For BG fitness fanatics, a question..

[Meat]

I hate being 5"6 lol. All the work I put in the gym and still even matching taller/bigger ppl who never set a foot in the gym :/

whattt??? shorter people have it so much easier;
1) you can look huge at less bodyweight
2) shorter limbs mean less rom
3) less bodyweight means less food to shove down your throat.

[Cream Soda]

Easier? if i was concerned about looks, you'd have it right. I mean for actual strength. Bigger people have more natural strength, so I have to work harder just to get to average.

if it were all about looks, i'd just do abs and biceps, lol.

[Meat]

still the same, shorter limbs= less rom= more weight can be moved

[alt]

Egg whites are like pure protein yo.

Correct. But over half of the protein in the egg as a whole is in the yolk, as well as most of the vitamins.

[Ryany]

Easier? if i was concerned about looks, you'd have it right. I mean for actual strength. Bigger people have more natural strength, so I have to work harder just to get to average.

if it were all about looks, i'd just do abs and biceps, lol.

• If you are talking about absolute strength, it won’t really matter anyway unless you plan on weighing well into the 300s since most of the strongmen are up there.
• If you are talking about pound-for-pound strength, shorter people tend to do very well. (they can fit more muscle into x amount of pounds compared to a taller person of the same weight)
• A good routine/diet will get most people to average in a few months pretty much by default due to the number of people out there that never exercise. I could see it being a minor inconvenience at worst in regards to getting to average.

[Atreides]

if anyone is eating ice cream currently, go find yourselves a pint of the limited edition Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake. It is quite possibly the greatest thing ever

[Moss]

Finally found a decent gym today that didn't require a long-term commitment and had all the necessary equipment, was an LA Fitness. You get a free fitness test when you sign up, which will be sweet if it includes a body fat test. I switched from barbell bench to dumbbell bench and got owned. I usually bench about 160 with a barbell, so I grabbed 45 lb dumbbells and they owned me pretty hard. I'm sure it is the combination of not working out in a few weeks and never having done dumbbell bench before, but it still surprised me at how hard it was at that weight.

[shaddix]

I want to do DB bench

[Gustave]

Eh, been sick the last few days so I decided take start a week break. Doms + fever = terrible aches week feeling. I haven't been able to take in much solid food. With this flu I might just take 2 weeks off.

[Meat]

if anyone is eating ice cream currently, go find yourselves a pint of the limited edition Ben & Jerry's Pumpkin Cheesecake. It is quite possibly the greatest thing ever

edys has a good pumpkin one too, it's a bit lighter. so you can eat more at a time lol. the pumpkin cheesecake is really quite decadent

[Atreides]

yea it's too bad my bulk ends in 9 days or else Id go back for another pint. I've got 23 out of 33 flavors in my haagen dazs challenge and if I really push myself I can get it up to 28

[Meat]

starting a bit early on the cut no?

[Diamicles]

Easier? if i was concerned about looks, you'd have it right. I mean for actual strength. Bigger people have more natural strength, so I have to work harder just to get to average.

if it were all about looks, i'd just do abs and biceps, lol.

I dunno, I'm the same height as you are, but back when I was still pushing heavy weights, I was easily pushing as much weight as guys that were 6'2". It's not necessarily less ROM, but the total length of the ROM is shorter than people who are taller, making it less 'work' (using the physics definition of weight over distance) for shorter people. In other words, Meat is correct

There's nothing wrong with being average strength unless you're weight training for some other rigorous activity or sport. Just lift what you can. Proper diet and keeping your routine fresh is the key to strength, and it will come eventually.

starting a bit early on the cut no?

when do you normally start cutting? I don't really have a 'bulking' cycle per say, I'm just in a between period between cuts this month. I was thinking about starting to cut again sometime in January, maybe middle of the month.

[Atreides]

starting a bit early on the cut no?

it'll be 12 weeks of bulking, I considered going for a 4th month but I just started dating someone new and I want to get cut up to make him just self-conscious enough to start going to the gym himself lol

[Weiing]

@Atreides so evil..

[Ryany]

Finally found a decent gym today that didn't require a long-term commitment and had all the necessary equipment, was an LA Fitness. You get a free fitness test when you sign up, which will be sweet if it includes a body fat test. I switched from barbell bench to dumbbell bench and got owned. I usually bench about 160 with a barbell, so I grabbed 45 lb dumbbells and they owned me pretty hard. I'm sure it is the combination of not working out in a few weeks and never having done dumbbell bench before, but it still surprised me at how hard it was at that weight.

Dumbbell bench has possibly the biggest adaptation curve out of any exercise. You likely will be using 20 pound heavier dumbbells after a month or so even if your strength stays the same. Even once your body fully adapts to the lift, you won’t be using as much weight as you would with the barbell. I’ve seen a 1.2 to 1 barbell to DB ratio (combined weight of both DBs) used as a rule of thumb, which seems pretty close to my personal experience.

[Moss]

Dumbbell bench has possibly the biggest adaptation curve out of any exercise. You likely will be using 20 pound heavier dumbbells after a month or so even if your strength stays the same. Even once your body fully adapts to the lift, you won’t be using as much weight as you would with the barbell. I’ve seen a 1.2 to 1 barbell to DB ratio (combined weight of both DBs) used as a rule of thumb, which seems pretty close to my personal experience.

My chest is really sore today, which is a good thing since I think my shoulders do too much of the work when I barbell bench. But yeah, it was almost like I didn't have that much trouble pushing the weight up, it was more just stabilizing it and keeping my arms steady.

[Gustave]

My brother's baseball season starts soon and he wants to continue working out through the season. I can't blame him since he's put 25lbs and only went from 7-8% bf to 9-10% (eyeballing). God I would love to be his age again going through the gains he is getting.

Monday,Wed,Fri
Bench 4 sets 8,8,6,5
Standing Military press 4 sets 8,8,6,5
ATG squat 4 sets 8,8,6,5
Deadlift 8,8,6,5

What do you guys think?

[Meat]

hst is pretty good for a 3 day split, somethin like this

http://www.t-nation.com/img/photos/217hstchartA_sm.jpg

[Gustave]

Yea that looks good Meat. Something to maintain his strength and size during the season with the opportunity to make gains.


So I've been afraid of going heavy on deads since I had the issue with a ruptured disc pressing on a nerve at L5-S1. I've been slowly going heavier and heavier putting more weight on squat and dead lift. I finished my last set of 8 with 315 on dead lift yesterday. OMG It felt great!!! I wanted to put 405 and see how many reps I could get but my brother advised otherwise so I decided to just be patient. The best part is no pain this morning. I'm sore but that's to be expected and kinda feels nice.

I never thought I would enjoy doing squats or dead lifts with heavy weight going hard but after the way my back was the last 2 years I appreciate it more.

Edit: I'm actually surprised how sore my biceps are from the heavy deads... maybe this is what they need for size gains.