***The 2021 Gym Rats Thread*** ᕦ( ͠°◞ °)ᕥ

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I’m looking for a bit of advice.

I’m looking to start lifting again. When I was last lifting I was following the Stronglifts routine and lost quite a bit of weight doing so.

However, I’m looking for something a bit different as I cycle and don’t particularly want to squat 3 times a week. Further, I have a meniscus injury at the moment which I have some body weight exercises for my legs which I would like to follow instead of any heavy squatting (at least until my injury has been resolved).

Therefore, I’m looking to do some form of Push and Pull split with a gentler leg routine on the 3rd session? My goals are to lose weight and look a bit more muscular (I might have a great base for this as a naturally bigger guy.)
 
A really pleasing squat session today. 180x2x1, 170x3x3, 135x6x6. Felt pretty easy, although my knee has felt ‘tight’ over the last few weeks, not sore, just tight. May be due a rest week for squats in due course. Don’t think I’ve missed a squat session since February.

I seem to have dropped body weight, but at least my strength is still progressing.
 
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So in my experience CGBP is the best accessory for bench press.

What would you guys say is the best accessory for high bar back squat?

I need to start doing more sets for leg, I just about do 15-20 sets on most weeks.
 
B&W said:
So in my experience CGBP is the best accessory for bench press.

What would you guys say is the best accessory for high bar back squat?

I need to start doing more sets for leg, I just about do 15-20 sets on most weeks.
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10-20 sets a week seems to be adequate volume for most muscle groups as long as intensity is sufficiently high (I’m convinced most people don’t train legs hard enough after seeing guys with huge wheels training at Muscleworks).

Depends on what the limiting factor or issue is for squats. If you discount form errors like losing tightness at the bottom because you’re dive-bombing (do more pause squats) or shifting the weight forward or back too much from the mid-foot (do some tempo squats or work on your kinaesthetic awareness) people usually fall on one side of the following due to how they’ve trained prior or just body proportions influencing what gets used most.

Torso remains in a good position throughout but you just stall/fail as your stand up and can’t even ‘stripper squat’ it up: Weak back relative to legs. Do RDLs/Good Mornings and be a form nazi about your back not rounding at any point in those lifts and staying tight/braced/neutral throughout.

Knees start to shift back out of the hole/you tend to Good Morning through the sticking point? You conventional deadlift way more than you squat: Weak legs relative to back. Do stuff like belt squats or the pendulum squat machine, hack squat machine (ideally reverse-banded) where you remove the upper body requirements but can replicate your squat pattern fairly well. Front squats are overrated here because you can still use too much back, especially if you have long legs.
 
Somnambulist said:
10-20 sets a week seems to be adequate volume for most muscle groups as long as intensity is sufficiently high (I’m convinced most people don’t train legs hard enough after seeing guys with huge wheels training at Muscleworks).

Depends on what the limiting factor or issue is for squats. If you discount form errors like losing tightness at the bottom because you’re dive-bombing (do more pause squats) or shifting the weight forward or back too much from the mid-foot (do some tempo squats or work on your kinaesthetic awareness) people usually fall on one side of the following due to how they’ve trained prior or just body proportions influencing what gets used most.

Torso remains in a good position throughout but you just stall/fail as your stand up and can’t even ‘stripper squat’ it up: Weak back relative to legs. Do RDLs/Good Mornings and be a form nazi about your back not rounding at any point in those lifts and staying tight/braced/neutral throughout.

Knees start to shift back out of the hole/you tend to Good Morning through the sticking point? You conventional deadlift way more than you squat: Weak legs relative to back. Do stuff like belt squats or the pendulum squat machine, hack squat machine (ideally reverse-banded) where you remove the upper body requirements but can replicate your squat pattern fairly well. Front squats are overrated here because you can still use too much back, especially if you have long legs.
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I think my programming was wrong and lack of intensity. Bit of form aswell. hmm last paragraph sounds familiar, I dont deadlift much but can do with more weight then with squat. Yes, when the going gets tough I use my back more, I try to push my back into the bar.

