He’s competing in toronto in june?
My training partner is going to be there too.
As will I in fact, just not competing.
Don’t misunderstand…there’s nothing “wrong” with what you are doing…but there is a difference in training for size and training for strength. This is why bodybuilders aren’t close to setting any olympic powerlifting records even though they are freakishly huge. Training in the 4-6/8 rep range will net you gains in both areas but the gains in size won’t be as much if you were training purely for size. Now if you are changing rep ranges on a regular basis then by all means what you are doing is great. As ur body adapts to rep schemes faster than anything else.
Now about the bicep sets and all…I’m trying not to focus as much on “feel” cuz on a good day when I’m on the juice I could do 18 sets for chest…and that’s just way outta control. There’s a fine line between really pushing yourself and overtraining and alot of us flirt with it…I’m also trying to prevent injury as much as possible…and with lower volume higher frequency routines I can do just that. (no more shoulder problems in a long time, if I could just fix my damned back!!) Also, muscular hypertrophy doesn’t require you to “kill it.” But it has been proven that if you want to grow the more often the hypertrophy the better…I could quote alwyn cosgrove at saying that working out a bodypart once a week is dumb. I’ve recently started doing upper/lower body splits and so far I really like it…I worry less about how many sets of what I’m going to do on my sixth day at the gym that week and how many hours I’m going to spend in the gym today and concentrate more on how to squeeze in a seventh meal today…or how to arrange my meals so I’m eating every 2.5 to 3 hours.
Also don’t base ANYTHING you do off of what you hear a bodybuilder does…for one these IFBB pros are on 4-10 grams a week of juice and don’t come off unless bloodwork indicates their health could be at some risk. They really don’t have to worry about injury or overtraining like you or I would. Also, magazines pay these guys to slap a bicep routine together and say it’s what they do, when for all we know it’s nothing like what they do.
I will also say this. You could ask 10 people at ur gym about some of the information I’ve given and they either A) won’t know anything about “hypertrophy” or B) will say I don’t know what I’m talking about. Even trainers at ur gym might be completely clueless, depending on what cracker jack box they got their certification from. So read for yourself and research as I’ve done on other forums and all over the net. (T-Nation and IronMagazine.com would be a great start)
that’s good to know. it’s really nice to see variety in opinions and knowledge. i will definitely look up some more stuff on the topic. it’s just that from my understanding, muscle building occurs with muscle tissue breakdown and the way you break it down is from overloading it via heavier weights. again, i’m not a believer in the 1 rep max or 2 forced rep sets as muscle building, which is why i have it at the very least from 4-6.
i will definitely see how the 10 week program changes me. if nothing significant happens, then i’ll get back to what i was doing or maybe just slightly change it up.
i actually stumbled on an article about ascending pyramids and descending pyramids a few months back. the gist of it is that ascending pyramids of say 3 sets with the first being 60% of your 10 rep max, the second 70% of your 10 rep max and the 3rd being 100% of your 10 rep max is geared more for strength whereas a descending pyramid scheme (all 3 sets at 100% of your 10RM…meaning you’ll have to lighten the weights as you progress in order to meet the 10 rep requirement) has the advantage in yielding gains in size. reasong being (in the ascending pyramid) you only train to failure in your last set and with the descending pyramid, all 3 sets are done 'til failure.
you and me both! my lower back is susceptible to injury. i actually kinda just fried it doing deadlifts and aggravated it doing squats. mind you, my technique is good, it’s just that i need that belt to support me. and yeah, i didn’t have it at the time.
yeah. i thought about that. one example i guess is Ronnie Coleman advocating proper form (which is obviously the way to go) but when you see him lift, a lot of what he does doesn’t really match up with the definition of “proper form”.
quite a few people at my gym are familiar with what you’ve said, actually. that said, it’s just that there are so many things thrown at us nowadays that sometimes we end up second guessing ourselves. for myself, personally, i listen to experienced guys and always give their advice a shot. if it works, then i add it to what i’m doing. if it doesn’t, well, it’s trial and error. all part of the learning experience.
oh. i’m not on any supplements at the moment. i just eat the goods. supplements are just too expensive :shake:.
:rock:
To all those with back problems, come see me in 5 months for a cut rate. There are two things that could be causing your problems though, both easily addressed. The first and probably top cause of low back pain throughout out population is weak abs. If you get into a muscular imbalance situation between the anterior (abs) versus posterior (paraspinal) muscles it is easy to effect a change in the lordotic curve of your lumbar spine which makes you more likely to injure the spine/musculature of the region. Changing the curvature of your lumbar spine changes the weight bearing dynamics of the spine, and with the load of lifting this weakened state is exponentially expanded. It is quite easy to grossly scew the muscular balance with normal powerlifting andbodybuilding exercises, deadlifts and squats can really strengthen the lower back greatly, and many lifters ignore abs when bulking or altogether. Hit abs three times a week with weighted movements (I could expand if wanted) and in a month your most likely going to feel the changes.
