*** The 2019 Gym Rats Thread ***

Strong OHP. Nothing wrong with some leg drive to help you overload.

Why stagger your stance?

Also how did the light deadlifts go?

Staggered just feels more comfortable. Light deadlifts fine, slow negatives pauses etc and watching myself in the mirror. All part of the daily grind
 
Further to the above. If I'm looking to cut - I'm currently consuming 2600 cals at 162lb bw. I'm consuming about 171g of protein. If I was to drop to 1800-2000 calories I have no idea how I would keep my protein in take up.

Taking advice from this thread, I've just upped my calories to 1900 a day. This is pretty similar to what I normally had. Usually a lil less carbs and more fats. I was managing 160g daily at 1600kCal .

Here is today's munch:
Screenshot-20190123-234515-Gallery.jpg

Even included the broken last biscuit in the tin haha
 
Taking advice from this thread, I've just upped my calories to 1900 a day. This is pretty similar to what I normally had. Usually a lil less carbs and more fats. I was managing 160g daily at 1600kCal .

Here is today's munch:
Screenshot-20190123-234515-Gallery.jpg

Even included the broken last biscuit in the tin haha

1900? That's my breakfast :D
 
Staggered just feels more comfortable. Light deadlifts fine, slow negatives pauses etc and watching myself in the mirror. All part of the daily grind

What are your current goals/aims? Are you focused on building up to something or do you just love throwing iron around and putting on mass?

You have a lot of potential to be throwing around much bigger numbers that better form will help you do.

Yeap broken record alert, and you probably think “who’s this scrub no lifter telling me how to lift” but surely you follow other strongmen, powerlifters, BB’ers, on social media, pretty much all the ones I follow make a point about how important form is in your lifting.
 
@Syla5 I have the potential to be a monster and just seeing where it leads. Genetically I seem to be able to just throw up big weight aka the 250 I'd never done and after a year off etc.

Calories are lolstupid. I'm not gaining huge amounts of fat very little actually lifts are going up and I'm gaining good mass.

Im not a bodybuilder or a powerlifter or a strong man I'm somewhere in between. I train to keep my mind straight and I love being a big lump
 
What are your current goals/aims? Are you focused on building up to something or do you just love throwing iron around and putting on mass?

You have a lot of potential to be throwing around much bigger numbers that better form will help you do.

Yeap broken record alert, and you probably think “who’s this scrub no lifter telling me how to lift” but surely you follow other strongmen, powerlifters, BB’ers, on social media, pretty much all the ones I follow make a point about how important form is in your lifting.

Pulled from lift learn grow

7 - Get into the Proper Stance
Once you’ve gripped the bar with the correct hand position and stepped out of the rack you need to get your stance right in order to provide a stable base to push from.

You have 2 main options here.

  1. The first is to keep the feet parallel, set between hip and shoulder width apart, this stance is wide enough to provide balance and stability when pressing. If you bring the feet too close together you’ll struggle with balance and too wide will make the lift feel awkward and difficult as you won’t be able to transfer as much power through the legs.

  2. The second option is split or stagger the stance with one foot slightly in front of the hips one on slightly behind. In this stance, you still want to keep the feet between hip and shoulder width apart.
As to which you should use, it comes down to personal preference but you should experiment with both to see which provides you with the most stable support base.Remember, a stable base means more confidence, more pushing power and more strength.


Google will also reveal many use stagger many prefer not to use it so its down to what feels most comfortable.

Your knowledge is wonderful but I want to see this translated to some actual gym pics videos and lifts both combined and you yourself have potential :) do a log?
 
I didn't even know you could do them with a staggered stance, I'd fall on my arse if I tried and I'm only doing half of that weight on OHP :p
 
Your knowledge is wonderful but I want to see this translated to some actual gym pics videos and lifts both combined and you yourself have potential :) do a log?
I suspected this was the issue, becuase I don’t lift numbers like you, you are happy to disregard my advice as clearly it’s useless.

The best advice / knowledge doesn’t sit in the minds of the capabale only.

Knowing and doing aren’t the same. Just because I have listened to those who know and can share the knowledge but can’t do, doesn’t mean it isn’t correct advice.

However I did do a little comparison from when I was training properly before to the numbers you have shown here and from a lb for lb perspective your wilks score vs mine was only 20 points better.

