Why Do Men 'Lift' More Than They Can Lift?

Off Topic
61

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
well beans… this does not apply to you then…

if you deadlift in the low 500’s, and shrug in the mid 500’s, though i still do not think it is neccessary, that puts you in a far different category than the people I have seen who do not deadlift AT ALL, or maybe after doing leg presses then doing STDL with 185 or 225, THEN they pile up 500lbs and do shrugs. different animal all together. [/quote]

Not to switch gears but…

You really think full ROM on OHP and BP contributed to your shoulder issues?

I Only ask because I feel okay with BB bench to touch, smith not so much, and OHP is uncomfortable lower than my chin on the best day and top of my ears when I lower behind my head.[/quote]

perhaps, could be 20 years of competitive throwing, shot and hammer especially. the rotational aspects of the latter really bothered my shoulders.

I had always been strong at overhead pressing as opposed to bench. by best bench was never much more than what I could incline press, and I could jerk from the rack more than I ever bench pressed.

I Never could get a bar behind my neck for heavy BNP.

perhaps I am just not meant to be big and strong… here is something cut and pasted from another thread were somebody was asking me about all my injuries:

Ya, accumulation…need surgery on both shoulders…have diffuse degenerative disc disease in my back, have has a reconstruction of my left elbow…meniscus tear in left knee, just this past monday suffered a quad tear…

"I think what I did wrong was pick the wrong sport to be in!

I am really a small guy. 5’6" and I have a very small frame. small joints, small hands and feet, narrow shoulders, my mother was 4’10" and only 90lbs. dad was 6’ but a tall lanky beanpole that at his heaviest was maybe 170lbs.

I got into lifting early because I was a short chubby kid who always got picked on…

but I think I was meant to be one of those small quick guys…not a big strong one.

I have always been naturally explosive, for a short guy I could always jump really high, I could touch the rim of a bb goal and I easily could spike a volleyball.

but I suffered my first major pec and hamstring tears in my first year of serious lifting before I was 19!

think about that, at that age most of us were indestructible…but I was already getting hurt pushing max weights"

62

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
well beans… this does not apply to you then…

if you deadlift in the low 500’s, and shrug in the mid 500’s, though i still do not think it is neccessary, that puts you in a far different category than the people I have seen who do not deadlift AT ALL, or maybe after doing leg presses then doing STDL with 185 or 225, THEN they pile up 500lbs and do shrugs. different animal all together. [/quote]

I don’t deadlift AT ALL and can shrug more than 500lbs. I usually do ten 45lbs plates for slow reps with a hold at the peak contraction…without straps.

Am I missing why this is a bad thing?

Oh and as far as the bench press, bringing it to my chest stresses that shoulder joint. You are one of the first to make it seem like my chest would be bigger if I trained differently.

Bottom line, not touching my chest got me a big chest. [/quote]
not touching your chest with the bar is so awkward. If you get used to benching like that you will not have the strength in the bottom of the movement which means if you accidentally do touch the bar to your chest you drop it and get stuck. How do you know each rep is the same depth? people often cheat themselves out of a good chest workout like that.

63

[quote]CircaThursday wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
well beans… this does not apply to you then…

if you deadlift in the low 500’s, and shrug in the mid 500’s, though i still do not think it is neccessary, that puts you in a far different category than the people I have seen who do not deadlift AT ALL, or maybe after doing leg presses then doing STDL with 185 or 225, THEN they pile up 500lbs and do shrugs. different animal all together. [/quote]

I don’t deadlift AT ALL and can shrug more than 500lbs. I usually do ten 45lbs plates for slow reps with a hold at the peak contraction…without straps.

Am I missing why this is a bad thing?

Oh and as far as the bench press, bringing it to my chest stresses that shoulder joint. You are one of the first to make it seem like my chest would be bigger if I trained differently.

Bottom line, not touching my chest got me a big chest. [/quote]
not touching your chest with the bar is so awkward. If you get used to benching like that you will not have the strength in the bottom of the movement which means if you accidentally do touch the bar to your chest you drop it and get stuck. How do you know each rep is the same depth? people often cheat themselves out of a good chest workout like that.
[/quote]

It worked for him. Problem?

64

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
well beans… this does not apply to you then…

if you deadlift in the low 500’s, and shrug in the mid 500’s, though i still do not think it is neccessary, that puts you in a far different category than the people I have seen who do not deadlift AT ALL, or maybe after doing leg presses then doing STDL with 185 or 225, THEN they pile up 500lbs and do shrugs. different animal all together. [/quote]

I don’t deadlift AT ALL and can shrug more than 500lbs. I usually do ten 45lbs plates for slow reps with a hold at the peak contraction…without straps.

