[quote]susani wrote:
you need to challenge your body and force adaptation.
[/quote]
aka ADAPT OR DIE
That’s my training partner’s and my motto. You sound like you’d fit in really well with how we approach training. Hell, if you’re ever in Knoxville say somethin. We love doing tons of pullups too.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Yesterday was a rest day for me, so I hiked up to the second flatiron and did a 700 ft rock climb. Not a training day, just living life![/quote]
Exactly! If you’re doing something that’s within your capabilities and not trying to improve it’s not training. It’s just, as you say, life. The same with your daily pullups that you mentioned earlier. Not strictly training if you’re not working hard enough to result in gains.
You may well get some training benefits from what you do in daily life - or alternatively you might just be wearing yourself down and detracting from your training days with useless effort. Training isn’t everything though and sometimes life comes first!
If however you were training to climb a 3000m mountain you might work a bit harder at that climb and turn it into a training day that will get you real gains. If your goal was to improve your pullups - perhaps to beat the world record, then you might do very many more each day than you currently do - or progressively add more and more weight. It then becomes training.
From what you’ve said I agree completely that when you’re climbing and doing pullups it’s not training. But that’s you. That doesn’t mean that others aren’t training hard when they do these things.
Lifting weights doesn’t automatically equate to training. Some of you seem to be taking the view that it’s only training if you lift weights. Well, no. It’s only training if it’s progressive and designed to get you towards a goal. Many people lift weights without ever actually training!
Quite often the heaviest weight to handle is your own bodyweight - how many of you “I’m a lifter” types can match Frank Medrano when it comes to calisthenics? OK, so you complain that he’s just a little light guy and you’re too heavy. So…why are you prating about with little girly weights - why not bite the bullet and do some REAL training by lifting that heavy carcass of yours and churning out some ring handstands, levers, flags, muscleups and so on? Now THAT’s training - strength, skill, power, balance, coordination…
…and certainly there’s no better male physique than one honed by gymnastics training!
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Yesterday was a rest day for me, so I hiked up to the second flatiron and did a 700 ft rock climb. Not a training day, just living life![/quote]
Exactly! If you’re doing something that’s within your capabilities and not trying to improve it’s not training. It’s just, as you say, life. The same with your daily pullups that you mentioned earlier. Not strictly training if you’re not working hard enough to result in gains.
You may well get some training benefits from what you do in daily life - or alternatively you might just be wearing yourself down and detracting from your training days with useless effort. Training isn’t everything though and sometimes life comes first!
If however you were training to climb a 3000m mountain you might work a bit harder at that climb and turn it into a training day that will get you real gains. If your goal was to improve your pullups - perhaps to beat the world record, then you might do very many more each day than you currently do - or progressively add more and more weight. It then becomes training.
From what you’ve said I agree completely that when you’re climbing and doing pullups it’s not training. But that’s you. That doesn’t mean that others aren’t training hard when they do these things.
Lifting weights doesn’t automatically equate to training. Some of you seem to be taking the view that it’s only training if you lift weights. Well, no. It’s only training if it’s progressive and designed to get you towards a goal. Many people lift weights without ever actually training!
Quite often the heaviest weight to handle is your own bodyweight - how many of you “I’m a lifter” types can match Frank Medrano when it comes to calisthenics? OK, so you complain that he’s just a little light guy and you’re too heavy. So…why are you prating about with little girly weights - why not bite the bullet and do some REAL training by lifting that heavy carcass of yours and churning out some ring handstands, levers, flags, muscleups and so on? Now THAT’s training - strength, skill, power, balance, coordination…
…and certainly there’s no better male physique than one honed by gymnastics training!
[/quote]
That last statement is very subjective! I personally would not want to look like just Frank Medrano, although I respect his abilities. Sure, there are things he can do that I cannot. But in the same respect, I certainly do some things that he cannot as well. He might be excellent at bodyweight stuff, but put him on a 5.13 rock climb or V8 boulder problem, and watch that pullup strength be of no avail.
I just want to see Susani and BlueCollar arm wrestle. That is all. 
We were talking about male and female genetics for strength - This is kind of a fun story.
My brother was a professional jockey when he was younger. We aren’t twins but when we were young, people often asked us if we were. Very similar genetics there. He got too big to ride, but when he was 19 or 20 he weighed about 112. Farm and ranch kid, high school wrestler, who had quite a bit of upper body strength from pulling up horses that are going 40 miles per hour.