My personal bests being:
Bench: 110 paused (1.5 x bw)
Squat: 165 belt less (2.25 x bw)
Deadlift: 170 beltless and injured (2.3 x bw)
OHP (with leg drive): 85 (1.15 x bw)


All done at body weight 74-76kg.

All lifts in my first or second logs on here. My first log is linked in the first post of my second log that is in my sig... also more detail about my injury and how much it has hampered me.

What isn't there is my lifting from 2017 which ended with me stopping lifting, doing 3 months of nothing to leave the miss diagnosed strain/pull to heal, then 6 months of consistent physio which resulted in no improvement meaning I made no lifting progress because as soon as I hit any meaning full weight on most exercises my pain would flare up. Surprisingly its not possible to lift while feeling like you are being stabbed in the gut!

Because I got injured, it not being correctly diagnosed for 6 years, and now waiting for a resolution, (3 months post surgery healing) my progress has not happened due to training taking a hit from a mental and physical capability stand point. Knowing that as soon as you hit a certain weight you will have to stop is a real motivational kick in the nuts, and that weight was getting lower and lower in terms of injury trigger point.

As for staggered stance OHP I see what isn’t covered in what you shared is the fact that doing lopsided exercises will create imbalances. Make sure you alternate equally your lead foot otherwise you will create weakness in the system. I did this with deadliftings and mixed grip. Even though I alternated regularly I still created an imbalance that meant I pulled in a lopsided manner. The body is a chain mechanism and easily compensates for weakness. Don’t confuse comfort for weakness and body compensation.
 
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I agree, when comparing strength (because that seems like what is happening to validate the source of the advice) we need to be talking wilks scores. Eg how much is lifted relative to body weight.

Someone at 100kg bw doing a 300kg deadlift is the same relative strength as someone at 75kg lifting 225kg.

Most if not all top coaches don’t actively lift at the same level as those they are coaching.
 
1900? That's my breakfast :D

After 8 months at 1600kCal, 1900/2000 feels like loads!

I am going to see how i take the extra food in the next 3 or 4 weeks, then up it some more slowly, so long as i don't start gaining fat like crazy.

Got to work hard for that 1 year mark before and after pic!
 
Taking advice from this thread, I've just upped my calories to 1900 a day. This is pretty similar to what I normally had. Usually a lil less carbs and more fats. I was managing 160g daily at 1600kCal .

Here is today's munch:
Snip

Even included the broken last biscuit in the tin haha

Thanks for that. I also included the 1 digestive biscuit a day in mine. :p I currently have 1 protein shake mid morning and a carb/protein shake post training. I guess I could add another protein shake into the mix and get rid of some other stuff. I was trying to avoid shakes but it gets difficult and expensive.

One of my biggest problems is I'm a type 1 diabetic, when I drop my food, although I'll try to adjust my insulin intake it will inevitably lead to hypos which means I need sugar which piles the calories back on. I remember trying to cut a kilo for a bjj comp was a nightmare because of this. I'm going on a Dafne carb counting course thing next month which will hopefully help with this sort of thing in future.
 
Thanks for that. I also included the 1 digestive biscuit a day in mine. :p I currently have 1 protein shake mid morning and a carb/protein shake post training. I guess I could add another protein shake into the mix and get rid of some other stuff. I was trying to avoid shakes but it gets difficult and expensive.

Sounds tough, especially with trying to balance your health.

I only really started to go to the gym regularly 8 months ago and decided to get my nutrition together. Did the bloke thing of coming out of a relationship and decided i needed to lose weight and hit the gym as much as i can. without changing what i ate, i found that i could not go to the gym as frequently on 1600kCal and had to up the protein - though i probably went a bit overboard.

Now after 8 months of skinnying up my next aim is to gain enough weight so my 12 month picture isn't so embarrassing.

Obligatory 8 month transformation pic:

(Be gentle :p)

Also, the first pic fails to capture just how much of i gut i had

8-months.jpg
 
Sounds tough, especially with trying to balance your health.

I only really started to go to the gym regularly 8 months ago and decided to get my nutrition together. Did the bloke thing of coming out of a relationship and decided i needed to lose weight and hit the gym as much as i can. without changing what i ate, i found that i could not go to the gym as frequently on 1600kCal and had to up the protein - though i probably went a bit overboard.

Now after 8 months of skinnying up my next aim is to gain enough weight so my 12 month picture isn't so embarrassing.

Obligatory 8 month transformation pic:

(Be gentle :p)

Also, the first pic fails to capture just how much of i gut i had

Snip!