Am I missing why this is a bad thing?

Oh and as far as the bench press, bringing it to my chest stresses that shoulder joint. You are one of the first to make it seem like my chest would be bigger if I trained differently.

Bottom line, not touching my chest got me a big chest. [/quote]

not sure I follow your logic.

you have no idea that NOT touching a bench press got you a big chest, just that you got a big chest despite it. I have been told by many that I have good calves, but I have never done direct calf work.

pretty sure I did not NEED to do direct calf work to get big calves, but I have no idea if they would be even bigger if I had.

read this again: You for sure got very big NOT doing full ROM bench press, but you do not know if you would be even bigger if you had done more full ROM heavy benching.

again, I am not hating on the NO BENCH thing, I might be better off today if I had trained more like you do in my younger days, as far as my body falling apart at 43.

Good for you. You are a big strong dude who has put their time in and it shows.

Beans deadlifts in the low 500’s, which is not great, but respectable, that shows he has put his time in too…

but I have seen guys A LOT smaller than me, and MUCH MUCH smaller than you shrugging 10 plates.

I am talking about the guys who would be considered small and weak by most of the standards of serious strength athletes getting a chubby by loading up tons of weight on an exercise that any tool can use a lot of weight on with little effort.

65

[quote]CircaThursday wrote:
not touching your chest with the bar is so awkward. If you get used to benching like that you will not have the strength in the bottom of the movement which means if you accidentally do touch the bar to your chest you drop it and get stuck. How do you know each rep is the same depth? people often cheat themselves out of a good chest workout like that.
[/quote]

I don’t get why kids think they are swole when the bench 225lbs+ moving the bar down 3" then up 3". Then they proceed to add more weight. I just hate being that annoying guy to come tell them that they are doing it wrong and so on. I just keep to myself.

66

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

[quote]Reygekan wrote:
My gym is typically okay about this, although not great. The big guys squat properly, the little guys don’t. The mentality, I believe, isn’t just male specific.

I walked into the gym once to notice a girl benching. That’s cool, I remember thinking. We don’t see a lot of females weight lifting, they’re often fucking around on the bosu balls or doing some lameass core workout, if they’re not on the treadmills. Few even wander in to the weight training area, except when they’re sending some kind of message to a guy friend, and even then often in packs. This girl was doing something that just isn’t very popular among women here, (although I doubt this is big with women in other places- someone please prove me wrong).

She only has 85 pounds on the bar. That’s cool though, she’s small, and I hadn’t seen her around after all the time I’ve spent at the gym, so it was likely she was new. She pulls the bar off the rack. Her arms are shaking. Her jaw is clenched. She begins lowering and…

She gets halfway down and then pushes back up.

I frown. Maybe it was too heavy. I know that guys who don’t lift can start at that level, assuming they’re unathletic. It would make sense for a girl who doesn’t participate in physical activity to need to start less. Likely she would put the bar down and lower the wei-

She goes in for another rep. Then another. Then another. Only getting halfway down each time. I stopped watching after that.[/quote]

Girls are less likely to have learned how to bench by goofing around in some high school friend’s garage, who’s dad had a weight set.

I don’t know why people don’t at least go watch a few Youtube videos first. That’s the only way I actually got up the nerve to head over to the benches and squat racks. I appreciate that you aren’t making fun of her for only benching 85 pounds. I’m little and that hits kinda close to home!

I talked about this in another thread, why are women who “lift weights” curling 10 pound dumbbells for a whole bunch of reps every time they come to the gym?

So they don’t wake up the next day accidentally looking like Professor X, silly.

[/quote]

And you have “celebrity” trainers like Gweneth Paltrow’s trainer who insists women should not use more than 3 lb DBs…

67

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:

[quote]CircaThursday wrote:
not touching your chest with the bar is so awkward. If you get used to benching like that you will not have the strength in the bottom of the movement which means if you accidentally do touch the bar to your chest you drop it and get stuck. How do you know each rep is the same depth? people often cheat themselves out of a good chest workout like that.
[/quote]

I don’t get why kids think they are swole when the bench 225lbs+ moving the bar down 3" then up 3". Then they proceed to add more weight. I just hate being that annoying guy to come tell them that they are doing it wrong and so on. I just keep to myself.[/quote]

I kind of agree…like I said, the partial reps on the free weight bb bench seems like a stupid and dangerous way to use more weight in that movement to me.