He’s a total mesomorph who puts on muscle easily which was a bad thing for his profession. Anyway, his weight then is pretty close to my weight now. They had a competition in the jockey’s room to see who had the biggest bench. After two weeks of training, he was benching 200 lbs at a BW of 112. Now compare his female counterpart.
Wait for it…After a couple of years or training religiously, I was super proud of my 110 pound BW bench!! Pretty strong FOR A GIRL!! Of course as a mature adult he now outweighs me by at least 30 pounds and he’s 5’5" to my not quite 5’2". I would love to have seen him get into lifting because he just has awesome genetics for it.
Another thing - I recently met 2 time National NPC Champion Lightweight, Kelly Bautista. He happens to work with my daughter’s dermatologist. Couldn’t meet a nicer more humble guy. He’s 5’3" and outweighs me by probably 50 pounds!! Anyway, I got to talk about training with him which was very cool. If you think there is anything wrong with being 5’3", the answer is NO. There isn’t a damn thing wrong with it. 
He told me I had great genetics which was probably him just being really nice, but it totally made my day. Some of you might find this interesting about his training - He never touches a BB anymore. Concern about long term compression of discs, avoidance of injury and such. His training is all DB and machines, even when he prepped for his last National win in 2010. And it’s all high volume. He doesn’t do anything that he can’t do at least 8 reps of, and often trains in much higher rep ranges. Of course, what’s “heavy” to him is probably a lot different than what’s "heavy to me. He’s probably doing 8 reps with some huge DBs, but it did make me feel better about my heavy-squat-o-phobia.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Yesterday was a rest day for me, so I hiked up to the second flatiron and did a 700 ft rock climb. Not a training day, just living life![/quote]
Exactly! If you’re doing something that’s within your capabilities and not trying to improve it’s not training. It’s just, as you say, life. The same with your daily pullups that you mentioned earlier. Not strictly training if you’re not working hard enough to result in gains.
You may well get some training benefits from what you do in daily life - or alternatively you might just be wearing yourself down and detracting from your training days with useless effort. Training isn’t everything though and sometimes life comes first!
If however you were training to climb a 3000m mountain you might work a bit harder at that climb and turn it into a training day that will get you real gains. If your goal was to improve your pullups - perhaps to beat the world record, then you might do very many more each day than you currently do - or progressively add more and more weight. It then becomes training.
From what you’ve said I agree completely that when you’re climbing and doing pullups it’s not training. But that’s you. That doesn’t mean that others aren’t training hard when they do these things.
Lifting weights doesn’t automatically equate to training. Some of you seem to be taking the view that it’s only training if you lift weights. Well, no. It’s only training if it’s progressive and designed to get you towards a goal. Many people lift weights without ever actually training!
Quite often the heaviest weight to handle is your own bodyweight - how many of you “I’m a lifter” types can match Frank Medrano when it comes to calisthenics? OK, so you complain that he’s just a little light guy and you’re too heavy. So…why are you prating about with little girly weights - why not bite the bullet and do some REAL training by lifting that heavy carcass of yours and churning out some ring handstands, levers, flags, muscleups and so on? Now THAT’s training - strength, skill, power, balance, coordination…
…and certainly there’s no better male physique than one honed by gymnastics training!
[/quote]
That last statement is very subjective! I personally would not want to look like just Frank Medrano, although I respect his abilities. Sure, there are things he can do that I cannot. But in the same respect, I certainly do some things that he cannot as well. He might be excellent at bodyweight stuff, but put him on a 5.13 rock climb or V8 boulder problem, and watch that pullup strength be of no avail. [/quote]
Agreed I can respect all those that in the top of their fields athletics and not. But do I want look like them. Nope. Do I desire to do what they do nope. Compare myself them nope. No idea why we are comparing ourselves to people that have completely different interests and goals.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
I just want to see Susani and BlueCollar arm wrestle. That is all.
We were talking about male and female genetics for strength - This is kind of a fun story.
My brother was a professional jockey when he was younger. We aren’t twins but when we were young, people often asked us if we were. Very similar genetics there. He got too big to ride, but when he was 19 or 20 he weighed about 112. Farm and ranch kid, high school wrestler, who had quite a bit of upper body strength from pulling up horses that are going 40 miles per hour.
