How’s your deadlift coming along?
Have you increased/decreased frequency on training any of your lifts?
What kind of injuries have you had (saw the knee pain mentioned above) and how have you dealt with them?
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
Because I don’t want to make Flip cry, I thought to update this little thread. I would rather call people out, but yeah let’s all stay constructive for a minute.
Anyway, training has been going pretty well. Hit a nice 405 bench some weeks ago & will probably hit a 500 Olympic (high bar) squat this week or the next. Words words words words…[/quote]
Awwwww you’re a sweetie. Congrats on the bench. I hope to approach the 4 plate mark some day, but I feel like I won’t be doing it in my current weight class of 181…
Are you prioritizing high bar squatting now, and if so why? I’m assuming you’ve hit a bigger low bar squat than 500.
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
Question 1. What would be the most important piece of advice you would give the 15 years younger version of yourself related to training?
[/quote]
(1) Train (and eat) like a dedicated BBer rather than doing some shitty “strength routines” from the interwebs.
(2) Visit some professional Olympic Weightlifting athlete/coach and ask them to teach me how to squat and pull.
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
Question 2. Do you work in any conditioning or cardio - I may have missed it in the thread but didn’t see any.
[/quote]
No routine, but I run (not walk) & bike (road bike) with high intensity regularly. I have pretty decent conditioning for my size. When it is time to cut I do much more.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
How’s your deadlift coming along?
Have you increased/decreased frequency on training any of your lifts?
What kind of injuries have you had (saw the knee pain mentioned above) and how have you dealt with them?[/quote]
(1) Dunno, haven’t pulled in my “comp” style for a long time. Have done a lot of heavy SLDL/RDLs lately. Why? Was annoyed because my setup always felt off and I wanted to train the right muscles as hard as possible without tinkering with the setup so much. I should be a lot stronger…
(2) I do the Big 3 (or a close variation) 2-4x/week now. Frequency on its own is not that important as long as you follow the basic principles.
(3) Never had anything major. Mostly muscle strains here and there & the occasional knee & shoulder pain. Whenever something hurt I first try to train through it and if the pain just gets worse I avoid painful exercise AND INCREASE THE VOLUME OF “ANTAGONIST” MUSCLES. For knee pain I do more hamstring work, for shoulder pain more upper back work, etc. Worked for me.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Are you prioritizing high bar squatting now, and if so why? I’m assuming you’ve hit a bigger low bar squat than 500.
[/quote]
Yeah, I have because low-bar mostly feels so awkward/“achy”. If I wouldn’t be so much stronger with it, I would toss it completely. Switching to LB always gives me an extra of around 30kg.
Thanks for the reply. Good advice - especially the second one.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Are you prioritizing high bar squatting now, and if so why? I’m assuming you’ve hit a bigger low bar squat than 500.
[/quote]
Yeah, I have because low-bar mostly feels so awkward/“achy”. If I wouldn’t be so much stronger with it, I would toss it completely. Switching to LB always gives me an extra of around 30kg.
[/quote]
That’s a hyooooge difference. I spent most of the last year squatting high bar for basically the same reason. A ton of elbow pain. I do most of my rep work with a high bar position, and lower the bar when I’m hitting singles, doubles, and triples. But I would say my maxes on both are within 5kg or so.
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Are you prioritizing high bar squatting now, and if so why? I’m assuming you’ve hit a bigger low bar squat than 500.
[/quote]
Yeah, I have because low-bar mostly feels so awkward/“achy”. If I wouldn’t be so much stronger with it, I would toss it completely. Switching to LB always gives me an extra of around 30kg.
[/quote]
That’s a hyooooge difference. I spent most of the last year squatting high bar for basically the same reason. A ton of elbow pain. I do most of my rep work with a high bar position, and lower the bar when I’m hitting singles, doubles, and triples. But I would say my maxes on both are within 5kg or so.[/quote]
Can be explained by the fact that my high-bar position is really on the highest possible spot on my back (on top of traps). If you actually check the squat vids of WLer more closely you will see that 8/10 of them will have the bar lower than that (“under” the traps like most PLers). My low-bar is slightly lower than that.
Essentially there are 3 different bar placements: High, hybrid, and low. Most people don’t realize that and mix shit up.
