Anyone Believe in Cross-Training?

Parts of what follows below were actually painful to write. However, because of the ongoing misinformation campaigns launched by Nominal Prospect and his zealots, I feel it is my duty to write this. Perhaps before going on, I should describe Nominal Prospect to you.

Nominal Prospect is stroppy, directionless, and slaphappy. Furthermore, he yearns to promote violence in all its forms – physical, sexual, psychological, economical, and social.

Infantile losers do not deserve the assistance they receive from society, and deep down in our bones, we all know why. I, not being one of the many superficial, evil party animals of this world, recommend paying close attention to the praxeological method developed by the economist Ludwig von Mises and using it as a technique to nourish children with good morals and self-esteem.

The praxeological method is useful in this context because it employs praxeology, the general science of human action, to explain why it seems that no one else is telling you that a consideration that we should do well to bear in mind is that Nominal Prospect spews words like “blepharosphincterectomy”, “superserviceableness”, and “mediterraneanization” and insidiously twists them into catch phrases designed to propitiate supercilious quiddlers for later eventualities.

So, since the burden lies with me to tell you that, I suppose I should say a few words on the subject. To begin with, Nominal Prospect wants to twist the teaching of history to suit his self-aggrandizing purposes. Who does he think he is? I mean, if he doesn’t like it here, then perhaps he should go elsewhere.

Nominal Prospect dreams of a time when he’ll be free to enable batty, biased bureaucrats to punch above their weight. That’s the way he’s planned it and that’s the way it’ll happen – not may happen but will happen – if we don’t interfere, if we don’t shed a little light on some of the ignorant prejudices that reside within his pea-sized brain.

Everybody loves a good game of hide-and-seek: find the person, find the hidden item, or, in Nominal Prospect’s case, find the hidden agenda. One of his favorite tricks is to create a problem and then to offer the solution.

Naturally, it’s always his solutions that grant him the freedom to cripple his enemies politically, economically, socially, morally, and psychologically, never the original problem. Nominal Prospect has, at times, called me “semi-intelligible” or “bumptious”. Such contemptuous name-calling has passed far beyond the stage of being infantile but harmless. It has the capacity to provide execrable conspiracies with the necessary asylum to take root and spread.

Maybe some day, Nominal Prospect will finally stop trying to force us to adopt rigid social roles that compromise our inner code of ethics. Don’t hold your breath, though. Call me old-fashioned, but we have a right, an indisputable, inalienable, indefeasible, divine right to reinforce what is best in people.

Please re-read and memorize that sentence if you still believe that free speech is wonderful as long as you’re not bashing Nominal Prospect and the dishonest, dissolute big-labor bosses in his band.

Nominal Prospect once heard a vindictive upstart say, “The world’s salvation comes from whims, irrationality, and delusions.” What’s amazing is that Nominal Prospect was then able to use that single quotation plus some anecdotal evidence to convince his minions that he knows 100% of everything 100% of the time, which makes me wonder, “Which of the seven deadly sins – pride, envy, anger, sadness, avarice, gluttony, and lust – does he not commit on a daily basis?”

I once asked Nominal Prospect that question – I am still waiting for an answer. In the meantime, let me point out that one can consecrate one’s life to the service of a noble idea or a glorious ideology. Nominal Prospect, however, is more likely to replace our timeless traditions with his treasonous ones.

Let’s play a little game. Deduct one point from your I.Q. if you fell for his ridiculous claim that women are spare parts in the social repertoire – mere optional extras. Deduct another point if you failed to notice that Nominal Prospect’s sophistries are as appealing as braces, acne, and a wooden leg at the senior prom. Sadly, lack of space prevents me from elaborating further.

It may be obvious but should nonetheless be acknowledged that Nominal Prospect’s jeremiads are totally lawless regardless of the way, shape, or form in which he presents them. (Yes, he and his bootlickers are social pariahs and should be ostracized, but that’s a different story.) Nominal Prospect’s methods of interpretation are as predictable as sunrise. Whenever I dispense justice, his invariant response is to issue a flood of bogus legal documents.

We must reach out to people with the message that Nominal Prospect should stop bellyaching and start healing himself. We must alert people of that.

We must educate them. We must inspire them. And we must encourage them to review the basic issues at the root of the debate. Let’s get reasonable; he may unwittingly tell everyone else what to do. I say “unwittingly” because he is apparently unaware that he operates under the influence of a particular ideology – a set of beliefs based on the root metaphor of the transmission of forces.

Until you understand this root metaphor you won’t be able to grasp why by brainwashing his forces with wowserism, Nominal Prospect makes them easy to lead, easy to program, and easy to enslave.

