always train and eat at least somewhat like a bodybuilder, because at the end of the day you’ve always wanted to be muscular and lean along with whatever “performance, not vanity” goals you’ve got currently
I started to read about traditional body part splits, and about training volume and frequency and “overtraining” when I first started training. I’ve learned that proper nutrition and recovery will pretty much eliminate “overtraining” for the vast majority of us.
I’ve made my best gains with higher frequency programs. I’ve found some movements (like pull ups) I can do 5 days a week no problem.
[quote]Grove wrote:
[quote]Iron_Made wrote:
[quote]Grove wrote:
The effectiveness of chins; and planks / core strengthening. Resisted these for years, focusing rather on curling myself to death, and laughing at the folks side planking and ab-rolling. These are now the two most “why didn’t I do or know this sooner” exercises as far as benefit to full body.[/quote]
You are the first person I have come across that advocates planking with the justification of it coming from experience gained from being “in the trenches”.
I feel that for trained people (with a base of “core strength”, with that threshold not being very high) plain old planking is fairly useless.[/quote]
The OP defined “in the trenches” as lessons learned from doing vs. reading about it. Core strengthening is something I always dismissed as useless reading about it, until I actually started applying and seeing immediate benefit in physique and carry-over to lifts. I mentioned planks but really talking about core strength in general - but yes that includes plain old planks.
I consider myself to be somewhat trained, and have a decent base of core strength, yet I still continue to benefit from keeping core strengthening in my program. If you consider core strengthening useless - that’s cool. [/quote]
I think weighted planks are great for core strength. We do them by draping chains over our lower backs every 5-10 seconds or so until we’re pretty damn close to failure.
However, I think heavy front squat holds/unracks are the most effective core strengthening exercise for strength athletes. Stormthebeach recommended this one, for those of you who remember him.
Heavy side bends are pretty good, too.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
[quote]Grove wrote:
[quote]Iron_Made wrote:
[quote]Grove wrote:
The effectiveness of chins; and planks / core strengthening. Resisted these for years, focusing rather on curling myself to death, and laughing at the folks side planking and ab-rolling. These are now the two most “why didn’t I do or know this sooner” exercises as far as benefit to full body.[/quote]
You are the first person I have come across that advocates planking with the justification of it coming from experience gained from being “in the trenches”.
I feel that for trained people (with a base of “core strength”, with that threshold not being very high) plain old planking is fairly useless.[/quote]
The OP defined “in the trenches” as lessons learned from doing vs. reading about it. Core strengthening is something I always dismissed as useless reading about it, until I actually started applying and seeing immediate benefit in physique and carry-over to lifts. I mentioned planks but really talking about core strength in general - but yes that includes plain old planks.
I consider myself to be somewhat trained, and have a decent base of core strength, yet I still continue to benefit from keeping core strengthening in my program. If you consider core strengthening useless - that’s cool. [/quote]
I think weighted planks are great for core strength. We do them by draping chains over our lower backs every 5-10 seconds or so until we’re pretty damn close to failure.
However, I think heavy front squat holds/unracks are the most effective core strengthening exercise for strength athletes. Stormthebeach recommended this one, for those of you who remember him.
Heavy side bends are pretty good, too. [/quote]
I did specify plain old planks… weighted planks are really hard and quite beneficial. I’d liken normal planking to goblet squats… very good for you but isn’t going to turn you into anything special.
Teaching somebody the concept of “peaking”: Let him train squats to daily max + work sets for 12 days days straight and then let him rest completely for 2 days and see him hit a new PR on day 15. He will get “it”…
Cheating can be a useful tool if used properly.
Make sure you’ve got same amount of weight on each end of the barbell.
Even 5kg plates hurt when dropped on one’s foot.
As you get older: Stretching is not a waste of time.
: Peri-workout nutrition is a god send.
: A journal is the only way to keep numbers.
: Different people have different goals. It is not your place to make them change.
: For the people still lifting the same pink dumbells after a year, the gym thanks you for your loyalty. Your body is craving change though.
: Grunting a heavy weight is acceptable. Grunting every single reps, every single day… That’s annoying.
: Don’t work thru pain, get it looked after and work around it.
: Lot less personal stress when you go to the gym regularly.
Squeeze the bar.
Stay tight.
Keep a journal.
You know that one lift, exercise, what ever you hate because its difficult and you suck at it keep at it until you make it easy. That’s where you really improve.
Wish I had picked those two up a lot sooner, that way I would be able to tell exactly how long my bench has sucked and exactly when I should have paid more attention to it.
