(01-15-2018 11:07 AM)Mekorig Wrote: Hey guys, looking for some advice.
I began to hit the gym about 2/week (time problems) since last March, and I am using an exercise program made by the gym麓s PT.
The problem is right now I am feeling I lost "potency" in my left arm. I noted it first when doing concentrated arm curls, but now that I am doing bench press again I noted more. Back when I was doing inclined press I could lift 35 kgs easily (without counting the bar, non olimpic), but now I am having troubles bench pressing 30 kgs, as I have to do the double effort with my left arms than the right arm, and I am not progressing.
I plan to get a traumatologist appointment to see if I don't have any muscular problem in my arm/back, as apparently I am using the correct technique to do the press.
Have you pinpointed exactly which muscles have lost strength? You say you have trouble specifically with bench press on your left side, so are there any exercises where you don't seems to have the same weakness?
I only found this lost of strengh while doing press, dumbbell scott curls and concentration curls.
(01-15-2018 11:07 AM)Mekorig Wrote: Hey guys, looking for some advice.
I began to hit the gym about 2/week (time problems) since last March, and I am using an exercise program made by the gym麓s PT.
The problem is right now I am feeling I lost "potency" in my left arm. I noted it first when doing concentrated arm curls, but now that I am doing bench press again I noted more. Back when I was doing inclined press I could lift 35 kgs easily (without counting the bar, non olimpic), but now I am having troubles bench pressing 30 kgs, as I have to do the double effort with my left arms than the right arm, and I am not progressing.
I plan to get a traumatologist appointment to see if I don't have any muscular problem in my arm/back, as apparently I am using the correct technique to do the press.
Have you pinpointed exactly which muscles have lost strength? You say you have trouble specifically with bench press on your left side, so are there any exercises where you don't seems to have the same weakness?
(01-19-2018 04:00 AM)ShotgunUppercuts Wrote: Tips for doing over head press?
Ive been doing them for a few days now and i could use some advice on form .
That's a pretty vague question without knowing your issues but here are some general tips and common problems I see with beginners on OHP.
1. From the pressing position, you want your wrists just outside your shoulders and your elbows directly below your wrists. This position lets you transfer power from your shoulder directly to the bar. For me, gripping the bar with my index fingers on the inner edge of the knurling puts me into this position. Most people use way too wide of a grip.
2. Squeeze your glutes hard. You want to imagine that your glutes and core are an immovable block of concrete. Everything starts with a strong foundation and this will protect you from injury and improve your press immensely. A good cue is to keep thinking about squeezing your ass cheeks together as hard as possible.
3. Before you start the press, lean slightly back and press the bar straight up. Once the bar starts crossing your face, snap your torso into an upright position as you lock the bar out. You want to press the bar straight up because it produces the shortest bar path meaning you can lift more weight while doing less work. The problem with going straight up is that you will whack your chin with the bar. So leaning back and then snapping forward lets you avoid hitting yourself with the bar and the movement forward will give you a bit of a boost too.
After about two years in and out of the gym due to injuries, I've finally managed to string together six months of continuous lifting and think that I'm out of the woods.
Here's what I've learnt:
1. If you're injury prone, or play contact sport, do yoga on the days you're not lifting. I saw someone post about DownDog yoga app on here, and I can attest that its excellent. Doing yoga every other day for the last couple of months has got me feeling really fresh and mobile. This is particularly important if you play contact sport (I play rugby), as otherwise your whole body just seizes up and you're very likely to injure yourself playing.
2. Lizard has posted about this before, but I'll reiterate. If you have weak shoulders/ are prone to shoulder and neck pain, this is a must: https://www.tmuscle.co.uk/threads/cyclin...ing.18923/
Here's a video showing how to do it, although I'd probably go a little slower than he does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifxxbWwzKio
I have found that this works best if you're also lifting weights/ loading your shoulder in some way. Also, don't push it too hard, progress slowly, and try to make sure your shoulder isn't clicking as it goes round.