I can pause squat 100KG for 2-3 reps now, so getting slightly better. Programming been ****, just been doing 60-100 kg normal squats for 5-8 reps for ages now. Last two weeks I've upped the weight and it dont seem too hard, will try to up it regularly like my bench program.

None of them machines at my gym, used the leg press today. 5 sets. 18, 15, 14, 12, 10 reps. Will do this every sunday now, should hopefully add strength to legs.
 
If the leg press is adjustable make the seat more reclined (as long as it isn't so reclined you slide up it) and try and find the foot position where you can get as much ROM as possible without your lower back rounding or heels lifting.

See

 
Barbell hack squats
Deficit bulgarian split squats

Do those after a medium volume / high intensity leg work out I guarantee you will either throw up, or cry. They are horrid, and I do both after squats.

Most of my squat sessions start off with a tonne of mobility work.
Then, 3-5 sets of progressing warm ups. Last warm up is around 50% 1RM.
Warm up sets are between 5-8 reps.
Then the main programmed lifts, 3-4 sets max, but high intensity, medium volume. Last set is the heaviest with AMRAP.
1x dropset to 50% 1RM AMRAP.

Then 4x8 Barbell hack squats (aim for around 50-60% 1RM of your squat). Your quads are close to bursting at the end.

Then 4x8 each leg of DBSS - these are relatively light 15-20kg in each hand, or you can use a barbell if you want. I honestly lose the will to live.

I finish the session with some heavy calf raises, not that there's any point as I have bitch calves.
 
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Well I’ve bought my first set of knee and elbow sleeves from strength shop. Figured it was time, especially for the colder winter days.

Going to restart my bulk too. Going to start by adding an additional scoop of nuts and oats to my morning and evening shakes. Have hit a wall at 90-91kg bw.
 
Long post incoming but any thoughts/advice welcome.

I've just started a cut for the first time ever, I'm 115kg and around 22% bf at 6'5. Eating in a deficit is not my bag at all but I will continue, plan is to go 6 weeks and see where I am. I have literally never lost weight in my life, the scale has moved up from birth to now.

This is my new routine "PPL PPL rest" routine (approx. current weights in brackets):

Push-
5x5 Bench press (87kg)
3x5 Ring dip (bw)
5x5 Seated barbell overhead press (45kg)
3x10 Skullcrushers (25kg)

Pull-
5x5 Deadlift (135kg)
3x3 Pull up (bw)
3x10 Ez bar curls (33kg)
5x5 Barbell row (55kg)

Legs-
5x5 Squat (100kg)
3x10 Front squat (50kg)

+ 1 hour walking every day.

With my calorie deficit, I'm worried this is too intense. Although the number of exercises each day is low, I push hard on the 5x5s especially and used to only lift 3-4 times a week (and no walking or cardio at all). I had legs today and barely managed 1 set of 5.

My goal is primarily fat loss asap; would I be best off adjusting calories up slightly to have more energy and work out at the same intensity, or dropping intensity for the cut? Maybe 3 sets instead of 5? Or more higher rep work?
 
How big is your deficit? As I often post, ideally look for an intake that nets you about a 1-1.5% of total bw loss a week (after the initial water dump).

You absolutely want to maintain intensity (i.e. load on the bar) but reducing set volume eventually will be a good idea; the amount of work required to maintain an adaptation is a lot less than the amount of work required to obtain that adaptation in the first place. Dieting is ‘use it or lose it’ with muscle - over the weeks/months you might lose a rep here on there or see a little strength drop on some lifts because as your measurements go down your ROM goes up for stuff like bench, or there’s less belly to brace for squats, but that’s not the same as say switching from squatting 100kgx5 to 50kgx10.

