*** The 2013 Gym Rats Thread ***

[icecold]

I'm guessing this is sarcasm but lifting in work, from 12.5kg stage weights to 84kg steel deck (between two and stacking to head height) if there is a lot I eventually end up sore wrists from it.
Last Fringe, from all the truck and van un/loading, the various flipping of flight cases I ended up having to get splints for my wrists. Pushing to open doors became an issue I was that bad.
Few years back when I pikied my brother's dumbells when he was out in Afghan one issue I noticed myself was wrists bending backwards with various exercises.

This is a reason to do weights, you probably have very poor shoulder stability.

 

[ash_scotland88]

I suggest your company invests in manual handling techniques if its that bad.

They're aware of my issues, it's just last year was almost a year of being unemployed where my "condition" (hate that term) worsened. Sitting around not doing much I struggled to walk to the shops and back. In a physical job even though the pain increased at first over the past year I've greatly improved but hit a platue of not going anywhere else.

This is a reason to do weights, you probably have very poor shoulder stability.

Weights are also being planned to be done at home, well dumb bells. May use various weight aided machines (brain blank what they're called) when/if I get to the gym and a trainer comes up with a routine.

Anychance of an explanation of how think that links to my wrists? I'm quickly googling and reading and can't seem to make a link

 

[LiE]

Lifting weights = better understanding of how to use your body properly and increase strength in the weak areas.

 

[Chong Warrior]

Not sure if this is in right place but seems suitable. Anybody got an exercise(s) that will really work the bottom and middle of my chest? I've got slight pectus excavatum so have a bit of a 'dint' in my chest. I do a fair bit of decline barbell/bumbell press, flyes, cables, and an excercise I saw recently where you bring 2 cables together sort of like a tensing position which feels quite good. Bad explanation I know. Anybody got any more exercises that will really hit the that region of my chest? Cheers.

Gironda dips

 

[davestar_delux]

Totally depends what you want from going to the gym?

Want to get better at squatting, new to the gym? I found it a great starting place. I believe Ice, doesn't like it though. Not sure he's shared his reasoning before though?

I'm not quite certain yet, have a lot of ideas in mind. I'm not quite new, I used to go a bit, could squat and deadlift my bodyweight or about 75kg. Bench lagged behind, I liked seeing the increases every week and going for goals - so I could go for BW in all 3 again. But I have a lot of interests so functional strength for football next season and other sports is good too.

Chuck in some accessory work and it gets a bit more interesting but the main draw of SL for me was its simplicity. I added chin-ups, pull-ups, dips and push-ups which seemed to help my gains and mixed it up a bit but I'm sure there are others here who can offer some other ideas.

It may start off easy but since you add weight each time, it doesn't take too long before just those exercises will take you 60-90 minutes (including warm-up, foam rolling, etc)

Thanks, sounds ideal.

On topic:

I read this article recently by Rippetoe, where he talks about the difference between exercising (doing stuff for today/for fun) and training (working towards goals, doing things because they help you reach that goal). The latter is how you make progress even if your goal is just to look azzthetic.

Off topic - work snacks, hopefully has horse sterons in, all kinds of gains:

Yeah I know about working towards goals, I've done marathons and boxed. But I think there is plenty room to enjoy yourself as well and one of the things I enjoy about this and other weightlifting/gym threads here is the new exercises I learn about etc. Guess I will get to do them eventually.

Where did you get your jerky from?

 

[TheCenturion]

I'm trying to do the mwod couch stretch, but I'm trying to do it against a wall, like in this video here:

(The actual stretch starts at 2:35)

My problem is that when I have one leg against the wall, I am completely unable to get the other leg into position. I feel like my quad is about to snap.

So my question is: what mobility work do I need to do to make me mobile enough to do this mobility exercise?

 

[grudas]

how often do you guys miss your gym? i have been working a lot latelly and i seem to miss a day-two during work days and catch up on the weekend - only train 3days/week wed/friday/sun!

so do you catch up or skip the day completelly?

 

[wedgie]

how often do you guys miss your gym? i have been working a lot latelly and i seem to miss a day-two during work days and catch up on the weekend - only train 3days/week wed/friday/sun!

so do you catch up or skip the day completelly?

Totally depends on whether the routine allows it, but if it does, I always rearrange missed days rather than lose them.

My last two routines were typical 4 day split, then the same only adding a 5th day (so the routine started again on the 5th day rather than waiting a full week to hit an area again). Both of these were very easy to make up lost days, I did stick to the routine 99% of the time, but when necessary, it was no problem to juggle days.