3. When coming back from an injury, there will be times when things feel a bit funny, and you worry that you're aggravating it. Speaking from experience (as a young, otherwise healthy guy), its worth trying to push through. This point requires nuance, and of course you should ease off if you feel something really going wrong. However, I would have been back lifting weights a lot quicker if I hadn't had so many false starts, when I got worried about injury and got out of the habit of lifting. This point is particularly important if you really enjoy lifting weights and find that it gives you more energy. You are a lot more likely to continue rehabbing if you combine that with exercise.
If you're lifting weights and notice that there is less pain from session to session, its worth pushing through (particularly if you're regularly doing yoga).
Went though my old phone the other night that I hadn't touched since 2016. Found an old pic of myself from sometime in 2015 flexing in the mirror in a bathing suit before hitting the hottub. Sent it to myself and snapped another pic in the same pose at this time and compared them. Crazy how much I've grown.
It's easy to lose sight of your progress when it's over a long time frame. This is why it's good to track it, takes pics and measurements, whatever way you can meter your gains.
Can't believe I used to think I was in some sort of decent shape back then. I was a fucking pencil necked looking scrawny bastard. 2018-me has about 25-35 lbs on that guy.
(01-24-2018 01:10 PM)Cyr Wrote: After about two years in and out of the gym due to injuries, I've finally managed to string together six months of continuous lifting and think that I'm out of the woods.
Here's what I've learnt:
1. If you're injury prone, or play contact sport, do yoga on the days you're not lifting. I saw someone post about DownDog yoga app on here, and I can attest that its excellent. Doing yoga every other day for the last couple of months has got me feeling really fresh and mobile. This is particularly important if you play contact sport (I play rugby), as otherwise your whole body just seizes up and you're very likely to injure yourself playing.
Yoga is really useful as you get older I've found. When I was in my teens and early 20s I never had injury problems, even with a pretty heavy workout regime on top of playing a lot of rugby. As I got older though the little injuries started to become more and more frequent and more and more severe, even with an expanded warm-up routine and a lowered over-all exercise workload.
When I introduced a couple of yoga classes a week to my schedule though it really made a noticeable difference in preventing the injuries, and just improving overall flexibility too. I'd recommend it to anyone. As a plus I've also found its also a fun date to bring a girl to also.
(01-24-2018 01:10 PM)Cyr Wrote: After about two years in and out of the gym due to injuries, I've finally managed to string together six months of continuous lifting and think that I'm out of the woods.
Here's what I've learnt:
1. If you're injury prone, or play contact sport, do yoga on the days you're not lifting. I saw someone post about DownDog yoga app on here, and I can attest that its excellent. Doing yoga every other day for the last couple of months has got me feeling really fresh and mobile. This is particularly important if you play contact sport (I play rugby), as otherwise your whole body just seizes up and you're very likely to injure yourself playing.
Yoga is really useful as you get older I've found. When I was in my teens and early 20s I never had injury problems, even with a pretty heavy workout regime on top of playing a lot of rugby. As I got older though the little injuries started to become more and more frequent and more and more severe, even with an expanded warm-up routine and a lowered over-all exercise workload.
When I introduced a couple of yoga classes a week to my schedule though it really made a noticeable difference in preventing the injuries, and just improving overall flexibility too. I'd recommend it to anyone. As a plus I've also found its also a fun date to bring a girl to also.
I'm not necessarily a yoga guy, but I do believe in the importance of flexibility training. Case in point, if I don't actively work on hip flexor and hamstring flexibility, my lower back goes to hell. Yoga can be a great way to train flexibility.
If you're building muscle, this is especially important. Think of it like a rubber band. If you have a 2mm thick rubber band, it's pretty stretchy. Increase the diameter to 10mm, and now its not nearly as easy to stretch. When you increase the strength of all these different muscles, you are going to be adding tension and tightness all across the body. You can work to mitigate this with flexibility training.
If you're strength training enough to really get the job done, you're going to be living in discomfort. You're going to be getting out of bed feeling like youve been carrying bricks your whole life. Anything you can do like flexibility training, massage, foam rolling, ect to mitigate this is a no brainer.
(01-24-2018 01:10 PM)Cyr Wrote: After about two years in and out of the gym due to injuries, I've finally managed to string together six months of continuous lifting and think that I'm out of the woods.
