I didnt use the limits... i have them set as a low limit in case i cant lift it without a spotter. You see that's what limits are made for.. not for you to set the weight and take a rest between each rep. They are there as a safety feature in case you cant lift it. On a normal set you're suppose to get close to them but not set the weight on them. Your 3/4ths rack pull example is invalid.

The limits are set at 1" above my chest.

I edited my post since i thought by partials you were referring to the limiting braces, not "partial" as in a partial rep because of range.

Partials as in partial reps. You're still way high off your chest.

Less than 2" look at the angle on my arm.

It's more than 2" and still incomplete.

The rack limits are set at 1" and on one or two reps i bumped the limits on one end. Most noticeable on the 2nd rep of the first set.

Seeing that my elbows are at less than 90 degrees i'd say thats plenty of range.

Josh - Relax. Consider the angle of the video. And the fact that Atanas was there. And the fact that he's had some pretty impressive relative (to his starting points) accomplishments.

At worst, it's a partial of 300+ pounds with a ~170lb body weight. Can you partial (in that general range of motion) 450+ pounds at a ~250lb body weight? I sure as shit can't partial 280+. I'd be lucky to get it off the rack.

The angle shows a huge gap between the bar and his chest. I'm not sure what you were trying to convey here.

I have no idea what I can partial. I do complete lifts with count-offs from chest to lock out. Full repetitions. I wasn't saying it's not impressive, just that I don't count it as a complete lift. The bar might as well be a mile high off his chest. Good job, tripple88a. Find a spotter next time, do a full repetition with a count-off and see what your PR is.

This is my 4 years of competitive lifting talking. Scrutinizing everything from arch to bench height, ankle movement, bar speed, leg drive, etc... It's been beaten into me and I can't stop seeing these things. It's like seeing a Ferrari with a scratch, lol.

Edit: Just don't ever post a c&j/snatch video unless you really want to see me foam at the mouth.

Edit2: Atanas, what do you squat and deadlift? You could easily be competitive in events at your body weight. A quick google'n says there are tons of meets in Chicago.

Edit3: I think my PMS is being fueled by a recent day at the gym where I witnessed a guy "bounce" the bar off his chest, had help at the end, no lock out and got up and shouted "345 nigga!"
The fucking bounce, noodle legs, uneven bar height, no bar speed, huge arch, ass off the bench, no lock out...fuck

I dead lift 2-3 plates per side 15-18 going down to 12 reps by the 5-6 set.. I stopped doing heavy legs a while ago and i focus more on reps. For squats i do only 2 plates again 15-18 times. As of recent month and a half or two i started adding a lot of running.

I dont do this for a competition even though i use competition form here and there, i do it for my self for fun however since you mentioned competitions, for bench most competitions use 1 to 2 boards which are an inch thick, bounce from the chest is unacceptable.

Any of you guys work with an ab wheel? Picked one up at the sporting goods store last night for $8, not really knowing what to expect.

Turns out that standing rollouts are frickin' difficult. Couldn't do one rep. Could barely maintain form just on the negative half. Will be working on kneeling rollouts for a while and then working up to a standing rollout.

Are you wearing skinny jeans? :D

Whats the circumference half way up your thigh?

I can agree with him actually. Straight pants don't fit me if i buy the correct waist. I'm at a 31 exactly. 30 is tight, 32 is loose on the waist. 32 straight pants get very tight around my hamstrings and quads. :/

Last time i tried it i hated it. Not enough burn on the abs but too much on the arms. You know that shit where you lay on your back and put the weight back and then pull it forward over your head with your arms straight? Tends to work chest and some lats? Yeah the wheel is too much of that.

For abs i've been doing crunches with a rubber band.

Stick ur legs under something. Tie the rubberband to something behind you. Now take the rubber band and hold it on your shoulder and when you curl up you'll be stretching the rubber band. This way you get more pressure as you're crunching. Keep in mind this is OPPOSITE of using weight tucked to your chest. The difference is with weights, you get tons of resistance while u're laying back and then the weights actually help you once you get straight. The rubber band is opposite, low resistance when you're straight and then tons of resistance when you're curled.

