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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Sardines, makarell are fantastic fish and great a snack as you can get tins of the stuff which keeps for a long time - great to bring into work for a quick snack. I have a good dozen or so in my cupboard.

As for carbs you dont' need to cut 'em out, just have a good ratio of protein:carbs. It's just bread - unless you make your own, the amount of additives they put into bread is shocking. Bread should be no more than 5 ingredients really, flour, yeast, water, salt, sugar, and some dried milk and potentially some butter. However there are about a good dozen ingredients including diglycerides and monoglycerides, stablisers etc...


Here's a typical roll from a supermarket:

Wheat Flour, Water, Sunflower Seeds (5%), Brown Linseeds (4%), Poppy Seeds (3%), Yeast, Sugar, Whey Powder (from Cows' Milk), Rapeseed Oil, Salt, Soya Flour, Barley Malt Flour, Emulsifiers: Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate, Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids; Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Palm Fat, Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid.

That's over 24 ingredients for bread?!! That's just wrong wrong wrong wrong.
 
You should only eat raw beef from a trusted source, and secondly, minced should only be eaten after being FRESHLY minced. I hope you didn't buy it from the supermarket and ate it raw from the packet!! All the bacteria is on the surface so by mincing it you're increasing the surface area ergo more area for bacteria.
 
Dude that's pretty dodgy... getting it from the butcher and seeing it minced in front of you there and then is cool (if you trust your butcher and if he's reputable of course)... but from the supermarket is really not safe at all. That's quite serious when I say that. Ok it's likely not to be THAT bad as it's packed in hygienic conditions - but nonetheless I'd be careful and stop that.

Now I love raw meat, and do eat a lot of blue/tartare steaks in France but I'd be wary of it from the supermarket or some dodgy butchers!
 
Dude that's pretty dodgy... getting it from the butcher and seeing it minced in front of you there and then is cool (if you trust your butcher and if he's reputable of course)... but from the supermarket is really not safe at all. That's quite serious when I say that. Ok it's likely not to be THAT bad as it's packed in hygienic conditions - but nonetheless I'd be careful and stop that.

Now I love raw meat, and do eat a lot of blue/tartare steaks in France but I'd be wary of it from the supermarket or some dodgy butchers!
 
Blitz calorie intake is low for a start, and with weightlifting his body is metabolising the food more readily, by keeping his body "ticking over" it's actually more beneficial. If he was eating large quantities of food I'd question his logic, but since he's not then I see no issues with his eating pattern. :)
 
Ben M said:
Can anyone give me any tips as to how to exercise my calf muscles? We don't seem to have a block, so shall I just do them off the floor (and do lots of reps)

Hamstring exercise wise, what exercises are there for hamstrings? The internet tells me that straight leg deadlifts exercise the hamstrings, what exercise do you guys use?

My quads are feeling pretty fatigued at the mo, standing up from my chair was a bit of a shock :p And I'm going out tonight, great :D
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Glad you've started on squats. I trust you went all the way down rather than doing any 1/2 reps! :D

Calf raises are pretty much the best exercise for them. Though step ups and powercleans do have an element of calf involvement but not exclusive. I usually use a bar on my back and a couple of plates to stand on and do raises that way. Though for calves you really need to load the weight on minimum double your bodyweight for it to actually "do" anything, well for me at any rate.

You can use the leg press just use your toes rather than your whole foot.

For hams, SLDLs or RDLs are good.
 
Haven't typed up a session in a while as I had lost my log book. So I have a new one!

Monday:

T-bar:

10x40kg+bar
10x80kg+bar
8x100kg+bar
8x100kg+bar
6x110kg+bar
ds:12x80kg+bar

Supersetted with bentover cable pull-downs:

12x100
12x100
10x100
10x100
10x100

BORs suppinated grip:

8x60kg
8x80kg
8x90kg
8x100kg
6x110kg

Close grip pull downs:

10x70kg
10x80kg
8x100kg

Wide grip pull downs:

10x70kg
8x90kg
8x100kg

Quick tricep superset:

Cable tricep extension:

10x100kg
8x100
8x100
7x100
6x100

Supersetted with DB tricep overhead extension:

6x14 (each arm)
6x14 (each arm)
6x14 (each arm)
6x12 (each arm)
5x12 (each arm)


Nice short sweet session. Got a great lat pump as a result so feel pretty good. Still carrying over some injuries from rugby but just focusing on working around them rather than exercising areas which aggrevate it.

I'm determined to get my t-bars a bit stronger, was hoping to get over 120kg, BORs need to get to over 120 too really. The reason I say "+bar" on t-bars is because the bar pivots on the bottom corner of the wall so although it's 20kg, there is some weight/force being taken by the wall. Technically the bar is loaded with 130kg at the end which is decent enough I guess.