Here's what I've learnt:
1. If you're injury prone, or play contact sport, do yoga on the days you're not lifting. I saw someone post about DownDog yoga app on here, and I can attest that its excellent. Doing yoga every other day for the last couple of months has got me feeling really fresh and mobile. This is particularly important if you play contact sport (I play rugby), as otherwise your whole body just seizes up and you're very likely to injure yourself playing.
Yoga is really useful as you get older I've found. When I was in my teens and early 20s I never had injury problems, even with a pretty heavy workout regime on top of playing a lot of rugby. As I got older though the little injuries started to become more and more frequent and more and more severe, even with an expanded warm-up routine and a lowered over-all exercise workload.
When I introduced a couple of yoga classes a week to my schedule though it really made a noticeable difference in preventing the injuries, and just improving overall flexibility too. I'd recommend it to anyone. As a plus I've also found its also a fun date to bring a girl to also.
Back when I was much younger and newly married to my wife I used to laugh at her yoga routines and thought yoga was "gay." Yoga is really great and added flexibility and energy are positive benefits of it.
Any advice on how to get fit before summer? I'm going with my bros to the Balkans for three weeks at the end of May, so I have about four months to get where I want to be and just want to do it in the most optimal way possible.
Stats: 6'1, 81kg, 32 years old. Not super high T but not brutally low either. Not a total beginner with fitness. I did SS for about a year with good results, but that was two years ago, as I got a devastating injury and had to stop squatting (tore my groin). Since then I've taken up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and my lifting is mostly an accessory to stay strong for that. I train BJJ 3x per week and try to lift 2x, but sometimes only 1x is possible if I'm too sore. My lifts are the basic ones: bench, deadlift, press, pullups, planks, curls. For my legs I will do some BW Bulgarian split squats as that doesn't aggravate my groin.
Bench is pathetic, I can barely do 3x5 @80kg.
Deadlift 1x5 @ 120kg.
Press 3x5 @ 55kg.
Pullups I usually do 25-30 over three or four sets.
Planks I only do if it's not a BJJ day as our ab workout is pretty brutal, and if I try to do both I get gnarly cramps in sparring.
Goals:
I'd like to shed about 5-10lbs of body fat and get my lifts up by 10-20 lbs each. I have no idea if this is even possible in four months. I've only done longer, slower bulks and cuts in the past and was always pretty successful with those, although it always took about 1.5x as long to reach my goals as I planned. I don't have great self control with food. My diet for the past month is currently set up for a recomp, and I am eating clean except for two cheat days a month. TDEE calculator said for maintenance I need 2600 cals/day with this workout schedule. So on non-lifting days I eat 2000 and on lifting + BJJ days I eat around 2800. AFAIK 1.5 hours of BJJ burns about 500 cals.
I've been sticking to this diet and exercise plan religiously for three or four weeks now and seem to be doing well with the discipline part, avoiding candy, soda, beer, etc. Visibly I haven't changed too much though. The scale says I lost 1kg/two pounds since getting back here to Germany after Christmas break. My lifts have not noticeably gone up.
I picked up a foam roller from Costco because there was a stack of them at the front door, first time ever using one. It's PVC with hard rubber that's designed to dig into you. Used it a couple times so far especially on my quads and hamstrings, hurt like fuck the first couple times but they seem to be loosening up a bit.
Worth the $20 and I'd recommend that everyone buys one. If you want to be really cheap you can buy a 3 foot length of 5 or 6" PVC from Home Depot, I've seen some places want $50+ for a foam roller.
I plan on picking up a lacrosse ball as well to work different areas.
I'm looking at options and all have big pulses and minuses. My current gym isn't working as it's not in area I frequent anymore since moving jobs. The gains are fading away fast especially since I had to stay away for a few months due to shoulder issues.
