I pay $50 CAD a month, but it is a chain gym with basically all the equipment you'd ever need, no fancy amenities though.
It would be a little cheaper but I pay month to month, I'm not going to get locked into a 12 month contract and then go a travel for months on end and be stuck paying.
After having a dose of the squirts last week I managed a couple of personal records this week. Hit 150Kg (330 pounds) on squats for the first time and 187.5Kg (412 pounds) x 4 for deadlifts. Of course I bombed on my presses, but hey shit happens.
No idea why my deads seem to be so far ahead of everything else, but the higher rep ranges I've been hitting with boring but big variation 2 seem to have helped.
EDIT: As far as belts go, I've been only using one I was given by a guy at work for when I really push it. Seems decent quality.
(02-15-2018 02:31 AM)Bluey Wrote: After having a dose of the squirts last week I managed a couple of personal records this week. Hit 150Kg (330 pounds) on squats for the first time and 187.5Kg (412 pounds) x 4 for deadlifts. Of course I bombed on my presses, but hey shit happens.
No idea why my deads seem to be so far ahead of everything else, but the higher rep ranges I've been hitting with boring but big variation 2 seem to have helped.
EDIT: As far as belts go, I've been only using one I was given by a guy at work for when I really push it. Seems decent quality.
Your deadlift should be ahead of your squat by a fair margin. The squat should be more than the press.
As far as how much the disparity should be, it's a CNS/Technique thing.
Typically a beginner will hit better numbers on the deadlift than the squat and press because they haven't mastered the act of balancing the bar and performing the movement under heavy load. From an execution standpoint the deadlift is a lot easier, you just pull.
This is basically the same reason why when you measure your squat versus how much you can do on a hack squat machine, youll be able to go harder on the hack squat machine. You've taken some of the coordination factors out of the movement and can now focus on simply moving the weight.
The coordination and technique of the squat and press come in a little slower, especially if you didn't learn and train these lifts at a young age.
(02-15-2018 07:31 AM)Steelex Wrote: Your deadlift should be ahead of your squat by a fair margin.
This is common but not necessarily true. At least from all of seen, most lifters tend to have "their lift" that they excel at. Be it their body type, leverages, height, muscle composition, etc. Many elite level record-holding power lifters can squat 800, 900, or even 1000 lbs. but can't deadlift that much.
One example from the forum I would give is Man w/ the Golden Gun. He just started lifting 6 months ago so he's still quite novice, but his squat is far stronger than his deadlift judging from his workout reports. Hell, his squat is probably stronger than mine already at this point.
There are some misconceptions about this movement I'd like to shed light on. first, watch the first 60 seconds of this video:
First thing I want to say is "Yikes."
Second thing I want to say is that contrary to popular believe, he is not on his way to "snap city." People all to often relate poor deadlift form to potential injury with spinal discs, but this is very unlikely as you will pull your spinal erector muscles way before you do any skeletal damage picking up weight off the floor. You are far far more likely to fuck your spine up squatting than you are deadlifting as compacting your spine with weight straddled directly on top of it is much more traumatic to your bones than using your body as a lever. All the muscles on your back, most specifically your erectors, are there to support and protect your spine. When doing a movement like the deadlift, these muscles will fail you before you bones fail you; this is partially their function. That said, pulling your back muscles sucks, and tearing them sucks even more. This brings me to my third thing which I touched upon in another thread.
Third thing is that this kid in the video is leaving a lot of gains on the table, and he is missing a lot of the function of the deadlift in the first place... even worse he is doing deficit deadlifts with this shit form. You see, while the deadlift is considered a "back movement" your back doesn't actually do the moving in this lift. Your back's job in the deadlift is to hold the weight, so that your posterior chain can lift it off of the floor and up to lockout. Your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and hips do the moving here. By keeping your back straight, rigid, and tight the muscles are staying contracted throughout the entire lift. This sort of "static hold" you back is doing is working your lats, erectors, traps, and even your core.
