[quote]Reef wrote:
I’m not a beginner. I’ve been training consistently for 4 years…on and off for 7. I’m not advanced by any means, but I’m not a beginner.
I don’t know how you can tell if I’m weak or not by what I lift for my first warm-up set (which I could get easily get for over 100 reps), especially when I have 4 more warm-up sets to do before I use my work set weight.[/quote]
It is very easy to tell. Very few lifting 405lbs warm up with the bar. They would barely notice it. It would be a waste of time and energy to warm up with a weight that light. I am going to avoid mentioning what I warm up with, but the point is, anyone who has done this long enough can tell you aren’t that strong by that alone, even if you “max working weight” is somewhere around 200lbs.
If you have been training for FOUR WHOLE YEARS and are still training with the bar as a warm up, I am guessing your overall progress has been pretty poor.
I honestly don’t understand that personally. If I was making such little progress, I would have found a new hobby. There is no way I would waste the time, focus and money on this if people who hadn’t seen me in a while barely noticed a difference.
Again, you can take it how you want to, but that seems to be the majority on this site…little progress but extreme attention to detail and lots of money on supplements.
I would honestly stay at home if it were me. Sorry if that pisses you off, but it’s the truth.
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
I actually see quite a few big and strong guys in my gym warm up first with just the bar. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just found it interesting here. Although it is definitely more hardcore to warm up with the 45’s I must say.[/quote]
I’ve never seen that. Not once in the many gyms I’ve trained in over several states. Maybe my concept of what “big and strong” is happens to be way different than your own.
So what do you expect me to be benching? 405 when I weigh 165? Ya so everyone who’s smaller than you and doesn’t lift 405 should just stop working out? Seriously, get over yourself. Why don’t you compete already if you’re so great?
By the way, I’ve had one shoulder injury that kept me from benching for a whole year, as well as an SI Joint problem that stopped from squatting and deadlifting for a year. I just suffered another shoulder injury a month ago, and am slowly working back to where I was before that. There’s been a lot of ups and downs in the last 4 years. And people do notice a difference with me.
[quote]Reef wrote:
So what do you expect me to be benching? 405 when I weigh 165? Ya so everyone who’s smaller than you and doesn’t lift 405 should just stop working out? Seriously, get over yourself. Why don’t you compete already if you’re so great?
By the way, I’ve had one shoulder injury that kept me from benching for a whole year, as well as an SI Joint problem that stopped from squatting and deadlifting for a year. I just suffered another shoulder injury a month ago, and am slowly working back to where I was before that. There’s been a lot of ups and downs in the last 4 years. [/quote]
I didn’t claim you should be lifting 405lbs. I wrote that if after four whole years of serious training you still need to warm up with the bar, chances are your progress has been poor.
All you have done is now give reasons for the lack of progress…which means I was right. What should I get over exactly then?
I have already told you I am glad you are trying to make progress at all, but why should anyone praise MINIMAL progress?
Why does that piss you off? This might be a great thread yet.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Der Candy wrote:
I actually see quite a few big and strong guys in my gym warm up first with just the bar. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just found it interesting here. Although it is definitely more hardcore to warm up with the 45’s I must say.
I’ve never seen that. Not once in the many gyms I’ve trained in over several states. Maybe my concept of what “big and strong” is happens to be way different than your own.[/quote]
I’ve seen people “warm up” with the bar and I have done it myself. But I put “warm up” in quotes, because it’s really not warming anything up. I used to do it either when I was especially stiff or sore, or I would do it when I was using an unfamiliar bench. I’m kinda anal about benching and often feel like I need to find a groove first. Also, because of my height/arm length, I have to make sure I won’t have issues racking the weight at the end. I don’t use the bar much anymore, though.
With all that being said, what’s the big deal? If you want to warm up with the bar, pull the 45’s off. God forbid you have to move some weights while you’re in the gym. For the record, it always seems to be the one’s that want to warm up with the bar complaining, not the other way way around.
Finally, I watched the video again, and I’ll say it again. I would love to spend one training day throwing weights around and knocking shit over.
alright man, its like if you warm up with the bar i dont care. the thing is you need to understand that just the bar IS a very light weight so if you find it absolutely nesecary to do that you shouldnt have a problem taking off a 45 because most people ARENT warming up with just the bar they generally wanna use a 45 per side.
[quote]gatesoftanhauser wrote:
KBCThird wrote:
I’ve seen a 600 lb raw bench presser warmup with just the bar.
Oh yeah? I warm up with an ez curl bar when I’m gonna go brutal and bench 1007 for the world record![/quote]
I can’t tell if you’re just kidding around or if you think that I’m full of it. I’m just saying, i’ve trained with Vincent Dizenzo, who has a 600 lb bench unequipped and 800 lbs in a shirt, and his warmup sets typically go 45, 135, 225, 315.
