For BG fitness fanatics, a question..

[Atreides]

Chances are you're finding dumbbell press harder than barbell press for 2 reasons:
1) you're going a lot lower/wider with the dumbbell, as you no longer have the bar hitting your chest to stop yourself and there's no constant distance between your hands with dumbbells. As zoo said it's a much bigger ROM, so you're doing a lot more work. At the bottom of the bench press it's your lats and anterior delts that are doing the work until your chest engages, so the deeper you go the more you're working those muscles, although I don't think it's any better for your chest.

2) Probably not as much but with a barbell your stronger arm can make up for your other arm being slightly weaker by doing a little more work, with dumbbells each arm is moving independently.

Personally I much prefer a barbell press. Less ROM means a lot less chance you're going to hit a sticking point and have to miss reps, not to mention the increased stability/control from a barbell is a lot safer for your shoulders. Also, with a barbell I can increase the weight in smaller increments if I can't jump a full 10 lbs with dumbbells, but if your gym has a way to increase each dumbbell by 2.5 lbs I guess that's not really an issue.

edit: a flat bench also provides a much easier/safer starting point for the barbell from the hooks/stand, I hate starting dumbbells cuz you have to lift them from the floor or do some weird shit where you pick them up, sit down with them, then hold them up to your chest as you lay down lol.

[Zoolander]

oh alright haha. I knew you were a beast but god damn lol, I've never seen anyone do that much weight on flys. pretty much a pure isolation exercise, not like the bench that has so many groups working together.

That video is sick Wei, wasn't Evan working on that kind of stuff? I could see working towards that kind of strength once I can do better pull ups and my standing press gets better. My core is probably pretty close to being strong enough and I would wager in a few weeks my legs will be too, but definitely have plenty of room to improve on the other areas for that shit. Of course some of those are insanely difficult lol.

[Chun Liroy]

you dont have no moobs man. you weigh like 130 lbs haha

Psh, 167 and yes I do dammit.

[Atreides]

it depends on the kind of moobs you have then. If they're just soft fatty tissue, then losing weight (all over your body, you can't spot reduce) will make them go away eventually. You can build your pecs up too, to make the fat spread out more, although I'd try to lose weight first or else you risk building your pecs and having them push the fat further out.

If they're hard lumps just beneath the nipple then they will not go away no matter how much dieting you do, you'll either have to live with them or have a surgeon remove them.

[Weiing]

@Zoo- He was but then he stopped working on that stuff. >_> I'm starting to work on that with yoga, actually...hope I can build that kind of strength, balance, and stability eventually...

And yeah. Only problems I have with dumbbells is my inability to lift them off the ground.

[Chun Liroy]

The former. How would I tighten up the portion between my nipple and armpit?

[Atreides]

you can't spot reduce or tighten up a specific spot. Lose body fat all over and they'll start to go away

[Chun Liroy]

I lost 20lbs over the school year and the only thing that thinned was my stomach <_<

[richardd]

Atreides is right though. you cant lose a specific part of your stomach/love handles etc until you keep pushing yourself to lose more fat in general. you can do it man. losing weight is easy. gaining muscle is where it gets life changing lol

[Atreides]

You probably lost some fat from your chest and didn't realize. Keep going and they'll eventually go away. Your body is programmed to gain fat in the chest, stomach, and I assume butt/thighs like all people-- losing fat will make it come off of these areas as well. It may take a while and it may be the last place you finally lose fat from, but it will happen eventually. Until your stomach is completely flat you shouldn't worry that the fat isn't coming off your chest.

You can try building muscle too-- building your traps and delts will pull the skin upward, and working on your chest will give a bigger area for the fat to spread out, but like I said it might actually make them appear bigger by pushing the fat outwards, until you lose more body fat.

I'm afraid that's really your only option-- lose more body fat. Otherwise you need surgery, which I'm 99% sure is classified as a cosmetic procedure so insurance won't cover it, unless they're causing you extreme back pain or breathing problems.