With a small deficit you might even make some progress still but IMO dieting is something you want to get done reasonably quickly so you can spend more time trying to get bigger/stronger (unless you’re on a contest prep diet which needs to be long to get that low bf%) and what that usually means training-wise is instead of absolute load PBs or getting more reps you’re hitting relative PBs as you lift the same amount at a lighter bw. Dips and pull-ups will definitely go up though as they’ll get easier as there’s less of you.

You have plenty of fat to lose so should have a decent amount of easily accessible energy unless you’ve really gone with a crazy deficit - your training shouldn’t go to **** straight away. Recovery does get worse the longer you diet (or if you go hard straight away), both between workouts and your gas tank in a session so the easiest way to do that is to just do less sets (so like 3x5 instead of 5x5, 2x10 instead of 3x10) and basically do as little as you need to do to keep what you have. Lifting weights generally doesn’t burn many calories compared to your overall activity over a day like steps etc so dropping sets isn’t going to wipe out a deficit and when you come out of the diet building your set count back up is way, way quicker than have to rebuild your strength.
 
My deficit is big - I don't know the exact number, but I've been eating like a pig the last year or so. Current diet is 2 eggs + 4 whites omelette on toast, then tuna and potato salad for lunch, with chicken + rice + veg for dinner. Snacks are a protein bar and loads of fruit.

I think I will drop to 3x5 on the big lifts - I have the same mindset as you, I want to get the weight off then slowly taper down to a long term healthier pattern of eating and getting stronger. I like the relative PB framing - I'm happy with my current progress but doing the same weights at 10-15kg less weight is a motivating idea :eek: the bodyweight stuff I can't wait, used to be able to do so many pull ups and dips when I was around 85-90kg and I am much much stronger now. Its like doing +25kg weighted every rep.
 
Freefaller said:
Barbell hack squats
Deficit bulgarian split squats

Do those after a medium volume / high intensity leg work out I guarantee you will either throw up, or cry. They are horrid, and I do both after squats.

Most of my squat sessions start off with a tonne of mobility work.
Then, 3-5 sets of progressing warm ups. Last warm up is around 50% 1RM.
Warm up sets are between 5-8 reps.
Then the main programmed lifts, 3-4 sets max, but high intensity, medium volume. Last set is the heaviest with AMRAP.
1x dropset to 50% 1RM AMRAP.

Then 4x8 Barbell hack squats (aim for around 50-60% 1RM of your squat). Your quads are close to bursting at the end.

Then 4x8 each leg of DBSS - these are relatively light 15-20kg in each hand, or you can use a barbell if you want. I honestly lose the will to live.

I finish the session with some heavy calf raises, not that there's any point as I have bitch calves.
Click to expand...

This is pure scary :p.

I may attempt once, I shall post if I survive
 
Feeling jealous - had a minor surgery on my back (not injury/sport related, it was a mole being removed :D) but with it having been stitched and still healing up I haven't been training the last week or so in case I rip it open again. Could be a blessing in disguise though as the garage is reporting 34 C (the portable AC would likely take the edge off though I'm not sure how much!)
 
B&W said:
This is pure scary :p.

I may attempt once, I shall post if I survive
Click to expand...
The reason I do it is because I don't have machines in my gym. Just a squat rack, low and high pulley, and a bench. So I've had to learn to do different variations.

And yes it sucks. But I hit legs every 7 days so it's pretty brutal.
 
Despite the heat and gym not knowing what aircon is, its quite enjoyable being back again. Also making sure I do my mobility stuff before I go too, as I've had some issues in the past that left me pretty injured after a bad deadlifting accident.

Thankfully not being a commercial gym, everything is pretty much free in the morning. So, can get stuck in and hobble out once im done! I might actually start logging again once im happy with form.
 
First time wearing knee sleeves. Although a little weird I can see/feel the benefit. I think they’ll be brilliant in the winter when I train at 10C or so.

My gym is a little toasty, but at least there’s a breeze coming in. 30C is just about manageable. 40C yesterday, not so much. What it does mean is that I find my fitness is far beyond what I think it is once it cools down again after the summer.
 
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