Think You Are Big But Just Fat

Training
641

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Quick Ben wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:
Gentleman, SKELAC is our old friend BALBOS, and he likes nothing more than to stir the pot in here…he is just getting under your skin in a friendly way.

Just give him lolz.[/quote]

Honestly you cannot really get under my skin. If I took personal everything that someone tells me (or say about me) on the internetz I’d have to take a second mortgage to pay for my psychologist fee’s!!!

But I do think that this actually gives us a good opportunity to really show what 50lbs of muscle looks like because people do not seem to realize how much that really is and how much of a visual difference it makes.

To really know what 50lbs of added muscle looks like we have to compare people in similar conditions (about same body fat and dehydration state).

So here is a good example… comparison between Stu Yellin and Dexter Jackson. Both are about the same height. Stu competes at roughly 175lbs and Dexter at roughly 225lbs (although many experts, including Chad Nichols have reported that Dexter tends to inflate his body weight and really is about 215 in contest shape)… So both have a 50lbs difference (or 40) at the same height and about the same body fat level.

Stu has a fantastic physique and is a great natural bodybuilder, but Dexter looks like someone from a different species.[/quote]

So you consider Stu a natural, given the thread that was posted earlier? Not that it matters as to the quality of Stu’s advice or takes away from him being a good bodybuilder, but it feels like a bit of an elephant in the room now.[/quote]

Dude, the point of CT’s post was not to comment on Stu’s natural status, his post actually has nothing to do with that but is just showing how much 40-50 pounds of muscle really is.

There is no elephant in the room, Stu has commented on these issues before. Any further discussion is no more than dragging a good guy through the mud, undeservedly. [/quote]

He specifically made the point that Stu is natural and Dexter is not. I just find it curious that people with prior prohormone use are considered natural now. I must have missed the memo.
[/quote]

i must have missed it, how do we know stu was a previous prohormone user.

642

Re: “What’s the point in even talking about some limit?”

Some folks here simply like to talk about things related to bodybuilding for the sake of it, because bodybuilding is something they love talking about. Plain and simple! Do you only talk about things in your recreational time that are academic or of great consequence? I think not. If everyone only spoke about things academic and of consequence, this world would be outrageously dull, and people wouldn’t even bother to converse with one another much! Should people talk about the weather only when there’s an environmental disaster pending? Should people not ask one another, “How was your day?” considering most peoples’ work days are nearly identical to previous ones? After all, what’s the point–to simply share words with one another? Why talk about sports? We’re not athletes.

You get the picture. And believe me, some good men discussing the topic we do here are far less noxious than posters on other forums. I’ve seen men on other forums inquiring through polls how often other members defecate each day or how frequently they fornicate.

Re: “You’re limiting people.”

Other than holding someone hostage and thereby not allowing them to train and eat adequately, I don’t see how I can stop another person from going to the grocery store or a gym.

643

[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Re: “What’s the point in even talking about some limit?”

Some folks here simply like to talk about things related to bodybuilding for the sake of it, because bodybuilding is something they love talking about. Plain and simple! Do you only talk about things in your recreational time that are academic or of great consequence? I think not. If everyone only spoke about things academic and of consequence, this world would be outrageously dull, and people wouldn’t even bother to converse with one another much! Should people talk about the weather only when there’s an environmental disaster pending? Should people not ask one another, “How was your day?” considering most peoples’ work days are nearly identical to previous ones? After all, what’s the point–to simply share words with one another? Why talk about sports? We’re not athletes.

You get the picture. And believe me, some good men discussing the topic we do here are far less noxious than posters on other forums. I’ve seen men on other forums inquiring through polls how often other members defecate each day or how frequently they fornicate.

Re: “You’re limiting people.”

Other than holding someone hostage and thereby not allowing them to train and eat adequately, I don’t see how I can stop another person from going to the grocery store or a gym. [/quote]

Exactly.

644

[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Re: “You’re limiting people.”

Other than holding someone hostage and thereby not allowing them to train and eat adequately, I don’t see how I can stop another person from going to the grocery store or a gym. [/quote]

I disagree. I actually stopped training completely because you and Stu raped my dream. Thanks for that.

