Arkk's Weight Lifting Thread

[Cathan]

Elementary Guide to Gaining:

If you do this will will almost certainly achieve your goals:
1. Go to FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal and use that website.
2. Eat 3000 calories a day with 30% protein, 30% fat and 30% carbohydrates. Try to eat as much eggs, chicken, milk and beef as you can for your protein. Chicken is generally the healthiest meat, but I've seen stuff that says beef/milk helps you increase testosterone. Drink protein shakes how you want, my suggestion is:
Amazon.com: Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Instantized Natural Whey Protein Powder, Chocolate Mint, 2.07-Pound Plastic Jars: Grocery
Because it tastes good. I also put in chocolate syrup in it because fuck it.
3. Eat 5 times a day minimum.
4. Drink a lot of water, carry around a 1 gallon jug of water everywhere.
5. Go to the gym 3 days a week with the following routine:
15 minutes warmup, 20 minutes weight lifting, 5-10 minutes cooldown.
6. Drink a protein shake in the morning and after your workouts (do it ASAP after your workouts, bring the protein shake to the gym).
7. For your workouts, have a push day, a pull day, and a leg day or something. You can read all you want to for workout routines, but ultimately you have to decide what works best for you. I know my muscles recover at different speeds than yours.
8. Be sure you do: Squats, deadlifts, bench presses and pullups. Don't push too much weight on your exercises until halfway through the second month.
9. If you want to, buy
Amazon.com: Optimum Nutrition ON Creatine 2500 Caps, 300 Capsules: Grocery Creatine increases the amount of creatine for your muscle which gives more energy to them. For lifting I believe it helps you do more repititions before your muscles have to use lactic acid.
You'll retain some extra water by your muscles if you use a normal amount of creatine.
10. Do some light cardio in the morning, this will increase your metabolism and enable you to eat more.

/guide

I've been back working out for several months and I put up 315 on the bench without too much trouble Wednesday. I'm really looking to get to 405. I don't take any supplements or any of that bullshit. I try to eat good meals that give me all the protein, vitamins and minerals I need.

What I am looking for is what people have found works for them when they were purely building strength. I don't care about mass or cutting up. I workout for the exercise it provides me by itself and then I usually ride my bicycle home 4 miles from work/gym (there's a gym in my office building).

I know everyone's body responds differently to the same workout and what works for some doesn't for others. My favorite workouts are a decent warm up, little stretching and then 1 set of all you can do with whatever weight I select for the day. I vary the weight from 60 to 80% of my max and have a spotter to make me work like hell for the last rep. After that I usually pyramid down.

I have only been taking time off to rest when my body really starts getting sore and I don't feel like I'm recovering well enough between workouts. One week I had an amazing workout and I was so sore. A week later I went back in to work chest again and I could feel the muscle fibers twitching and stretching in my chest so I finished that set and took the rest of the week off.

Is there a good rule of thumb for when to rest? I really want to avoid injury and I'm 34 so I don't heal quite as fast as I did at 18.

I don't work legs after I blew out 2 discs in my back working several years ago. I rarely feel any pain from it but everytime I try to work legs I end up laying in bed trying to rest my back so those discs quit pushing on my spine. I ride my bike to work my legs. I've tried strengthening my midsection with ab work and back extensions on the roman chair. I still do those exercises and others but nothing seems to help my back from having problems once I hit the legs.

[arkk123]

1- Honestly I am baffled by the decision to post such a question on a MMORPG forum, but I am replying to it so I guess it makes sense. It would be much more suited at a forum like intensemuscle or another powerlifting oriented site.

2- Until you get to a point where your bench enters the realm of impressive numbers, there really is no science behind just trying to add at least 5lbs or beat your reps from last week. That isn't a dig at you, just being serious. My bench was never impressive compared to other lifts, but until you have spent at least a year working at it and managed to only increase it by 20-30lbs, then you can get into the more detailed methods like westside, and using bands/blocks/chains etc. If you are at 315 now, you have at least a few years before you need to start looking for unorthodox methods. Eat a lot, make sure you don't skimp on supplementary work(shoulders/tricep/back). Most people interested in just putting up #'s don't do max effort days as often as you may think. They'll use 8 weeks+ of training to culminate into one day where they do a max effort attempt in all 3 big lifts and hope it beats where they ended up last cycle.

3) I am sure you have heard this a million times, but there isn't really a reason you can't train legs to some degree. I am 25 and have 3 bad discs. I just had my 4th epidural on Wednesday. My doctor actually printed me a picture of the needle inserted into the sac(not that sack =P) that he took during the procedure because it is rare they see such clear pictures, being that most people who receive such injections are not my age. I injured myself about a month ago which led to this last shot, and it is official that my days of deads and squats are over. I can't risk it. My point is that there is no reason you can't do leg extensions and lunges, etc, and things that do not create compression or shear. Riding a bike does not create atrophy, it targets endurance fibers.

Lastly, I don't get why there is threads to cover the entire NFL season and so on, but if someone has a question fitness related it warrants a new thread. That'd be like people posting a new thread for Brady's performance in week 1, or how bad the Bengals are going to be, or the game in week whatever between the Ravens/Steelers. There needs to be a fitness thread.