With my current routine, if I miss a day, it's gone. I've switched to a routine focussed more on frequency because I simply did not need a weeks rest between working a bodypart no matter how hard I worked it, and at my current level even 5 days was too much. I also wanted to fit in benching 3x per week as I wasn't progressing anywhere near the rate I should have been, so now I do -

S = Strength, 5 reps
H = Hypertrophy, 8-10 reps

Mon - Chest (H)/Shoulders (H)
Tue - Back (S)/Legs
Thurs - Chest (H)/Shoulders (S)
Fri - Back (H)/Legs
Sat - Chest (S)

I also do the isolation work (Shrugs, Biceps, Triceps) on the relevant days. As you can see, if I lose a workout, I can't make it back up without changing the days I'm in the gym, which I can't do.

In short, never miss a day unless you have no choice (by no choice I mean maybe 3 or 4 times I've missed a session in 18 months) all other times stick to the routine as much as possible, and rearrange days if necessary.

 

[Begbie]

how often do you guys miss your gym? i have been working a lot latelly and i seem to miss a day-two during work days and catch up on the weekend - only train 3days/week wed/friday/sun!

so do you catch up or skip the day completelly?

I miss a lot of days, due to being out on the bike/working etc. But I never 'miss' a session and would rather just catch up.

Most likely why it takes me so long to get 'gainz'. Better than not at all. Though saying that its very seldom I don't get 4 days in, just means I'm totally ruined.

 

[elmarko]

Ok, got a rough idea for my routine set out.

5 Day Routine

Monday - SL 5x5 - Squat/BP/BBR 5x5 along with 3x10 Press-ups

Tuesday - Supersets (x3 of the below)

Hammer curl x10
Dumb-bell curl x10
Skull crushers x10
Reverse crunches x10
Calf raises x10

Wednesday - SL 5x5 - Squat/OHP/DL 5x5 - along with 3x10 chin-ups

Thursday - Supersets (x3 of the below)

Hammer curl x10
Dumb-bell curl x10
Skull crushers x10
Reverse crunches x10
Calf raises x10
X3

Friday - SL 5x5 - Squat/BP/BBR 5x5 - along with 3x10 Press-ups

Then alternate the 5x5 sessions.

Does it sound excessive?, as I'm keen on getting into the 5 days a week routine, with 2 days rest over the weekend.

 

[Supercow]

Very much along the lines of what I was about to ask wedgie / grudas.

I have quite a manic summer ahead of me, working away, bouncing to and fro from different offices, late nights and so forth.
I would like to change my split accordingly and need some communal wisdom.

I need a 3 day split, with the option of having one additional day as a full body workout. I can afford to "skip leg days", apart from taking squatting out of the split. Before I get shot for saying that I can skip leg days - please let me say that I get an awful lot of "leg work" done especially over summer months (I do downhill mountain biking, with no uplift / chairlift close by, so spend an awful lot of time pushing my bike back up a very steep hill all weekend long).

What do you think would be a good "flexible split", where there's a possibility that I might miss a day now and then?

 

[Delvis]

I'm trying to do the mwod couch stretch, but I'm trying to do it against a wall, like in this video here:

(The actual stretch starts at 2:35)

My problem is that when I have one leg against the wall, I am completely unable to get the other leg into position. I feel like my quad is about to snap.

So my question is: what mobility work do I need to do to make me mobile enough to do this mobility exercise?

Couch stretch

In all seriousness, try it off the end of the bed or something as well, or use less of an angle and slowly work up. I saw dom using an incline bench and doing it that way, seems to put less stress on the leg and less 'omg its going to snap'

 

[TheCenturion]

Thanks mate. It's a killer stretch (or what little I can do of it )

 

[wedgie]

Ok, got a rough idea for my routine set out.

5 Day Routine

Monday - SL 5x5 - Squat/BP/BBR 5x5 along with 3x10 Press-ups

Tuesday - Supersets (x3 of the below)

Hammer curl x10
Dumb-bell curl x10
Skull crushers x10
Reverse crunches x10
Calf raises x10

Wednesday - SL 5x5 - Squat/OHP/DL 5x5 - along with 3x10 chin-ups

Thursday - Supersets (x3 of the below)

Hammer curl x10
Dumb-bell curl x10
Skull crushers x10
Reverse crunches x10
Calf raises x10
X3

Friday - SL 5x5 - Squat/BP/BBR 5x5 - along with 3x10 Press-ups

Then alternate the 5x5 sessions.

Does it sound excessive?, as I'm keen on getting into the 5 days a week routine, with 2 days rest over the weekend.

Too much imo.