645

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
There is no elephant in the room, Stu has commented on these issues before. Any further discussion is no more than dragging a good guy through the mud, undeservedly. [/quote]

Thank you. I fail to see the need someone felt to dig up a post from 11 years ago, concerning something I’ve always been honest about anyway, in what I can only assume was an effort to cast a negative light.

At the time (2002), I never thought I’d step onstage in my life, and was guilty as many of us have been of thinking that if I found just the right a supplement, it would solve all my physique goals. This was despite not having a the best diet or training protocol (I can, and often do freely admit that I wasted a lot of years doing dumb sh-t in the gym).

Due to the legal status of said supplements, as well as the widespread use at the time, you’ll find a good number of today’s “natural” pros in their late 30’s, early 40’s who tried prohormones (thinking “hey,. at least I’m not using steroids”), eventually abandoned them, and after the agreed upon time frame required by their federations (7 years), competed completely in adherence to the rules of the game.

I had to abstain from certain fat burners (that are still legally obtainable form any GNC) for a number of years as well before stepping onstage.

I’ve always maintained that the IFBB and the ‘tested’ federations are the same sport, they merely have different “rules” for the athletes to play by. While I certainly can’t go back and untake a supplement from over a decade ago, I sleep soundly at night knowing I have played by the rules, and worked for what I’ve achieved.

Now, if you guys would like to continue discussing what the human body is capable of, I was digging that Thibs popped back into the forums with some serious #s as to just how few lbs of muscle can create a huge difference in a physique (and who knew he was such a boxing fan? -lol)

S

646

Interesting that I get the use of Mag-10 brought up constantly…and then this happened.

647

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]detazathoth wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
It just doesn’t sound like people realize how much 80 pounds of muscle is. I wish I were being limited to that much.

The possibly few people that have gotten there are close, aren’t going to be deswaded from pushing there limits by the statement. And the other 99.9999% of us can’t be limited by it because we aren’t anywhere close to that ceiling.

Adding 80 pounds of muscle to an adult is a HUGE amount. It’s like “limiting” your ability to earn by saying you’ll never make a trillion dollars.[/quote]

EXACTLY! The body is not fat and muscle… it’s fat, organs, bones, water and muscles. Lean body mass is NOT muscle weight. It’s muscle + organs + bones + water. And average male has about 40% of his bodyweight as muscle. For a 180lbs individual we’re talking about 72lbs… that puts in perspective how much 80lbs of muscle really is![/quote]

It was my understanding that we were talking about lean body mass from the get go.[/quote]

"BrickHead wrote:

Not one natural has built 80 pounds of muscle. "

People talking about LBM are building strawmen.[/quote]

Just in response to this…I do think telling people that they can’t do something will limit people in general. You have to believe something is even possible before you ever try it to start with.

-We know none of the people used to come up with this “80lbs limit” started after the age of being a full grown adult.

-since most of us start lifting as adolescents, they are the audience most of these limits will effect to start with…not the grown adults who have been lifting for 20 years.

-Lean body mass means “muscle” in bodybuilding. Arguing about dry weight of lean tissue is asinine.

Therefore, if someone starts lifting with “130lbs of lean body mass” and they gain 80lbs of lean body mass, they will have 210lbs of lean body mass. This is NOT impossible. It just seems that if anyone ever says they do it, the argument changes into body comp until the numbers fit. The chances of someone doing that and then getting into “contest shape” may be low, but since most of the people here won’t ever compete, what is the point again?

Simply put, what good does telling people this limit do?

648

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Just in response to this…I do think telling people that they can’t do something will limit people in general. You have to believe something is even possible before you ever try it to start with.

[/quote]

That is actually a very good point. For years my bench press was stuck at 275lbs… why? Because I trained in a wuss gym where you were asked if you were on steroids if you benched more than 2 plates per side!

I moved to an underground gym (actually in the basement of a church) were most the powerlifters and strongmen trained. There was 5 or 6 people benching over 500lbs raw and a few deadlifted in the 800s.

Within a few months I was bench pressing 315 and within 6 months I hit my first 4 plates bench.

