This may very well be the new reason to visit T-Nation.
I want to talk frankly about the matter of genetics. How much does it play a role? Is it a cop out or a serious issue?
I speak as someone who had basically no physical activity growing up and come from a family of guys who are kinda small… Thus I started this journey about 4 years ago as a total softy, weighing about 210 and nothing but fat… couldnt even bench 115.
I’m still progressing every month and am getting stronget/bigger/leaner, but its sllloooww, which I’m fine with as I learn its slow for most people. But it seems others just blow me out of the water in terms of speed of progression and do so while goofing around with their training.
A buddy of mine is a good example, he would go in, train whatever he felt like training with very little effort and he was getting veins and a six pack in a matter of weeks. Almost made me a little mad.
Just wandering what everyone elses opinions are. Regardless, the guys who OBVIOUSLY train…The guys who make you clear your throat before speaking to them… always answer with “10 years” “15 years” “20 years” whenever I ask them how long they have been training. So time and effort will always be the great equalizer.
Theres alot to take into account. I’m gonna keep this short because I’m off to train believe it or not…but…
Genetics play a role when it comes to advanced levels. I think the really genetically fucked up are equally as rare as the genetic elite that grace the halls of the Olympia. Ok maybe not THAT rare, but rare nonetheless. Often times, yes its a cop out IMO.
On the other hand, I knew a good in high school who started training and started blowing up despite not knowing that much about proper training. (He did have his diet in line).
I thought wow he has damn good genetics. I found out later from him that no…he was using every PH that ended in ‘drol’ you can think of.
Point is, don’t compare yourself to guys you see around you, it will ultimately just take away from your focus and probably hinder you. And like with the PH thing, you never know the full story.
[quote]conorh wrote:
I just read the “Invisible Trophies” blog, and I was thinking “I like my real trophies, I put them right next to the tv.”
[/quote]
Likewise with all my soccer and martial art trophies, I hope to get powerlifting trophies. Being a real winner is such much better.
I rest until I feel I can perform my absolute best on the next set. For heavy squats this can be a solid 4-5 minutes sometimes… For curls maybe 2 minutes. Who knows if this is because of fiber stimulation or lactate build up or blah blah, but I just think if you can perform 100% of the set because you arent tired you will get better results.
While I am slowly abandoning the idea of “fat loss training”, I think that unless you are training FOR fat loss, meaning for maximal calorie burn in minimal time, the rest periods should be long enough to allow near-maximal recovery. The bigger guys in my gym have taught me this as well. If the goal is to huff-and-puff then keep the weights semi light and the rest periods very short.
Fulmen: It might FEEL like 10 second to 1 minute, but if you had to hazard a guess, what would say it actually is? I am going to go out on a limb and say 10 seconds in between sets of heavy bench is not what you practice… 1 minute would probably be stretching it as well.
I rest until I feel I can perform my absolute best on the next set. For heavy squats this can be a solid 4-5 minutes sometimes… For curls maybe 2 minutes. Who knows if this is because of fiber stimulation or lactate build up or blah blah, but I just think if you can perform 100% of the set because you arent tired you will get better results.
While I am slowly abandoning the idea of “fat loss training”, I think that unless you are training FOR fat loss, meaning for maximal calorie burn in minimal time, the rest periods should be long enough to allow near-maximal recovery. The bigger guys in my gym have taught me this as well. If the goal is to huff-and-puff then keep the weights semi light and the rest periods very short.
Fulmen: It might FEEL like 10 second to 1 minute, but if you had to hazard a guess, what would say it actually is? I am going to go out on a limb and say 10 seconds in between sets of heavy bench is not what you practice… 1 minute would probably be stretching it as well.
[/quote]
And you would probably be right concerning benching. It just depends on the lift/body part. I definitely rest between deadlift and squat sets. Sometimes I don’t rest at all between certain sets for my arms. Whatever feels best to me.
i have a question about cortisol and its affects on catabolism.
i read something from CT about in the Physique Clinic about how ectomorphs shouldnt do heavy sets with low reps because that body type produces more cortisol from it and will do more harm than good.
have any ectos on here from experience found this to be either true or false? ive never really seen any ectos doing heavy work, usually just shorter/stockier guys. and as you guys are stressing the importance building a certain level of strength with heavy sets first it makes me wonder more about it.