Here's a breakdown of what you do, or more so an indication of the muscles you're hitting everytime you go -

Mon - legs/tri's/bi's
Tue - bi's/tri's
Wed - legs/tri's/bi's
Thurs - tri's/bi's
Fri - legs/tri's/bi's

Where's the rest time during the week? And I don't mean an actual day not going to the gym, if you must do five weekdays in there, it is possible, but you're hitting the same muscles every single time you go. I mentioned this when you first suggested adding two days to stronglifts, it's very difficult to stay completely true to what stronglifts is and also add a couple days in there as well. I would either stick to stronglifts over 3 days as is (at most adding one or two isolation exercises at the end of each day) or put together your own routine that allows you the 5 days in the gym that you want, but also allows at least a day or twos rest between hitting the same muscles. You might even need more than that, everyone is different.

Very much along the lines of what I was about to ask wedgie / grudas.

I have quite a manic summer ahead of me, working away, bouncing to and fro from different offices, late nights and so forth.
I would like to change my split accordingly and need some communal wisdom.

I need a 3 day split, with the option of having one additional day as a full body workout. I can afford to "skip leg days", apart from taking squatting out of the split. Before I get shot for saying that I can skip leg days - please let me say that I get an awful lot of "leg work" done especially over summer months (I do downhill mountain biking, with no uplift / chairlift close by, so spend an awful lot of time pushing my bike back up a very steep hill all weekend long).

What do you think would be a good "flexible split", where there's a possibility that I might miss a day now and then?

If your gym work might have to take a bit of a back seat for a few months, which sounds like it's the case, I'd probably go with doing fullbody on every visit, or something like an upper/lower split. It depends how often you think you will have to miss a workout, if it's one or two days you would be able to rearrange, you could most likely make any routine work. But unless you know for sure missing sessions will be very rare, I would be going for a more frequency based routine.

 

[Supercow]

I thought a full-body might be the answer - thanks.
Do I dare mention Crossfit (done properly) ?

 

[wedgie]

I have no idea on crossfit mate .

 

[mrthingyx]

I thought a full-body might be the answer - thanks.
Do I dare mention Crossfit (done properly) ?

In theory, maybe. Practically, does not exist.

If you want a full-body workout in one, learn how to overhead squat.

And no leg days because you're a DH cyclist with no uplift? What do you think is going to make your rides up the hill easier?

My only sport at the moment is Olympic weightlifting (and I'm not even very good at it): I don't skip legs bcause I'm doing clean'n'jerk or snatch days...?

If you're going to skip a day, from a practical perspective skip smaller muscle groups (biceps, for example). For natural lifters, compound movements generate the most testosterone, and we need all we can get.

 

[Djdom56]

Couch stretch

In all seriousness, try it off the end of the bed or something as well, or use less of an angle and slowly work up. I saw dom using an incline bench and doing it that way, seems to put less stress on the leg and less 'omg its going to snap'

This. Move your knee away from the wall a bit, or abort the wall all together for now, just get into that lunge position with your back foot on the ground. Do you have any bands, or something else you can wrap around your foot to raise it up off the floor? That is another way of doing it that I quite like. Start in the flat lunge then lift your food up to bring in more quad. Easy, although by no means comfortable .

 

[Delvis]

This. Move your knee away from the wall a bit, or abort the wall all together for now, just get into that lunge position with your back foot on the ground. Do you have any bands, or something else you can wrap around your foot to raise it up off the floor? That is another way of doing it that I quite like. Start in the flat lunge then lift your food up to bring in more quad. Easy, although by no means comfortable .

I cried inside.

So much!

 

[elmarko]

Too much imo.

Here's a breakdown of what you do, or more so an indication of the muscles you're hitting everytime you go -

Mon - legs/tri's/bi's
Tue - bi's/tri's
Wed - legs/tri's/bi's
Thurs - tri's/bi's
Fri - legs/tri's/bi's

Where's the rest time during the week? And I don't mean an actual day not going to the gym, if you must do five weekdays in there, it is possible, but you're hitting the same muscles every single time you go. I mentioned this when you first suggested adding two days to stronglifts, it's very difficult to stay completely true to what stronglifts is and also add a couple days in there as well. I would either stick to stronglifts over 3 days as is (at most adding one or two isolation exercises at the end of each day) or put together your own routine that allows you the 5 days in the gym that you want, but also allows at least a day or twos rest between hitting the same muscles. You might even need more than that, everyone is different.

Hmm maybe,

I thought of it like this (as the key muscle groups hit)

Monday - Core + Legs + Chest + Back
Tuesday - Arms + Calf
Wednesday - Core + Legs + Shoulders
Thursday - Arms + Calf
Friday - Core + Legs + Chest + Back

When I last did SL 5x5 I noticed my legs/core develop loads & not so much my arms (maybe I was doing something wrong!) - but obviously my legs & core I hit 3 times a week.