One of the fasted rising kid I know trains at my gym. He trains in the strongmen crew which includes J-F Caron, Canada’s strongest man and WSM finalist. The guy (Caron) squat over 800lbs raw (at 6’3"), push press 415lbs for 3 reps, deadlift in the 900, deadlift 1060lbs with the deadsquat bar… and quite a few guys are pretty close to that.

Well the kid is 18 or 19, he emailed me yesterday to tell me that he squatted 600lbs x 2, front squatted 405x2, bench pressed 405 and deadlifted 650… about 75-80lbs improvement in all lifts in the past 4 months or so. The kid has no self-imposed limit because right off the bat, when he started training seriously the guys he trained with were lifting small cars.

649

If discussing the limits of how much muscle can be gained naturally causes someone to not train as hard then maybe they aren’t cut out for this.

650

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Just in response to this…I do think telling people that they can’t do something will limit people in general. You have to believe something is even possible before you ever try it to start with.

[/quote]

That is actually a very good point. For years my bench press was stuck at 275lbs… why? Because I trained in a wuss gym where you were asked if you were on steroids if you benched more than 2 plates per side!

I moved to an underground gym (actually in the basement of a church) were most the powerlifters and strongmen trained. There was 5 or 6 people benching over 500lbs raw and a few deadlifted in the 800s.

Within a few months I was bench pressing 315 and within 6 months I hit my first 4 plates bench.
[/quote]

I thought me ever pressing 405lbs was a fantasy until I started training with guys about my size who were stronger than me. I did it. I never would have if I always heard how “impossible” it was.

Simply put, I know what my lean body mass was at 305…and I beat that limit in “lean body mass”. That means it isn’t “impossible”…and since most here won’t compete, telling people that limit is ridiculous UNLESS strictly defining it as some status of ONLY “natural bodybuilder” and ONLY those we have seen so far.

It holds no bearing on what all people can do.

651

[quote]super saiyan wrote:
If discussing the limits of how much muscle can be gained naturally causes someone to not train as hard then maybe they aren’t cut out for this.

[/quote]

For years people thought it was impossible to build an arm bigger than 19"…until Leroy Colbert did it…then suddenly tons of people were doing it…then he hit 21".

We are talking about reaching extreme limits here. Yes, to do that takes more belief than average and the last thing someone with that ability needs is someone telling them they can’t.

652

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Simply put, I know what my lean body mass was at 305…and I beat that limit in “lean body mass”. That means it isn’t “impossible”…and since most here won’t compete, telling people that limit is ridiculous UNLESS strictly defining it as some status of ONLY “natural bodybuilder” and ONLY those we have seen so far.

It holds no bearing on what all people can do.
[/quote]

You can’t talk about your lean body mass like that without backing it up numbers. What was your bodyfat at 305 and how did you have it measured? “Some guy at Bally’s” giving you a 3-site skinfold doesn’t cut it, either. Unless you’ve been weighed underwater with a measured residual lung volume, you very likely have no idea what your bodyfat really is.

My own personal anecdote: I know a guy who was in grad school at the same time as me. He was a little shorter than you, but about the same build, pushing 300 pounds and with similar strength numbers on machines, etc. The highest bodyfat estimate he got between handhelds, scales, skinfolds and the bodpod was around 20%. Then he was weighed underwater and found his actual bodyfat was 30+.

Point being, guys like you are the ends of the bell curve for anything other than UW weighing. All of those estimates are based on population data of primarily untrained people, so any error is magnified substantially with each successive step in the process a handheld machine goes through. The same goes for the equations you plug your skinfold measurements into.

653

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

You can’t talk about your lean body mass like that without backing it up numbers. What was your bodyfat at 305 and how did you have it measured? “Some guy at Bally’s” giving you a 3-site skinfold doesn’t cut it, either. Unless you’ve been weighed underwater with a measured residual lung volume, you very likely have no idea what your bodyfat really is.

My own personal anecdote: I know a guy who was in grad school at the same time as me. He was a little shorter than you, but about the same build, pushing 300 pounds and with similar strength numbers on machines, etc. The highest bodyfat estimate he got between handhelds, scales, skinfolds and the bodpod was around 20%. Then he was weighed underwater and found his actual bodyfat was 30+.