The difference between hybrid and low isn’t as big.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
Question 1. What would be the most important piece of advice you would give the 15 years younger version of yourself related to training?
[/quote]
(1) Train (and eat) like a dedicated BBer rather than doing some shitty “strength routines” from the interwebs.[/quote]
Why?
[quote]dt79 wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
Question 1. What would be the most important piece of advice you would give the 15 years younger version of yourself related to training?
[/quote]
(1) Train (and eat) like a dedicated BBer rather than doing some shitty “strength routines” from the interwebs.[/quote]
Why?[/quote]
You will look AND perform better in the mid and long-term. Even if you care mostly for the Big 3. Hypertrophy (next to technique/setup) is KING and what better way to maximize it than to train (and eat) like a serious BBer? Ed Coan, Captain Kirk & co had it all figured out a long time ago - train like a BBer, but keep perfecting the technique of the Big 3 along the way.
So trivial but almost everyone misses the boat on that one.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]dt79 wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
Question 1. What would be the most important piece of advice you would give the 15 years younger version of yourself related to training?
[/quote]
(1) Train (and eat) like a dedicated BBer rather than doing some shitty “strength routines” from the interwebs.[/quote]
Why?[/quote]
You will look AND perform better in the mid and long-term. Even if you care mostly for the Big 3. Hypertrophy (next to technique/setup) is KING and what better way to maximize it than to train (and eat) like a serious BBer? Ed Coan, Captain Kirk & co had it all figured out a long time ago - train like a BBer, but keep perfecting the technique of the Big 3 along the way.
So trivial but almost everyone misses the boat on that one.[/quote]
This is why I am an IS fan.
Glad to see you’re still alive. I thought you maybe even got banned or something as a few posters have before. I always appreciated your posts because you cut through the bullshit and called people out if needed.
On the topic of hypertrophy vs strength, what is your preferred style of getting it done? Above you spoke the need for more people to appreciate hypertrophy training and focus on building mass even if strength is their main goal.
Do you prefer to split your training into seasons such that you have times you are pushing body-weight/muscle growth and other times when you may just maintain BW while pushing PRs? Or do you prefer to always be working towards that next PR year round, slam some hypertrophy/rep work after heavy work, and keep calories high?
Was looking for something high frequency for squatting and bench pressing after finishing a DUP cycle. This thread inspired me to try the nemesis programming. Thanks for the info and inspiration.
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
Do you prefer to split your training into seasons such that you have times you are pushing body-weight/muscle growth and other times when you may just maintain BW while pushing PRs? Or do you prefer to always be working towards that next PR year round, slam some hypertrophy/rep work after heavy work, and keep calories high?[/quote]
No. Putting in the hypertrophy (and form/setup perfection) work in should ALWAYS be priority number one. If you do the latter right, PRs will always come naturally and can be thrown in whenever you feel like. But NEVER compromise putting in the hard work in for chasing (rep) PRs. I have done the mistake in the past to chase PRs at the cost of progress. Who hasn’t, eh?
For many this involves a change in mindset. You should ideally feel more satisfied with having put in the hard work (say, on a bad day) than hitting a PR.
Of course, if you have a competition coming up you should do a form of short-term peaking method to increase the likelihood to perform your best on a particular day.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
No. Putting in the hypertrophy (and form/setup perfection) work in should ALWAYS be priority number one. If you do the latter right, PRs will always come naturally and can be thrown in whenever you feel like. But NEVER compromise putting in the hard work in for chasing (rep) PRs. I have done the mistake in the past to chase PRs at the cost of progress. Who hasn’t, eh?
For many this involves a change in mindset. You should ideally feel more satisfied with having put in the hard work (say, on a bad day) than hitting a PR.
[/quote]
Can you expand on this?
[quote]zephead4747 wrote:
Was looking for something high frequency for squatting and bench pressing after finishing a DUP cycle. This thread inspired me to try the nemesis programming. Thanks for the info and inspiration.[/quote]
Knowing what I know now, I would actually caution against hitting the same compound movement hard 6-7 days/week. You CAN do it, but I don’t think it is optimal and you will quickly feel like utter shit (but weirdly still be able to progress). Say hello to chronic inflammation and copious use of NSAIDs. Been there, done that. A productive approach, but not optimal imo.
