My strength is up in everything except flatbench pressing.

actually the time that i was ill wasn’t even that recent, a year ago i believe. I’m at full health and I’m about the same strength as last year. i’ve been working out consistently for the last few months and still have yet to produce the same quick results. no need to roll eyes. i’m not that stupid to not consider the illness.

Yes, weights you can’t handle encourage bad form. But saying incline and decline doesnt promote good form I’d have to question. Your arms arent a perfect rack that hold the bar perfectly straight, strength is still needed to keep it straight. How does a more solid grip and firm arms not help? Your theory doesn’t superceed physics.

I completely understand where you’re coming from but its a difference in opinion that i don’t think anyone can prove one way is better. I really don’t think too many (certainly not all) people on this board are thinking in goals of becoming an olympic weight lifter either. I guess I just tie the definition of strength, health, and athleticism closely together. Solely sticking to one angle means you’re lacking somewhere else. When training I believe in even development. Thats the best type of strength gain.

Sticking to JUST bench pressing also kind of defeats the purpose of Compound workouts doesnt it? They’re meant to stray away from isolation, why would you want to only work out one part of your chest? Just because you work out the chest, doesnt mean it improves every single aspect of it.

I understand the Olympic weight lifters might train with your mentallity, but with most of people who train, aren’t training for one specific excersize. This is a Weightlifting & nutrition thread, not an Olympic Lifter thread. I don’t frequent this thread so I don’t know this guy on a personal basis and what his goals are. Its just that 80% of people i know train the way I try to.

Hm in that case, I think I’ll try only for endurance right now.

Just every day activities.

Thanks a lot guys, this is some good reading. :tup:

That is an ignorant statement. It doesn’t even make sense. If they are benching for strength then they should be concerned with raw numbers…that’s kinda the point.

No, he’s dead on. You are wrong, and you aren’t even on the same page. He is NOT talking about bodybuilding. So whatever any “serious” bodybuilder says is inconsequential. Why are we argueing over what this guy’s goals are anyway? I think it’s good that a different perspective was tossed into this thread, so if someone reading was thinking of ways to up their bench, they needn’t even ask now.

If you bench, you will get better at benching…how can you argue that? I challenge you to start a rigorous strength program in an effort to bench more weight. It will have you benching weekly…upon completion of that program…stop benching for a few months and watch ur numbers dwindle.

:wtf:

explain a single law of physics that applies to good bench pressing form?

Again…you aren’t on the same page man. We are talking strength…not hypertrophy. Secondly. There is only one chest muscle, with two heads…the sternal and clavicular.