What You've Learned From Experience

Training Bodybuilding
121

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Also I’m wondering why you haven’t posted your stats or routine? If nothing else could you at least PM your current routine to me? I’m interested in the set up. [/quote]

For Christ’s sake man, read the damn thread.

My routine has been posted and I already answered the question of putting up my stats.

I think I need a sticky thread on this forum if I am going to have to repeat myself every 5 minutes like some special education teacher.

I really don’t think any of you can fathom what it’s like to be attacked by a group of “people” who carelessly disregard your post history and force you to repeatedly defend yourself on the same points.

My behavior and posting style is entirely a reflection of the bullshit that I have to put up with on here. You should walk in my shoes for a few days, if only you could.

Yes, I know I’ve offended you by implying that you’re a bunch of morons. But faced with this type of behavior, which other label would be appropriate? The fact is, you’ve earned the title. If you don’t like it, then change your behavior.

You all seem to think that I should just lay down my arms and admit defeat, but that is simply never going to happen. Why not? For the exact same fucking reason that nobody else on this forum - or any other forum - has ever said, “Hey guys I’ve been writing essays on this subject for 5 years but everything I’ve ever written has been wrong and it turns out I know nothing. I will shut up and listen to my betters from now on.” Getting such an admission from me must be one hell of a masturbation fantasy for some of you pricks.

I can’t admit defeat because I don’t think I’m wrong, you see. You can’t “convince” someone to dispense with a point of view through coercion, only reason. And I have yet to hear any good reasons from my opponents.

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
You act like the guys way bigger than you on here are wrong. They’re the ones doing what the pro’s are doing. Go look at Johnnie Jacksons routine, Ronnie colemans, or even just most other body builders and they’re not doing crazy stuff and neither are the big guys here. No one here is even saying isolation exercises or machines are bad. No one is saying training to failure is necessarily always bad. [/quote]

Coleman and JOJ are exceptions to the rule. The vast majority of BB’ers, past and present, would endorse what I’ve said. Go look at what Bob Chic writes. He is one of the more vocal former IFFB pro’s. This is kid’s stuff. I’m not going to go into it because you’re flat out wrong. You can’t sit here and try to convince me that “all the big guys” train heavy with compounds. It simply isn’t true. Numerous authors, even those who advocate training this way, have admit that it isn’t true. Try Poliquin, CT, Boyle, et. al

The whole “joke” about bodybuilders is that they are supposedly “weak” for their size, right? Well that obviously implies that the largest guys AREN’T moving the most weight or training with all compound movements.

Get outta’ here
Find something better to do.

122

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
Also I’m wondering why you haven’t posted your stats or routine? If nothing else could you at least PM your current routine to me? I’m interested in the set up.

For Christ’s sake man, read the damn thread.

My routine has been posted and I already answered the question of putting up my stats.

I think I need a sticky thread on this forum if I am going to have to repeat myself every 5 minutes like some special education teacher.

I really don’t think any of you can fathom what it’s like to be attacked by a group of “people” who carelessly disregard your post history and force you to repeatedly defend yourself on the same points.

My behavior and posting style is entirely a reflection of the bullshit that I have to put up with on here. You should walk in my shoes for a few days, if only you could.

Yes, I know I’ve offended you by implying that you’re a bunch of morons. But faced with this type of behavior, which other label would be appropriate? The fact is, you’ve earned the title. If you don’t like it, then change your behavior.

You all seem to think that I should just lay down my arms and admit defeat, but that is simply never going to happen. Why not? For the exact same fucking reason that nobody else on this forum - or any other forum - has ever said, “Hey guys I’ve been writing essays on this subject for 5 years but everything I’ve ever written has been wrong and it turns out I know nothing. I will shut up and listen to my betters from now on.” Getting such an admission from me must be one hell of a masturbation fantasy for some of you pricks.

I can’t admit defeat because I don’t think I’m wrong, you see. You can’t “convince” someone to dispense with a point of view through coercion, only reason. And I have yet to hear any good reasons from my opponents.

pumped340 wrote:
You act like the guys way bigger than you on here are wrong. They’re the ones doing what the pro’s are doing. Go look at Johnnie Jacksons routine, Ronnie colemans, or even just most other body builders and they’re not doing crazy stuff and neither are the big guys here. No one here is even saying isolation exercises or machines are bad. No one is saying training to failure is necessarily always bad.

Coleman and JOJ are exceptions to the rule. The vast majority of BB’ers, past and present, would endorse what I’ve said. Go look at what Bob Chic writes. He is one of the more vocal former IFFB pro’s. This is kid’s stuff. I’m not going to go into it because you’re flat out wrong. You can’t sit here and try to convince me that “all the big guys” train heavy with compounds. It simply isn’t true. Numerous authors, even those who advocate training this way, have admit that it isn’t true. Try Poliquin, CT, Boyle, et. al

The whole “joke” about bodybuilders is that they are supposedly “weak” for their size, right? Well that obviously implies that the largest guys AREN’T moving the most weight or training with all compound movements.

