Poll: ***The all new gymrats thread***

[Makunouchi]

How long have you been boxing for? You training to fight?

About 4 months now and yes I am, I'm going through the registration for the coming season at the moment. It is very intense, nothing like lifting, you have to use your whole body with maximum intensity pretty much the whole time. I guess the only thing I could liken it to would be trying to clean and press for 90 minutes with a very light weight. The sessions for the club boxers (which I attend) are an hour and a half long, and I'm drenched in sweat after the first 10 minutes and always walk out feeling completely done in. Great fun

 

[Smit]

2) Also, is it better to eat pre, or post a workout? I understand you need fuel before you go - but for protein-wise is it best to have it after or before?
Rich

Nothing stopping you having it both pre and post workout I would guess.

 

[DarkShadow]

About 4 months now and yes I am, I'm going through the registration for the coming season at the moment. It is very intense, nothing like lifting, you have to use your whole body with maximum intensity pretty much the whole time. I guess the only thing I could liken it to would be trying to clean and press for 90 minutes with a very light weight. The sessions for the club boxers (which I attend) are an hour and a half long, and I'm drenched in sweat after the first 10 minutes and always walk out feeling completely done in. Great fun

Excellent! You're in for a treat, it's extremely rewarding!

I trained at Brendan Ingles for a year, then I moved to a local boxing gym which was full of amateurs and brawlers. Trained there from 14-19 years of age. We sparred every session (4 times a week) and you're right. A proper ghetto gym. The workouts were unlike anything I've done before. Brutal.

Stick with it, it's a skill for life.

 

[Makunouchi]

A proper ghetto gym.

That's the thing, it doesn't matter at all what the gym looks like, ours is in a basement below another basement, which is a hardcore BB'ing gym. It's got spring chipboard type floors, whitewashed faded walls and an ancient ring. But you know what? It doesn't matter. All that matters is the enthusiasm and dedication of the head coach and the boxers. You really don't need fancy equipment at all, it doesn't even factor in (although obviously we do have all the other necessary equipment).

Our coach also heavily favours sparring as a teaching method, the usual week is Monday - fitness/endurance/punching drills, then Wednesday/Friday pretty much solid sparring. In my opinion I've advanced the most from those sessions of sparring, you can't do without it. Although as I said last week we are into pre-season training now.

 

[dun]

Haha, wish someone would take me under their wing (in a extremely non homo way). I waisted months doing the wrong sort of thing and although I have a better feel for it now (most of the time) it would be great to have someone who has been there and done it.

Like you say, the problem is finding someone, I would talk to a personal trainer but I don't think many of them could really offer the real world experience of most big guys.

Personal trainers imo are wannabes half the time (NOT ALL though by any means). However one of the smaller guys who goes to my gym has no interest in bodybuilding himself but is a font of information so don't be fooled by people size (we all know some meatheads who are built like tanks but just throw around the weights and don't really know why or how )

 

[Alex_6n2]

Got my straps through the post today so went and did a back session to see how things were. Have put off buying them because I wanted the grip strength as well but it was getting to the point where my forearms could manage 5x5 @ 130KG for DL but after a session with that my back didn't even feel like it had been used.

Got in and warmed up with 12x 100KG and strapped up.
Straight to 5x130KG.... felt so easy!
5x140KG.... again no problems at all
6x150KG... managed it so well I decided to go for 6
5x160KG.... now getting somewhere, could feel my back working properly

Finished off another 3 sets of 5x160 and now my back feels nice and worked! Didn't really want to put it much beyond 160 today as I don't want to rush getting into strenuous Dls again.

Considering what I managed I reckon 180KG for a 1RM is well within my reach and for that I am over the moon!!! Goal for Christmas was originally 160KG 1RM but I've now upped that to 200KG+

The added bonus was my forearms didn't feel like they were going to explode so I could go heavier on my BORs, cable rows and smith machine shrugs (really heavy now with the straps)

So happy! Wish I had gone for straps earlier tbh

 

[neon.uk]

I've got a question guys.

I have a noticeable pectoral imbalance and I have been trying to find the cause (I do pretty much all DB press). I have always noticed a slightly slumped shoulder on the side of the smaller pec and yesterday when doing incline DB press I felt my shoulder taking the weight on that side and very little work from the pec (the other side was fine). The shoulder became quite irritated.

From your experience is this something I should get checked out? Could it be slightly dislocated?

 

[Slime]

Hi, quick question. I experience lower back discomfort when doing abdominal exercises; leg raises, ball crunches etc to the point where it feels like I'm working my lower back more than my abs. Is this normal? Are there any techniques I can adopt to help prevent this? Thanks

 

[dun]

For both of the above stop doing what you are doing and get right back to basics. IMO both problems sound like a lack of "mind muscle connection" which basically means you are going through the motions of the exercises without really mentally targeting the muscle group you are meant to be working. Drop the weight and try some different exercises and try to really get inside the muscle mentally and feel the fibres contracting, squeezing as you go.

