wmr1980

A person who can bench press with 60kg dumbells is a very strong person. Strong person at DB bench... I'm more impressed with squats and deadlifts!

Our gym only goes up to 50kg DBs But I tend to use DBs for things like bulgarian split squats and walking lunges etc... Hit a bit of a psychological wall with my squats and deadlift at the moment.

Not loud enough? I have decats on my millteks and it's verging on too loud!

Great news Sly. Look forward to meeting him soon!

If you're reasonably wide, do you fit in the R100s?

The 30g limit is a bit of myth that's been propagated by the supplements industry so that you can take more shakes to "spread the protein intake". Your protein intake should be based on your training / amount of lean body mass / goals. Also the more trained you are the less protein you may need as your requirements for "fixing" your muscles decreases. Hypertrophy requires more protein clearly. Also it is important to note that different proteins are absorbed at different rates. If you were to take more than 30g - the amount of protein synthesis may be a bit of bell curve, but you still digest and utilise the protein, some of it may be turned to glycogen instead of being used for muscle repair, but 60g in one go is still perfectly fine.

Problem with baked beans is that they are loaded with sugar. Eggs are one of the most bio-available protein available, believe it or not beef is not that bio available (you get 23g in an 85g steak - but that's not a bad thing as you get other micro nutrients), but is "complete" i.e. it contains all of the essential amino acids (basically what protein is. non essential and essential AAs). Essential amino acids are proteins that cannot be manufactured by our bodies and therefore creates a requirement for them in our diet, while non-essential amino acids can be manufactured by our bodies. Bioavailability represents the percentage of how much our bodies can make use of certain protein sources. Our bodies and are able to absorb some proteins better than others and also certain sources will provide a higher amino acid profile. One thing about whey protein is that it is the most bio available protein out there - until you add crap to it like sweetners and flavouring and milk etc... Though isolate is the best - but the most expensive as it removes a lot of the dairy side of the whey.

Not a fan of whey protein but it's a great way of getting extra protein if you're not able to get them from other sources. So much dairy though!

Nice

You and me both

It doesn't enhance strength at all. It is not like steroids (where even when you inject steroids you still have to train hard and eat well). It dissipates after a few months, so it isn't permanent. The stretching of the skin can be though. That said, it does help the muscle fascia to stretch, allowing more room for muscles to grow (you still have to train hard), but we are talking about distorting your body which to me does not sound sensible.

And knowing when not to go to failure and training just before failure is also important. There are many nuances to training and training smart/well. There's so much to learn, and the body is so complicated and everyone responds differently. Heck all the champion olympic lifters, strongman and powerlifters all train differently to one another to get the edge, but also follow a lot of similar principles. You've got to work out what works for you, but be happy to try new things, it's always a learning curve

It does look gross. It is ridiculous. Some guys who cannot be bothered to train hard and eat well inject synthol - it is a type of thick oil that sits in between your muscle fibres effectively "swelling" you. It does not make you stronger - it stretches your skin too, and frankly even if done a tiny bit, is no different to implants or cosmetic surgery. All show, no go. I personally think it is self mutilation - but if they're happy with it....

If it is working for you keep at it. I know you don't, but I just wanted to put it out there that you shouldn't rely on it. Sounds like you do regular squats too anyway and you're an experienced lifter so I'm sure your use is sensible. I was more putting the info out there for newcomers to the gym.

I don't coach them to fail, I coach them to be safe. Anyway, I concur that for new people to the gym, or people who don't really understand kinesiology and motor patterns that using the smith is better than nothing. However, I'd urge people to learn to use free weights as soon as possible, as well as feel confident of bailing when doing them. When you're doing, cleans, snatch, jerks, front squats, back squats you'll find that all coaches worth their salt will teach you to bail. It is a critical part of lifting - if you don't, you will get injured. I'm sorry if I sound condescending, but having been in the game for a dozen years, with a couple of competition titles, having spent a fair bit of time getting my qualifications (UKSCA) I feel obligated to educate. If you're not growing, using a machine that exacerbates poor motor patterns, adds huge shear forces to your joints is not going to help. Diet, and exercise variation will do a lot more. Even the leg press is better than the smith machine. I often train alone and squat 200+ and sometimes I just bail - but because I train properly with good form, and know how to bail, the chance of injuring myself is greatly reduced. As I said, if you're worried just use catchers. I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I can't agree with what you're saying. But as long as you're happy with what you're doing then keep at it, I'd rather people look after their health than ignore it. Happy to offer coaching and nutrition advice too.

Well that's where you're wrong or at least misinformed. When you teach people to lift either Olympic lifting or powerlifting one of the first things you do as a coach is teach how to bail. You can be controlled and get a nice deep squat with no knee collapse, no lumbar flexion, good neutral spine, good hip mobility and good posterior chain activation but not get out of the hole (proper deep squat non or this partial squat nonsense). If you can't you need to bail. It is safer to bail than to try and compromise your form. That said if you haven't been taught how to bail using catchers placed below parallel is good enough. the problem with catchers is they can get in the way of your ROM.