Get outta’ here
Find something better to do.[/quote]

BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

123

I’m not in the habit of interrupting a debate half way through and raising points which have already been delat with, I read the entire thread before I posted genius and was also a member of BB.com before finding T-Nation…

However, nor am I in the habit of bickering pointlessly with trolls, I feel I let myself down when I entered this debate.

Lets just agree to disagree.

124

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Nominal, don’t you think you should incorporate heavy lifting in your workout along with higher rep isolation moves?[/quote]

That depends on what you mean by “heavy”. I would argue that I already lift this way to some extent.

For instance, on the seated tricep pressdown machine (which I do standing up) I’ll often start with almost the entire stack and work my way down. I think that triceps respond very well to heavy pressing in a restricted ROM. This is my definition of “heavy”. The lowest I go, rep-wise, is probably 6-8. The highest could be over 25 on some exercises, particularly for legs.

Every time I lift “heavy” though, I have to finish off the exercise by dropping down to a lighter weight with higher reps. That is because I simply wouldn’t feel as if I was stimulating the muscle fully if I only did the heavy sets.

When I go heavy, my joints and connective tissues let me know they’re there. The muscles? Not so much. I get the greatest mind-muscle connection by far on your “higher rep isolation movements”, and that is why I do them.

However, none of the weights I use feel particularly “light”, even the very small ones that I use for deltoid movements. The whole thing, as Frank Zane once said, is to “Make the weight you’re using feel heavy, rather than always using a heavy weight.” That’s how I train.

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
You quote CT etc. on what they say the benefits for lighter weights/higher reps are. Yet you don’t mention that they also advocate lifting heavy in addition.[/quote]

I know I don’t. Because I think it’s well known information. When I’m reading articles, I save the parts that I find interesting and disregard the things I disagree with (which isn’t to say that I’ll never examine them further).

If a well-known powerlifter writes that people should to train heavy, where is the information? There is none. Unless you’re an aspiring powerlifter, I suppose - which I’m not.

But if that same powerlifter claims the pump is really important for hypertrophy, that IS news. Because that is not the type of thing one would expect a powerlifter to say. Therefore, the second comment will get saved, and the first one won’t.

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
It makes you stronger, allowing you to use more weight in your isolation movements (resulting in more hypertrophy), as well as giving a hard dense look.

It seems to me that excluding anything can only be viewed as foolish.[/quote]

Really? Even excluding 1-legged kettlebell swings on a Bosu Ball while chanting Zen Mantra’s? lol

I view performance training and aesthetics training as two seperate and entirely opposite worlds.

I could compile a huge list of “Athlete vs. Bodybuilder” comparisons to illustrate how the two groups are nearly polar opposites, but I’ve written enough already. Besides, people who understand lifting should be well aware of this.

Athletes can learn practically nothing from bodybuilders and vice versa.

An “athlete” is anyone who prioritizes performance in his training. A bodybuilder is anyone who prioritizes aesthetics. They don’t have to be competitive, they don’t have to be good, they don’t have to want to be good (e.g. they can be housewives), just so long as those basic conditions are met. Everyone I meet and train gets lumped into one of the two groups. And for further elaboration on that, allow me to direct you to the infamous thread:

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding/my_revelation_about_training

125

[quote]sebbie wrote:
BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW[/quote]

What an idiot. I picture you drooling over the keyboard.

And you guys bash BB.com? Hilarious.

126

Me find something better to do? I’m not the one spending my time answering every single post with my personal memoirs.

I didn’t see any specific routine you do, just concepts that you follow which isn’t the same thing.

and yes I do know what it’s like to get bashed by many people at once.

127

What I’ve learned from experience is it takes two people to ruin a perfectly good thread. One person can’t do it alone…

128

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Me find something better to do? I’m not the one spending my time answering every single post with my personal memoirs.

I didn’t see any specific routine you do, just concepts that you follow which isn’t the same thing.

and yes I do know what it’s like to get bashed by many people at once.[/quote]

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding/re_chad_waterbury_programs_your_opinions?pageNo=6#2875749

129

[quote]pumped340 wrote:
Me find something better to do? I’m not the one spending my time answering every single post with my personal memoirs.

I didn’t see any specific routine you do, just concepts that you follow which isn’t the same thing.

and yes I do know what it’s like to get bashed by many people at once.[/quote]

Honestly he’s not even worth the effort/time. I realize this more and more as I dig deeper into his pysch. I don’t think I have ever stated this about anyone on the web, but the guy is dillusional.

[quote]Nominal Prospect
What do you think is the single most important factor for “getting big”?

