*** The 2010 Gym Rats Thread ***

Make sure it's aspartamene free as it's a nasty artifcial sweetner. I think sucralose is the other one to try and avoid but it's not that bad compared to aspartamene.

Got a pritty good shoulder pump today along with a monster forearm pump. Was using a false grip for shrugging until my grip failed and then strapped up. Got a few light veins coming through over the anterior deltoid along with some striations. Viens in my forearms caught my eye during a bicep/tricep tripple superset :eek: Arm pump about 25 minutes post workout was 16.5".

My shoulder imbalances are almost disappearing as I lean out. Obviously due to uneven body fat. However my right rotator cuff needs addressing as it's not as stable as the left and also aches after side raises and I don't feel like I can get as much deltoid involvement on that side as I can with the left no matter how much I address my form. I leant slightly foward today too to make reaching the peak that little bit harder.

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I've decided as well as addressing my grip through a few different training principles I'd also like to be able to use thicker bars. I would buy my own and keep it at the gym however I'm only here for about 6 more months so would need to get it home again! I've seen the foam grips to go onto barbells/dumbells has anybody used these before or got any information good or bad about them?
 
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I haven't personally used them but I've heard pretty good reviews. I've been wrapping a small towel around dumbells which makes them much harder to use but you can really feel it working your forearm. I suspect one of those proper foam grips would be easier to use and you could put it on a barbell/chin up bar as well. How much are they?
 
You have to buy from the american site but they ship from within the UK in 1-2 days so I read. It was $46-47 including p&p so works out at about £27ish pounds. Fairly pricy but cheaper than buying a think olympic barbell and can transfer to any dumbell too. Apparently they're pritty solid.
 
Benny, Any alternative aspartamene. Is sucralose any better. Also anyone recommend a good forearm excersize thanks.

burtie
 
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I'm currently 5 ft 10.5inches and weigh a measly 67kg (this fluctuates by a few lbs).

Now I've found some rythm again and am enjoying going to the gym I'm aiming to break 11 stone in the next 6 months. It doesn't sound like a lot but sometimes my weight seems to fluctuate right down to 10 stone 2ish, so if I can get 11stone solid I will be happy.

After spending a few months last year on a pathetic routine which excluded most of the big lifts (no Deadlifts, Squats, BOR's) I am also working on keeping these as part of my routine. I absolutely love doing squats and DL's at the moment, not sure if this is because I never used to do them or just because they are a satisfying lift.
 
mpledge52 said:
Hi all.

Where do you guys buy all your supplements from? Not talking about pump or 'gym related' supplements. Just after general everyday tablets like multivitamins, cod liver oil, fish oil caps etc. And if possible a place that sells devil's claw.

I buy most of my stuff through myprotein but they don't have a massive range. Just somewhere cheap where you can buy in bulk would be great.

Thanks.
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Myprotein have everything you need in terms of supplements, the only main one they dont stock is Vitamin D which they are working on atm. a lot of the supplements you find off the supermaret shelves are abit worse in quality as well.
 
There are many supplement sites out there some better than others. Some people have loyalty to MP some to others. I don't buy from MP as I'm not a fan of their stuff however it's not poor quality or bad. Just not a fan. BSD are good as are a lot of sites out there. The key is sweetners. Sucralose is fine but just buy whey which doesn't have any sweetners? Also ensure you have a good amino acid profile and good protein percentage! Ultimately it's what you like. But there are better and worse qualities out there. Do your research. Link to it and we'll advise on the quality. Furthermore you may well find a hidden gem which you can share with us. :)


Just been to a virgin active gym in west London (gf lives here) and my god the 20kg plates are tiiiiiiny. I had to use step platforms to raise the bar to a decent height for deads! Needless to say it drew a lot of attention :/ and queue lots of people trying to over do it. Other than that it's a not bad gym but I'd never pay to be a member there too gimicy.
 
The whey protein complex from STC nutrition is a good deal at the moment http://www.stcnutrition.co.uk/products.html £23.50 for flavoured, added l-glut plus pre and pro biotics.
The taste is very highly rated over on MT with a lot putting it ahead of the big brands.
I've got a tub of the choc and strawberry and I've got to agree it tastes great, good as a nice little healthy sweet treat
 
Just signed upto the gym again havent been in months, have done some MMA training past few weeks though and running for last few months.