With progress comes a possibility of injury. Ensure that you deload or calculate ways around not hurting yourself. Staying healthy is important to lifting your entire life.
A family that rows together grows together.
Squeeze your cheeks every chance you get. Squeeze your significant others’ cheeks every chance you get as well.
[quote]Jlabs wrote:
With progress comes a possibility of injury. Ensure that you deload or calculate ways around not hurting yourself. Staying healthy is important to lifting your entire life.
A family that rows together grows together.
Squeeze your cheeks every chance you get. Squeeze your significant others’ cheeks every chance you get as well.[/quote]
Is there a like button anywhere? Good stuff Jlabs.
Any thoughts on the importance of off days?
Some fantastic stuff in this thread.
I would add, you can never train back too much, specifically rowing variations.
If you train forearms and calves every training day for one year, you will be blessed with 5 pounds of muscle “for free.” Then it will stop working. But you will have nice forearms and calves.
For guys over 40, changing your body without comprehensive blood work is like fishing in the dark. I’m not sure if that analogy makes sense. But you get what I mean.
Gym time will not contribute much at all to fat loss. That is done via diet.
Maxing all the time is just plain silly.
Stay with a routine long enough to benefit from it
Ditch a routine after you’ve squeezed as much adaptation as you can out of it.
Lifts you hate might bring you more results than the ones you love.
Push something, pull something, carry something, hinge, squat, resist rotation.
Rep range changes are a better change then tempo changes.
TImed sets irrespective of reps are a nice change after a strength phase.
pulling should be at least 50% more in volume than pushing things.
Supplements are not substitutes.
[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
Gym time will not contribute much at all to fat loss. That is done via diet.
Maxing all the time is just plain silly.
Stay with a routine long enough to benefit from it
Ditch a routine after you’ve squeezed as much adaptation as you can out of it.
Lifts you hate might bring you more results than the ones you love.
Push something, pull something, carry something, hinge, squat, resist rotation.
Rep range changes are a better change then tempo changes.
TImed sets irrespective of reps are a nice change after a strength phase.
pulling should be at least 50% more in volume than pushing things.
Supplements are not substitutes.
[/quote]
This is excellent
The MOST underrated element of strength training BY FAR is technique/form/positioning/setup.
The only group in the strength community who really gets “it” are the Olympic weightlifters - coaches there actually INVENT new exercises just to prevent/correct technique flaws. Sure the PLing community has numerous technique tutorial vids and articles but they are hopelessly coarse grained and generic. Also, posting vids of your lifting for others to criticize is typically useless.
I’m again and again astounded by the complexity of seemingly simple lifts like the Big 3. Small variation in setup can have such profound effects. To give you an example, today I missed a PR weight on sumo deadlifts twice at lockout. Then I backed down down, made a VERY minor correction in my setup (nothing you read in articles really), went up again and boom got the PR rather easily. Now, I’m not a beginner and you don’t really want to know how much fucking thought and analysis went into my deadlift form before this.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
The MOST underrated element of strength training BY FAR is technique/form/positioning/setup. [/quote]
Yes!
This probably is overlooked due to the internet birthing so many lifters who weren’t really active before. People who weren’t really athletic before don’t know how to optimally move their body (I know because I fall into this camp). Notice how many newbies are asking questions about programming and not focusing on learning the best way to use their leverages.
“Give me the rep scheme so I can push the start button and output a stronger me.”
Sure there are form check videos, but I think that’s just more proof that they are not paying attention to their own lift and aren’t sure what they’re even aiming for.
I’ll just finish with a quote from Dante the mind behind doggcrapp training.
"People search and search and search and search for this magical routine that they think is going to FINALLY be the answer and it really isnt about routines or supersets or dropsets or any fancy new initialized or cooly monikored training routine (and that includes DC training)…it is about this and has always been about this
SUCCESSFUL MECHANICAL POSITIONS OF EXERCISES
In my opinion it has always been about putting yourself into a successful mechanical position…that is the beginning, the solution and the end to this bodybuilding puzzle. And then when you are in that proper “suited for your unique physique and structure” mechanical position…you get incredibly strong at that movement for reps over time and THAT IS WHAT CREATES INCREDIBLY LARGE MUSCLE MASS."
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
today I missed a PR weight on sumo deadlifts twice at lockout. Then I backed down down, made a VERY minor correction in my setup (nothing you read in articles really), went up again and boom got the PR rather easily. Now, I’m not a beginner and you don’t really want to know how much fucking thought and analysis went into my deadlift form before this.[/quote]
I think I do. What exactly did you change in your setup, and how much did you pull? How much more was this than your previous PR?