[quote]GodOfSteele wrote:
Picking up on that Pumped: I read a while ago (so it might not be correct anymore) that one of the biggest mofos on this site who goes by the name of Morepain “only” benches 315 in his sets. I dont wont to go all Scott Able on you though and say that very high volume is the way to grow and that poundages do not matter at all because literally every big fucker is very strong, but I think there is a cut off point if you are very strong. What do I mean?
Once you have reached good strength levels I think you have to decide which way to go sort of. If you want to get stronger you probably have to focus on going a “strength specialized way”
[/quote] As long as you can gain weight freely, you don’t really need anything specialized imo… Just got to have a decent routine and the right diet, plus knowledge of the right setup and whatnot for your exercises… Once you stop gaining weight at a decent pace, then yes. [quote] focusing on lock outs, low reps whatnot, everything geared towards making you stronger but not necassarily bigger. I you wnat to grow you will probably have to up your volume (more isolations exercises is more volume)This article also picks up on that: http://www.elitefts.com/documents/size_strength.htm http://www.elitefts.com/documents/size-strength2.htm
Plus what also astounded me is the poundages Ronny Rockel uses. I have seen him train live in person and must say for being that outright huge he is not as strong as one would of thought. Video:
(“only” 130kg/300lbs Chest presses as his top set)
[/quote]
I would not rely on that kind of training to get to any real kind of size, especially as a natty…
There are some things to consider here:
-Gear (depending on what he’s taking, how much etc) can help a lot with letting you gain strength on high rep, high volume routines… A drug-free guy can do the same and get nowhere past the beginner stage oftentimes.
-A lot of people gained virtually all their size getting stronger and stronger, but you often see them after 10 years of training that way suddenly telling everyone how they now only use so and so much weight and so on… Hell, Larry Scott is one of those guys… Once you have the size, you got muscle-memory on your side… It’s comparatively easy to get back to a size you’ve already been vs. a size you haven’t been yet.
-Guys with great muscle-shape/genetics (onemorerep comes to mind) can look a lot better while lifting half what you’re lifting.
Try getting your chest to look even remotely like his, size-wise, lifting similar weight, doing the same routine, whatever. No matter how much you feel the weight, it likely won’t happen.
-The whole feeling the weight thing doesn’t really require low amounts of weight though, you just have to get your technique and setup in order…
-Many people eventually progress from regular all-free-weight-type training to using more and more machines etc… I sure get beat up if all I do is heavy free-weight work.
-difference in mentality… I don’t want to go into that too much, but there are imo 2 basic mind-sets in bbing these days… You first have the people who are all about increasing their muscle size/improving their shape/sculpting their physique or whatever… The main population of every steroid forum. This is a generalization of course, but basically they just do whatever they can to build their bodies… Hell, a lot of them don’t even seem to enjoy training beyond “the burn” and “the pain” and whatever.
Not all of them use oil and site injections and such, but usually that’s the group who’ll do it (besides some pros who may have to, but don’t necessarily want to)… I’d put Sarcev into that group as far as pros go, Wheeler etc… Vastly different mind-set compared to guys like Dante, Professor X, me, and so on.
I accept drugs as part of bbing of course, but I wouldn’t ever dream of injecting syntherol or whatever they use these days just to make my muscles appear bigger… I love getting stronger first and foremost, on every exercise, and so I focus on that and what can I say… I like my way a lot better, but then again I don’t compete either.
-Statistical outliers/genetics. Plain and simple.
Most heavyweights bench 405 bodybuilding style for 6-12 or so… Super-heavies usually move 495 for a few, anywhere from 4-12 (12 def. being the exceptions, most are like 4-8 ala Ronnie in his prime, Zack Khan and so on. People don’t necessarily keep training that heavy of course, but most guys weighing 270-300 in contest shape can definitely do it as long as they just train for a bit).
There are very strong guys who, at a weight class less, match the guys above no problem… Hoornstra, Levrone back in the day, Ben White etc.
Anyway… Strength gain (I’m not really talking about this from a “only do very low reps”/powerlifting perspective though… Read PX’ thread and there you have what I mean really…) while gaining bodyweight is a fairly simple method of getting muscular (you can still mess it up a lot of ways, but yeah)… It’s not so “vague” as all those “if I reduce my rest periods/If I do 5 sets of 12 at the same weight/if I do this super-cycle/if I change it up all the damn time… -surely it will induce massive hypertrophy!” -methods you know?
I like my gains quantifiable/measurable, and not all this hoping that whatever exotic method will get me huge… somehow -kind of thing.
Then again, I’m a simple person I guess.