The other weightlifting related issue is flexibility, most notably of the hamstrings and lumbar paraspinals. Weight lifting to cause hypertrophy has to be balanced with flexibilty exercises or you begin to lose functional strength. Functional strength refers to real world applicable numbers rather than strength applicable only to the artificial ranges of motion you see in the gym, most notably in any machine based exercise. Basically you constantly condition your body and mind to increase contractile properties in your muscle but never work on maintaining elasticity of said fibers, so they basically never “relax”. Your hamstrings attach to your pelvis and in a state of rigidity exert tremendous force to the area, completely destroying normal biomechanics. Compensation occurs, which overloads the compensators who are doing a job they never were intended to do, and injury occurs. If you lift do yourself a favor and spend five minutes a day stretching and see how much it changes you pain level. Not only that but if you stretch the muscle on the day of workout you can get faster recovery and potential fascia breakdown and hypertrophy increase. These stretches are not your everyday variety though and are painful but make a great difference as well. I can expand on everything mentioned here if anyone wnats just let me know.
Expand on what you think are the best ab exercises that stress the lower back the least…
And expand on stretching techniques…in fact…next time ur in town SHOW me…I will fucking pay you, just CALL me when your in town next time…ur always in town for a few days and I always miss you…
Now about stretching…I’ve heard pre workout increases chance of injury as you stretch tendons etc in the process…and I’ve heard hard stretching post workout increases satellite cell proliferation…thoughts??
For ab work I would try to incorporate some dynamic stuff, for example lying on your back and “catching” your legs while a partner throws them down and at 45% angles without you knowing which. Crunches on a decline bench, hanging leg raises are also good. The important thing is just to remeber to hit abs 2 or 3 times a week regardless of where you are in your training so they keep up with your strength curve.
The stretching would be post-workout, just throw it in after you hit the muscle groups. For instance on a chest stretch lie on a flat bench and get dumbells of a decent weight (30-40 to start with) and just lie back and hold them at the bottom of a fly position. Concentrate on really releasing the tension and allowing the weight to pull you down and try to make a minute of stretching. Its gonna hurt like hell but after 3 weeks of stretching each muscle group your gonna notice a change.
As far as pre-workout stretching and injury, thats a topic people sit on both sides of the fence on. I certainly don’t like dynamic (bouncing) stretching and personally feel pre-workout if you feel a need to warm up 5 minutes on the bike is as good as it gets. Lets the body start to improve the circulation and alerts the sympathetic neurosystem its time to work. And of course proper warm up sets which loosen the tendons/ligaments and get neuromuscular communication optimal before heavy weights.
ahhhh.
i never really knew that stretching before working out could potentially be dangerous. good to know. the guy who made my plan for me actually told me this a week ago or so. i thought it was just him :lol:.
now regarding abs, prior to my shift in training programs, i was working abs about 3x a week and with weights. i would do weighted crunches on the ball and weighted hanging leg raises and weighted twists. compared to last year, my abs are about 2x as strong now, perhaps even more. that said, lower back problems do run in my family. the first time i injured the area was about 5 years ago playing basketball, and almost every year since, that area has gotten injured. i’m gonna go have someone take a good look at it 'cuz it’s hindering my progress.
Chaos, would you be so kind as to make a list of post-workout stretches for every muscle group?
:rock:
Go look one up man, there’s a lot of different types of stretching and there’s a lot of muscles to stretch.
It’d be a massive list.
True…too many to list just for the sake of listing them, especially when considering all the different variations of stretches that stretch the same thing…but you can pretty much use your imagination on most stretches…
CHAOS…
I have a few supps I take…(fish oil, multi vitamins, and glucosamine chondroitin MSM) The recommended dosages for say the multi is 2 pills once daily and the chondroitin is 3 daily…but doesn’t say on the directions “1 after each meal” or “throughout the day” so I’ve been taking them all at once…(2 multi’s, 3 GC, and 2 fish oil)
Is this bad? Does it matter if I take them all at once or throughout the day?? The directions don’t say that I have to or I should (cept with the fish oil…it does say taken twice daily which I do)
lol wow this thread is great! i shoulda started reading this many years ago so i wouldn’t look so fucked up now hahaha
does anyone have pictures of themselves?
i’d really like to make myself look more lean and cut… i’m fairly large in size… 210 pounds at 6’1"
i’ve neglected shoulders and biceps for the last three years of working out and i wanna make my body look more proportionate. is there anything like exercises i can do to increase the overall “look” of my body?
