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

Do we archive this thread and start a new one for 2010?

  • Yeah good idea.

    Votes: 11 78.6%

  • Nah I'm happy with this one.

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • Total voters
    14
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The Craig said:
To update this from another thread, I managed 7 reps of the 30kg dumbbells :D I should go for late sessions more often. Been hoping for 8 reps for a few sets before I go to uni / uni gym. Only bad point of this is the dumbbells in my gym dont go higher than 30kg :p.
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That's really good going dude, considering how long you've been in the game for! I stopped doing dumbbell presses a couple of months ago, and I think I was only managing 4x8 with 20kg. Out of interest, do you know how much you can lift with a barbell?
 
Tried dumbell flyes for the first ever time last night and I managed an enormous....6Kg (per side) with strict form / slow reps. Impressive eh? I was so embarassed. Twas after flat and incline DB press though so I suppose I pre-knackered the muscles.

Anyway I have a question - are DB weights lifted normally quoted per side or in total?
 
Robbie G said:
Tried dumbell flyes for the first ever time last night and I managed an enormous....6Kg (per side) with strict form / slow reps. Impressive eh? I was so embarassed. Twas after flat and incline DB press though so I suppose I pre-knackered the muscles.

Anyway I have a question - are DB weights lifted normally quoted per side or in total?
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I know exactly what you mean mate. On the Pec Deck I can do 90KGs (3X10) but with dumbells I can just about manage the same with 10Kgs. Just goes to show how different muscles are used to stabilize the weights.

DB's weights are quoted per DB. So 25KG is 2X25KG DB's.
 
People in my gym are happy to share - no one has said no yet. :)

I'm coming to the end of the 5th "week" of my gvt training and boy it's been tough.

I started off on the following weights:

Flat bench: 70kg
Incline bench: 60kg
Dips: BW
W/G Chins: BW
Hammer Grip Chins: BW
Squats: 100kg
SLDL: 70kg
Single arm DB Row: 25kg
DLs: 110kg
Front squats: 65kg
Step ups: 100kg
BORs: 60kg

A selection of arm workouts which I'm not interested in listing as I HATE HATE HATE arm workouts.

Remember these are slow 4s negs and I mean 4s negs with a lot of effort and grunting and shouting - it's a lot harder than it seems! 10 sets of 5 reps. So a lot of volume.

You do 2 major muscle groups then follow it up with a subsidiary exercise.

Bear in mind my max lifts are stated in my sig you can see that I've significantly lowered my efforts but I tell you what it's been the hardest 50 days of my life so far! :D

I will be starting my final 10 days on the following:

Flat BB bench: 105kg
Incline BB bench: 90kg
Flat DB bench: 35kg
W/G Chins: BW+12.5kg
Dips: BW+12.5kg
Hammer grip chins: BW+12.5kg
Back squats: 125kg
Heel elevated Front squats: 90kg
DLs: 140kg
SLDL: 90kg
Leg press: 260kg
BORs: 90kg
Single Arm DB rows: 35kg

So again not big weights, and bear in mind some of the smaller weights are the subsidiary exercises where I only do 3x8 reps so will already be pre-exhausted by the 50 reps done previously.

So far chest and back have been the hardest - 4s negs on w/g chins is so so hard, I must say I don't always do the negative that slow, but I slow it down as much as I can, but it's just not slow enough unfortunately. Bench is easy enough to be controlled on the negative.

Leg days have been the most rewarding but again the negative is enough to make you want to cry/vom/scream possibly all at the same time. Absolutely wonderful workout.

When I finish the last 10 days I will go back to a sort of pyramid/volume style of training before my holiday just to get the last bits of definition with a few more isolation movements (uuuughhhhh :(). I've shed a little BF doing this but tipping the scales at about 222lbs so pretty happy with that. I will probably lose a bit of bulk over my holiday but will be active and eating well and it'll do my body some good to do some swimming and non gym-type of activity.

Although I haven't finished AGVT yet I thoroughly recommend it if you stick to you religiously and are committed to doing it properly and leaving the ego at home. It's quite hard turning up and keeping the weights low but once you realise how hard it is you soon are happy about it. I can imagine if you were on naughty juices how much strength/size you'd be putting on with something like this!
 