Awesome job man!

To be honest, I basically have a 6 pack (in slightly anabolic lighting :p) but below my pack I've got a "rubber ring" because I have fat pockets on either site of my lower stomach which I acquired before getting back to the gym. I've been getting bigger and the ring hasn't really got any bigger but I want to try and get rid of it before my holiday and hopefully it won't come back when I re up my calories. It's mostly some of the t-shirts I wear accentuate it.

The gyms body fat measuring thing puts me at 8-9% body fat but this is obviously wrong, I'd say I'm closer to 16-18% (at a guess).

I may post a picture and you guys can tell me what you think is best and how much of a cut it would take (although I'm always nervous about posting these types of pics, haha). I was planning to keep doing what I'm doing then drop my calories mid Feb in hope of losing it by the end of March.
 
Do any others experience problems with sore joints and tendons?

I've found my workout frequency tailing off a bit over the last few weeks primarily because my joints hurt. I'm not talking intense pain here, but there's definite discomfort in my right shoulder (slight impingement issue I've always had, but also just the joint feeling a bit sore) and in both elbows and forearms (most noticeable in the back of the elbow/tricep insertion on my right arm, and lower elbow/forearm muscle insertion on my left arm).

I'm not lifting as heavy as I have done in the past. I have been doing EOD workouts, mostly 3 set of 8 for about five months without a break, so I wonder if I've just overloaded my tendons or connective tissue a bit.

Does this issue come up for others? And how do people manage it? Is it just a matter of taking a bit of time off? I'm assuming just pushing through joint pain isn't a good idea. It has been getting slowly worse over the past few weeks.
 
Thanks guys. Absolutely no idea what my body fat is. My original goal was to see ab definition before going into a surplus but the weight stopped dropping off after a while - so i likely don't have enough lean mass to go much lower without starving myself.

Definitely gives me some inspiration as we seem to have a fairly similar body shape (well.. we DID at least xD)

To be honest, it was no where near as difficult as i thought it was going to be. I literately just ate less, went to the gym as much as my body allowed and made sure to keep protein high. The improvements in my exercises is what kept me motivated day in and day out, as opposed to any physical change. I never noticed the physical change much until i scrolled back through the picture on myfitnesspal. My bench started with a weak 30kg including the bar for a set of 5 and the other day i managed 85kg. Couldn't do one chest dip in August with my own body weight and now +20kg for a set of 5 . Pull ups i couldn't do one strict one in July and went from using bands to assist to now +15kg for a set. I have gone for quite heavy to quite light since then though :p
 
If you're building muscle then 1g/lb or 2g/kg is the starting norm generally. The results beyond that start to see diminishing returns or so research says, here's a little reading you can do yourself.

snip

I'm guessing with your current protein intake you don't take any protein powders?


Thanks I will give it a read. no protein shakes currently only intraworkout, Every protein shake I have tried thus far has been god awful and caused me to almost hurl :|
 
Do any others experience problems with sore joints and tendons?

I've found my workout frequency tailing off a bit over the last few weeks primarily because my joints hurt. I'm not talking intense pain here, but there's definite discomfort in my right shoulder (slight impingement issue I've always had, but also just the joint feeling a bit sore) and in both elbows and forearms (most noticeable in the back of the elbow/tricep insertion on my right arm, and lower elbow/forearm muscle insertion on my left arm).

I'm not lifting as heavy as I have done in the past. I have been doing EOD workouts, mostly 3 set of 8 for about five months without a break, so I wonder if I've just overloaded my tendons or connective tissue a bit.

Does this issue come up for others? And how do people manage it? Is it just a matter of taking a bit of time off? I'm assuming just pushing through joint pain isn't a good idea. It has been getting slowly worse over the past few weeks.

I had this recently, exactly as you describe, after building my home gym and getting into regular training (doing the Fierce 5 program but with box squats instead of front squats), primarily in my elbows, shoulders, and knees. My solution was to drop the weight hugely (to 60% of what I was lifting) and build back up to the weight I was doing when the joints/tendons started hurting over a 3 week period.

My guess is that the ligaments and joints take longer to strengthen/acclimatise than the muscle growth early on, which if true means that taking it easier or having longer breaks is the only solution. I'm not a doctor though, that's just what makes sense to me and what worked for me. I haven't had anymore tendon pain for 2 months now despite the weight regularly increasing.
 
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