He’s a total mesomorph who puts on muscle easily which was a bad thing for his profession. Anyway, his weight then is pretty close to my weight now. They had a competition in the jockey’s room to see who had the biggest bench. After two weeks of training, he was benching 200 lbs at a BW of 112. Now compare his female counterpart.
Wait for it…After a couple of years or training religiously, I was super proud of my 110 pound BW bench!! Pretty strong FOR A GIRL!! Of course as a mature adult he now outweighs me by at least 30 pounds and he’s 5’5" to my not quite 5’2". I would love to have seen him get into lifting because he just has awesome genetics for it.
Another thing - I recently met 2 time National NPC Champion Lightweight, Kelly Bautista. He happens to work with my daughter’s dermatologist. Couldn’t meet a nicer more humble guy. He’s 5’3" and outweighs me by probably 50 pounds!! Anyway, I got to talk about training with him which was very cool. If you think there is anything wrong with being 5’3", the answer is NO. There isn’t a damn thing wrong with it.
He told me I had great genetics which was probably him just being really nice, but it totally made my day. Some of you might find this interesting about his training - He never touches a BB anymore. Concern about long term compression of discs, avoidance of injury and such. His training is all DB and machines, even when he prepped for his last National win in 2010. And it’s all high volume. He doesn’t do anything that he can’t do at least 8 reps of, and often trains in much higher rep ranges. Of course, what’s “heavy” to him is probably a lot different than what’s "heavy to me. He’s probably doing 8 reps with some huge DBs, but it did make me feel better about my heavy-squat-o-phobia.
[/quote]
Still a great amount of respect for anyone woman in the weight that is actually pushing herself. Not grabbing a weight and doing 20 reps and not struggling. If there is struggle at the end of each set showing she is pushing it I don’t care if its 5lbs or 105 (recently saw a youtube of a women pressing this 
) I have respect for her more than most of the guys in the gym. And I use guys loosely
Ryan - the point is many people are saying that running, calisthenics, pullups etc aren’t training. The whole point in posting up examples of people at the top of their game in things like running, pullups, calisthenics is to show that these things require HUGE amounts of training if you want to get to a high level.
Everyone will have different preferences when choosing WHAT to train for (aesthetics, raw strength, absolute strength, endurance etc), but whether you want to be good in absolute terms or just better yourself then whether it’s running, pullups, powerlifting, olympic lifting…you need to TRAIN!
Of course you can do anything from powerlifting to running at an easy level just for fun
Powerpuff - the danger in believing that you’re weaker than men simply because you’re a women is if the men are a bunch of lazy gits that don’t train hard (or don’t train smart) you’ll automatically set your sights to somewhere below their underacheivemnt. Go for broke - try to beat them and if you’re determined and hard working most of the time you will manage it (because most people don’t have what it takes mentally to get anywhere near their full potential). The reality is that there’s huge overlap - some men will beat all women but a few women will beat most men. Even on things like raw strength. Take Becca Swanson for example:
Squat ? 854 lbs (387.5 kg)
Bench Press ? 600 lbs (272.5 kg)
Deadlift ? 683 lbs (310 kg)
Total (in one meet) ? 2050 lbs (930 kg)
Who are we comparing Becca Swanson to in Raw Strength? Her male counterparts of the same level?
i think it depends. when i was a university student i used to train 6 times a week because all i had to worry was eat, train and study ( sometimes )
now im 31, i work from 09:00 to 18:30 and i am married. i train 4 days a week and its always 1 day on, 1 day off.
i am extremely pleased with the results both physically and mentally. 1 full day rest between training sessions feel great for me.
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
I just want to see Susani and BlueCollar arm wrestle. That is all.
[/quote]
Once right-handed and once left to demonstrate lateral balance right
[quote]susani wrote:
The reality is that there’s huge overlap - some men will beat all women but a few women will beat most men. Even on things like raw strength. Take Becca Swanson for example:
Squat ? 854 lbs (387.5 kg)
Bench Press ? 600 lbs (272.5 kg)
Deadlift ? 683 lbs (310 kg)
Total (in one meet) ? 2050 lbs (930 kg)
[/quote]
And there goes your credibility.
I just took a week off because of a hip injury, and my bench press felt stronger when I came back – so I would say there’s something gto having rest days. Don’t they say “growth happens outside the gym?”.