 

[Jonny L]

Right guys, I'm trying to spur myself on at the moment and give myself a bit more drive. So I wanna cut some carp from my routine and maybe introduce some new exercises. I want to also go back to basics on form, so the weight will be low for the first week. Also my diet is looking like its going to be a lot better for this month coming up to uni than it has been for the rest of the summer so that should help too.

I've decided to cut out all the iso's and just do some compounds for a while, seeing the size of FF's arms after no armwork also helped with this decision haha. I found a good compound routine not too disimilar from what I am doing now on BB.com so I thought I could incorporate some of the ideas from that into mine.

One exercise I am really excited about trying is the Clean and Press, I tried it with a keg at the Strongman Meet but I wasn't very good at it . Is there any advice people can give me on trying to perfect the form of this exercise?

Other compounds I will be using are:

Bench Press (couple of variations)
Squat (and variations)
Deadlift (again including variations of)
Pullups
Chinups
Dips
Pullovers
Military Press
Upright Row
BOR

Have I missed anything out?

Edit: Oh and I will be doing 4 sets of each with a pyramided rep range: 12 10 8 6, using a 4 day split.

Thanks for the help

 

[Freefaller]

I'd do standing push press/shoulder press with a barbell.

Hang Clean to Push press.

If you can, powercleans.

Yay to no ISOs! Compounds rock! Slow negatives remember!! Slow down - fast up. Best bit of advice.

Good luck and enjoy.

 

[Jonny L]

Thanks FF mate, just wanna say thanks for all the help and especially inspiration

 

[neon.uk]

For both of the above stop doing what you are doing and get right back to basics. IMO both problems sound like a lack of "mind muscle connection" which basically means you are going through the motions of the exercises without really mentally targeting the muscle group you are meant to be working. Drop the weight and try some different exercises and try to really get inside the muscle mentally and feel the fibres contracting, squeezing as you go.

I get the squeeze fine on one side, but not the other.

I just finished my back day today and at the end decided to check my technique using light weights for DB bench. It seems that my right elbow on the decend was moving forwards and down instead of just down and on correcting this I got a much better stretch in the right side. Hopefully that's problem solved.

Apart from this training is going well, my deadlift form is now in a state where I am happy with it and am now increasing the weight.

Back day today was:

Close Grip Pullups 3*failure
One Arm Bumbell Rows 3*10
Deadlift 3*8
Bent Over Rows 3*8

 

[Freefaller]

Thanks FF mate, just wanna say thanks for all the help and especially inspiration

Aww dude!!

 

[Buffman]

Managed 60kg for 6 reps close grip bench press on the smith machine today, also managed 30.5kg for 8 reps on cable bicep curls (had to add dumbells to the stack ).

 

[Jonny L]

Aww dude!!

Haha, sounds kinda brown nosey, but honestly you've been a big help mate.

Also just doing a search for hang clean/push press to get and idea for form and this came up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbO7LVsenrQ

I certainly won't be doing it like that.

 

[Freefaller]

Well he doesn't extend his arms fully - but nonetheless that's an impressive amount of reps for the weight and good enough really!

I'm glad you find my help and guidance motivating and useful, and I'm really flattered you're using my achievements as something you're striving for. It just echoes what I've always said, it takes time, dedication (a bit of money) and really a lot of effort - but the results can happen. If I were to do this professionally (and some what more obsessionally) I would find it hard to provide advice, but as it is, I work long hours and have a regular lifestyle so it means that ANYONE can achieve what I have. You just need to want it enough - and I want it.

 

[Jonny L]

Well he doesn't extend his arms fully - but nonetheless that's an impressive amount of reps for the weight and good enough really!

I'm glad you find my help and guidance motivating and useful, and I'm really flattered you're using my achievements as something you're striving for. It just echoes what I've always said, it takes time, dedication (a bit of money) and really a lot of effort - but the results can happen. If I were to do this professionally (and some what more obsessionally) I would find it hard to provide advice, but as it is, I work long hours and have a regular lifestyle so it means that ANYONE can achieve what I have. You just need to want it enough - and I want it.

I just found the jerkiness of how he was doing it a little bit intimidating, I would prefer to do it more controlled than that. Obviously he was going for a pb so thats why, I'd just like to take my time with it because I'm not as confident in not injuring myself as some haha.

And I totally agree with what you're saying.

 

[Freefaller]

He wasn't smooth at all so quite right to be a bit apprehensive.

 

[dun]

Jonny please don't jump straight into olympic lifts with anything like that form or you will most likely be out of the gym for a fair while :| I've never been a fan of them for bodybuilding, its very rare to see a pro or top amateur doing them ( I don't think I ever have), so why bother?
I wouldn't be overly hasty in dropping all isolation movements either personally, the shape of the muscle you are growing is equally if not more important in a competitive sense than just size
Great to see the dedication though, one thing you can't learn