*** The 2011 Gym Rats Thread ***

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Caporegime
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I understand dont worry. Thanks to our good friend Will im left paying about £400 more in rent per semester than i get from my student loan. Not entirely sure what i'll be doing after christmas when it next comes around. Maybe selling a kidney or a leg.

Not good man :(

I always check the reduced shelf. Catching the supermarket just as the fish or meat counter closes is always a good one - usually half price whole fish or steaks on offer.

Yeah, I do look around when I go there, as it's on the way home as well. Sadly I finish at 5 not 9 :p

Oh yeah and the meatpacks mentioned earlier, could you not afford to buy in bulk like that? Cheaper than Tesco and less petrol going back and forth :D

http://www.meatpacks.co.uk/

Hmm, never heard of them, may take a look :)
 
Soldato
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I understand dont worry. Thanks to our good friend Will im left paying about £400 more in rent per semester than i get from my student loan. Not entirely sure what i'll be doing after christmas when it next comes around. Maybe selling a kidney or a leg.

Speak to the Uni regarding (I think it's called) a hardship fund and explain your situation. They should be able to give you some £ that you won't have to pay back. Not sure if it is still around these days though but worth a try.
 
Caporegime
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Man of Honour
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There are some people like Freefaller who do very little direct bicep work but still have big arms - which is fine - but for the majority if people, if you want big arms, it makes no sense at all to avoid training them directly.

Spending a whole workout on biceps is totally excessive though.
Indeed - I'd never argue not to do any isolation, but it's just something I'm not interested in. :) I do so many big heavy compounds that I make up for the lack of isolation. :)
 
Caporegime
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Any opinions on this regime, too much?

Sun: Legs (45mins)
Mon: Chest & Trics (over 1hr) + Core
Tue: Biceps (30 mins)
Wed: HIIT
Thur: Shoulders & Back (over an hour) + Core
Fri : Rest (usually out for a few beers)
Sat: Rest

I can't do back and biceps together, I don't have any energy left to do bicep stuff after back!

i think you would be better off copying something from the sticky than making up your own, theres so much wrong with the above, i dont know where to begin.
 
Caporegime
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God knows :p Yes I know thats bad.

Mainly don't know exactly due to not having enough money to buy enough each week / month, it changes.

The usual however is:

Morning: Porridge
Mid-Morn: Nutri-grain bar (no real reason why, its just something)
Lunch: Two chicken wraps home made, mayo, filling varies (lettuce etc)
Afternoon: Banana - Taken before workout usually

Dinner really varies, again, money. It can be anything from Pizza to Pasta, kievs, Sheppards Pie, Normal Pie, anything basically.

Used to take whey in the morning and evening, and an extra post-workout. Again, none currently as i'm poor this month :(

i see zero veg there mate, try adding some to your dinner, i use those small frozen bags which come in a multipack of 5, you just take one bag from the mulitpack and put it in the micro for 2 mins, open and serve.

it will probably be a lot cheaper to buy mix veg in big bag frozen or even separately, as in bag of peas, bag of carrots, tins of sweetcorn, etc. it doesnt have to be birds eye just use supermarket own make, should be cheap and last you ages. the only problem with that then is, faffing about opening a tin or 3 bags of veg every time and taking a small bit from each.

also supermarket own make nutri grain bars taste just as good and probably half the price. in fact a lot of supermarket own makes are practically the same, i actually prefer supermarket fruit juice to tropicana for example even though its half the price.

also checkout the "mysupermarket" website, for tips on saving on your shopping bill, e.g. put your weekly/monthly shopping in and it will ask you if you want to substitute items for a similar thing but cheaper.

for example i added 4 tins of heinz baked beans to my trolley and it said save £1 by swapping to branston baked beans, i have never tried branston before but im assuming they will taste similar.

it also gives you the price of things per 100ml very clearly so you can tell within 5 seconds which is the cheapest option. you also get £10 off your first and 2nd order if you spend over £50 each time and use tesco, vouchers are on hot uk deals, right hand side where it says voucher finder. type in tesco and click on the grocery one.