Point being, guys like you are the ends of the bell curve for anything other than UW weighing. All of those estimates are based on population data of primarily untrained people, so any error is magnified substantially with each successive step in the process a handheld machine goes through. The same goes for the equations you plug your skinfold measurements into.[/quote]

LOL @ “guys like me”. The point is, there are people all over that bell curve and I doubt some other big guy you know was “like me” at all.

I have not been weighed underwater. I am not claiming to have been weighed under water. All I did claim was that I was 150lbs and read at 11%. Given how I looked back then, I think that is a valid estimate of how much body fat I was carrying. The MOST my body fat has actually been read at was 21% but that has nothing to do with the heaviest weight I reached.

If you want to believe I gained 150lbs of body fat, so be it. This really comes down to what you are willing to believe anyway…because guys right here will claim you are “25% body fat” no matter what to make the numbers fit.

I personally don’t see that is odd for a regular weight lifter who stays in the gym 6 days a week for over a decade to carry 210lbs of lean body mass at that weight.

If you want to argue underwater weighing, so be it…but that means even less support for some absolute limit.

654

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

You can’t talk about your lean body mass like that without backing it up numbers. What was your bodyfat at 305 and how did you have it measured? “Some guy at Bally’s” giving you a 3-site skinfold doesn’t cut it, either. Unless you’ve been weighed underwater with a measured residual lung volume, you very likely have no idea what your bodyfat really is.

My own personal anecdote: I know a guy who was in grad school at the same time as me. He was a little shorter than you, but about the same build, pushing 300 pounds and with similar strength numbers on machines, etc. The highest bodyfat estimate he got between handhelds, scales, skinfolds and the bodpod was around 20%. Then he was weighed underwater and found his actual bodyfat was 30+.

Point being, guys like you are the ends of the bell curve for anything other than UW weighing. All of those estimates are based on population data of primarily untrained people, so any error is magnified substantially with each successive step in the process a handheld machine goes through. The same goes for the equations you plug your skinfold measurements into.[/quote]

LOL @ “guys like me”. The point is, there are people all over that bell curve and I doubt some other big guy you know was “like me” at all.

I have not been weighed underwater. I am not claiming to have been weighed under water. All I did claim was that I was 150lbs and read at 11%. Given how I looked back then, I think that is a valid estimate of how much body fat I was carrying. The MOST my body fat has actually been read at was 21% but that has nothing to do with the heaviest weight I reached.

If you want to believe I gained 150lbs of body fat, so be it. This really comes down to what you are willing to believe anyway…because guys right here will claim you are “25% body fat” no matter what to make the numbers fit.

I personally don’t see that is odd for a regular weight lifter who stays in the gym 6 days a week for over a decade to carry 210lbs of lean body mass at that weight.

If you want to argue underwater weighing, so be it…but that means even less support for some absolute limit.[/quote]

LOL back at you, guy. The dude I referenced was a competitive swimmer into his 20s and didn’t go back to school until he was out of the army, at which point he put on a ton of bodyweight and got a lot stronger. Does that story sound at least a little familiar?

And saying you’ve never been read higher than 21% is EXACTLY my point. To reiterate, neither was he, and he used the same methods you have since you freely admit to never having been UW weighed.

You have the gall to mention “bad science” multiple times in this thread but won’t disclose how you know your bodyfat was actually 20% other than to vaguely reference it being read. Well, at best you used a method that relies on taking one measurement (likely an impedance) and plugging it into a series of equations to get an estimate of your LBM, i.e.creates error all over the place. “Guys like you” have a lot of LBM and a lot of fat, which is not reflected in the data used to make those equations. So yea, guys like you get shit estimates.

655

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]detazathoth wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
It just doesn’t sound like people realize how much 80 pounds of muscle is. I wish I were being limited to that much.

The possibly few people that have gotten there are close, aren’t going to be deswaded from pushing there limits by the statement. And the other 99.9999% of us can’t be limited by it because we aren’t anywhere close to that ceiling.