I agree with those who have said don’t worry about genetics, because, honestly, even if you were to somehow find out you have bad bodybuilding genetics, what’re you going to do? You can’t change them.
[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i have a question about cortisol and its affects on catabolism.
i read something from CT about in the Physique Clinic about how ectomorphs shouldnt do heavy sets with low reps because that body type produces more cortisol from it and will do more harm than good.
have any ectos on here from experience found this to be either true or false? ive never really seen any ectos doing heavy work, usually just shorter/stockier guys. and as you guys are stressing the importance building a certain level of strength with heavy sets first it makes me wonder more about it. [/quote]
Personally, I think the ecto/endo/meso stuff should never be mentioned to young trainees (training age). All I have ever seen happen from the introduction of those terms is excuse making, and confusion.
If you are a young trainee - you have no idea what you are, and just about anything in the resistance training universe is going to work for you. Hell - I had my daughter un-rack and re-rack the weight tree. 800 pound off, 800 pounds on. I have no idea what kind of morph she is at 13, but she got stronger and faster at it after about 4 weeks.
I see no need to confuse the young guys, or give them something to micro analyze. Sure it has its place, but honestly, does it really make a measurable difference in a noob? I think not.
[quote]IronAssassin wrote:
Calves yes, I forgot about that. Forearms I am not sure. I believe it depends on the excercise. I think its RP if your doing hammer or pinwheel curls but I’m not 100% on that.[/quote]
I think you’ve got the mixed around. Forearms are always straight setted. Calves are usually straight setted with a 5 sec negative and 15 second stretch.
[quote]will to power wrote:
IronAssassin wrote:
Calves yes, I forgot about that. Forearms I am not sure. I believe it depends on the excercise. I think its RP if your doing hammer or pinwheel curls but I’m not 100% on that.
I think you’ve got the mixed around. Forearms are always straight setted. Calves are usually straight setted with a 5 sec negative and 15 second stretch. [/quote]
The calve set hurts worse than anything I have ever done in the gym. Time literally crawls for those 15 seconds. And the DOMS - holy fuck - the DOMS
I’m doing them like Wojo says in the DVD, and 6 reps was pure hell.
[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
i have a question about cortisol and its affects on catabolism.
i read something from CT about in the Physique Clinic about how ectomorphs shouldnt do heavy sets with low reps because that body type produces more cortisol from it and will do more harm than good.
have any ectos on here from experience found this to be either true or false? ive never really seen any ectos doing heavy work, usually just shorter/stockier guys. and as you guys are stressing the importance building a certain level of strength with heavy sets first it makes me wonder more about it. [/quote]
Most of the people labeling themselves as “ectomorphs” are wrong in the first place. I think the use of most of these labels should be done away with and I think “cortisol” is the new scape goat for lack of progress. He might as well have used the term “overtraining”.
[quote]Natural Nate wrote:
Could you guys who’ve done it talk a bit more about doing intense stretches for size? What should I start doing now?
This thread rules.[/quote]
Attached are the basic extreme stretches. You do them after you finish training a bodypart or group of related bodyparts [so if you’re training chest/shoulders/tris you can stretch chest right after chest or you can do all your stretches after all three]. Hold for 60-90 seconds and up the weight when you get to the top end of that range.
With the back stretch most people can’t just hang there to make it work, you have to find the sweet spot. For me I just need to lean back a little.
Edit; there are a few alternative stretches if these don’t work out, and I’ll add them as people need them. Any questions feel free to post.
[quote]rainjack wrote:
will to power wrote:
IronAssassin wrote:
Calves yes, I forgot about that. Forearms I am not sure. I believe it depends on the excercise. I think its RP if your doing hammer or pinwheel curls but I’m not 100% on that.
I think you’ve got the mixed around. Forearms are always straight setted. Calves are usually straight setted with a 5 sec negative and 15 second stretch.
The calve set hurts worse than anything I have ever done in the gym. Time literally crawls for those 15 seconds. And the DOMS - holy fuck - the DOMS
I’m doing them like Wojo says in the DVD, and 6 reps was pure hell. [/quote]
A bit behind, but when you guys are talking about during the “stretch,” are you guys talking about the bottom part of the lift, or after you complete the conccentric motion?