Stick your nose into anything Nominal Prospect has written recently, and you’ll get a good whiff of nerdy, counter-productive metagrobolism. Misguided serpents can go right ahead and convict me for saying that his paroxysms are nothing short of imprudent, but History, acting as the goddess of a higher truth and a higher justice, will one day smilingly tear up this verdict, acquitting me of all guilt and blame. If I may be permitted to make an observation, he is always demanding money, sympathy, and the punishment of his critics.

And that’s why I’m writing this letter; this is my manifesto, if you will, on how to search for solutions that are more creative and constructive than the typically surly ones championed by the most drugged-out ignoramuses you’ll ever see. There’s no way I can do that alone, and there’s no way I can do it without first stating that his latest “revelation” (really, hallucination) is that the best way to serve one’s country is to toy with our opinions.

That conclusion is not based on some sort of rash philosophy or on Nominal Prospect-style mental masturbation, but on widely known and proven principles of science. These principles explain that we mustn’t let Nominal Prospect stonewall on issues in which taxpayers see a vital public interest. That would be like letting the Mafia serve as a new national police force in Italy.

Generally speaking, I wonder if Nominal Prospect really believes the things he says. He knows they’re not true, doesn’t he? There aren’t enough hours in the day to fully answer that question but consider this: In a recent essay, Nominal Prospect stated that national-security interests can and should be sidestepped whenever his personal interests are at stake.

Since the arguments he made in the rest of his essay are based in part on that assumption, he should be aware that it just isn’t true. Not only that, but he is known for walking into crowded rooms and telling everyone there that he is a paragon of morality and wisdom.

Try, if you can, to concoct a statement better calculated to show how logorrheic Nominal Prospect is. You can’t do it. Not only that, but I suppose it’s predictable, though terribly sad, that mawkish adulterers with stronger voices than minds would revert to atrabilious behavior.

But as that last sentence suggests, he says that it’s okay to shame my name. Yet he also wants to suppress people’s instinct and intellect. Am I the only one who sees the irony there? I ask because I do not propose a supernatural solution to the problems we’re having with him.

Instead, I propose a practical, realistic, down-to-earth approach that requires only that I keep our priorities in check.

Though many people agree that we must work together against cronyism, colonialism, interdenominationalism, etc., Nominal Prospect pompously claims that things have never been better. That sort of nonsense impresses many people, unfortunately.

I predict that any day now, people will generally agree that in my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that one day, he will pull out all stops in his laughable drive to rewrite and reword much of humanity’s formative works to favor vigilantism. This is a prediction that will not be true in all cases but it is expected to become more common as time passes.

On several occasions I have heard him state that my bitterness at him is merely the latent projection of libidinal energy stemming from self-induced anguish. I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a comment.

What I consider far more important though is that Nominal Prospect should think about how his teachings lead deluded vermin to allow federally funded research to mushroom into a condescending, grossly inefficient system, hampered by foolhardy wantwits and the worst kinds of pouty, myopic prophets of narcissism there are.

If Nominal Prospect doesn’t want to think that hard, perhaps he should just keep quiet. Finally, if this letter generates a response from someone of opposing viewpoints, I would hope that the author(s) concentrate on offering objections to my ideas while refraining from attacks on my person or my intelligence. I’ve gotten enough of that already from Nominal Prospect.

I propose a wizardly duel.

ROFL. Funny. Reading this thread was good entertainment. Otherwise, I gained no knowledge other than to ignore the OP’s comments.

On another note, to add some input on topic:
I think crossfit, due to it’s variety and emphasis on many functional lifts, does a better job than most of addressing as many systems as possible; however, like any exercise program, it cannot meet all the needs of everyone. No specific program can.

[quote]RWElder0 wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:
RWElder0 wrote:
NP - when you have a chance please let me know what gym you train people at in the city. That is all I want to know. I do not even need the address. Just the name.

Why would you want to know? To put me out of my job?

I would never do something like that. It is really more for social research. But if you are not comfortable - I understand.[/quote]

It’s too risky. I believe there are people who would do such a thing.

This thread makes me cry

[quote]DragnCarry wrote:
Nominal Prospect wrote:

You don’t need to go to reach the point of failure. There will be a significant amount of stress shifted to the bone structure long before you max out. This is the principle which Mike Boyle recognizes and other coaches, like Chad Waterbury, don’t.

The connective tissue or structural failure that you mentioned earlier and appear to be concerned about is not going to happen squatting 225 unless your form is atrocious.

Mike Boyle says that he thought his structural limit [when he was powerlifting] was around 500lb.