i should post some pictures hahaha
and is it necessary to feel SORE the next day? i can almost always get sore when doing bench presses, or lateral pull downs… but when i work my bi’s and shoulders… the “soreness” is MINIMAL… and i think that’s why those parts of my body are so underdeveloped
and ummmm how can i make myself look more lean and cut WITHOUT flexing? like when i’m not flexing in the mirror i look like a tub of goo! is this all genetics? i was never an athleticly built person…
and i read like a few pages back that i cannot lose fat while trying to increase my muscle mass or strength… i’m not doing ANY cardio right now… but if i were to do so, would i still get weaker? does losing body fat ABSOLUTELY go hand in hand with losing power?
how much can everyone bench press anyway??? i finally did 315 pounds last saturday!! i remember when i was 16 and looking at the 135 lbs with awe… 4 years later and i’ve more than doubled that weight! hehehe but i don’t look very big… i kinda look like terry bogard!
and wow, kal el seems to really know his shit! i play third strike with him hehehe
Well guys its finally over…it was a fucking long 8 week diet!!:sad:
But it was worth it, I ended up with top 5 at the nationals. (5th place)
Which was what I was gunning for, most people said I should of gotten 3rd, but ohh well…this is a very subjective sport based on other people opinion!
Here the pics…had 17 people in the middle wt class!!
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822465196.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7923330223.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822491229.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822441817.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822444810.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822474987.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822484292.jpg
http://x11.putfile.com/3/7822500747.jpg
Ohh yea, I’m the asian guy…LOL
Let me be the first to say congrats on the placing. I wish I could compete (skin problem).
Now, on to some little things.
Triceps need work.
Don’t keep your shoulders so high when “standing relaxed”, it makes your traps seem smaller.
Don’t keep your ass out when you’re posing. From the front, it makes your abs stretch (you wanna make them look tight and deep). From the back it makes your back tight (which makes it look wrinkly).
You easily had one of the biggest chests on stage. Good job. Keep it up.
LOL WTF wow that’s a ripped asian guy
how much do you bench???
and uhhh am i having like a really immature way of thinking? cuz whenever i ask people nowadays how much their one rep max is… they never answer and give me this wierd look like “grow the fuck up”
LOL but back in highschool, it’s what people ONLY cared about!!!
I dont think theirs anything immature with asking what a person one rep max is, although if your lifting something low you might feel shameful to admit it, but you have to start somewhere.
Damn I never seen this thread but I’m hoping someone can help. Let me start by saying its hard as hell for me to gain waight. I’m looking to go to the gym 4x a week I’m at 160 I wanna be 180 or 185. I got to 177 before it took me almost a year and I did it myself. I lost a lot of it when I moved to night shift.
I got lasy and droped back to 160 now I wanna gain it back, I wanna ask you guys what I should eat I order some waight gainers and I use to take the stuff 2x a day after every meal. I eat whatever my mom cooked back then and it wasn’t healthy stuff just black people food. Fried everything…
So I really wanna be at 185 before july I need to no a the best things to eat and the fastest way to gain. I heard tuna was good but I’m not 100% sure if this will help I work a 12 hour shift I wake up eat breakfest at 5pm get to work at 6 eat at 9pm then again at 12 then again at 4. Hope somone gives me some info thanks
Get Cell Tech. That shit will put some weight on you. Or you can do like me and dead mad roast beef hero’s lol. I was 150 like 2/3 years agon now im 205 and hitting the gym. But yeah cell tech is the way to go if you want to gain some weight and hit the gym. Don’t slack.
I thought weight gainners were bad, their mostly full of sugar, all you will end up doing is putting on fat unless thats what you want.
I have this agruement all the time with this dude in my class his big and can lift more than me, but his still over weight even if he doesnt look the sterotype fat, he can barely go up this little hill to class without breathing hard lol.
I would think you would be better building up muscle mass instead of fat, for that I would take MRP instead of weight gainners.
yes tuna and chicken are good foods to help you gain mass along with eggs, the fastest way to gain is to be Consistent everyday, gd luck.
celltech is overrated and overpriced.
and i hate people asing me how much i bench…gonna end up punching someone
I think it depends who you are asking and the situation.
The amount of weight you can lift, or how fast you can run isn’t really a number that means much, as different people have different goals as to what they are trying to achieve. So if you know the person and what they’re after it’s fine, but if it’s just to a random stranger it can seem a bit odd.
It drives me nuts in running more, people ask me “how fast is your mile”, and I run half marathons. So while I do have a time, it doesn’t really mean anything as to my goals.