If full ROM benching is not your thing, use machine, db’s press of boards or of pins in the rack.

but then again, I am sure that jerking nearly 400lbs over my head was dangerous too…

but I rationalize that danger as I was competing in sports at a fairly high level that a moving big weights on an explosive compound movement like the jerk form the rack had a direct benefit to.

If your only goal is to get HYOOOGE, then I just think it is silly to use partial ROM benches when better and safer options are available.

that is just my opinion.

I am a product of my environment…many of the hard core private OL, throwing, and powerlifting gyms I worked out at during my formative days would have told somebody doing no chest touch benching to leave.

not saying this is 100% right, not 100% wrong in thinking this way either.

68

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

[quote]Reygekan wrote:
My gym is typically okay about this, although not great. The big guys squat properly, the little guys don’t. The mentality, I believe, isn’t just male specific.

I walked into the gym once to notice a girl benching. That’s cool, I remember thinking. We don’t see a lot of females weight lifting, they’re often fucking around on the bosu balls or doing some lameass core workout, if they’re not on the treadmills. Few even wander in to the weight training area, except when they’re sending some kind of message to a guy friend, and even then often in packs. This girl was doing something that just isn’t very popular among women here, (although I doubt this is big with women in other places- someone please prove me wrong).

She only has 85 pounds on the bar. That’s cool though, she’s small, and I hadn’t seen her around after all the time I’ve spent at the gym, so it was likely she was new. She pulls the bar off the rack. Her arms are shaking. Her jaw is clenched. She begins lowering and…

She gets halfway down and then pushes back up.

I frown. Maybe it was too heavy. I know that guys who don’t lift can start at that level, assuming they’re unathletic. It would make sense for a girl who doesn’t participate in physical activity to need to start less. Likely she would put the bar down and lower the wei-

She goes in for another rep. Then another. Then another. Only getting halfway down each time. I stopped watching after that.[/quote]

Girls are less likely to have learned how to bench by goofing around in some high school friend’s garage, who’s dad had a weight set.

I don’t know why people don’t at least go watch a few Youtube videos first. That’s the only way I actually got up the nerve to head over to the benches and squat racks. I appreciate that you aren’t making fun of her for only benching 85 pounds. I’m little and that hits kinda close to home!

I talked about this in another thread, why are women who “lift weights” curling 10 pound dumbbells for a whole bunch of reps every time they come to the gym?

So they don’t wake up the next day accidentally looking like Professor X, silly.

[/quote]

And you have “celebrity” trainers like Gweneth Paltrow’s trainer who insists women should not use more than 3 lb DBs…[/quote]

Exactly. This is the Hollywood beauty ideal apparently. Anyone want to guess the size of her biceps?

69

She looks like she’d have a hard time carrying her purse around the mall.

I’m not sure how feminine came to be equated with skinny and helpless.

Most women’s entire fitness plan involves wishing they could loose weight.

I’ve never had a woman friend say they wish they were stronger, or could gain more muscle - never.

70

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
nards…

where is that gym? My god at the neon and escalators! How many floors is that place?

By comparison, the local sports club I go to when not training in my garage is pretty decent. bumper plates, lots of what appears to be the “crossfit” types doing Olympic lifts(very light weights albeit) and a few people do squats and deadlifts, of the few people who do squats, Me and one other guy are the only ones who squat deep with more than 200lbs though :frowning:

lots of bench and curl monkeys…but by comparison to your “gym” this place is positively hardcore! haha[/quote]

I’m in Taiwan…so the gym looks like a night club. Awful really.

71

[quote]Professor X wrote:
Either way, I would rather be surrounded by people pushing beyond their comfort zone than a bunch of idiots bragging about how perfect their form is. The latter generally tend to be the smallest people in the gym.

No one cares if someone is training “wrong” according to you if they dwarf you in terms of progress made and overall gains.

Oh, and I don’t touch my chest when benching and never did. Clearly that held me back.[/quote]

That’s because you touch your stomach with the bar.

72

[quote]DixiesFinest wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Mateus wrote:

[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
Let me ask yall something. When you see a jackass put way too much weight either on a leg press or squat and only do 1/2 or 1/4 ROM, do you say anything or give him/her a look so they know they are a idiot? It really is pathetic and I seem to see it more and more.[/quote]

The only time that I do this is if it is a kid that is going to get themselves hurt if they continue to do what it is they are doing. Other than that I expect everyone to do the same research that I have done to try and stay safe and healthy. Not realistic I know. This is also the reason that I NEVER lift after 5pm. All the retards come out after they get off work…[/quote]

Who you calling retard.[/quote]

Call the hotline…tard.[/quote]

Is that a chick?

