[quote]overswarm wrote:
Der Candy wrote:
overswarm wrote:
Having big arms is great, but if you can’t lift a box without killing your back, you’ve not done a good job.
Not to be a dick, but where do you get this rationale from? The function of muscles is purely to contract. Now if you have a guy with big arms who can curl 180lbs, how are his arms going to be ‘weak’ outside of the gym? Bearing in mind size is determined purely by calorie surplus. If he can deadlift, squat and bench huge numbers he will be just as strong in other activities that require his muscles to contract against a resistance. Do you get what I’m saying?
This is why ‘functional training’ is ridiculous. A stability ball crunch will not train your abs to ‘stabilize your core’ as effectively as a 400lbs deadlift.
Just wanted to get that off my back. It wasn’t directed at you personally, just to the ‘functional muscle’ crowd in general.
Your arms would be able to lift it; but your legs wouldn’t help, nor would your back, your neck, your chest, etc., etc.
Inferior training programs that are just to make you LOOK big, and not be able to use the muscle effectively together… that is the opposite of functional strength. The Squat, Press, and Pull is in the “functional strength” group.
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Getting big isn’t easy. Take what the people ere say with heart. You clearly don’t have any idea what it takes to “get big”. Seriously go do come biceps and abs 5 days a week, and never post here again if you think you know so much. Why does nearly everyone who wants to start lifting have this idea that getting big is easy.
Getting big isn’t easy. Take what the people ere say with heart. You clearly don’t have any idea what it takes to “get big”. Seriously go do come biceps and abs 5 days a week, and never post here again if you think you know so much. Why does nearly everyone who wants to start lifting have this idea that getting big is easy.[/quote]
Don’t know. Why do they always seem to act like they know the right way to train and argue with the advice given to them by much more advanced and experienced lifters?
[quote]overswarm wrote:
Inferior training programs that are just to make you LOOK big, and not be able to use the muscle effectively together… that is the opposite of functional strength. The Squat, Press, and Pull is in the “functional strength” group.
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No offense man, but you clearly have been misinformed/don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve been duped by the “functional strength” crowd into believing their b.s. about guys who are much bigger, stronger, and in many ways functional than them some how not being “functional”. Guess what, you simply aren’t going to find any big, strong guys who are weak outside of the gym.
Why don’t you list for us some people who don’t use their bodies a lot in life? Do you realize how asinine that statement is (not meaning to insult you, you’ve obviously had your head filled with “functional” nonsense)?
Listen man, you weight 130 lbs. Trust me when I say that putting on some muscle isn’t going to negatively affect your athleticism in any way shape or form. Nor do you need to worry about getting “too big”.
I’m an ecto myself (started at about the same weight you’re at) and I’ve put on 50 lbs of muscle from where I started. I will tell you that I am absolutely, positively more “functional” than I was when I started. Also, it seems like the stronger I get, the more my athleticism develops. I’m also quite a bit more muscular than I was when I started, and while I’m still working on building muscle, I’m no where even remotely close to being “too big”. I haven’t experienced any decrease in flexibility, it hasn’t impaired my ability to do every day tasks in any way, and my work capacity is continually increasing.
This post isn’t meant as an attack on you. You’ve just got a lot of misconceptions that you’re operating from and I (as well as several others who have responded) am simply trying to help expose them.
Stick around for a while. Read everything you can (both articles and threads on the forums), get in the gym (and kitchen) and try stuff out for yourself and hopefully in time you’ll realize how foolish some of your current paradigms are.
Inferior training programs that are just to make you LOOK big, and not be able to use the muscle effectively together… that is the opposite of functional strength. The Squat, Press, and Pull is in the “functional strength” group.
No offense man, but you clearly have been misinformed/don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve been duped by the “functional strength” crowd into believing their b.s. about guys who are much bigger, stronger, and in many ways functional than them some how not being “functional”. Guess what, you simply aren’t going to find any big, strong guys who are weak outside of the gym.[/quote]
Every exercise helps at least one muscle, but I was looking for programs and exercises that hit more than one. If someone told me to do nothing but sit-ups, curls, and calf raises, my abs, biceps, and calves would all get better but the rest of my body would not. That would not be “functional”. Functional strength has little to do with a specific size or shape, but more with a collection of muscles. It’s no good to be able to pull something towards you but not be able to push away; the exercises you all have been listing, however, are very much in line with the “functional strength” mentality. There are several articles on this very website that preach what I’m talking about right now; I think that you may just have a misunderstanding as to what I mean, so sorry for not being so clear.
As anyone can probably see from the picture I posted, my chest is VERY underdeveloped. My triceps are fairly well developed in terms of never working out at all (yet oh still so puny compared to anyone in a gym), but my chest is puny. As such, if there was a hypothetical movement involving my chest and triceps, my chest would give out whenever it was needed in line with my triceps. My triceps would have to pick up my chests slack, or I’d fail. That is not functional.
Someone doing squats would never have that problem with the muscle groups in their legs; their body is “functional” as it adhered to a “functional” training program. Nothing was left out.
Every exercise helps at least one muscle, but I was looking for programs and exercises that hit more than one. If someone told me to do nothing but sit-ups, curls, and calf raises, my abs, biceps, and calves would all get better but the rest of my body would not. That would not be “functional”. Functional strength has little to do with a specific size or shape, but more with a collection of muscles. It’s no good to be able to pull something towards you but not be able to push away; the exercises you all have been listing, however, are very much in line with the “functional strength” mentality. There are several articles on this very website that preach what I’m talking about right now; I think that you may just have a misunderstanding as to what I mean, so sorry for not being so clear.
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No worries. Believe me you aren’t the first (nor do I suspect you will be the last) person to bring up the “functional” debate on this forum. We’ve had some pretty extensive discussions about this topic. Do a search and you’re sure to find lots of threads/posts on the subject.
I’m glad that you want to do a balanced program (not the same as “functional” at least not the generally used definition of that term) and not just bench and curl like a lot of newbies. That’s definitely a good start.
Just please, drop the term “functional” from your vocabulary. Strength is functional, regardless of how it’s developed or whether or not that strength is balanced evenly between other muscle groups.
Everything is underdeveloped (sorry but it’s true). You really can’t say what your strong or weak bodyparts are at this point, because you’ve never trained seriously and quite frankly are in need of building muscle everywhere.
Your statement about your triceps needing to take up the slack for your chest being “not functional” however is nonsense. Tell that to arm dominant powerlifters. Those guys are hella strong (look at Dave Tate for an example) and have hyooge triceps, but not nearly as much chest musculature (in proportion). They’re still damn strong and in all likelihood more “functional” than someone who has balanced chest and triceps, but can’t bench 600 lbs.
In other words, I don’t care how much your triceps have to take over, if you can bench 500+ lbs (and to be honest that’s an extreme example) you’re “functional” when it comes to benching.
Once again, quite untrue. If you look at world class powerlifters, you’ll see that there are guys with huge quads and proportionately smaller posterior chains, and there are also guys with huge posterior chains and proportionately smaller quads. You also see guys with big calves who don’t do much direct calf work, and you see guys who don’t do much direct calf work with small calves.
In other words, you can’t judge the “functionality” of an individual by comparing the size/strength of one muscle to another one.
Well, I’ve been training seriously for about 9 years (this Christmas). But, I also dedicated about 2 1/2 years of that time to serious MA practice (which made it extremely difficult for me to put on mass) and didn’t really get serious about diet until about a year ago. Had I been serious about eating (do NOT overlook the importance of diet), not gotten a case of training ADD for a couple years there, and dedicated that whole time to trying to put on muscle, I know I’d be further along.