Is it having the right genetics? Nope.
Is it eating tons of food? Nope.
Is it training heavy and often? Nope.
Using gear? Nope.
Is it being consistent with all of the above? No.

What, then? What could it possibly be:

Easy. It’s your age, dummy.[/quote]

130

[quote]Carlitosway wrote:
pumped340 wrote:
Me find something better to do? I’m not the one spending my time answering every single post with my personal memoirs.

I didn’t see any specific routine you do, just concepts that you follow which isn’t the same thing.

and yes I do know what it’s like to get bashed by many people at once.

Honestly he’s not even worth the effort/time. I realize this more and more as I dig deeper into his pysch. I don’t think I have ever stated this about anyone on the web, but the guy is dillusional.
Nominal Prospect
What do you think is the single most important factor for “getting big”?

Is it having the right genetics? Nope.
Is it eating tons of food? Nope.
Is it training heavy and often? Nope.
Using gear? Nope.
Is it being consistent with all of the above? No.

What, then? What could it possibly be:

Easy. It’s your age, dummy.[/quote]

Runs to find the Stupidist quotes about training thread

131

Well, I’m glad to see that someone has finally read through my post history before responding to me.

However, I’m sorry to say that if you found the quote stupid, it could only be due to a deficiency in your thinking.

For what I said was statistically correct.

It’s no different from saying that people grow taller from childhood to adulthood, or that they tend to get sicker as they age.

So now I’ll take the opportunity to reaffirm my statement.

People do tend to get larger as they age, as a fact of life. If you went and asked 100 adults from the street, I’m sure that every one of them would agree with this. For it is common knowledge.

Aging is the most “reliable” means of getting large. No other method accomplishes the same result as consistently and effectively.

Witness:
Anabolics don’t work for everyone.
Bulking doesn’t work for everyone.
Good genetics aren’t possessed by everyone.
Nor is the will to train hard and eat lots of food.

But everyone ages, don’t they? And with age, comes the scale weight, for most people. Surely less than one person in a million weighs less at the time of their death than at the onset of adulthood.

The above is just a thought experiment. Something which most of you are likely to be unfamiliar with. It’s used to illustrate the inherent stupidity of forcing young and lean people to eat massive amounts of food in order to put on size. Most people in western countries spend the majority of their lives overweight, so what’s the point of yelling at kids who want to enjoy their few years of leanness?

I’m the only person here who has his eyes open. The rest of you are just hopeless.

132

[quote]Carlitosway wrote:
Honestly he’s not even worth the effort/time. I realize this more and more as I dig deeper into his pysch. I don’t think I have ever stated this about anyone on the web, but the guy is dillusional.[/quote]

Good. Then I’ve affected you in a way that no one else has. That’s my goal. It confirms what I already know about myself and others.

I think you have little to no conception of the tremendous diversity of the world in which you live. You are so close minded and shallow.

In a world as diverse as this, I don’t even understand how the phrase, “You are delusional” could possibly hold any validity. One of the greatest wonders is finding parallel universes existing side-by-side. Close in proximity, yet isolated from one another. This can apply to anything. I can observe this because I’m a very open minded individual. But at the same time, I have the intellectual fortitude to draw meaningful conclusions about the world, and to reject the nonsense that I see. It’s a rare combination of talents.

People who possess such a capacity for observation are usually pushovers. The most jarring and incongruent aspect of my psyche - as I imagine it would appear to an outsider - is the fact that I’m anything but.

133

Another bit of wisdom.

From Scott Abel, on the front page.

[quote]"What seemed at the time to be a curse actually led me to an insight: strength is only mildly related to hypertrophy and muscular development. The ability to build strength has a lot to do with tendon length and thickness - genetic traits that a person can do little about. Once I let go of the idea that “getting stronger” was synonymous with “getting bigger,” my physique took off, and I achieved a successful career as a bodybuilder and bodybuilding coach.

There’s no equation that says increased load equals increased muscle development. Focusing too much on it results in diminished returns, limiting your ability to enhance your physique. That’s why any good bodybuilder who’s been at it more than eight or nine years lifts less weight than he used to, not more."
[/quote]

You know, I think that anyone who doesn’t get it by now is hopeless. At some point, you’d expect an intelligent person to snap out their trance.

I’m waiting, gentlemen…

134

Nominal, all you have to do to silence everyone is the following:

Find a twig boy who has a 500lb bench, 700lb squat, 800lb deadlift. I will help you on this. Oleksandr Kutcher was the smallest guy I can find, he weighs 165lbs, although he’s not really a twig boy.

Then

Find a beast who mainly does isolation moves on machines, with little to no compound movements. I have not found one yet, sorry.

Then

Post photos, diet, workout regimes of the two specimens. Then use the data to prove your hypothesis.