for example i had some tesco clubcard vouchers £7.50 and i used the £10 off so i got £50+ worth of shopping plus £3 delivery for £37.

had i bought the same stuff and went into asda it would have cost me over £60, so i saved £23.

if you have any trouble figuring it all out just let me know here are the websites i use for discounts

https://www.quidco.com/home/
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/HomeA.aspx
http://www.hotukdeals.com/

basically register yourself on asda and tesco, then when registration is complete, close browser.

open mysupermarket and buy whatever you want from wherever you usually buy from, switch to cheapest supermarket at top, then click on swap and save and swap anything you want to a cheaper product.

then go to transfer trolley, it will open up your chosen supermarket and add all the goods into your basket for you.

then go to hot uk deals and get vouchers.

type in vouchers.

then go to quidco and refer yourself to the supermarket opening a new browser with your basked and vouchers already added.

put in card details and order.

i should be awarded a medal for typing all that out lol
 
Caporegime
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Get paid £900, £440 goes on rent, the rest on food, petrol, other expenditures :o, so yeah, it soon goes


Again, red meat costs more :p

buy one of those piggy banks which you have to break to get cash out, not one with a hole at the bottom, stick it somewhere safe and every now and again stick a note in it (no coins). my mate did this and managed to save up quite a lot, he was sticking £5-£20 in it every other day.

i think mince is extremely cheap to buy, maybe look at a local butchers if you can rather than supermarket and compare prices.
 
Caporegime
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What I want ideally is a regime where I can get everything done during the week, but I very rarely train on Fridays.

Perhaps:

Monday - Bench Press + Overhead pressing
Tues - Squats
Thursday - Deadlifts + Pullups
Sun - HIIT (I only do 20 minutes extremely intense as my focus is bulking at the moment)

Make these the main focus of each workout and then throw in some other isolation work suitable to each workout, maybe changing various exercises week to week? Does the bench press definitely offer advantages over the standard flat bench DB press which I can't get enough of at the moment.

Monday - Chest and Arms
Tuesday - Legs
Thursday - Back
Friday - Shoulders and Traps

Legs and Back should be worked hard, so keep them on their own and really push them, everything else should fall into place.

you can do HIIT on sat or sun
 
Caporegime
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Oh yeah and the meatpacks mentioned earlier, could you not afford to buy in bulk like that? Cheaper than Tesco and less petrol going back and forth :D

http://www.meatpacks.co.uk/

i just did a quick comparison using mysupermarket and tesco is the cheapest and so are asda and sainsburys (same price as each other)

meat packs is £5.49 for 1kg of lean steak mince

tesco is £4.29 for 1kg of lean steak mince, so long as you buy £12 worth (4 x 700g for £12)

asda/sainsburys are £5 for 1kg of lean steak mince


These guys are even cheaper http://www.tarelgin.com I've used them a few times and they're spot on.

5lb of lean steak mince = £12

or

1kg = £5.30


nobody can beat the buying power of supermarkets tbh, tesco is over £1 cheaper per kg


not going to bother checking other meats, i would go with a supermarket every time.
 
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Man of Honour
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Shropshire
Supermarkets do beat the mince prices but I only even use it to buy chicken which is a couple of quid cheaper per kg than my local Asda, not including the crap smartprice stuff.
 
Caporegime
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throw those ice-creams and chips out then! :p The grill pack is good, £80 free delivery

Hehe, £80 though :( I barely have that a month spare!