Live fromteh 781, I dont disagree that taking off 45s is no big deal, and I’ve left 45s on before - I dont do it now cuz i just try to put stuff away, i mena if you only have 2 or 3 weight trees it’s nice to keep everything there so that if im squatting i dont have to go to the bench for plates. I just posted that strong guys can and do warmup with the bar because to suggest or state otherwise is inaccurate. Not all of them do, but not all of them dont either.
For what it’s worth, I started working with a couple of guys a month ago, guys who had never set foot in a gym in their lives, and I started them off with 25s on the bar. After three whole weeks of work, they are warming up with 45s. This really just isn’t a very big weight. I know several guys who weigh sub-150 and still warm up with 45s.
So, Reef, without having ever seen you lift, I can only come to two possible conclusions: Prof. X is right, or you are seriously underestimating yourself.
[quote]thomas.galvin wrote:
For what it’s worth, I started working with a couple of guys a month ago, guys who had never set foot in a gym in their lives, and I started them off with 25s on the bar. After three whole weeks of work, they are warming up with 45s. This really just isn’t a very big weight. I know several guys who weigh sub-150 and still warm up with 45s.
So, Reef, without having ever seen you lift, I can only come to two possible conclusions: Prof. X is right, or you are seriously underestimating yourself.[/quote]
I am more worried that someone at that stage of lifting is having that many injuries. You are lifting very wrong if you are having shoulder injuries that frequent when you aren’t even moving weight that would be considered very dangerous at all.
That goes for everyone. If your progress has been sub-standard yet you now need surgery, you need to stop what you are doing and take a step back.
Lifting the bar isn’t my main concern even though I still hold to the fact that I have seen very few big/strong lifters who would need to lift a weight that light as a warm up. I don’t even see how your muscles would benefit much from it. You would be better off doing push ups before the lift. With little to no tension on the target muscle group, what is the point of the warm up? An estimated 22.5lbs per arm? My arms weigh more than that.
I would consider warming up with the bar a dynamic flexibility exercise rather than a warmup set.
If you always start your first set on bench or squat with 1 or more plates and don’t do much flexibility work, you might be in for a rude awakening if you try just the bar.
Needlessly throwing plates and dbs around is pretty ignorant and damages equipment. dbs get bent when they hit the floor on an angle, especially the heavier ones.
As for leaving weights on the bar, are there no girls where you people workout? 99% of girls can’t bench 135 and many of them have a hard time removing 45s to begin with, especially from a bar sitting in a squat rack.
[quote]Joe84 wrote:
Needlessly throwing plates and dbs around is pretty ignorant and damages equipment. dbs get bent when they hit the floor on an angle, especially the heavier ones.
As for leaving weights on the bar, are there no girls where you people workout? 99% of girls can’t bench 135 and many of them have a hard time removing 45s to begin with, especially from a bar sitting in a squat rack. [/quote]
Gee, my guess is there are very few soccer moms at MetroFlex gym. Have you even read this thread?
[quote]thomas.galvin wrote:
For what it’s worth, I started working with a couple of guys a month ago, guys who had never set foot in a gym in their lives, and I started them off with 25s on the bar. After three whole weeks of work, they are warming up with 45s. This really just isn’t a very big weight. I know several guys who weigh sub-150 and still warm up with 45s.
So, Reef, without having ever seen you lift, I can only come to two possible conclusions: Prof. X is right, or you are seriously underestimating yourself.[/quote]
i spent 2 years working out at an eng campus gym that had 75% of the guys there benching under 100 lbs for work sets so what about these guys?
i will say though, that was a pretty demotivating period of training for me.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Joe84 wrote:
Needlessly throwing plates and dbs around is pretty ignorant and damages equipment. dbs get bent when they hit the floor on an angle, especially the heavier ones.
As for leaving weights on the bar, are there no girls where you people workout? 99% of girls can’t bench 135 and many of them have a hard time removing 45s to begin with, especially from a bar sitting in a squat rack.
Gee, my guess is there are very few soccer moms at MetroFlex gym. Have you even read this thread?[/quote]
im sure the rest of you commenting about how its A OK don’t workout at the MetroFlex gym either.
[quote]Joe84 wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Joe84 wrote:
Needlessly throwing plates and dbs around is pretty ignorant and damages equipment. dbs get bent when they hit the floor on an angle, especially the heavier ones.
As for leaving weights on the bar, are there no girls where you people workout? 99% of girls can’t bench 135 and many of them have a hard time removing 45s to begin with, especially from a bar sitting in a squat rack.
Gee, my guess is there are very few soccer moms at MetroFlex gym. Have you even read this thread?
im sure the rest of you commenting about how its A OK don’t workout at the MetroFlex gym either. [/quote]
I haven’t seen anyone claim that everyone should train like this regardless of what gym they workout at. What I have seen is people questioning why others give a shit how Branch Warren trains when the gym owner doesn’t care.