[Tuco]

How did you injure your legs, Ark?

[PapaShlapa]

He didn't injure his legs, he injured his back =x

My best advice to the OP would be to just start looking at westside style methods with chains/bands etc. EliteFTS - Powerlifting and Strength Training Products and Knowledge for Lifters, Athletes, Coaches, and Trainers is a good place to start. You don't need to have a 400+ bench to benefit from Max Effort and Dynamic Effort work. However, I wouldn't advise it to someone under 1-2 years of serious lifting experience. Really, the best way to increase your max is just spend a lot of time under weight at 90% or higher, backing off as you feel you need it.

[Kasi]

Right now I am annoyed by how little my standing press is seeming to progress. Really trying to get it up, but its really difficult to move my max weight up even 5 pounds right now. And it's not like I'm doing a huge amount of weight with it. (5x5 around 100, single set of 5 max is like 110). Squats, deadlifts, rows, bench are all progressing, but in like 2-3 months press hasn't moved much. Any suggestions other than keep plugging away at it like arkk said in 2?

[Tuco]

If this is the standing press you're referring to:



Don't feel bad, I could never progress with it either ;D

[Tuco]

Made this into Arkk's weight lifting thread. Please ask anyquestions on how to lift, gain, increase athletic performance here. I realize there's more to increasing athletic performance than just weight lifting, so if you want to talk /ask how to increase your sprinting speed, distance etc, make your own call as to if you should ask here or make a new thread.

For any questions on how to lose weight: http://www.fohguild.org/forums/sport...ss-thread.html

[Kasi]

Yes thats the standing press I'm talking about. I'd like to get up to the 135 range on it, but its really damn slow progress. I'm hoping the progress I'm making on bench and deadlifts will help it along.

[cdyhybrid]

The press is supposed to be the slowest in terms of progression. You might want to try changing it up a bit instead of hammering against a wall. Maybe do 3x8 at a lighter weight for a few weeks. Or switch to DBs. Or if you can identify which part of the lift is giving you the most trouble, do some accessory lifts to strengthen that area.

[Tuco]

My problem with the lift is getting the weights in the air and extending my arms.

I actually was making slight progress then my shoulders (bones/tendons whatever) started to have sharp pains so I stopped any work on them =( This was last year and I started doing exercise (Not heavy lifting, mostly light lifting/running etc) so I'll probably see if I can't work on my shoulders some more. I may be under the false assumption that doing low amounts of weights for high reps will help my bones/tendons get stronger and more durable for when I want to put real weights (for me) on them.

[Cathan]

I'm gonna have to work on that standing overhead press now that I saw that video.

I have tried working legs extensions/curls and yeah... that shit always got some pain flowing in my back. The only way to start back with legs I could think of is riding my bike (which has been good so far) and squats with no weight ad nauseum... I tried the lunges before too, they hurt.

When I first blew my back out I couldn't even crawl to the bathroom, I just said fuck it. About the 3rd day I could crawl at least. Even doing dumbell overhead press I take it pretty seriously. Those shooting pains that sometimes last for weeks that I get to walk around with just aren't worth it.

I always liked working legs though. I seemed to make the best gains when I was working my whole body. It's like working legs really, really gets the testosterone flowing to help make everything grow...

[arkk123]

edit: nm

[arkk123]

woops double post

[ChewieTobbacca]

Don't worry about not progressing on standing press - its almost always the first one to stall out of any of the big compound barbell exercises. Just keep at it, or de-load a bit and work back up.

[Fris_Leafshadow]

suggestions for a home gym?

so far i've got a bench and stand that extended high enough to stand under for squats. the bench has leg exten/curl on it, but no preacher curl. i've got the 45lb straight bar and a 15lb curl bar. i've got hand weights from 5 pounds (forthe wife i swear!) to 45 pounds. I've got the hand weights where you can attach standard olympic weights, but they just dont feel right. but then neither does paying $50 for each 50 pound hand weight.

lifting at home and never having a spotter, limits some of what I could do years ago when in school and having access to the gym

I do everything in 12/10/8 rep sets. on chest days, i'll start with bench, 155lbs 12 times, 165 10 times and 175 8 times. once I can do 175 10 times, next chest day I'll start with 165 12 times. i then do flys (45s 12x, 50s 10x, 55 8x) and overhead triceps extensions (95 12x, 100 10x, 105 8x). Finish off with delt raises. once my starting weight for an exercise hits 100, i'll move the jump from 5 pounds between reps to 10 pounds. this has worked pretty good for me since December. Years ago, the most I ever benched was 185 5x, now I can do 175 8x at the end of that work out.

bicept days I curl bar with a close turned in grip, then bent over rows with a wide straight grip, then another set of curls with less weight but a very wide straight grip really trying to extend all the way down and rotating my wrist over as I come up. this 2nd curl set works out my grip and forearms almost as much as my bicepts.

legs it's squat, dead lift, leg exten and leg curl. i've been skipping legs a lot with the idea of mountain biking, but then it hits 100 degrees and I set on the couch.

if anyone has any suggestions for different exercises that can be done with this limited hardware, let me know. i want to get one of those pullup stations where you can do ab leg lifts and such.

also, maybe a cheaper way to get weights then academy?