[quote]susani wrote:
The reality is that there’s huge overlap - some men will beat all women but a few women will beat most men. Even on things like raw strength. Take Becca Swanson for example:
Squat ? 854 lbs (387.5 kg)
Bench Press ? 600 lbs (272.5 kg)
Deadlift ? 683 lbs (310 kg)
Total (in one meet) ? 2050 lbs (930 kg)
[/quote]
These are multiply geared lifts, not raw. Also Becca Swanson runs massive amounts of steroids. It’s not really useful to compare what she does to any natural woman’s potential.
[quote]adrencg wrote:
I just took a week off because of a hip injury, and my bench press felt stronger when I came back – so I would say there’s something gto having rest days. Don’t they say “growth happens outside the gym?”.[/quote]
Absolutely. But people that recover (grow) quickly are able to train more and thus grow more.
Many elite athletes train twice a day, seven days a week for long periods of time. If you CAN train more and still recover in between sessions then that’s going to yield better results and give you a big advantage over the competition.
It’s a question of figuring out what works for you currently, whether you can train yourself to recover faster (and thus train more frequently) and even coming up with strategies to allow you to train more, get the positive benefits but minimize the downside. So for example, cross training - keeping more damaging forms of training to a minimum and so on.
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Who are we comparing Becca Swanson to in Raw Strength? Her male counterparts of the same level? [/quote]
Fellow human beings. She’s stronger than most PEOPLE (male and female).
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Who are we comparing Becca Swanson to in Raw Strength? Her male counterparts of the same level? [/quote]
Fellow human beings. She’s stronger than most PEOPLE (male and female).
[/quote]
Along with far more testosterone flowing through her body than ANY natural male.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Who are we comparing Becca Swanson to in Raw Strength? Her male counterparts of the same level? [/quote]
Fellow human beings. She’s stronger than most PEOPLE (male and female).
[/quote]
Along with far more testosterone flowing through her body than ANY natural male. [/quote]
I expect she does have the effect of lowering male testosterone levels - men tend to be brought up thinking there’s something wrong with getting their butt kicked by a girl!! LOL But really there’s no shame in it. Lots of factors involved from genetics, more drive and determination, more time.
As for the drugs - lots of men take drugs too. Yes it makes a difference. But lots of men and women take drugs and don’t achieve a fraction of what Becca can do, so…
Another strong lady here with a 510lb bench press:
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
[quote]susani wrote:
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Who are we comparing Becca Swanson to in Raw Strength? Her male counterparts of the same level? [/quote]
Fellow human beings. She’s stronger than most PEOPLE (male and female).
[/quote]
Along with far more testosterone flowing through her body than ANY natural male. [/quote]
I expect she does have the effect of lowering male testosterone levels - men tend to be brought up thinking there’s something wrong with getting their butt kicked by a girl!! LOL But really there’s no shame in it. Lots of factors involved from genetics, more drive and determination, more time.
As for the drugs - lots of men take drugs too. Yes it makes a difference. But lots of men and women take drugs and don’t achieve a fraction of what Becca can do, so…
Another strong lady here with a 510lb bench press:
Not denying she has some strength, but take off that multiply suit, and I bet she couldn’t do half that weight. As to comparing Becca to top equipped men, she isn’t totalling 3k. So she is like 2/3 the top guys.
An another…
The point being that until you try you don’t know what you’re capable of. Any woman that thinks she can only lift X amount because men around her can lift Y and everyone knows that men are stronger than women, right? You’re selling yourself short. You might be one of the women that has what it takes to be stronger than most men. What’s to loose by trying?
[quote]susani wrote:
I expect she does have the effect of lowering male testosterone levels - men tend to be brought up thinking there’s something wrong with getting their butt kicked by a girl!! LOL But really there’s no shame in it. Lots of factors involved from genetics, more drive and determination, more time.
[/quote]
This has nothing at all to do with it… She literally does have much higher testosterone than any natural lifter, male or otherwise due to the amount of AAS she’s running.
[quote]susani wrote:
As for the drugs - lots of men take drugs too. Yes it makes a difference. But lots of men and women take drugs and don’t achieve a fraction of what Becca can do, so…
[/quote]
Well that’s debatable… A 2000 multiply total is awesome for sure, but amongst assisted powerlifters it’s not at all a rarity.