[quote]rainjack wrote:
will to power wrote:
IronAssassin wrote:
Calves yes, I forgot about that. Forearms I am not sure. I believe it depends on the excercise. I think its RP if your doing hammer or pinwheel curls but I’m not 100% on that.
I think you’ve got the mixed around. Forearms are always straight setted. Calves are usually straight setted with a 5 sec negative and 15 second stretch.
The calve set hurts worse than anything I have ever done in the gym. Time literally crawls for those 15 seconds. And the DOMS - holy fuck - the DOMS
I’m doing them like Wojo says in the DVD, and 6 reps was pure hell. [/quote]
haha yeah, before I started I read people talking about how DC calves was the real man maker, not widowmaker squats, and I thought they were taking the piss or something. Now I know.
Also, I’d say this contributes towards a bodybuilding thread, but how does everyone else feel about leg-presses? I know they’re good for people who’ve sustained any sort of real leg injuries, but as long as I’m able to do squats, I can’t really justify ever doing them. If want a supplemental exercise, I’d probably rather do a lunge variation, unilateral work, or even hammy curls or quad raises. Maybe it’s just me, because I never really feel like I’m getting anything out of them.
On a side note, that same bad training partner that I had today looked at me while doing squats and said, “I don’t really like the way this feels on my body… I’m going to do leg-presses.” I made a sound which essentially called him a pussy, and he said, “What, they work!”
[quote]SSC wrote:
rainjack wrote:
will to power wrote:
IronAssassin wrote:
Calves yes, I forgot about that. Forearms I am not sure. I believe it depends on the excercise. I think its RP if your doing hammer or pinwheel curls but I’m not 100% on that.
I think you’ve got the mixed around. Forearms are always straight setted. Calves are usually straight setted with a 5 sec negative and 15 second stretch.
The calve set hurts worse than anything I have ever done in the gym. Time literally crawls for those 15 seconds. And the DOMS - holy fuck - the DOMS
I’m doing them like Wojo says in the DVD, and 6 reps was pure hell.
A bit behind, but when you guys are talking about during the “stretch,” are you guys talking about the bottom part of the lift, or after you complete the conccentric motion?[/quote]
At the bottom. I would call after the concentric the flexed position.
[quote]SSC wrote:
Also, I’d say this contributes towards a bodybuilding thread, but how does everyone else feel about leg-presses? I know they’re good for people who’ve sustained any sort of real leg injuries, but as long as I’m able to do squats, I can’t really justify ever doing them. If want a supplemental exercise, I’d probably rather do a lunge variation, unilateral work, or even hammy curls or quad raises. Maybe it’s just me, because I never really feel like I’m getting anything out of them.
On a side note, that same bad training partner that I had today looked at me while doing squats and said, “I don’t really like the way this feels on my body… I’m going to do leg-presses.” I made a sound which essentially called him a pussy, and he said, “What, they work!”
Anyway, that sparked the question.[/quote]
Leg presses do work. Several bodybuilders from Paul Dillet to Ben White currently use them as the base of their training. I am not sure why so many give them a bad rep. If it builds muscle, why degrade it? I also like that “hacksquat iso-lever machine” (shown above) that uses real plates but has back support. I use this whenever I find a gym that has one. I just like the feel and usually go pretty heavy on them.
The one at my gym now isn’t like the one in the picture but follows a greater arc of movement which I can really feel in my legs.
Degrading these exercises makes about as much sense as degrading lat pulldowns. They ALL work. They all have a place.
[quote]SSC wrote:
Also, I’d say this contributes towards a bodybuilding thread, but how does everyone else feel about leg-presses? I know they’re good for people who’ve sustained any sort of real leg injuries, but as long as I’m able to do squats, I can’t really justify ever doing them. If want a supplemental exercise, I’d probably rather do a lunge variation, unilateral work, or even hammy curls or quad raises. Maybe it’s just me, because I never really feel like I’m getting anything out of them.
On a side note, that same bad training partner that I had today looked at me while doing squats and said, “I don’t really like the way this feels on my body… I’m going to do leg-presses.” I made a sound which essentially called him a pussy, and he said, “What, they work!”
Anyway, that sparked the question.[/quote]
I got one of these for my anniversary back in November.
I don’t really squat that much any more - unless I hack squat on this. My knees go to the point that 225 required full wraps.
