OcUK Health Seekers: Post your progress pics

Nice leg work mate. It does make me laugh how relatively low volume most peoples leg workouts are. They thank you when you do them justice.
 
Freefaller said:
Nice squatting!!! Nice leg routine do you do that all on one day? How deep are your squats? If you're all the way down then you are my new idol as that's impressive. That's a lot of volume for squats alone - 94 reps!!!! Nice! :D
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Cheers, the 20 rep sets are right down to the bottom, the 2 12 reps set I go to horizontal with the bottom of my hamstrings, the last set I go as low as I can, start off at pretty much horizontal, but when I'm getting close to failure I go as low as I can but still be able to get back up :p

dun said:
Nice leg work mate. It does make me laugh how relatively low volume most peoples leg workouts are. They thank you when you do them justice.
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Thanks, leg day is my favorite, I think it shows how serious you are if you're really training legs hard. I also like to think my whole week is a build up to Friday's leg workout and squatting in particular. However mine don't thank me, they make their displeasure known well into the next week :p
 
It's good work - clearly works. :) Volume is very important for legs.

Some people argue the case that partials are important, well for certain polymetric bits of training I can see that, but in my view it's either full squats or none really.

Glad to see you're doing as big a ROM as you can. AS you get stronger you'll be able to do the 160s lower.

Legs take a while to build up to a suitable level - you' doing well. :)
 
cristi said:
BUT absolutely no part of your post says anything about increased recovery rate, which is what glutamime is supposed to do.
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Interesting that, studies done on a supplement that are meant to improve recovery not even mentioning it... speaks volumes :o
 
ethos said:
Interesting that, studies done on a supplement that are meant to improve recovery not even mentioning it... speaks volumes :o
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I assumed we're all men and thus know to use google by definition. in any case:

number 1:

"In a study presented at the 2004 American College of Sports Medicine national conference, male subjects underwent an exhaustive training session and then took either glutamine or a placebo for six days. After six days, each subject had his power measured and then performed the same exhaustive training session. Subjects who received the glutamine supplements experienced no drop-off in power from the first to the sixth day. The placebo group was found to have a decrease in power after six days, indicating their muscles were not fully recovered. Additionally, the glutamine group was able to train longer before becoming exhausted on the last day compared to the first, but the placebo group showed no improvement."

source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_8_24/ai_n16754497/


number 2:

"Results showed that the glutamine-supplemented group maintained a high peak power output in the sprint tests whereas peak power declined in those not given glutamine. Also, glutamine supplementation resulted in better performance in the endurance test. The researchers concluded that glutamine supplementation boosted performance by apparently promoting better recovery from the exhaustive exercise."

source:http://www.get-six-pack-abs.com/glutamine-supplement.html
(Med Sci in Sport & Exerci, S127, 2005. )

and so on and so forth.
of course we can spend hours googling a bajilion studies that say one thing or another, but I know it worked for me.
It might not do much if you've got something like 400g of protein a day, but I honestly think that's overkill for a an amateur bodybuilder.

You have got me curious though, and since I'm always going home for holidays, I'll try and see what difference does it make on a 2 month period by eating the same and using the same supplementation, glutamine being the only variable.
 
I think if it's worked for you, your diet isn't right.

In which case i'd focus on that before taking additional supplements :)
 
well my diet has been more or less the same for the past year and I've made decent gains with it.

morning:
full bowl of tesco's fruit and fibre + some skimmed milk (have tried oats for a while but can't be bothered to wait ages till they cool down :D )
2 hard boiled eggs
wholemeal sandwich with big slice of cheese and some ham

mini lunch: home made soup (got lots of veg in it and an average thigh or drumstick on each serving) + same sandwich.

pre workout shake: scoop of whey and maltodextrin + creatine

post workout shake: 2 scoops of whey and maltodextrin +creatine and glutamine.

dinner: large portion of pasta/rice/backed potatoes + 2 chicken thighs or drumstick or chicken leg or chicken breast and some veg.

an apple and banana at random times.

and whenever I feel hungry I also squeeze a tuna conserve or half a pot of cottage cheese between meals, most of the time this is after lunch.