And no, we have chips for dinner sometimes ;) I don't eat ice cream much anyway

i see zero veg there mate, try adding some to your dinner, i use those small frozen bags which come in a multipack of 5, you just take one bag from the mulitpack and put it in the micro for 2 mins, open and serve.

it will probably be a lot cheaper to buy mix veg in big bag frozen or even separately, as in bag of peas, bag of carrots, tins of sweetcorn, etc. it doesnt have to be birds eye just use supermarket own make, should be cheap and last you ages. the only problem with that then is, faffing about opening a tin or 3 bags of veg every time and taking a small bit from each.

also supermarket own make nutri grain bars taste just as good and probably half the price. in fact a lot of supermarket own makes are practically the same, i actually prefer supermarket fruit juice to tropicana for example even though its half the price.

also checkout the "mysupermarket" website, for tips on saving on your shopping bill, e.g. put your weekly/monthly shopping in and it will ask you if you want to substitute items for a similar thing but cheaper.

for example i added 4 tins of heinz baked beans to my trolley and it said save £1 by swapping to branston baked beans, i have never tried branston before but im assuming they will taste similar.

it also gives you the price of things per 100ml very clearly so you can tell within 5 seconds which is the cheapest option. you also get £10 off your first and 2nd order if you spend over £50 each time and use tesco, vouchers are on hot uk deals, right hand side where it says voucher finder. type in tesco and click on the grocery one.

for example i had some tesco clubcard vouchers £7.50 and i used the £10 off so i got £50+ worth of shopping plus £3 delivery for £37.

had i bought the same stuff and went into asda it would have cost me over £60, so i saved £23.

if you have any trouble figuring it all out just let me know here are the websites i use for discounts

https://www.quidco.com/home/
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/HomeA.aspx
http://www.hotukdeals.com/

basically register yourself on asda and tesco, then when registration is complete, close browser.

open mysupermarket and buy whatever you want from wherever you usually buy from, switch to cheapest supermarket at top, then click on swap and save and swap anything you want to a cheaper product.

then go to transfer trolley, it will open up your chosen supermarket and add all the goods into your basket for you.

then go to hot uk deals and get vouchers.

type in vouchers.

then go to quidco and refer yourself to the supermarket opening a new browser with your basked and vouchers already added.

put in card details and order.

i should be awarded a medal for typing all that out lol

lol, chrikey! Thanks for the effort :)

I didn't put down veg, forgot that :o

I always have veg with my dinners, its the one thing I have to have really :) Normally Peas or sweetcorn, occasionally Carrots when we get them and broccoli

Thanks for the links though, will take a look.

buy one of those piggy banks which you have to break to get cash out, not one with a hole at the bottom, stick it somewhere safe and every now and again stick a note in it (no coins). my mate did this and managed to save up quite a lot, he was sticking £5-£20 in it every other day.

i think mince is extremely cheap to buy, maybe look at a local butchers if you can rather than supermarket and compare prices.

£5-20! I can't randomly stick that in a piggy bank every now and then :p

Oh and to top it all off, i'm currently fighting my way out of my overdraft, all because of last year with my car insurance coming out, so I basically get paid, throw rent across, then end up back in the minus on the 2nd of the month! That and the credit card needs paying, again, used for essential things I had to get at the time
 
Caporegime
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Location
Buckinghamshire
Delvis - If you want things to change, only you can make it happen.

I'm trying buddy, otherwise I wouldn't have been at the gym 3 days a week for 3months solid :)

If I had more money, I literally wouldn't be having this discussion, currently i'm bulking, but without eating too much crap so to minimise the fat gain.

After a month or two i'll see how progress is, and adapt accordingly
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Jul 2004
Posts
9,678
Location
Somerset
Anyone recommend a good shoulders/'core' routine?
I'm going to try changing to a 4 day split for a bit, the reason is I never really fit in a good legs/shoulders combo on fridays before work. I'm gonna put legs on thursday and have friday for shoulders and ..... something. I currently do no direct ab/core work at all so I figure I could benefit from some of that?

Help me masters of gym rats!
 
Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2004
Posts
1,487
Location
UK
Excellent progress in the last month,

Started Squats at 5 sets * 10 reps 60,65,70,80,80Kgs

Now after a month, 60,70,90,100,110Kgs

:) I can see my shoulders, back and legs gaining Muscles by just doing Squats

Squats and Bread = King of the Gym.

For real.!
 
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