In reality, you’re not stressing “the muscle” to a greater degree. You’re distributing that additional load over your entire body structure, including your skeletal frame.

In reality, you most definitely ARE stressing “the muscle” to a greater degree! I’m not sure how you could possibly argue otherwise?

Look, as far as your lateral delts are concerned it probably won’t make much difference if you do a 200lb bench press compared to a 20lb lateral raise.

If your lat delts need bringing up RELATIVE to your front delts then doing more bench work isn’t going to help you.

But if your whole front top half needs more size, benching has got to be a better use of time than lateral raises and front raises, right?

Hypertrophy is one of the body’s responses to the imposed demand of lifting weights. It will grow lifting with compounds or isolation exercises (providing nutrition, recovery and progression are allowed).

Using good form, compounds are not going to cause structural or connective tissue failure until you’re hitting some much bigger weights than you have suggested.

Let’s not forget, skull-crushers are also known as “elbow fuckers”. They are a light weight isolation exercise and I do them very rarely because of this (yet I bench twice a week without hurting my elbows).[/quote]

Are you telling me that you feel your pecs more on a bench than on a fly machine? Or the quads more on a squat than on a leg press? If so, you’d be pretty unique in that regard.

If you need size across your entire body, then you eat more and simply do a body part split. What’s wrong with having an arm day, a shoulder day, and a chest/back day? It works for me and it works fantastically.

You can’t train everything in one day and expect to give the same intensity to each muscle group. Doing this will result in muscle imbalances over time. There’s no way that I could train chest on the same day as arms. If there was, then I’d certainly be on that bandwagon.

Compound exercises can be used to isolate certain muscle groups. For instance, a close grip lockout in the smith machine is a great way of overloading the triceps. But I’m going to make the general statement that free weight compound movements are incredibly poor for eliciting gains in hypertrophy. If you disagree, please post some examples of lifts which you think are good for hypertrophy. I have tried them all. I did compound lifting for about a year and I didn’t gain a pound and I didn’t look any different. My joints and connective tissues took a massive beating, though.

I believe in using compound exercises, but doing them on machines. Like seated rows, weighted back extensions, tricep pressdowns on the seated dip machine, and that’s about it. Biceps, pecs, delts and abs are, without a doubt, best suited to isolation movements with very strict form.

The following are some of the worst possible exercises that I can think of for hypertrophy. Doing them will accomplish absolutely nothing besides wearing you out:

1-arm DB rows
Bent-over BB Rows
BB Squats
BB curls
DB/BB Triceps extensions
BB Military presses

Free weights are awful for hypertrophy because they rely on the stabilizers to such a high extent. Also, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to approach true failure with free weights.

I want to stress again that free weights suck for hypertrophy, not compounds, per se. Compounds on machines with limited ROM are actually quite good.

Probably the only thing worse than free weights for hypertrophy is olympic lifting. Oly Lifts use a great deal of momentum and the TUT is incredibly small. You will get hypertrophy about once every 10 years with this type of training. Any hypertrophy on Oly lifters at all can be attributed to the inclusion of isolation movements in their training routines. It sure as hell isn’t the jerks, snatches, cleans, etc…

I guarantee that you could do jerks for 5 years straight, and, on a constant caloric intake, you would not gain an ounce of mass on your shoulders (or anywhere else except for the forearms).

1/100th of a second muscular contractions do NOT cause microtrauma. Without microtrauma, hypertrophy will NEVER occur.

Period. It’s simple as dirt. Prove me wrong.

I’d like to see a single before/after photo comparison of someone who trained with free weights only or Olympic lifts and actually gained visible muscle. Show me someone who did nothing but bench press and got a big chest, or nothing but squats and got big legs.

Show me the gains…please. I am dying to see them. I will take personal anecdotes, anything you’ve got.

A lot of you have to learn the difference between gaining weight due to diet and gaining weight due to hypertrophy. When your weight stays exactly the same yet your measurements increase, that’s hypertrophy.

Whenever you gain weight, your measurements increase all around. That’s not a function of any particular style of training. You cannot credit your compound lifting for making you bigger when you gained 10 lbs. Credit your caloric intake, instead.

I can credit isolation exercises for making my muscles bigger because my measurements increased and my weight and caloric intake stayed exactly the same. If that’s not hypertrophy, then what is?

I could train anybody to achieve the same result. Bigger measurements…with NO weight gain.

You will notice that in powerlifting and strength circles, anytime someone gets “bigger”, it means they gained weight. Gaining size means going up in a weight class. Nobody ever adds mass without adding weight.