I wear loose fit. Single thigh circumference based is 25". It doesnt help pant fit that I have huge glutes.

What kind if stupid ab workout is that? Sorry not trying to put you down, but really find a better core workout.

Ha did I seriously get negative props because I don't see a point in bodybuilding.

Meh, I'm not concerned about "targeting" any areas. I like compound exercises; that's the kind of stuff you do in real life.

For what it's worth, the rollouts got my abs and shoulders -- nothing noticeable for my arms.

If you don't get a work out from an ab wheel, then you're doing it wrong. Seriously.

You shouldn't have. I hate body building, personally. But it's a great way to help fix skin issues and add mass where you need it. Preferences for people.

People like you are pretty funny. People that have never tried something but call it stupid just because they have no clue how it works. I used to do regular crunches and crunches with the ball and the plates and what not... So far this is a lot better than the alternatives. You see unless you do crunches with your feet vertically in the air you'll never get the same burn because ordinary crunches REMOVE weight when you're all the way up.

While I didn't give any props one way or the other, maybe it was because you were being a non-helpful, negative douche. If you are going to be critical, at least be more specific and suggest some alternatives that you think are better and what makes them better.

I was going to try to explain it but its complicated, but Ill give it a shot.

Picture a v sit, except you keep your legs and back as close to the ground as you can without touching the ground. I then put a 15lb weight between my ankles. Well I rest it on top of them. I then will get a 20lb kettle bell and hold it with both my hands over my chest. From there I twist and extend the kettle bell as far to the right as I can. Basically extend it till your harms are straight. When you extend it you want to have it as close to the ground as you can, but don't touch the ground. Then bring it back to your chest. Do both sides like that.

I like it because I can up the weight easily and stick to my 5 reps. I also feel that it works my whole core and not just my upper abs. Also it's not one of those ab workouts that you have to do 20+ reps to feel anything.

The ab wheel seems cool, and I don't know how hard it is on knees, but I feel it would either be way to hard to even preform 1 rep or too easy that you end up doing high reps.

I see too many people doing 20+ rep ab workouts and I don't see why they are training their abs for a marathon. When I was picturing using the band, I was picturing it to still be fairly easy. I pictured it to still be a high rep workout. If not well that's great but I also feel it would only work a small portion of your core.

Now I hope that's clear, and hope my spelling and grammar didn't suck too bad.

where the fuck you people buy pants? JC Penney?

go get some real denim and get it fitted and tailored so you don't look like your mother.

Much better, Dot3. That seems like a core workout that would kick some ass, especially with keeping the feet up.

Good info on ab rollouts.

I also had issues with my pants getting super tight when I started lifting with legs. Now I don't lift with legs anymore, but only run with them.

In college I was competitive in short track speed skating. Training for short track events of 300-2000 meters is about the most intense workout you can put your legs through; you're basically doing 50m shuttle runs on skates, with the most common distances being 500 or 1000m. It's probably roughly equivalent to a sprinter running stairs while towing a windbrake. (Parachute thingy that nike/gatorade/addidas/insert sportsmarketingcompanyhere, shows in commercials?). I was once allowed to lead a leg workout for our ROTC. Afterwards, everyone else was walking funny for a solid week, and I was never allowed to lead leg day again...LOL. In college, my pants fit very well. After college, I started doing squats/presses to keep up the strength, and after about a month and a half I felt like a fat girl trying to put on her skinny jeans. The super high weight, low reps definitely made me bigger much faster than thousands of reps weekly on accelerating body weight ever had.