[Chun Liroy]

Nah they ain't that big, lol. And they are a lot smaller than they were. I just was curious if it would be worth it to start building muscle at this point or to keep losing weight. Which I wasn't really trying to lose weight it just kinda happened due to shitty/unhealthy eating habits.

[Atreides]

just keep in mind that with muscle gain, some fat gain is inevitable. Even if you keep it to a minimum, if you already have a significant amount of body fat then you might be unhappy with your results until you finish gaining muscle and start burning off the fat you gained during your bulk. Your first year of training is the time when you can really see some fast gains so if you are planning on gaining muscle then you might want to trim down first, so you can judge your progress better and won't have to stop because you feel you've gotten too fat.

That being said, continuing to burn fat/lose weight will cut into your existing muscle and you'll take a hit to your strength/endurance, especially if you go on a "crash diet" or try to lose weight too quickly, so it's something to consider before you go starving yourself. 1-1.5 lbs of weight loss per week is "healthy", if you're losing more than that you need to eat more.

[Gustave]

Back to the subject of protein powders. If you can catch GNC on a week when they have reduced prices (I guess getting close to expiration date) try the ON Procomplex Vanilla. It is delicious with 1-2% milk. I picked up a bottle of ON Gold standard whey Vanilla Ice cream and its not even close.


Also I've been taking creatine 5gs and protien 140-180 a day and I am still losing weight! I don't understand this. I think I am going to have to take cardio completely from my workout (which has mainly been 1/2 mile @ 3-3.5 mins/ 4 days a week) I started at 195 lbs and my goal was 190 and trim( abs except for the stubborn belly line). Now I am down to 180.

Mainly I just adjusted my diet to 2000~ calories a day but mostly changed when I eat.

Oh and 17 legit wide grip pullups on 1st rep today(using the grip straps )

Also can anyone recommend a good multivitamin that wont break my budget? Should I see any results from taking them?

[Zoolander]

2000 calories when you are working out means weight loss, add more calories.

[Atreides]

Back to the subject of protein powders. If you can catch GNC on a week when they have reduced prices (I guess getting close to expiration date) try the ON Procomplex Vanilla. It is delicious with 1-2% milk. I picked up a bottle of ON Gold standard whey Vanilla Ice cream and its not even close.


Also I've been taking creatine 5gs and protien 140-180 a day and I am still losing weight! I don't understand this. I think I am going to have to take cardio completely from my workout (which has mainly been 1/2 mile @ 3-3.5 mins/ 4 days a week) I started at 195 lbs and my goal was 190 and trim( abs except for the stubborn belly line). Now I am down to 180.

Mainly I just adjusted my diet to 2000~ calories a day but mostly changed when I eat.

Oh and 17 legit wide grip pullups on 1st rep today(using the grip straps )

Also can anyone recommend a good multivitamin that wont break my budget? Should I see any results from taking them?

I think you're missing the point of supplements.

Just drinking whey won't make you gain muscle, the purpose of whey supplements are to ensure adequate protein intake and more accurately control your ratio of protein/fat/carbs. Still, you're not going to just magically gain muscle on whey unless, as Zoo said, you're eating more calories than you burn. You want to exceed the number of calories your body burns in a day by at least 500... for you this is most likely going to be 3000 calories, perhaps more. If you're lifting heavy weights you're probably going to want to eat closer to 4000 to keep up with your routine. 2000 is what I eat now and I'm on a diet.

Multivitamins aren't going to give you "results" either. The purpose of a multivitamin is to make up for deficiencies in your diet, since chances are you're missing out on something from food no matter what you eat. Opti-men are a good choice.

Also even when they have "sales" you're still getting hosed with GNC's prices. Buy from bodybuilding.com or hunt around online for cheaper prices, there is a big difference between almost any online retailer and GNC even at a discount. The only thing I buy at GNC is creatine because it's so cheap.

[Darlantan]

Can someone please repost that article about squats and how doing them lower than 90º not only wasnt bad for knees (as the urban legend says) but actually beneficial?