73

[quote]jskrabac wrote:
Why Do Men ‘Lift’ More Than They Can Lift? [/quote]

Because us T-Nation-ites need something to talk about in the Squat Rack Curls threads.

74

I think the complaint about shrugging is true. I see many guys that shrug but all other work is biceps etc.

The shrug is one of those exercises that I would call “easy” in that if you told me I had to move 500lbs 10 times for 5 sets I’d feel a daunted till you told me it was shrugs…then I’d let out a sigh of relief.

So what I’m saying is lots of shrugs get done because it’s the easiest way to move big weight.

If this doesn’t apply to you then don’t worry about it.

75

Ego + Impatience= You rationalize cheating is ok OR even better than training mostly with good form etc.

I admit when I first started training, I trained like an imbecile!!!

Emotions often override logic, plain & simple.

It just takes some people much longer than others to bridge the gap between what they know in theory & what they believe will work/HOPE will work on a subconscious level.

76

Do not really go to the gym to watch other people

too

busy

training

novel idea

77

[quote]Mateus wrote:

[quote]DJHT wrote:

[quote]Mateus wrote:

[quote]farmerson12 wrote:
Let me ask yall something. When you see a jackass put way too much weight either on a leg press or squat and only do 1/2 or 1/4 ROM, do you say anything or give him/her a look so they know they are a idiot? It really is pathetic and I seem to see it more and more.[/quote]

The only time that I do this is if it is a kid that is going to get themselves hurt if they continue to do what it is they are doing. Other than that I expect everyone to do the same research that I have done to try and stay safe and healthy. Not realistic I know. This is also the reason that I NEVER lift after 5pm. All the retards come out after they get off work…[/quote]

Who you calling retard.[/quote]

LOL…Sorry dude. Was referring to my gym. From 5 till about 8 it is a packed with cocky ass college kids that are more interested in dick measuring and showing off for their buddies or the hottie on the adductor machine instead of working out. [/quote]

I know I was fucking with you. Have to mess with guys from my home state.

78

[quote]CircaThursday wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]heavythrower wrote:
well beans… this does not apply to you then…

if you deadlift in the low 500’s, and shrug in the mid 500’s, though i still do not think it is neccessary, that puts you in a far different category than the people I have seen who do not deadlift AT ALL, or maybe after doing leg presses then doing STDL with 185 or 225, THEN they pile up 500lbs and do shrugs. different animal all together. [/quote]

I don’t deadlift AT ALL and can shrug more than 500lbs. I usually do ten 45lbs plates for slow reps with a hold at the peak contraction…without straps.

Am I missing why this is a bad thing?

Oh and as far as the bench press, bringing it to my chest stresses that shoulder joint. You are one of the first to make it seem like my chest would be bigger if I trained differently.

Bottom line, not touching my chest got me a big chest. [/quote]
not touching your chest with the bar is so awkward. If you get used to benching like that you will not have the strength in the bottom of the movement which means if you accidentally do touch the bar to your chest you drop it and get stuck. How do you know each rep is the same depth? people often cheat themselves out of a good chest workout like that.
[/quote]

?

What the hell are you talking about? Not touching my chest doesn’t mean I am stopping a full foot above my chest. It means not bouncing the shit off your fucking chest. It means stopping just before it hits your chest…which doesn’t do shit but keep you from using your sternum as a bouncing plate and cheating the weight up…which means MORE stress is on your pectorals, not less.

Further, I am really laughing at people who have not built their chest up telling other people who have they are training wrong.

The way I just described does not make the movement easier. It makes it HARDER.

Why do newbs think they know ore than people who have been doing this way longer?

79

I saw Prof doing bosu ball db curls with the pink db’s this morning.

80

This is funny. On one side, you have folks who say “touch your chest or you suck.” Then you have Prof X saying “Bouncing on sternum is chest touching, and that’s a bad idea, fuckers.” Perhaps it is possible to NOT touch your chest and at the same time, NOT do an invisible four board? That seems to be what X says he does. And at the same time, perhaps it is possible to touch your sternum, and at the same time, NOT bounce the bar up?

Nah. Unpossible.

Everyone will train differently depending on goals, injuries, etc. The people who are on this site are probably not the people who the OP refers to when asking why people “lift” more than they can lift. No reasaon to get butthurt, this thread should just concentrate on people who use body english and think it’s the strict/proper/right way, and don’t realize that they are using any english at all (because yes, I use english with some lifts, and it’s awesome, I’m fucking fluent).