In bodybuilding, getting “bigger” has a different, more literal meaning. It means adding mass to your frame, independent of weight increases. When Arnold brought up his calves, he didn’t go up a weight class to do it. He simply trained them directly. That’s what “getting bigger” means.

Nobody in powerlifting ever gets “bigger” without adding weight because compound lifts don’t do jack didly squat for hypertrophy gains. Can you prove me wrong on this? I highly doubt it.

It’s simple and crystal clear. Open your eyes and embrace the truth dawning upon you.

Flex Magazine was right all along. You DO have to isolate and exhaust. People like Chad Waterbury are 180 degrees from the truth when it comes to hypertrophy. I mention him because his stuff is some of the worst I’ve read. His ideas are batshit insane, and his exercise prescriptions would not cause anybody to go up 1/4" on a single measurement.

I am getting tired of dealing with this shitty topic. I know for a fact that I’m right. Everything I have posted about, I observe on a daily basis in the gym. There is absolutely nothing you could say that would make me change my mind. The evidence is overwhelmingly in my favor.

I could take any single one of you and transform your physiques entirely, and I would do it almost exclusively with machines and isolation movements. You guys really ought to just shutup and try it sometime. You may undergo a radical conversion, as I did. Pro bodybuilders are a lot smarter than you think. You have to be pretty arrogant to dismiss them and all their knowledge on hypertrophy. Jay Cutler understand hypertrophy 10x better than clowns like Chad Waterbury or Dan John, I promise you. Jay Cutler says you need to isolate the muscle and train for the pump. I put my trust in Jay, and so should you.

Flex and muscle fitness magazines: Make good toilet paper for the useless information they provide.

damn , you havent heard of variation?

start with the dreadead compound movements and later in your workout train your weaknesses with isolation type training, how would that sound to you?

And yes, I think you’re right on that not evryone can build a huge chest whit only the benchpress, but build some strength with it and work it with isolation movements later, should also do the trick.

Also, I dont think that you should be talking bodybuilding in this forum.

I’m so happy I’m bigger than this guy.

holy shit you are the worst

what the hell substance has volume and not mass??

do you not realize that getting bigger means you’re gaining muscle and muscle weighs something?

you.are.skinny.and.you.are.weak.

so is my dad, but i don’t make fun of him. because he doesn’t act like he has a clue, let alone act like he knows everything there is to know.

grow the fuck up.

of course the pump will hypertrophy specific bodyparts, but you’re wrong if you think that pro bodybuilders used isolation exercises to get where they are. isolation=fine tuning.

I tried doing a bunch of isolation excercises once upon a time, I lost like 10 pounds of mixed fat/muscle. I DO feel a bench press in my chest more then a fly, maybe not at the time of the lift, but at far as DOMS goes, deffinately. I don’t really get what’s to debate. MOST people will have a good experience doing compounds whether it be a compound on a machine or a barbell, then finsihing off with smaller lifts.

1-arm DB rows - I LOVE these, I think they work
Bent-over BB Rows - I don’t like them either
BB Squats - I’m sore in the quads and hammys after squats, I don’t see what’s not to like
BB curls - I don’t really have any reason to do direct bicep work, it doesn’t make my total go up so I have nothing to say
DB/BB Triceps extensions - I prefer a cable
BB Military presses - I love these too, These are probably the reason for most of my shoulder development.

[quote]gi2eg wrote:
holy shit you are the worst

what the hell substance has volume and not mass??

do you not realize that getting bigger means you’re gaining muscle and muscle weighs something?[/quote]

The definition of body recomposition is adding muscle while losing fat.

You’re not gaining any weight because you’re redistributing the mass on your body.

Listen, I just told you that I increased my measurements WITHOUT gaining a pound. Are you suggesting that what occured to me is impossible?

I liked the “adding mass independent of weight” comment. This guy is laughing at everyone arguing against him He knows mass and weight are the same and just enjoys making ridiculous statements and trying to back them up. Stop feeding him.

[quote]AndyG wrote:
I liked the “adding mass independent of weight” comment. This guy is laughing at everyone arguing against him He knows mass and weight are the same and just enjoys making ridiculous statements and trying to back them up. Stop feeding him.[/quote]

I’m not laughing at anybody. I’m making a very simple point. The point is that I increased my measurements without gaining weight. I do not claim that this can be done indefinitely, but it has happened to me for sure.

You people are so locked into the “bulk or die” attitude and the association of gaining weight with gaining mass that you don’t know a good idea when you see one.

You shouldn’t have to gain weight to gain size. Fluid hypertrophy, remember? You’re not adding muscle fiber. You’re adding water and glycogen. That’s what hypertrophy is.

Here’s a simple fact for a simple man.