Sounds good mate. Any idea how much you weighed before you started agvt?
I have recently switched up my routine as well as I seem to have stalled just before 87kg. Still ironing out the kinks as it's the first week but basically 3-4 reps with quite heavy weight until you get to a weight which you can just about manage for 5, for 3 sets. Dropped most isolation movements with perhaps one at the end of the workout, eg leg extensions on quad day, but still keeping heavy as possible.
An example of yesterdays working sets:

20kg+BW WG chins
65kg 1 arm dumbell rows
100kg close grip triangle pull downs
180kg rack pull deadlifts
100kg wide grip cable rows

Really liking it so far, my muscles don't know whats hit them after such high volume.
 
Massive improvment this week doing chest last night, the peck deck was used, the first time i used this about 5-6 weeks ago i struggled really badly with the technique(and no muscle), and even with just 5kg weight found it exhausting. Managed 50kg last night :) 3x10
 
Well considering I've dropped perhaps 0.5-1% BF but gained 4lbs I must have gained more LBM than that, but still 4lbs is 4lbs!!

I'm sure my strength will have taken a bit of a hit, but I'll focus back on that in due course. :) I think I'm still on target for 200kg squats and 250kg deads for the end of the year. I'm happy with 150kg bench.

20kg chins?!! Damn that's impressive! How many reps? I'm rather jealous of that - I used to struggle with just 1x WG chin with bodyweight alone! :o How wide do you go?

It's good to see other people doing WG chins, so many people don't do them, or have their hands 1 foot apart thinking that's enough :/ Oh and don't get me started on the people that jerk or only go down partially and start pulling up when they still have a bend in their arms! Argggh!! lol! :p

So you're doing 5 reps for 3 sets?
 
So far (only started Friday, so today will be the third day) I've been going with 3-4 reps just to get in the groove for 2 sets on each exercise, then 3 working sets of 5 reps. If I feel like I could do more reps on the working set don't, and instead add more weight.
EG:
15kg+BW WG chins 3 reps
17.5kg 4 reps
20kg 5 reps
20kg 5 reps
20kg 5 reps

On the bar in the gym you have to be careful not to go too wide due to the design of the bar (built for someone 7ft tall and equally as wide) so they end up being pretty wide grip :D and I like to go all the way till my arms are fully extended to get a nice lat stretch.
I'm past even looking at some of the kids on the pullup bar. They crank out 20 plus reps and 0 counted as an actual rep. Crazy swinging and momentum with about 3 inch ROM from the top of the bar. Oh well not long school holidays left :p

4lbs with a bit of fat off is great. People get caught up with silly inflated numbers. Id be very happy with that over 5 weeks.
 
Mansize_tissue said:
That's really good going dude, considering how long you've been in the game for! I stopped doing dumbbell presses a couple of months ago, and I think I was only managing 4x8 with 20kg. Out of interest, do you know how much you can lift with a barbell?
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Dont know about barbells (No barbells in my gym :( ) But on the smith machine I can do 70kg total for 6 reps =/. I dont really use it that often as results show.
 
dun said:
So far (only started Friday, so today will be the third day) I've been going with 3-4 reps just to get in the groove for 2 sets on each exercise, then 3 working sets of 5 reps. If I feel like I could do more reps on the working set don't, and instead add more weight.
EG:
15kg+BW WG chins 3 reps
17.5kg 4 reps
20kg 5 reps
20kg 5 reps
20kg 5 reps

On the bar in the gym you have to be careful not to go too wide due to the design of the bar (built for someone 7ft tall and equally as wide) so they end up being pretty wide grip :D and I like to go all the way till my arms are fully extended to get a nice lat stretch.
I'm past even looking at some of the kids on the pullup bar. They crank out 20 plus reps and 0 counted as an actual rep. Crazy swinging and momentum with about 3 inch ROM from the top of the bar. Oh well not long school holidays left :p

4lbs with a bit of fat off is great. People get caught up with silly inflated numbers. Id be very happy with that over 5 weeks.
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That's impressive Power to weight Dun - you should be chuffed! Sounds like my WG bar here, though I'm just about 6'1" I can hold the bar but have my feet dangle with a few inches to spare, so yeah it's pretty wide - I reckon 3.5 feet?