Just bail out. There are no benefits of using a smith, in fact they will hinder you more than not. Unless you don't have a lifting platform you don't even need catchers. Just bail. It is actually important to learn how to bail on a squat. Especially when it comes to doing progressive overload work you need to know how to bail as part of that exercise. I'd never get under the bar unless I knew how to bail. When I've trained my students/clients one of the first thing I do before ramping up the weight and after their technique is sound is to get them to learn how to bail. We're lucky at our gym that we have 4 squat racks all of which are proper lifting platforms designed to have weights dropped on them, with bumper plates. I'd never train in a gym which has a smith

Squats on a smith??? :(

No... but nearly doing squats. And during a strongman comp deadlifting a car I pretty much threw up halfway through!

Bodybuilders are narccistic nutters. The whole thing boils down to "I look better than you and I sold my soul to prove it" I couldn't do if either. Maybe I didn't title the thread properly. I'm a weightlifter with the purpose of looking better progressively and feeling happier about myself. Having big strong muscles is beneficial to health. Stronger bones, joints and tendons (given use of proper form). Less bodyfat and higher metabolic rate. I think a lot of smaller guys look at bigger guys and say "Can't be healthy that. He's bulky and slow. I bet he's really unfit" but that doesn't have to be true. I see a lot of local team football/rugby players who are very obviously overweight and unfit. Because they believe their involvement in the sport once a week automatically means they're athletic. For me, lofting weights with the aim of getting bigger gives me structure and goals rather than just randomly exercising. It's good for focus and character with regards to defining goals and seeing it through. It's horses for courses in this world. It'd be boring of we were all the same. Crossfit can kiss my big ass though lol. https://www.t-nation...ad-and-the-ugly Crossfit is like the scientology of weight lifting. You don't have to be that big to be strong - I know a lot of people who are silly strong yet don't weigh a lot (i.e. sub 100kg). I agree, if by moving your body around you end up looking better as a side effect then it's all good! I personally don't care if I'm uber lean - I'm more keen on my wilks score, I want to get it to be over 400, not much to go. I kinda like keeping my speed and flexibility too despite being a "bigger" guy - explosive power is key for me. Do any of you compete in powerlifting or strongman?

Gutted for you mate I can totally empathise having been in the passenger seat when my friend took my zed through a fence and getting it smashed up - not as scary as your crash though, but can completely understand how you feel They are remarkably solid cars I must say and it looked after you well.

Indeed. I bulk buy my meat, and prepare my meals - gets me my macros, and I can tweak it easily to add/remove certain aspects. I don't count calories or obsess over macros, it is all so instinctive now anyway.

I admire the dedication of bodybuilders but I couldn't do it. I don't see the point in bulking/dieting - it's just too much for me. As for me, I have 15 years of rugby playing, 6 years of coaching, 9 years of strength and conditioning coaching experience and several diplomas in nutrition and kinesiology. I love this ****! I focus mainly on functional strength, though I do a few amateur strongman competitions too. I don't play rugby any more as I dislocated my shoulder several times and it is too weak and hurts too much. In fact I stopped when I hit my early 30s as it was too much for my body. I still offer some coaching (for strength/performance). But basically I don't do bicep curls, and am a bit of a stickler for form, and good body movement, mobility, and getting the most of out of your body, minimise injuries and fixing poor movement patterns. As long as I can squat and deadlift, that's all I care about I eat well, I don't drink alcohol really, and don't enjoy fast food or processed foods/breads/sugars. Yet I still put away around 4000 cals a day which is about right. When I used to be bigger (I miss it sometimes) I used to hit at least 5k a day - oh how I miss my rugby days! I have done a few posts in the past - can't find them now though, but happy to help if I can. I have a few friends that compete at all sorts of different levels (tested and untested), whilst I'm a natural trainer, and wouldn't touch any "special sauce", I appreciate why some people do and when they do and work hard they get good results. What I can't stand is people that pretend to be natural when they're not - there's nothing wrong with being on gear, just admit it! Good to see so many people here interested in health and fitness, I wouldn't consider bodybuilding to be that health centered as you do tax your body a lot but it is still a aspirational thing to do. There is an underlying narcissistic aspect, but we all have a bit of that within reason. Keep it up, and well done to Chirag on his first comp and good luck for the next one!

The problem is, when you change car, you now either have to find someone buying the car with the same initials as you, or you have to buy another V6 car (I know it's not literally that hard, but y'know!) It always annoys me when I see V10 XXX on a V8 etc, always just makes me think, uh oh, someone had a pay cut recently Of course. But it was cheap and just a bit of fun Admittedly, were I to buy one again, I'd go either via auction to get something random and ageless, or something more reflective of my name/initials.

I went for a boring V6 + initials. Freshens the car a little especially with new plates.