A final point: if you want to overload your deadlift, then use boxes, do rack pulls, do it in a rack with bands hanging from overhead, etc. There are plenty of ways to pull more weight than you can actually pull from the floor. Otherwise you are just cheating yourself and ego lifting.
(02-27-2018 08:14 PM)General Stalin Wrote: I'd like to speak on deadlifts for a minute here.
There are some misconceptions about this movement I'd like to shed light on. first, watch the first 60 seconds of this video:
First thing I want to say is "Yikes."
Second thing I want to say is that contrary to popular believe, he is not on his way to "snap city." People all to often relate poor deadlift form to potential injury with spinal discs, but this is very unlikely as you will pull your spinal erector muscles way before you do any skeletal damage picking up weight off the floor. You are far far more likely to fuck your spine up squatting than you are deadlifting as compacting your spine with weight straddled directly on top of it is much more traumatic to your bones than using your body as a lever. All the muscles on your back, most specifically your erectors, are there to support and protect your spine. When doing a movement like the deadlift, these muscles will fail you before you bones fail you; this is partially their function. That said, pulling your back muscles sucks, and tearing them sucks even more. This brings me to my third thing which I touched upon in another thread.
Based on personal experience I agree that the deadlift is generally safer than the squat. I have had little back tweaks here and there from squatting but have never had any problems deadlifting.
With regards to spinal compaction, I have always done a 15-20 second dead hang from a pullup bar after squatting. Occasionally I will pull out the gravity boots and do 60-90 seconds.
I find the kid's lift to be very impressive, despite the technical issues. He doesn't look to be over 190ish lbs which means he may have a 1rm approaching 3x bodyweight.
Yeah I'm not debating the kid's strength in the video. Even though he is using piss poor technique, pulling 470 lbs. from a deficit for reps is objectively strong. That said, no level of athlete is above scrutiny. What he is doing is certainly doing something for him, but it could be doing a lot more if he dropped the weight or corrected his form.
Spinal decompression is a decent practice after squatting. I'm not sure if there is any actual research done on it's benefits but it certainly feels good.
Myprotein has flash deals often and their product is pretty slim on ingredients. The other day they had 11 lbs bags on sale for $53, and 16 lbs bags for $80. Definitely worth checking out.
I bought like 44 pounds of the stuff for 203$ including shipping with my tax return a few days ago. Google coupon codes and deals for myprotein, there is always something extra you can tack on.
Chocolate smooth, chocolate mint, and strawberry cream are all great flavors. Calorie wise (they have a few grams of fat and carbs in each scoop) some are leery on sugar in their whey but if you're lifting with any intensity it just doesn't matter. Most of the other flavors are derivates of the basic flavors, with some of them just being terrible. I checked reddit for the three best and rotate between them.
I have purchased the ultra low carb/zero carb Myprotein whey before, don't bother getting it, it's god awful. The unflavored stuff tastes like lifting chalk.
Getting in 2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day is amazing, the gains are better and recovery is top notch. You'll have so much energy you'll feel like ripping your own head off. Not many bodybuilding guides recommend getting in that much protein but if you experiment you'll usually find better gains with greater intake.
I bought some 45 ounce big boy shaker bottles off amazon a while ago and smash one 100+ gram protein shake per day, sometimes with a smaller one in the morning.
The reason most guides recommend 1-1.5g of protein/pound of bodyweight is because generally any more than that your body is just going to discard. I imagine there may be some.folks who would benefit from that, but the general scientific consensus is that 1g-1.5g is the number to hit for optimal growth.
Back on the keto diet, I did it a bit last year it was effective and I did it again just before Christmas. The time around Christmas I got decent results but I think my protein intake was probably too high, apparently if your protein intake is too high it can mess with ketosis. I also wasn't working out at that time so that is a large part of it.