My brother is a little worried about his knees and the topic came out, and turns out that I deleted it or something. Aside from that, any advice about good exercises or whatever that help with knees would be nice, I dont think he has them injured enough to be a matter of going to see a medic, but he usually complains about them after some work outs and specially after playing futbol or some other sports.

Thanks!

[Weiing]

I can't find the actual one posted here...but if you google you can find some stuff. Such as this:
http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f13/fu...opment-335863/
http://fpfitness.wordpress.com/2010/...squatting-101/

If he's really concerned about knees??? maybe look into box squats?
http://stronglifts.com/build-explosi...rm-box-squats/

[Gustave]

I think you're missing the point of supplements.
Also even when they have "sales" you're still getting hosed with GNC's prices. Buy from bodybuilding.com or hunt around online for cheaper prices, there is a big difference between almost any online retailer and GNC even at a discount. The only thing I buy at GNC is creatine because it's so cheap.

I normally check bodybuilding.com for reviews and prices before I buy. The only reason I mentioned GNC is because I got a big tub of pro-complex for $39.99 and I haven't seen anything close to that anywhere ([email protected])

I had no idea I needed to take in that many calories a day. I think I'm going to sit down and try to map out a 1 week daily food intake to give me a better idea where I can add good calories and what-not. I think it will give me a better picture of what I should be eating/qauntity.

If I'm 5'10 180-185 apr. 12-15% bodyfat how far do you think I would need to bulk up before cutting to hit 190/trim 12-15% bodyfay?

[Lucavi]

Atreides is right though. you cant lose a specific part of your stomach/love handles etc until you keep pushing yourself to lose more fat in general. you can do it man. losing weight is easy. gaining muscle is where it gets life changing lol

Fuck that, man. Losing weight off the waist has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Everything else is where I want it to be, but since I drink too much dairy (just recently switched to lactade) I've been bloating up like a fish for a year.

I run, I lift, I do cals, I jog, I treadmill, I drink at least 3 and a half liters of water a day, I eat plenty of nuts and even tried moving onto watermelon (I hate the taste, but know its good for the abs), and its still coming off slowly. I don't drink sodas, beer, wine, coffee, or even teas anymore - just pure water and the occasional milk when I eat a bowl of cereal.

I'd kill for my 10-years-ago-metabolism. I should have worked harder when I was younger so I wouldn't have to hit a bloat-belly roadblock right now.

[Weiing]

Fuck that, man. Losing weight off the waist has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Everything else is where I want it to be, but since I drink too much dairy (just recently switched to lactade) I've been bloating up like a fish for a year.

I run, I lift, I do cals, I jog, I treadmill, I drink at least 3 and a half liters of water a day, I eat plenty of nuts and even tried moving onto watermelon (I hate the taste, but know its good for the abs), and its still coming off slowly. I don't drink sodas, beer, wine, coffee, or even teas anymore - just pure water and the occasional milk when I eat a bowl of cereal.

I'd kill for my 10-years-ago-metabolism. I should have worked harder when I was younger so I wouldn't have to hit a bloat-belly roadblock right now.

First: No food is better/worse for the abs. So eating watermelon won't help with your abs, man. Some foods are worse for increasing belly fat, but no specific food affects the abs itself.

Losing body fat from the midsection is quite a hard task, sure. But are you at a healthy weight already? Perhaps your body doesn't want to budge because it's at a comfortable weight for itself.

You've only really listed what you've been "drinking", but not really what you eat. I don't see anything wrong with drinking wine, coffee, or tea. In fact, black coffee and tea is like...5 calories. Not much at all. There is actually nothing wrong with having some wine if you so enjoy it. Wine and dark chocolate, I'd say, are "sensible vices" when it comes to overall health. Sure you can tons of nuts, but how much nuts are you eating? Are you eating a little too much of it?

How's your overall diet? Your macronutrients? Too much carbohydrates? Not enough fat and protein?

@ Gustave - yeah, please carefully monitor your caloric intake for awhile to see what it is you need. There's no such things as good/bad calories, as that's a mindset set for destruction/failure. Think of calories and food holistically, and eat them all in moderation. Sometimes ice cream is just a nice reward, as long as it's not all the time.