On ab workouts, I've found that the best way for me is to lay on an incline bench with a 45lb plate held over my head. Holding that weight over my chest doesn't do crap for me. As I built strength and endurance, I was able to move up from a 25lb to a 35lb to now a 45lb plate. When you first switch plates, you hold the new one almost over your face, but by the time you're kicking the plate's a$s you're doing full sets with the plate held to the top of your head like a hat. You have to maintain form though, never "jerk" your head up to try and pull your torso up like most morons do with crunches, always use your abs to lift your entire upper body as a single unit. Finally, pansies will use this method for crunches. Real men do the full crunch, then continue up through the full motion of a sit up with their hip flexor muscles before returning to the starting position with a deliberate and controlled descent. Don't maneuver the plate to assist your body either, it must be held solidly in place as a unit with the rest of your upper body.

This is the type of exercise that someone will see you doing after you've done it for a few months and made it to the 45lb plate and they will be thoroughly impressed, but they won't let you know they are impresed. Secretly, they will try to do this on their own with a 45lb plate, because if your skinny a$s can do it, they can obviously do it no problem. And they will make it to about their second or third rep on their first set before they reach complete muscle failure. Most self-proclaimed bodybuilders don't know what a hip flexor is, let alone having ever worked that muscle. It will build quickly if you're working on it with good solid weight, but the next time that "bodybuilder" sees you at the gym, he's going to think to himself "I don't want nothin' to do with that skinny b@stard, his workout fu&k@d me up."

:idea:OH! I got it! :idea:

Bodybuilding is like clubroadster.

I'm going to workout at lunch in 45. Quick someone hit me with a fast lunch workout. I have full access to a gym.

I got you

You do know that they make rubber bands stiff enough to rip your torso in half right? Thats the thing with the rubberband, If its too easy, if you're doing more than 20 reps you can just pull the rubber band more so its more tension. Quite easy to understand. When you're getting tired you can loosen the rubber band few grips and do a few more to burn out. It can work on quite a bit of stuff. When you're going forward and backwards you'll burn from down low almost up to your chest. If you want to do obliques you turn sideways.. again not rocket science.
You see it all depends on range of motion.. you cant do little pussy sit ups where you only lift your neck and hope to get a full abs burn. If you want to do that just go home and watch tv..

True but how many people are going to get a rubber band that strong to do sit-ups? I wouldn't want to do those, but that's just me.

Take a regular rubber band that you use for excercises.. Just tighten it more. You can always double it too. I dont get what the confusion is here.

So I did this tonight

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1369879197

1-mile @ 5'11" 213lbs

I managed a constant speed. Nearly died. Actually fell down when finished. Never want to do again.

brb, posting to facebook so it counts.

Nice! I was curious after I read your post so I went and ran a mile tonight. I think I have a few seconds to gain -- this was after I came home, drank a martini, ate some nice chicken and cauliflower casserole with a glass of red wine, and then sipped a small glass of Pyrat rum. Probably not the ideal pre-run meal.

[1 mile in 7:09]

Thanks a lot man. This was, seriously, everything I had. I was practically sprinting (damn stubby legs). I'm not going to attempt this again for a while.

I love how can casually go out and run as fast as me on a whim after drinking :vash: I may try this again when I'm down to 200lbs.

Now that is cool. I am so far behind the times with shit like this. My friend's iphone has an app thingy that tells you when you've been a mile and gives you updates and averages for speed, distance, etc... It's nice but, he's really, really slow so I have to look back and yell to see when a mile is coming up :giggle:



My elbow is feeling better. I started lifting on it again yesterday. Had no pain on flat bench but I stopped at 185lbs to make sure I didn't agitate it. Dumbbell presses were fine up to 80lbs. Seems to be more of a tightness than anything. I'm still gonna baby it for a few more weeks and keep stretching and wearing my brace.

My biggest issue right now is loose skin around my lower stomach and lower chest. It's not any where near close to needing surgery but, it's still a pain to see. I've read that using lotion designed for men helps a lot and of course lifting weights. It will naturally get better over time, but I'm starting to see the outline of my abs and I wanna see them for the first time ever :vash:

I can believe it. I didn't collapse afterward, but I was cruising* pretty good, and since my 1 mile route overshot my own house by a bit, I walked the rest of the way -- and my heartrate was still cranking by the time I got home.