I've been on the diet since Monday, the ketone strips say I'm in ketosis. My energy is low but that should pick up again soon, I've been eating a lot of fat and trying to keep my protein between 100-150 grams. I hope to lose at least 10lbs during the 2 months or so I will be on this diet.
(03-02-2018 07:20 PM)Sidney Crosby Wrote: Back on the keto diet, I did it a bit last year it was effective and I did it again just before Christmas. The time around Christmas I got decent results but I think my protein intake was probably too high, apparently if your protein intake is too high it can mess with ketosis. I also wasn't working out at that time so that is a large part of it.
I've been on the diet since Monday, the ketone strips say I'm in ketosis. My energy is low but that should pick up again soon, I've been eating a lot of fat and trying to keep my protein between 100-150 grams. I hope to lose at least 10lbs during the 2 months or so I will be on this diet.
If you can add in some HIIT training it'll help massively. When I combine a very carb restricted diet with HIIT sprints once or twice a week the fat pretty much melts off every spring.
Nomad..... for arms I do 70% triceps and 30% biceps. Focus on dropsets and do my workout to failure. I try and change it up every few weeks. My arms are massive
(03-07-2018 04:49 PM)nomadbrah Wrote: Anyone got a fixed routine for big arms at home?
If you had dumbbells/kettlebells/bodyweight and wanted to only work on arms at home.
High rep work 15-20, drop sets, heavy volume per week.
Volume has been the key to growing my arms, a coworker got me away from the idea that compound exercises is all it takes. They鈥檙e grow to an extent, but in my experience high rep isolation work is 10x better.
(03-07-2018 04:49 PM)nomadbrah Wrote: Anyone got a fixed routine for big arms at home?
If you had dumbbells/kettlebells/bodyweight and wanted to only work on arms at home.
If you only work on your arms you're going to end up looking like a badly drawn cartoon character. Or like an even worse version of The Situation from Jersey Shore. You'd be best off doing a more well rounded workout, even if all you've got are some DBs and bodyweight.
(03-07-2018 04:49 PM)nomadbrah Wrote: Anyone got a fixed routine for big arms at home?
If you had dumbbells/kettlebells/bodyweight and wanted to only work on arms at home.
If you only work on your arms you're going to end up looking like a badly drawn cartoon character. Or like an even worse version of The Situation from Jersey Shore. You'd be best off doing a more well rounded workout, even if all you've got are some DBs and bodyweight.
Yeah, I should have mentioned I already lifted for years. I don't lift heavy anymore because of injury though. I never prioritized arms, so that's why I want to do that this time.
(03-08-2018 09:30 AM)nomadbrah Wrote: Yeah, I should have mentioned I already lifted for years. I don't lift heavy anymore because of injury though. I never prioritized arms, so that's why I want to do that this time.
Having lifted heavy for years previously won't do much of anything for you currently if you're not using the muscle groups though - your body will have shed the vast majority of that muscle long ago. So you'd still be better off hitting more muscle groups than just your arms. You don't have to do heavy compound lifts to do so. Even with just bodyweight and DBs:
- Chest - bodyweight: pushups
- Shoulders - bw: elevated pushups developing over time into handstand pushups, + DBs: shoulder press
- Triceps - bw: dips, + DBs: tricep extensions
- Biceps - bw: chinups, + DBs: curls
- Back - bw: pullups
- Traps: DB shrugs
- Quads - bodyweight squats developing over time into pistol squats
- Calves -calf raises on a step, developing over time into one footed calf raises
- Abs - weighted situps
I'd split the above into a once weekly two day split, Day1: Chest/shoulders/triceps/abs, Day2: biceps/back/traps/quads/calves. 5x12 reps per exercise (or as many as you can do building up to this). And add in a day3 of 30mins of HIIT cardio. So 30min a day Mon/Wed/Fri.
You won't get particularly large or strong without heavy weights and big compound movements, but the above for 3 months will leave you with a fairly well rounded, fitter than average physique (presuming your diet is also in order). And it requires a really minimal investment of time, effort and money.