*** The 2012 Gym Rats Thread ***

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Caporegime
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Everyones different matey, don't worry :)

Does the SL routine not say what to do if you stall? Just drop the weight and go back up again? It may be a case of attacking the sticking point with what you can, eventually you should get 5 reps.

That or eat more :p

EDIT: Try above first
 
Soldato
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Guys, I could do with a bit of advice. Bear in mind I'm a bit of a gym noob still :p
I'm doing SL 5x5, and I'm struggling.
On squats, I stalled at 65KG (which should be pretty light for squats). Anyway, I decided to drop back down to 55kg because I thought I'd work on getting my form perfect. I've recently gotten back up to 60kg and it seems just as hard as before. I feel like I'm going to stall at 65 again (maybe 70).

I read that most people get to at least 90KG before they stall on SL 5x5 so I was wondering if anyone had any input?

Do as oddjob pointed out. If you want, you can post up a vid on your form and im sure you will get pointed in the right direction :). When you say you stalled, which set was it on?
 
Soldato
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2nd day at the gym done.

Felt good - found out they have an additional weight area downstairs which was very quiet.

3 x 5 @ 25kg squats
3 x 5 @ 20kg overhead press
1 x 5 @ 40kg deadlift

15 mins bike & 5 mins row
5 mins stretch.

All felt ok so far.
 
Associate
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re: Squats vs squits. I always drop the kids off before a workout, but often find that after I'll need another one.

re: Sauna/steam room etc. I use the steam room for 30mins after a workout, but I've been reading lately that raising your body temp promotes cortisol. Which is "Not a Good Thing"™ to do, and coupled with your cortisol levels will be higher already (due to the exercise you've just done) you should not spend too long at all.

Also, if you are using them as an aid to losing weight, it's not going to help. You'll only sweat when in there, so you lose water - not excess fat. Though a good sweat is good for other reasons. Blood circulation, "cleaning out", skin cleansing, etc. :)

It's not that simple. Acute increases in cortisol are beneficial, and some of the benefits of exercise are thought to be mediated by increase in cortisol that exercise induces. Transient spikes in cortisol are most likely a good thing. This goes for coffee as well. Caffeine gives an acute transient spike in cortisol, and this could potentially be one of the mechanisms by which coffee drinking promotes health. And pretty much any study you can find on coffee drinking confirms that moderate coffee drinkers have nearly all better markers of health than non-drinker. But it's probably not just the caffeine in coffee that is giving these positive effects, there are many other known and unknown factors in coffee that may also promote health, it's not fully understood. Coffee is great, but this is what we call a digression.

Anyway, I don't specifically know how using a sauna post-wo affects _________, but it's not sufficient to over simplify the role of cortisol here. Cortisol is generally only really bad in chronically elevated conditions.

And technically speaking, prolonged significant changes in temperature can aid in fat loss. Yes, most of the weight lost in a sauna will be water, but you'll get that back as soon as you start drinking again. But your body has to work hard to keep the body temperature constant, and it uses a lot of energy to keep yourself cool. So all that sweating that you do, will increase your energy expenditure. This effect is more pronounced in the cold though. Shivering uses a relatively large amount of energy. In addition, Brown Adipose Tissue is thought to be stimulated by the cold.
 
Soldato
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Nice one :). How you finding your start in to Stronglifts?

ok so far.

Its very early but I feel fairly well motivated to get stuck in to this as I have a boys stag do in Magaluf in June and would like to look a bit better toned for that!:D

Think the 3 sets is good for time wise.

I've always had relatively good/strong legs with cycling/walking etc but i'm such a weakling up top, I forsee the bench press being my biggest enemy!!:D

I'm trying to concentrate at the moment on form more than anything - watching/reading tips on the form etc.

Was bloody starving when I came out the gym today!!

Only issue I still have is confirm my nagging suspicion about the weights - I'm 99% certain they are KG weights (1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25kg) but I asked one guy today (trying not to sound like a total noob) and he said "yeah I think so"

Didn't manage to catch anyone from the gym to confirm but I can't imagine they are in pounds! Round black weights with handles in them, kind of rubber covered ones.
 
Permabanned
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If they go up in increments such as those then they are in KG's.

Weights tend to either have just the KG amount on them or sometimes both. Don't think I've ever seen any list them solely in lbs.
 
Man of Honour
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Ah crap. No Gym this week as I've gotten a cold. It's not that bad but I've been pushing myself fairly hard so figured it's best to just let myself recover... I don't want the damn thing any worse.

I tend to get them if I run out of vits, which I did this time around. None for about 10 days (I kept forgetting to buy more when I was shopping, not that it's much of an excuse mind). Does anyone else here get ill when they don't take the vits? I notice a lot of body builders take large doses of the vits and have been saying the same thing.

(no medical advice please!)

If/when I get a cold it seems to be entirely random except that it's almost always during time off work i.e. I'll be perfectly fine for months and right up to the point when I'm off then suddenly I'll catch a cold. I've never noticed any link to taking multivitamins or not.
 
Associate
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There are no links between taking multi vitamins, and especially vitamin C, and getting a cold.

However, there seems to be a good link between taking Zinc and getting a cold; ie if you take zinc you get colds less often and if you do get a cold, zinc will shorten the duration of the cold.
 
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