*** The 2019 Gym Rats Thread ***

SideWinder said:
Main concern with that is (as the weights i posted show), is that my general strength is below average for someone my size and age. (in my opinion! :p)

There is 1 squat rack, incline bench press and a bench press that is opposite to incline...so legs up in the air if that makes sense. :o
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Stronglifts starts with just the bar (20kg)
and looks like you're already banging out 3x10 on that weight, Stronglifts is only 5x5 so you're golden :)
 
All you need is barbell, rack (for squat and bench a d racking overhead press) and flat bench. As said above strong lifts starts just with bar if you have no prior experience. it is initally all about gaining comfort with the movenents and therefore light. Exception to bar only is deadlift and row where you need plates to raise the bar off the floor but you will easily be able to do it. It is exactly designed for your situation (my situation 4 months ago!)

You will spin your wheels doing all those random exercises without making much progress (just as I did for ages before someone showed me stronglifts)
 
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Skidder said:
All you need is barbell, rack (for squat and bench a d racking overhead press) and flat bench. As said above strong lifts starts just with bar if you have no prior experience. it is initally all about gaining comfort with the movenents and therefore light. Exception to bar only is deadlift and row where you need plates to raise the bar off the floor but you will easily be able to do it. It is exactly designed for your situation (my situation 4 months ago!)

You will spin your wheels doing all those random exercises without making much progress (just as I did for ages before someone showed me stronglifts)
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Sorry to barge in - but quick question - how quickly can you whip through a typical stronglifts gym session and how many sessions is it a week?
 
garnett said:
Sorry to barge in - but quick question - how quickly can you whip through a typical stronglifts gym session and how many sessions is it a week?
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it's meant to be three days a week with an alternating A and B programme.

The estimates on the stronglifts web site say you can do it in half an hour, this doesn't really take into account warm up. 45 mins initially is realistic. As the weights get heavier you may need longer rest periods further stretching it to about an hour. I do a couple of assistance things as well and have no time pressure so go over an hour.
 
Skidder said:
it's meant to be three days a week with an alternating A and B programme.

The estimates on the stronglifts web site say you can do it in half an hour, this doesn't really take into account warm up. 45 mins initially is realistic. As the weights get heavier you may need longer rest periods further stretching it to about an hour. I do a couple of assistance things as well and have no time pressure so go over an hour.
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Thanks a lot for that - it's very helpful... I have a fairly firm 30 minute cap on my daily workout time, so it sounds like it'll be borderline whether I can take on this program... I might do some more reading though,to see whether I can make it work.
 
garnett said:
Thanks a lot for that - it's very helpful... I have a fairly firm 30 minute cap on my daily workout time, so it sounds like it'll be borderline whether I can take on this program... I might do some more reading though,to see whether I can make it work.
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It's relatively straightforward at the outset - the problem will come once you're pushing close to your 5RM max when you need 2-3 minutes between sets. :)

Practically, it's not really a problem because you can adapt the program to suit (once it starts taking up too much time): in reality, the "only" lifts everybody *needs* to do are squats (of some form), deadlifts (of some form) and a press (of some form)... getting 15-20 reps of these lifts twice a week is not difficult in half an hour (but let's not worry about that just yet!)...
 
garnett said:
Thanks a lot for that - it's very helpful... I have a fairly firm 30 minute cap on my daily workout time, so it sounds like it'll be borderline whether I can take on this program... I might do some more reading though,to see whether I can make it work.
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Why only 30 minutes? That's short for any kind of workout.
 
garnett said:
Thanks a lot for that - it's very helpful... I have a fairly firm 30 minute cap on my daily workout time, so it sounds like it'll be borderline whether I can take on this program... I might do some more reading though,to see whether I can make it work.
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Will be easily fit in at the start, even if just learning form, as weight will increase once that's sorted. Then you can reassess if you reach your 30min cap.

Can then switch to dedicated days ( I.e. Squats and then assistance that fit within your 30mins).

The.main thing is to learn the compound movements as that will help loads.
 
Thanks all.
mrthingyx said:
It's relatively straightforward at the outset - the problem will come once you're pushing close to your 5RM max when you need 2-3 minutes between sets. :)

Practically, it's not really a problem because you can adapt the program to suit (once it starts taking up too much time): in reality, the "only" lifts everybody *needs* to do are squats (of some form), deadlifts (of some form) and a press (of some form)... getting 15-20 reps of these lifts twice a week is not difficult in half an hour (but let's not worry about that just yet!)...
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That's the line of thought I was slowly going down, so thanks a lot - great to have confirmation from someone with a far greater understanding.
Syla5 said:
Why only 30 minutes? That's short for any kind of workout.
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It's all the spare time I have - fairly busy job and young children all sucking up the rest.