I felt alright while I was running, but once I got home I didn't feel so hot. Going to drink some coconut water.

I honestly don't run frequently enough, fast enough, or long enough to justify purchasing a GPS watch, but it makes me happy and in a weird way, tracking even my mediocre "statistics" motivates me.

Also, I got a $130 Garmin for $60 on CL because a guy bought his wife the pink version and she didn't like the color. :giggle:

Anyone else using compression socks? I was skeptical, but decided that for $30 it was worth a shot. I've been wearing them for a few hours after a run -- typically I'll put them on after I shower, and then wear them the rest of the evening and to bed. I usually end up yanking them off halfway through the night, but I'm still waking up with way less soreness in my lower legs then I was previously. If it's a placebo, I don't care. I'm not limping around for a day and a half after a hard run.

Good job, Josh and Mark. I can't say I've ever done a one-mile-only pace, so I'll have to give it a shot. I rarely run and when I do, it's generally for 2.5 - 3.0 miles but now I'm curious.


So, I hadn't lifted "heavy" in several weeks and decided to go for a new PR on the deadlift yesterday. 200 lbs x 5 (~1.25x BW). Not super impressive, but I was happy with it considering I'd never done a deadlift before last summer. I probably could have gone higher, but I was flying solo. I have some major back issues and would prefer to have someone there watching my form before I try to go "poop your pants" heavy.

Ever check out that zombies run app?

Not running related but I just hit the 20lb mark! I still have yet to hit the gym because three 10 week graduate courses while working is a lot more intense then I anticipated. Luckily the eating habits are working. I did hit a plateau for about 2 weeks there but it started coming off again.

INteresting article on low carb high fat diet (nutritional ketosis)
10 Unexpected Benefits Of Nutritional Ketosis Besides Weight Loss

Can attest to nearly all of those ^

Acne gone. Never tired. Fall asleep almost instantly.

Strength gains in the gym have been awesome.

I'm worried I'm becoming a bro. Just ordered a shaker bottle from Amazon.

Shaker bottle? Why you no magic bullet?

Already have a magic bullet copy (and a stick blender) but just want something leak proof that I can dump some milk and whey powder into.

The Blender Bottles are great. Excellent seal and the little whisk ball really does help. I will often use an actaul blender to make a shake but then I might take that shake to the office and throw it in the fridge or leave it in the car for ~45 minutes while I work out at the gym. It's handy to mix up the drink after it has settled.

Buy a 2lb protein and use that container to store ur protein when u go to the gym. Personally i buy the protein from walmart called body fortress.. cheapest per serving. I've had issues with getting bloated after a protein shake and then i cant eat dinner. The protein from walmart is fairly thin so you can mix it with little water. I mix 2 scoops of protein and only 6 oz of water. Yes its kinda thick but good enough to drink in 1 large gulp without feeling disgusted. My fav is vanilla since anything else has too much of flavor when u mix it with this little water.


body fortress - Walmart.com

That's the one I got! Good to hear it works well.

I ordered the grass-fed New Zealand Whey from Swanson's Vitamins. Whey protein doesn't entirely fit with my "real, whole foods" kind of diet so I want to make sure I'm getting as clean a product as possible, even if it's a little more expensive.

Swanson Ultra Grass-Fed, Certified rBGH-Free Vanilla Whey Protein Powder 420 grams (14.8 oz) Pwdr - Swanson Health Products

Hmm walmart seems to have raised their prices on body fortress and that is pissing me off. They used to have discounts if u were to buy shit in bulk.

Is that the best bang-for-the-buck high quality stuff, or the highest quality stuff regardless of price?

I haven't done tons of research, but from what I can tell, if you spend more than this, you can get:

1. The same product under a "brand" name rather than a store-brand.

2. Something that may even be less clean but that is "specially formulated" for various purposes (or in some cases, even custom-formulated for you according to your specifications).