Here are the options I am looking at :
Current gym = $40
+ Consistsnt and familiar, has all the equipment I could ever need, lots of stuff to rent such as belts, rollers, etc/ - now out of distance from home and about a 40min treak to get to
The McDonald's of gyms - Goodlife = $50
+ Locations are all over, it's cheap, about a 15 min walk from home, amenities such as sauna and towels / - locations always busy; regular bs of mainstream gym
New Open gym = $170
+ Literally down the street for me, 3 min walk; open 24hrs; no frills gym for performance, lifting, crossfit / - expensive versus other options, has no machines which are good for spot work, no amenities such as towel service
(02-14-2018 09:32 AM)kosko Wrote: Here are the options I am looking at :
Current gym = $40
+ Consistsnt and familiar, has all the equipment I could ever need, lots of stuff to rent such as belts, rollers, etc/ - now out of distance from home and about a 40min treak to get to
The McDonald's of gyms - Goodlife = $50
+ Locations are all over, it's cheap, about a 15 min walk from home, amenities such as sauna and towels / - locations always busy; regular bs of mainstream gym
New Open gym = $170
+ Literally down the street for me, 3 min walk; open 24hrs; no frills gym for performance, lifting, crossfit / - expensive versus other options, has no machines which are good for spot work, no amenities such as towel service
$170/month is a fucking ignorant price for a gym membership. That's a goddamn car payment. That $50/month isn't cheap either for a big box gym but if that's your best option then go for that one.
Not sure what country you're located in, but most big box gyms are $10-$30 a month.
(02-14-2018 09:32 AM)kosko Wrote: What does everyone pay for a gym membership?
I myself have 2 gym memberships:
-$50/month at a legit powerlifting and strongman warehouse gym.
-$10/month big box gym across the street from my house.
(02-14-2018 09:32 AM)kosko Wrote: What does everyone pay for a gym membership?
Invested $1,000 once and never looked back. That was 30 months ago, I am almost at the break even point, as I was paying $27.00/month for the gym membership; I am at $33.30/month($1000/30 months.) The equipment is still like new, and it looks like will last me at least another 30 months.
Since I am recovered from the left bicep tendon injury, in the next few months I will get a bench, which run more or less $150.00. It will be a nice addition; for now I do squats, deadlifts, overhead press, and low weight floor bench press.
(02-05-2018 02:54 AM)Sidney Crosby Wrote: I plan on picking up a lacrosse ball as well to work different areas.
Those things are painful but work, especially on your glutes on a hard floor !
(02-14-2018 09:32 AM)kosko Wrote: The McDonald's of gyms - Goodlife = $50
+ Locations are all over, it's cheap, about a 15 min walk from home, amenities such as sauna and towels / - locations always busy; regular bs of mainstream gym
Co Sign on this.
Brah's have a question:
What do style belt do you guys use for squats and deads ?
How many inches wide is it ?
How thick is it ?
Does it have a lever? Velcro? How many prongs does it have ?
Thanks for the feedback so far. I am based in Canada for those wondering which is why it is expensive; nothing is really all that cheap here in Communist Canada. Insurance, heat, rents, all likey much more expensive in Canada versus the USA where you can get away with $10/month gym memberships. Standard here is about $25-55 for big box gyms, with the bougie gyms ranging in price from $75-250/month.
One edit....
The biggest drawback to the big box gym (middle option) is that it is packed with a zoo at all times aside from dead middle of the workday (there is a line-up outside the door at 6am when it opens for the pre-work crowd for example). I don't find much value in going to a gym and not finding a squat or benches rack to use and having to wait around (having one person ahead of you is fine, when it is multiple people this clearly means the gym is not big enough or does not have a good equipment mix to meet demand); I find that very annoying. Part of the reason I am enticed to put down $ for that most expensive option as I can get in and out as needed with no BS.
Might find that you need to travel a bit to find a gym that is more to your liking. My preferred gym is a 20-25 min drive for me depending on traffic, but I still go there 4-6 days a week because the facility and the community are worth it to me.
(02-14-2018 12:48 PM)kaotic Wrote: What do style belt do you guys use for squats and deads ?
How many inches wide is it ?
How thick is it ?
Does it have a lever? Velcro? How many prongs does it have ?
I tend to use a 2-prong leather belt, 10mm or 13mm thickness (13mm is preferred - will provide more rigid support and last longer). 4" is pretty standard width.
Good brands are SBD, Inzer, and STrong but you can go cheaper if you don't want to spend $100+ on a belt.
I have the Titan Toro belt with the lever. Does the job pretty well and is sturdy enough that it will last a long time, it's easy to just move the lever if you gain or lose a little weight too. The Inzer version is slightly better but both will do the job.