Mass is the amount of matter in an object, it is weighed in kilograms. Weight is the force exerted by an object due to gravity. It is measured in Newtons. Because the strength of the gravitional pull on an object is solely due to its mass, on earth mass and weight are the same thing.

It is an undisputable physical fact that you can’t increase mass without increasing mass unless you have travelled to the moon. Perhaps you did move to the moon, the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere may explain your idiotic comments, space cadet.

Here’s another fact, water isn’t weightless

You are not adding new muscle fibers, but the existing ones get thicker. Let’s not get into myofibrilar/sarcoplasmic hypertrophy debate, it’s obvious that if you lose 5 pounds of fat and gain 5 pound lean body mass, you’ll improve your looks/measurements.

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
The following are some of the worst possible exercises that I can think of for hypertrophy. Doing them will accomplish absolutely nothing besides wearing you out:

1-arm DB rows
Bent-over BB Rows
BB Squats
BB curls
DB/BB Triceps extensions
BB Military presses

Free weights are awful for hypertrophy because they rely on the stabilizers to such a high extent[/quote]

Dayum, you’re consistent with posting bullshit in every one of your posts.

The only leg exercises I do are squats and lunges. Judging by your picture, I’m better in this department than you, and I don’t do leg curls or extensions.

[quote]AndyG wrote:
Here’s a simple fact for a simple man.

Mass is the amount of matter in an object, it is weighed in kilograms. Weight is the force exerted by an object due to gravity. It is measured in Newtons. Because the strength of the gravitional pull on an object is solely due to its mass, on earth mass and weight are the same thing.

It is an undisputable physical fact that you can’t increase mass without increasing mass unless you have travelled to the moon. Perhaps you did move to the moon, the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere may explain your idiotic comments, space cadet.

Here’s another fact, water isn’t weightless[/quote]

You’re not adding new mass, you’re redistributing the mass that’s on your body, you fool.

It’s entirely possible to burn fat, replace it with muscle, and keep your weight almost the same. I HAVE done it. That’s what body recomposition is.

You need to understand that weight gain is a separate process from muscular hypertrophy. They are related, but NOT identical.

I increased my measurements without increasing my weight.

That is a FACT. I am NOT lying. I am NOT making it up.

Make of that what you will but it HAPPENED. You cannot “refute” something that happened already. You can only deny it. Is that what you’re doing? Do you think I’m making this shit up? If so, then come out and say it.

[quote]mldj wrote:
You are not adding new muscle fibers, but the existing ones get thicker. Let’s not get into myofibrilar/sarcoplasmic hypertrophy debate, it’s obvious that if you lose 5 pounds of fat and gain 5 pound lean body mass, you’ll improve your looks/measurements.

Nominal Prospect wrote:
The following are some of the worst possible exercises that I can think of for hypertrophy. Doing them will accomplish absolutely nothing besides wearing you out:

1-arm DB rows
Bent-over BB Rows
BB Squats
BB curls
DB/BB Triceps extensions
BB Military presses

Free weights are awful for hypertrophy because they rely on the stabilizers to such a high extent

Dayum, you’re consistent with posting bullshit in every one of your posts.

The only leg exercises I do are squats and lunges. Judging by your picture, I’m better in this department than you, and I don’t do leg curls or extensions.
http://img76.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1307082059ey7.jpg[/quote]

Static Lunges are a good hypertrophy exercise. I do them myself.

Why are you “better” than me? Because your legs are bigger, overall? You probably have 50 lbs. on me. And you may very well have shorter limbs as well, which makes it that much easier. You would have to control for weight, height, and body fat % in order to make such a statement accurately.

If you think your legs are better than mine then post your leg size divided by your weight:height ratio. That is how you determine who is relatively “better”. Mine is 10.29. My legs sure aren’t large, but then, I don’t weigh very much, so my ratio could well turn out to be equal or higher than yours.

I am “small” in absolute size but in relative size, I have the physique ratio’s of a fairly advanced bodybuilder. The fact that I don’t weigh much isn’t my fault; it’s my genetics, and I’m already doing as much I can to counteract that issue.

The purpose of making such comparisons is to determine whose program is more effective, while controlling for all variables.

Or you just shut up and measure your legs to see who’s bigger since both of you has defenition (coudlnt watch your leg so I wouldnt know, but it seems like you’re some fittness 6pack guy)

Seriously, evryone that benches more then 200 and squats over 220 is genetic freaks to you. And top sport men is born that good, and would be better of competing in bodybulding.

And if you want to be good at chins and still get as strong as possible (= gain weight) you’re stupid as hell and should be doing machines instead. Cross training is impossible ofcourse.