3. And for the really big wallets, you can get custom-formulations from companies that use only the very highest quality ingredients.

I'm not training hard enough nor am I close enough to my peak performance to bother spending more money on custom formulations. I just want something that I can use to make sure that I'm getting enough protein post-workout, since I'm a hard-gainer and don't want to risk losing muscle mass.

That Swanson's powder is whey concentrate, however. Some people claim to have a bad reaction (bloating, water retention, etc.) to concentrate and prefer whey isolate. From what I read, I believe it has more to do with the quality of the product than concentrate vs. isolate, but your mileage may vary.

Also, the chocolate flavor Swanson's has xylitol as a sweetener, but the vanilla only has natural vanilla flavor, no sweeteners. Also they use sunflower lecithin instead of soy lecithin so you won't grow bitch tits.

Alright gents, I've been reading through this thread and it is helping my motivation to get back into the gym.

I need help building a routine to put on a little size. What usually happens is that I go to an old routine that I used when I was in much better shape. I try to cut back on weight etc, but I always end up doing too much, burning myself out, and the gym becomes less enjoyable.

I'm looking for a 3 day a week program that focuses on efficiency. Fewer excercises that work major muscle groups. I want to keep it high intensity within 45min to an hour.

My last routine was from about two years ago and used a conversion of p90x excercises at home to the gym with heavier weight. While my stamina grew, and it kept me trim, it wasn't designed to put on muscle. It was basically a 30-40min superset. I've gone back to it a couple of times since then, but it just doesn't seem to be working for me mentally.

Any suggestions?

I just ran a hillclimb race after vowing not to drink for 6 days. I ended up finishing 11 positions slower than I did last year, and about 1 minute slower.
I did a 5k 3 weeks ago while hungover, and I finished 1 position and 30 seconds better than last year at the same course.
Explain that.
I guess my engine runs better on alcohol.

Its the carbs. There are a lot of runners and cyclist that will drink beer the night before a race. How much, I dont know, but a guy I work with is a professional distance runner and he does it upon occasion.

StrongLifts 5x5 + clean diet with lots of protein and more-than-maintenance calories?

The website looks kind of hokey and you will be asking "what's the catch" but you really do get the routine, spreadsheet, etc for free and can unsubscribe from the email list no problem.

It's very methodical, very regimented, and typically uses 3 exercises per routine. It's designed for three days a week and 45 minutes with a warmup sounds about right.

Thanks!

A friend snapped a pic of me at dinner last week when I wasn't looking. She made a side-by-side from an old photo.

A little motivation for you fine folks. -122lbs

I think losing the hair was a huge mistake.

hehe motivational photo eh? Heres mine.

Was 120 in high school (no pic)

175 now. (with a 6 pack)
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371493342

Woot. Got my shit.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1371670907

I know. I feel the same way about my mustache.

Coupla years ago I did a "glucose challenge test" and found out I had mild "reactionary hypoglycemia" - basically I get very hungry and very crabby if I wait too long before my next meal, due to low blood sugar. The standard medical advice is "eat frequent small meals".

Some time after that I easily lost a bunch of weight by following these rules:
- low carb
- >5 hours between meals
- wait 12 hours after dinner before eating breakfast

I noticed that it cured my hypoglycemia.

I suspect that "eat frequent small meals" is bad advice in general.

This article may explain why
Low-Carb for You: Reactive Hypoglycemia--An Experiment?
Low-Carb for You: Reactive Hypoglycemia

I started my stronglifts 5x5 last night. I felt like a bitch starting with just the bar, but I think it is just what I need to keep me motivated while I get back in the habit of going to the gym.

What's a good calorie goal for putting on pounds? I don't want to over eat, but I don't want to be tired all the time either. I'm 176 and a little flabby in the gut right now. At 165 I look pretty cut.

How should I adjustmy calories moving forward?

What does your intake look like now? Calories, protein, sodium, carbs, etc?

I would think it would be hard to make a recommendation for where to go if you don't know where you are. :)