For someone who is primarily interested in improving performance in a compound movement I would recommend the following weekly setup:
(A) 2 Days of hard & heavy volume coming primarily from the compound exercise to take care of the hypertrophy of the primary muscle groups
(B) The other 4-5 days hit the compound exercise with low volume to work on perfecting setup/technique.
Anyway, typically it is better to experience this stuff yourself, so by all means give the Nemesis thing a serious go.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
PRs will always come naturally and can be thrown in whenever you feel like. But NEVER compromise putting in the hard work in for chasing (rep) PRs. I have done the mistake in the past to chase PRs at the cost of progress. Who hasn’t, eh?
[/quote]
This is definitely something I need to take to heart. I’ve got a meet in June, after which I’ve been planning to back waaaaay off of the very low rep stuff I’ve been doing. My body needs a break, and based on what you’re saying, it should benefit me strength-wise anyway. win-win. chicken din.
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
No. Putting in the hypertrophy (and form/setup perfection) work in should ALWAYS be priority number one. If you do the latter right, PRs will always come naturally and can be thrown in whenever you feel like. But NEVER compromise putting in the hard work in for chasing (rep) PRs. I have done the mistake in the past to chase PRs at the cost of progress. Who hasn’t, eh?
For many this involves a change in mindset. You should ideally feel more satisfied with having put in the hard work (say, on a bad day) than hitting a PR.
[/quote]
Can you expand on this?[/quote]
Simple shit really. Comes down to the idea of “building vs testing”. Put all your focus on the building part and forget about the testing (PRs). If you train (& eat) right PRs are inevitable and not a big deal. Never let a PR stand in the way of putting in the goddamn work to make progress.
Think more like a BBer. His goal is to put in enough work to stimulate hypertrophy in, say, the quads each and every session. If he is doing it right his squat numbers will consistently go up. However, he will never let the squat performance (up or down) interfere with doing his best to get enough work in to stimulate hypertrophy in the quads.
For PLers this attitude is sometimes not easy, since they care by definition more about the squat performance than quad hypertrophy.
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]infinite_shore wrote:
No. Putting in the hypertrophy (and form/setup perfection) work in should ALWAYS be priority number one. If you do the latter right, PRs will always come naturally and can be thrown in whenever you feel like. But NEVER compromise putting in the hard work in for chasing (rep) PRs. I have done the mistake in the past to chase PRs at the cost of progress. Who hasn’t, eh?
For many this involves a change in mindset. You should ideally feel more satisfied with having put in the hard work (say, on a bad day) than hitting a PR.
[/quote]
Can you expand on this?[/quote]
Simple shit really. Comes down to the idea of “building vs testing”. Put all your focus on the building part and forget about the testing (PRs). If you train (& eat) right PRs are inevitable and not a big deal. Never let a PR stand in the way of putting in the goddamn work to make progress.
Think more like a BBer. His goal is to put in enough work to stimulate hypertrophy in, say, the quads each and every session. If he is doing it right his squat numbers will consistently go up. However, he will never let the squat performance (up or down) interfere with doing his best to get enough work in to stimulate hypertrophy in the quads.
For PLers this attitude is sometimes not easy, since they care by definition more about the squat performance than quad hypertrophy.[/quote]
Thanks.
Do you think there’s a threshold or limit on how BB techniques apply to a PLer or general strength goals? For example, if my squat 1RM is 400 and I use any number of BB techniques with say 50% of that will that really translate to a higher 1RM assuming I am adequately stimulating for hypertrophy and eating adequately?
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Do you think there’s a threshold or limit on how BB techniques apply to a PLer or general strength goals? For example, if my squat 1RM is 400 and I use any number of BB techniques with say 50% of that will that really translate to a higher 1RM assuming I am adequately stimulating for hypertrophy and eating adequately?
[/quote]
No, increasing the cross-sectional area (CSA) of a muscle will always lead to more force potential (better performance), no matter how you signaled your body to do it. Non-CSA related lean gains don’t appear to really happen.
Anyway, your wording suggest that you think that using “light weights”/pump techniques is what characterizes BBing training. That is completely wrong imo. A common mistake though. Proper hypertrophy training will always consist primarily of high volume with heavy weights. Pump techniques (drop sets, minimal rest, etc.) are useful and should be done, but are far less important.