While I'm sure it's far from the perfect diet, it does get me enough calories to grow and around 200 grams of protein....
 
Apart from the cereal and bread, and the high amount of carbs/starch at night it's pretty decent :)

Having/taking whey with a good balanced diet is fine, the extras though just aren't necessary IMO.

As I've said, some supps do work, and work well, and only you know if your body responds to it. The only fair way to really tell is to do NO2/Test/etc... samples before and after a trial period. A lot of these supps do cause a change but only for a short period of time, hence why people suggest you pulse things like that. Your body adapts very quickly.

The only true supps that REALLY work are the naughty kind that we won't discuss on this forum.

Other supps that are used in clinical environments have also been shown to work to a certain amount, however in general a lot of supps are psychological. And if you're training, if you're hitting 90% the supps may add 5% at best.

The way to test is to see
a) how much of the supps you pee down the toilet
b) how hard your kidneys are working (if they are having to work hard then the supps just aren't being absorbed into your body)
c) how hard your liver is working (as above)
d) how your endocrine system is operating
e) test levels
f) protein synthesis and absorbtion

The list goes on.

A good diet will pee all over any sups - even with "special supps" you still need to eat well, though people use it as an excuse to go a bit "mad".
 
Freefaller said:
Apart from the cereal and bread, and the high amount of carbs/starch at night it's pretty decent :)
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you say "and the high amount of carbs/starch at night" as though it's a bad thing, i assume it's only a bad idea to eat so much carbs at night? i have quite a lot of carbs during the day (usually around 1pm) and i always assumed that was okay?

cheers
 
I just don't like having too many carbs at night - they go to waste. Carbs are important (though my ratio biases towards protein) but having so much at night is pointless. I have protein, carbs and fats with every meal, even at night, but I try not to have an excessive amount at night and make sure they are complex (i.e. low GI) carbs. You need carbs especially after a work out to restore the glycogen levels. The only thing you don't want after a work out is fats, and that's the only time you don't want fats - all other times it's fine.

Nothing wrong with carbs, but it's just about the ratio and amount :)

Also I'm basing this on my workouts which are typically more intense than a lot of people's average work out and my lifestyle :)
 
ahh, thanks for the clearing that up :)

however your answer has spawned another question...

"The only thing you don't want after a work out is fats, and that's the only time you don't want fats - all other times it's fine."

Why don't you want fats after the gym?

Sorry to ask so many questions :)

Cheers
 
MonkieMann said:
ahh, thanks for the clearing that up :)

however your answer has spawned another question...

"The only thing you don't want after a work out is fats, and that's the only time you don't want fats - all other times it's fine."

Why don't you want fats after the gym?

Sorry to ask so many questions :)

Cheers
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They slow down the absorbtion of other nutrients such as protein, which after weight training you want to get to the muscles as fast as possible
 
Started last week, not a skinny lad to start with lol
fifteen and a half stone and 6'1"
So here's some starter pics, want to bulk up and lose a load of fat. Find it hard to stay off the booze though, and i've been told that's a killer.

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Is doing far too many weights not a good idea?

Say for example I cram an upper body weight session each day twice for an hour each so total 2hrs weight session per day for 6 days (Sunday rest day) and continue this for a few months would this be a bad idea?

May sound a totally silly question but my legs are in good shape and decent size so I just need to work on my upper body.
 
Nige01010 said:
Is doing far too many weights not a good idea?

Say for example I cram an upper body weight session each day twice for an hour each so total 2hrs weight session per day for 6 days (Sunday rest day) and continue this for a few months would this be a bad idea?

May sound a totally silly question but my legs are in good shape and decent size so I just need to work on my upper body.
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Simple answer: Yes. You must allow for recovery. It is more important than the workout!
 
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