Dreading the DOMs tbh but happy to be back! Probably go for a session tonight.

Anyone have any good articles on conditioning? Im not after size as much as now as I use to be.
 
Hmm I really am very undecided on what kind of routine I'm going to adopt for my up coming mass gain phase.

There really is so much crap on the internet that I'm just confusing myself now.

To be honest I'm just going to do what I want to do. I love the basic compound lifts. I cut my teeth on these with the Starting Strength routine and I feel most comfortable doing them. Logic says, duh Rosbif why dont you just do Starting Strength again? Well, as much as I LOVE squatting, and I do, I don't want to squat 3 times a week again, which is what I WAS doing on that program. Plus the odds of me being able to go from a squat rack (of which we have 1 :rolleyes:) to a barbell bench (of which we have 2 :rolleyes:) is very unlikely and therefore not practical.

I also go to the gym every morning and I dont want to get out of this routine. I enjoy it as a start to the day. So, I think I'm just going to do 1 compound exercise per day of the week. Thats it. 100% pure focus on 1 single exercise. Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Press, Bench and some sort of row, probably T-bar rows or weight assisted pull ups. Thats 5 days of weight lifting right there and 2 days for some absolutely brutal 6:30 AM HIIT cardio.

Not sure about the rep and set scheme. 3x8 and the whole workout will be over in 8-10 minutes, maybe even less. Plus I wont get a pump nor will I feel knackered. I might just go for 10x10 GVT style. So I'll kind of be doing Starting Strength blended with GVT :confused: Yikes what a mess :eek:

Anyone got any objections to that? I'm lost and havent got a clue to be honest :o Cheers
 
Have you looked into some upper/lower or push pull splits? These can allow for higher frequency training. So even though you're doing less it's more often and people can benefit from this type of training.

Phd have a 'cover model' (cringe) workout on their site which I tried for a few weeks and adapted slightly to suit my needs.

Whilst I think the idea of just training one exercise, per part, per day is interesting I think a standard 3x8 or just 3 sets of x reps isn't going to be enough volume or intensity to benefit. Perhaps something nearer to 6 sets and then 2 or 3 sets of an isolation exercise?

You could try a body part split and aim for 4 compounds and 1 or 2 isolations?

Whilst I'm keen for people to endure the agonies of 10x10 GVT that I went through this summer and the benefits that come with it such as improvements on form, endurance, mass and also a lesser ego it best to do GVT as GVT and not to blend it with anything else. Done correctly it's an absoultely crippling routine mentally and physically.

A rough quote from the t-nation article 'if you try to make apple pie with banana's, it's not apple pie anymore.' That said the only principles I would ever pinch would be the rep tempo, nothing else.

Thinking about (although I'm not sure if it's as effective as submitting the whole body to it) you could try GVT on just legs, or shoulders, or chest/back (bearing in mind the supersets). But I don't want to be making my 'apple pie' with 'banana's'.

What do you think of some of the suggestions for push pull/upper lower splits? They can be supersetted easily thus making them quick and intense workouts.
 
Benny,

Unfortunately I think I'm gonna have to rule out GVT. Given the small size of my gym I just cant perform supersets properly. :( Infact supersets in general are hard to perform in my gym.

I think the idea of 1 exercise per day with 6 sets and then a few sets of an isolation exercise is my best option. :)

Chest: Bench 6x8/Flys 3x12
Legs: Squats 10x10? Could throw in some lunges :D Painnnnnnnnn :D
Shoulders: Military Press 6x8/Side raises 3x12
Back: Deadlift 6x8/Pull-ups 3x12
Arms: Dips 6x8/Tricep extensions 3x12

Although, perhaps an arm day is a bit overkill?

Thoughts? :)

Oh and again I really must thank you all for your input. It has been invaluable!
 
I found it difficult to perform the supersets due to the limitations of my gym but also I wasn't familiar with SLDL and it's all bloody tough! Especially with the correct tempo's.

What I did was 10x10 of squats with less rest than If I had supersetted. So I took 60 seconds rest as opposed to 90. Then I did the same for my hamstring exercise. So effectively did them seperatly.

Chest and back is fairly easy to superset providing you're pulling and pushing the same weight which luckily for me I was. I just unracked the bar with the aid of my spotter and then reracked and then began my rest period. You could slip on/off plates as needed.