Adding 80 pounds of muscle to an adult is a HUGE amount. It’s like “limiting” your ability to earn by saying you’ll never make a trillion dollars.[/quote]

EXACTLY! The body is not fat and muscle… it’s fat, organs, bones, water and muscles. Lean body mass is NOT muscle weight. It’s muscle + organs + bones + water. And average male has about 40% of his bodyweight as muscle. For a 180lbs individual we’re talking about 72lbs… that puts in perspective how much 80lbs of muscle really is![/quote]

It was my understanding that we were talking about lean body mass from the get go.[/quote]

"BrickHead wrote:

Not one natural has built 80 pounds of muscle. "

People talking about LBM are building strawmen.[/quote]

Just in response to this…I do think telling people that they can’t do something will limit people in general. You have to believe something is even possible before you ever try it to start with.

-We know none of the people used to come up with this “80lbs limit” started after the age of being a full grown adult.

-since most of us start lifting as adolescents, they are the audience most of these limits will effect to start with…not the grown adults who have been lifting for 20 years.

-Lean body mass means “muscle” in bodybuilding. Arguing about dry weight of lean tissue is asinine.

Therefore, if someone starts lifting with “130lbs of lean body mass” and they gain 80lbs of lean body mass, they will have 210lbs of lean body mass. This is NOT impossible. It just seems that if anyone ever says they do it, the argument changes into body comp until the numbers fit. The chances of someone doing that and then getting into “contest shape” may be low, but since most of the people here won’t ever compete, what is the point again?

Simply put, what good does telling people this limit do?[/quote]

Just to play devils advocate here X. I agree i dont like the idea or the term ‘limit’ here but i think there is alot of value in setting up realistic expectations for some trainees. Having someone chase unrealistic goals can in most cases be detrimental or even dangerous. It can lead to large let downs, injuries, most often than not it will lead to overeating and justifying bad behavior.

There are some gym rats that need to hear “nothing it off limits” to help them trek onward, but I would be willing to bet that most people would benefit more so from curbed expectations and realistic goals. Perfect example would be Thib’s truth about bulking article. I think that most ‘noobs’ would get alot more value from reading that and following it for a few years than ‘squats and milk’ and other ‘treat your body like a veal calf’ dogma.

That being said, telling someone who is trying to achieve the peak of human achievement that there are ‘limits’ to the human body can have a harmful effect.

656

My god. We fucking get it.

(a) X believes he is the exception to the rule, because he didn’t believe in limits and dared to eat more cheeseburgers than everyone else.

(b) The rest don’t believe him.

Next topic please or does anyone actually think you can convince X to change his mind?

657

to take this discussion in a different direction—you don’t need 80 lbs of lean mass to look amazing

here is a pic of brian whitacre who competes at below 170 lbs

www.brianwhitacre.net/Pictures/Thumbnails/MM%201.jpg

someday i hope to achieve a physique like that

658

[quote]HeavyTriple wrote:

LOL back at you, guy. The dude I referenced was a competitive swimmer into his 20s and didn’t go back to school until he was out of the army, at which point he put on a ton of bodyweight and got a lot stronger. Does that story sound at least a little familiar?[/quote]

No. It doesn’t. I put on most of my weight in college DURING my early 20’s.

[quote]
You have the gall to mention “bad science” multiple times in this thread but won’t disclose how you know your bodyfat was actually 20% other than to vaguely reference it being read. Well, at best you used a method that relies on taking one measurement (likely an impedance) and plugging it into a series of equations to get an estimate of your LBM, i.e.creates error all over the place. “Guys like you” have a lot of LBM and a lot of fat, which is not reflected in the data used to make those equations. So yea, guys like you get shit estimates. [/quote]

? I was read my calipers both of the times I mentioned.

659

[quote]Waittz wrote:

Just to play devils advocate here X. I agree i dont like the idea or the term ‘limit’ here but i think there is alot of value in setting up realistic expectations for some trainees. Having someone chase unrealistic goals can in most cases be detrimental or even dangerous. It can lead to large let downs, injuries, most often than not it will lead to overeating and justifying bad behavior. [/quote]

In all cases, people should be looking at the results they are actually getting. It does no good to have “great expectations” if you still weigh 130lbs after 10 years of training.

I feel they should “curb” expectations if the results they get say so. Why would I “curb” the expectations of someone with Kai Greene genetics?

660

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Simply put, I know what my lean body mass was at 305…[/quote]

What was your BF% at 5’10 305lbs?