A very intellegent and scientific approach that I’m sure you would appreciate.

Unforunately words are just words. Citing articles proves nothing.

Alright, ball is in your court. GO!

135

-Getting correct form is more satisfying than getting more weight/reps.

Just something that comes to mind.

136

I’m sure this has been said in a different wording on this thread but, I think keeping an open mind is very important when it comes to bodybuilding. People respond to different stimuli (physically or mentally) so you never know, you may stumble on to something golden by trying something new from time to time!

137

[quote]Invictica wrote:
Nominal, all you have to do to silence everyone is the following:

Find a twig boy who has a 500lb bench, 700lb squat, 800lb deadlift. I will help you on this. Oleksandr Kutcher was the smallest guy I can find, he weighs 165lbs, although he’s not really a twig boy.

Then

Post photos, diet, workout regimes of the two specimens. Then use the data to prove your hypothesis.

A very intellegent and scientific approach that I’m sure you would appreciate.

Unforunately words are just words. Citing articles proves nothing.

Alright, ball is in your court. GO![/quote]

A twig boy? I’ll give you a fat blob instead. Both are equally unimpressive.

“You need to be big in order to throw around heavy shit”

[quote]Invictica wrote:
Find a beast who mainly does isolation moves on machines, with little to no compound movements. I have not found one yet, sorry.[/quote]

What? Dorian Yates, Toney Freeman, Dexter Jackson, Bob Cicherillo, Jay Cutler. Most any IFFB pro besides Coleman and JOJ.

This is a silly game. I already did the work earlier in the thread. I’m not going to repeat myself.

138

The scientific explanation for why compounds aren’t effective for hypertrophy is as follows:

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Since different muscle groups have different performance thresholds and achieve overload at different parts of the strength-tension curve, it is nearly impossible to use multi-joint movements to achieve muscular overload, which is the necessary precursor of muscular hypertrophy.

The inherent flaw of all compound exercises from a bodybuilding perspective is that you are limited by the “weakest link” in the chain of muscles that is used to perform the exercise. In this way, you simply cannot achieve overload for the other muscle groups. At best, you will be training your “weakest link” and nothing more. Over time, this develops huge “physique holes” and imbalances which have to be corrected with proper training: i.e. isolation movements. If you run a search across strength forums you will find plenty of threads about this issue. You will also find other people who have tried doing compounds and not gotten anything in the way of mass gains. Your case is not particularly unique, which should be reassuring, since you haven’t been doing anything wrong, outside of choosing the wrong exercises.

The types of people who can gain appreciable amounts of muscle from compounds were “built” for doing them in the first place. You can usually tell this just by looking at them.[/quote]

[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
-The maximum degree of overload that a given muscle can be subjected to is equivalent to the maximum amount of work that muscle can perform in isolation. If you can curl 50 lbs. as a max, then your biceps are only strong enough to produce 50 lbs. of elbow flexion, period. Doing a compound exercise with more weight will not change this.

In the above example, doing 100 lb. rows will not be any more effective in eliciting hypertrophy of the biceps than the 50 lb. curls. The extra weight being used on the second exercise is entirely a function of the other muscle groups involved with the exercise. To claim otherwise is a clear violation of physics which is nevertheless made by dozens of college-educated strength coach who write about the topic.

-The more muscles that are called upon to move a weight, the less work each of them will have to do individually. 3rd grade math skills refute the dogma of “heavier is better”. .[/quote]

More information:

No one has attempted to refute what I wrote above, and no one is going to. Pigs will fly before that happens. It is the most ironclad proof I’ve ever written. I’m really looking forward to your attempt at disproving physics.

I’m just going to sit back and relax now. As you can see, I have already written pages of material on this topic. I don’t need to write any more.

139

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
mr popular wrote:
Nominal Prospect has a scrawney, weak looking physique,

No he doesn’t. People’s expectations of a physique these days are very skewed by looking at people with amazing genetics and steroid users.

For a 22 year old guy going to the gym and training properly, his physique is ok.

I am in no way saying this is something people should aim for as a goal. But discouraging someone at that age/level of development is just wrong, you are only doing so just to put him down.

If he was on AAS he would be 10-15lbs heavier, easily. I doubt people would be shitting on him as much as they are. Again, he’s only 22 and has plenty of years to gain size.

If this rate of developement is kept up, in 5-8 years I’d imagine he’d look quite impressive.

Putting his physique down just because he comes off as a jerk to you is not right. You’ll just only discourage people with a similar size.

And where is your picture?[/quote]

His physique is not impressive for someone who has been training for 5+ years and claims to know all the answers.

140

Gesus christ…

I think you guys should focus on less scientific babble and just experiment with exercise routines. Do what it works for you, keep things simple.

Not everyone is the same.

This thread was a perfectly good one, and has been ruined.

Fail fail fail fail fail…