Shoulders is fairly straight foward and doesn't need explaining.

All about the 4 second negatives with GVT, that's the key with the volume. It's not about banging 100 reps out, it's about making each rep count. I don't think I ever got all 100 reps out for an exercise I probaly barely made 85/90 due to fatigue/failure.
Chest: Bench 6x8/Flys 3x12 Alternate Incline/Flat as you feel appropriate, I'd say 2 weeks and then switch. Perhaps alternate Bars and DB's too for maximal mass gains
Legs: Squats 10x10? & SLDL, I'm a fan of high volume leg work outs so perhaps try something like 5x15
Shoulders: Military Press 6x8/Side raises 3x12 Try alternating with DB shoulder press with no backrest
Back: Deadlift 6x8/Pull-ups 3x12 Pull ups & Rows (I like T-bar Rows too). I'd do deadlifts on Leg day if I were you as. really give your core & legs a smashing on leg day and back a blasting on back day
Arms: Dips 6x8/Tricep extensions 3x12 No bicep work? which is fine if you don't feel the need. Though using minimal bicep activation when doing back exercises might make a few sets for bi's an idea
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These are of course just my suggestions. Others might suggest theirs which will be different. I've only really been training for about a year and a half seriously. Spent a year buggering around as I didn't know what I was doing.

Whilst it's probaly not been designed for optimal gains you should find you make some progress on strength and mass providing you use explosive concentrics where you've got less reps in each set (e.g 6x8).

Hopefully something like this will be a shock to your system, if you've not trained like this before, which will help to stimulate some more growth too. I found addressing my rep tempo with slower negatives effected the natural shape of my muscles due to a higher level of natural tension in the muscle.
 
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Since this will be the first time I've trained in a calorie rich state I think I'm gonna make gains regardless of what I do (Ok, exaggeration but I think you get the jist) .. Yeah, probably not optimal, but I'm ok with that since I am basically starting off fresh. This will get refined within what I can actually achieve at my Gym as the months progress.

I will look into the SLDL's. Its something I've not done before although I am familiar with the concept.

:eek: Deadlifts and Squats on same day .. Wow .. that is going to be the most insane day of training. I think I'll reserve that for Sundays when the Gym is practically empty. :D Going by my previous Deadlift experience, I think hitting the Deadlift first and then Squats is the way to go. My strength is in squatting and not deadlifting. I'm a natural squatter. I know that if I did squats first I would not be able to Deadlift at all, where as when I deadlift no particular part of my body is absolutely fried beyond use, although it is an exceptionally intense work out and the heart rate is hugely elevated. After squatting my Quads and Glutes are ready for the scrapheap. Getting changed is a struggle. :D

Rep tempo is something I'm going to focus on as well as rest intervals. Slow controlled eccentrics and explosive concentrics. Under starting strength all of my concentrics were explosive (apart from deadlift, which was just steady). This time I'll also focus on the eccentrics far more. Hopefully with just 1 core exercise I should be far more focused on every single rep.

Oh and bicep work. If I alternate pull-ups with chin ups they will get some form of work out. I would lose interest mentally in training them specifically.

Thanks for your help Benny. I'm starting to feel quite settled on my work out routine now. :)

All I've got to do now is fix my menu and cook my food. Then the fun begins. :D

Its all getting quite close to realisation now .. Very exciting!
 
I'm a stronger deadlifter than squatter. I always squatted first as it was my weaker exercise but also found it prepared my core for the weight of DL's as well as put me in the zone.

Alternating pull ups with chin ups is a good idea. Chin ups also give a bigger stretch for the lats and thus a bigger range of motion which is better. Wide and regular grip pull ups could be alternated too, or use wide until you stall/fail then see if you can get the last few reps out with a regular pull up grip.

I find it all really exciting/interesting as I'm becoming quite passionate about it!

Your welcome :)
 
Haha, I just want to be you!

I'm getting hairer, just like you! Whilst I'm not quite a rug I've always been reasonably hairy on the arms and chest. It's now spread from half way accross the back of my hand to 3/4's of the way across, coming upto the knuckles now. Also spreading up the arms more towards the shoulders and the undersides of my forearms have joined up.

Going to need to manscape more often! My dad was always a hairy ass mo fo.
 
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