It's not too bad - I'm beating PBs I set myself nearly 20yrs ago.
Deception said:
Will be easily fit in at the start, even if just learning form, as weight will increase once that's sorted. Then you can reassess if you reach your 30min cap.

Can then switch to dedicated days ( I.e. Squats and then assistance that fit within your 30mins).

The.main thing is to learn the compound movements as that will help loads.
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I'm not too bad regarding form - or rather, I know where my problems lie!

I'm not starting from scratch - I've been getting fit for 18 months now without any focus on strength training, and I fancy a change...
 
I was short on time today due to kid commitments and just did squat and overhead press, still a good work out. will catch up deadlift tomorrow. I'm sure you can adapt to 30 mins or therabouts. Wish I'd started squatting years ago.


Managed 5x5 at 140kg on the squat for first time but think I was sacrificing a bit if depth if I'm honest with myself.
 
Decided to push my deadlift to 120kg tonight as my back is feeling good. I honestly don't think I'll ever be happy with my form. Can you guys take a look and tell me what I need to adjust.

 
ShortWarning said:
Decided to push my deadlift to 120kg tonight as my back is feeling good. I honestly don't think I'll ever be happy with my form. Can you guys take a look and tell me what I need to adjust.

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As I suspected: too much clothes. :D

Sit back a bit more and push through with your heels. And keep your chest up. Otherwise pretty good. :)
 
garnett said:
Thanks all.That's the line of thought I was slowly going down, so thanks a lot - great to have confirmation from someone with a far greater understanding.It's all the spare time I have - fairly busy job and young children all sucking up the rest.


It's not too bad - I'm beating PBs I set myself nearly 20yrs ago.I'm not too bad regarding form - or rather, I know where my problems lie!

I'm not starting from scratch - I've been getting fit for 18 months now without any focus on strength training, and I fancy a change...
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Haha family life is why I have to go early in the morning and get it out the way or I'd have no time at all.

As you're not starting from scratch then no harm giving it a go for a week or 2 and seeing how you go. Like I said before, then as long as you're throwing in the main compounds, then can easily tweak to fit in your 30mins. My sessions are pretty short too, but I make sure i l get the main lift in and then make it up from there haha
 
Squat day yesterday, had to finish my workout half way through my working sets and then couldn't finish.

felt like I had twice the weight on there was a real Grinder!! Possibly the worst session I have ever had.
 
kaptainmarc said:
Squat day yesterday, had to finish my workout half way through my working sets and then couldn't finish.

felt like I had twice the weight on there was a real Grinder!! Possibly the worst session I have ever had.
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Bummer. Onwards and upwards. I've had a few dogs recently and hadn't felt tired going into it.


I really notice of late that as the weight gets up to my PB 5 rep max on my squat I start to lose depth. I have deloaded 10% once and built back up and now beyond that and again feel I am losing depth. Not sure If I am just being a bit cautious or whether weight is too much. I am fine getting through the set but I'm not quite breaking parallel. What is the best approach, stick at this weight and work on form and breaking parallel rather than letting the strong lift app add weight or deload and work back up? What is the perceived wisdom? Anyone else find the same issue when they hit their max?
 
Skidder said:
Bummer. Onwards and upwards. I've had a few dogs recently and hadn't felt tired going into it.


I really notice of late that as the weight gets up to my PB 5 rep max on my squat I start to lose depth. I have deloaded 10% once and built back up and now beyond that and again feel I am losing depth. Not sure If I am just being a bit cautious or whether weight is too much. I am fine getting through the set but I'm not quite breaking parallel. What is the best approach, stick at this weight and work on form and breaking parallel rather than letting the strong lift app add weight or deload and work back up? What is the perceived wisdom? Anyone else find the same issue when they hit their max?
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You're probably cutting depth because your brain is worried you won't get out the hole. Can you do the weight fine for a single or a triple?

There might also be other problems: your form might be breaking down as the weight goes up, meaning that you're caving forwards - this generally encourages most people to fold at the hips and stick their bums out, so...
 
What are people's thoughts on the best approach for combining strength and hypertrophy training into one workout plan? I'm doing a six day PPL split that involves starting each workout with a compound lift (bench and OHP on push day, deadlift on pull day and squat on leg day), then moving onto more hypertrophy-focused work, but I'm finding that I'm taking a lot out of myself with the initial compound lift and although I've seen some decent strength and size gains I'm wondering whether it would be better to split my workouts so that one focuses solely on strength and the other on hypertrophy. For example, my first push workout of the week would be low rep, high weight for every exercise (5x3-5), then the second push workout of the week would focus on higher reps at a lower weight (something like 3x10-15).

Has anyone tried both of the above approaches and found one works better than the other?
 
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