My goals for the summer are to get my bench back up to 150kg (shoulder injury providing), squat 200kg, and deadlift 230kg. My aim for the end of the year are, 160kg bench, 200kg squats for reps, and 250kg deadlift, which would give me a total of 610kg which would do me quite nicely.
 
The Funktopus said:
Oh mighty fitness gurus of OCUK, I beseech thee;

I'm looking to do some work on my core muscles at home, specifically however, I'm looking to sort a niggling lower back issue that's been affecting me lately, and was wondering whether a stability ball would be a good idea? Does anyone here use one and would mind recommending a good training plan, or could anyone recommend any alternatives?

Thanks in advance.
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Firstly if you have back problems I'd see an osteo/physio type of person as they'd be able to give you a better idea of what it is.

Core exercises aren't likely to aggrevate the problem but it's still something I'd want to check out properly first.

Good core exercises are simple things like planks, side planks, bodyweight squats, single leg squats.

Have a read through here:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online...ing_performance/a_better_body_without_weights


http://www.t-nation.com/free_online...rformance/stuff_you_should_be_doing_but_arent

The latter one is really worth giving a go.
 
AmDaMan said:
Yeah I think i'll add in the stand press and sitting arnies. I find my shoulders get tired quite quickly though.

I can't powerclean because we don't have a bar at the gym, i've got one at home but can't see that going down too well :D

How come 5 set minimum? I usually do 3x8 on a normal weight or 3x6 on a heavy weight (eg 3x6 @ 32kg BOR)

My back isn't that bad, as i've been focusing on it quite a lot recently. Got 4x100kg Deadlifts on smith a few days a go (with the step block to raise the floor) bearing in mind I weigh 63-65kg I was happy with that. Lat pull downs I do 3x6 @ 70kg so perhaps not so good. Then it's just the machines which I find a bit rubbish anyway, such as the seated row.

Haha, yep! I'd rather be 6'1 though :D

I have been trying to do my legs, I managed 100kg half squats on smith (with bench under me) and about 80kg normal, but i'm moving quite quickly up the weight on my legs for some reason every week.

Cheers for the pointers :)
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Shoulders in my experience require a lot of volume. 3x8, isn't really enough. IMO and experience, if I can do 3x8 of an exercise it's ok, but it's not really "pushing" myself. If you actually manage to 3x8 then surely you could do more? 5 sets IMO unless you're supersetting, even then I prefer 4 sets as a minimum, is not enough for decent development. Especially if you want to get the intensity/volume ratio right. Or even good ol' pyramid training, 3 sets just doesn't seem enough to me.

MY shoulders tire very quickly too - but you just have to push through the pain barrier. :)

I can't re-iterate enough how important legs are to overall body development. Don't neglect them!

LAt pull downs are ok, but wide grip chins are the daddy. Supersetted with some BORs or cable rows they work magnificently together. :)
 
rayer said:
35 sets for legs !!

Give us a breakdown as this sounds extreme and maybe counterproductive.
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Nah it shouldn't be counter-productive really. Legs need high volume for development. Bear in mind it could be low reps too, so 35 sets means very little. You should look at it in total tonnage moved, that's a better gauge of volume.
 
Tuesday:

Back squats (all below parallel):

16x100kg
10x120kg
8x140kg
6x160kg
DS:10x100kg (ATG)

SLDL:

6x100kg
6x110kg
6x120kg
6x120kg
6x120kg

Leg press:

10x210kg
8x250kg
8x290kg
6x330kg
3x370kg
legs just failed couldn't take it! lol! I wanted to get past 400kg - next time!

EZ-bar french press:

8x27.5
6x37.5
7x37.5
6x37.5
6x37.5

supersetted with single arm cable tricep extension

8x20kg (each arm)
6x30kg (each arm)
8x25kg (each arm)
7x25kg (each arm)
10x20kg (each arm)

single arm DB over head tricep extension

light weight just for a burn out.

10x12
10x12kg
12x10kg
15x10kg
11x10kg

Quite happy with that session, it was nice to be back at the gym again. My attendance has been so sporadic :(

Total volume moved: 21.5 Tonnes. Not as high as usual on a leg day, but good enough. Not quite up at the 30T level I want to be at yet though.
 
Dropsets and supersets are the bomb! They really really work if done properly. I'm going to be cutting my training down to 3x a week. Just can't keep up my training pattern at the moment. Lost a lot of discipline and whilst I still push hard when there I'm struggling to keep the effort constant. Maybe a break on my intensity might help. Also with this shoulder issue I have it's somewhat de-motivating. Will probably stick around the 213lb mark as that tends to be my easy to maintain weight. So I might lose a bit of bulk but if I keep the effort whilst there I hope strength losses won't happen.
 
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