Remember it's 50 days not 5 weeks. :) But yes rather chuffed at that. :)

How on earth do you manage so many reps with 20kg?! Actually I may be doing myself an injustice as I do silly high volume, so I reckon once I finish this I may be able to do 20kg for a few reps. :)
 
Freefaller said:
That's impressive Power to weight Dun - you should be chuffed! Sounds like my WG bar here, though I'm just about 6'1" I can hold the bar but have my feet dangle with a few inches to spare, so yeah it's pretty wide - I reckon 3.5 feet?

Remember it's 50 days not 5 weeks. :) But yes rather chuffed at that. :)

How on earth do you manage so many reps with 20kg?! Actually I may be doing myself an injustice as I do silly high volume, so I reckon once I finish this I may be able to do 20kg for a few reps. :)
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I have to use a step to get on the WG bar which itself is attached a few inches below a straight bar and I'm 6ft :p Not sure an exact measurement on the width mate but its wide enough imo.
50 days is still a very short amount of time to gain 4lbs while dropping a little bf, especially after you have been training a while.
And yep its the amount of reps. I have come from doing 20-15-12-10-8 reps or more in some cases for a few months so its a breath of fresh air.
 
Weekdays I train at 6.30pm (in which case dinner is at 8pm), dinner really is a guess. It's normally chicken and veg, beef and rice, fish and veg etc.

On a different note I managed to incline dumbbell press with the 50kg dumbbells for 6 reps before Holiday. Hopefully on my new diet and regime I can beat my bench press PB of 140kg.
 
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I made a thread about my refereeing a while back, but it died due to lack of me updating it. Also, I didn't really want to create my own thread so here we go.

I'm getting back in shape for the start of my season. I have done some games already, but I was well off the pace compared to how I finished last season.

Anyway I want to hit the ground running, so to speak, when my games are starting to get assessed... It's a couple of weeks off yet for me, but i've already made a start and hopefully I can be much fitter for my next 'serious' game.

Cardio work is going ok. Have been mixing it up a little, I only ever did the treadmill last season. I tend to be doing two of the following four each time I hit the gym, which has been every other day so far.
  • rowing (10mins)
  • cycling (20mins)
  • running (15mins)
  • swimming (30mins)
Rather than focussing on length of activity I've been foccusing on intensity. Hence why the times are fairly low. I'm going to slowly start switching it round, though, to help the fat loss I want to achieve

Coupled with generally eating healthier (no takeaway, microwave meals, frozen meat or booze and plenty of veg+salad) my target is to lose 7kg by the end of september. Hopefully more though.

As for the weights...

To help prevent injuries i've been performing the following:

  • some front lunges with left right twists and weights, for my knees.
  • seated pull-down, for my back.
  • reverse incline situps, for abs / general core stability.

For myself i've been doing the following:

  • Flat bench
  • Dumbell Curls

Anyway, now I've told you what i'm doing I'd like a few suggestions please.

I've noticed that my pecs, while growing, have been mainly growing at the edges rather than in the middle. Is there an exercise I can do that will work the middle of my pecks so I don't end up with 'moobs'?

Does any body have any suggestions for more core stability exercises and injury prevention stuff? I noticed when lining on a pre-season game that my 'off the mark' speed seemed to be lacking. I used to be pretty quick off the mark and seem to have lost some of this. Any exercises which may help with this?

Finally, for general and enduring strength, which is what i'm after rather than 'mass', is it better to do higher reps at low weight or lower reps at a high weight? Currently i've been going to reach 3x12 at each weight level before moving the weight up.

Thanks for any advice.
 
random:

bought 2 rubber 30kg DBs for £51, just waiting for delivery
but thats not my main purchase this week....

2 atlas stones!
18" 105kg stone
+
20" 140kg stone!

Will get them in about 2 weeks :D
 
Morba said:
random:

bought 2 rubber 30kg DBs for £51, just waiting for delivery
but thats not my main purchase this week....

2 atlas stones!
18" 105kg stone
+
20" 140kg stone!

Will get them in about 2 weeks :D
Click to expand...

Woh! You're gonna need a bloody strong box to plonk them on.

Delivery must cost a bomb too!
 
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