On May 14 2011 14:17 shinosai wrote: I have a question, I apologize if it's been asked before. Kind of hard to go through 267 pages of pure awesome. One of the things that discourages me from working out is that after a while the burn that you feel the day after seems to go away. This to me is kind of like the sign that says, "Yea, you worked out. Congratulations!" Now my question is two parts: Is this supposed to happen? Or does that just mean my routine isn't hard enough?
And if it's supposed to happen, how can I know if my routine is making progress or if it's not hard enough?
The "burn" (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS) isn't an indicator of progress at all. It's just something that happens when muscles aren't used to being exercised. Once your body begins to adapt to being used in a workout, you will stop being so sore the next day. This doesn't mean that your routine isn't hard enough at all.
There are two ways to tell if your routine is making progress - One, you keep a notebook tracking your bodyweight (try to weight yourself at the same time every day, preferably morning) and of how much you lift for each lift (especially the big compounds) or Two, you watch yourself in the mirror. Maybe even go so far as to take a picture once a week.
If your lifts are growing or your weight is shrinking, or if those pictures are adding up to something that you like better, then you're progressing. Doesn't have a THING to do with soreness.
On May 14 2011 14:17 shinosai wrote: I have a question, I apologize if it's been asked before. Kind of hard to go through 267 pages of pure awesome. One of the things that discourages me from working out is that after a while the burn that you feel the day after seems to go away. This to me is kind of like the sign that says, "Yea, you worked out. Congratulations!" Now my question is two parts: Is this supposed to happen? Or does that just mean my routine isn't hard enough?
And if it's supposed to happen, how can I know if my routine is making progress or if it's not hard enough?
Generally no matter what your body gets used to the motions that you put it through. So it adapts to the "burn" or soreness a little bit and you wind up feeling it less. Take this as a sign that your body is getting used to the activities that it is generally engaged in. This isn't really a bad thing. More like your body is getting used to those muscles firing during your workout and is more efficiently able to handle the stress. Which means you are making progress regardless.
OK. So I'm drunk and all I can think about is how I can improve my lifts next Monday LoL. I have a ton of questions that I'd like to sort through by then. Mostly due to my pretty shitty week of lifting this past week. First of all squats. I noticed this week that a +10 pace for squats everyday might become an issue. I backed off my squats for this week because of a shitty recovery on Tues, and I fudged my nutrition all this week too. I am hesitant to proceed at a +10 pace because of this. Is this a sign that I should be loading at a +5 pace? Or should I load +10 and wait for a fail and reset?
Also bench. I'm terrible at bench press. My arms are stupidly long so benching is by far the hardest workout for me. It feels dumb but at 135lbs I already feel like I need to start micro loading. To give some sort of perspective; my brother is 6'3" and I am 6'00". His arms are pretty damn long even for someone who is so tall and I measured my arms shoulder to wrist and they are a full 2" longer than his LoL. So it took me forever to realize that I need a veeeery wide grip on the bar in order to bench effectively. Does this also affect my loading? Should I just start progressing at 5 or even 2.5 lbs per workout in order to avoid an eventual stall and reset?
And what are the main muscle groups targeted for each type of standard pullup. I've been doing close grip overhand style for the past two weeks with the intention of switching it up every few weeks to hit different muscles a little harder. I'd like to focus on lats. Are wide grip pullups best for lats? What of the 5 main lifts in SS benefit most from lat strength? I assume DL?
As for pullups; my shoulders feel great since I've been doing a ton of close grip style. But my traps are nonexistent. Will concentrating on powercleans eventually lead to trap strength or can I start to think about supplementing it with shrugs? I feel like the weight I pull doing powercleans ATM is nowhere near the amount I'll need to actually start engaging my traps fully.
Man I had a lot more questions but I am forgetting them as I type this. I'll probably wake up tomorrow and remember a ton. Until then any feedback is appreciated!! :D
I wouldn't recommend increasing bench by 10lbs anyways. SS says 5-10lbs, sure, but it's not a realistic jump after, like, a week unless you're gaining muscle mass like crazy.
I started at 135lbs and went up by 10lbs per, but that's just because I knew my bench max was around 200 and didn't want to spend half an hour on the first day figuring out an optimal starting point. And now I think I strained my shoulder doing 195x3x5
What SS variation are you doing that you have powercleans and pullups? and deadlifts. This could definitely slow your progress... unless you're already doing the advanced novice? whatever, I'm just one of those who think you should adhere to program (too) strictly
Standard SS ABA BAB scheme. Only I do 3 quick sets of pullups after my last weight exercise each day.
As for the bench. Yeah, I meant only 2.5 increase. I had been loading +5 and what was happening was I'd have a day where the first set felt like shit so I'd reload at +2.5 and finish my last two sets. Happened twice sofar.
On May 14 2011 23:53 MajinMojo wrote: Standard SS ABA BAB scheme. Only I do 3 quick sets of pullups after my last weight exercise each day.
As for the bench. Yeah, I meant only 2.5 increase. I had been loading +5 and what was happening was I'd have a day where the first set felt like shit so I'd reload at +2.5 and finish my last two sets. Happened twice sofar.
Haha too drunk to remember your increases correctly? I will need to get some 1.25lb weights for my bench when I get back to the gym.
Any particular reason you're adding pullups? Rippetoe would yell at you for not following the program You get to do chinups/pullups in the next program anyways~
On May 14 2011 23:53 MajinMojo wrote: Standard SS ABA BAB scheme. Only I do 3 quick sets of pullups after my last weight exercise each day.
As for the bench. Yeah, I meant only 2.5 increase. I had been loading +5 and what was happening was I'd have a day where the first set felt like shit so I'd reload at +2.5 and finish my last two sets. Happened twice sofar.
Haha too drunk to remember your increases correctly? I will need to get some 1.25lb weights for my bench when I get back to the gym.
Any particular reason you're adding pullups? Rippetoe would yell at you for not following the program You get to do chinups/pullups in the next program anyways~
Main reason for pullups is that I want to increase overall strength with SS lifts but I also have to "cram" for a firefighter's physical coming up in July. So I feel like I need a pullup because I'll have to do shit like climb a wall in 40-60lb gear. It's the most analogous exercise to some of the stuff I'll be doing during the test. Plus as it is I just like doing pullups. I just think it's a great benchmark for my overall progression in strength vs weight gain. I also run 1-2mi every training day but as I've found out that shit is suicide if I try it on a recovery day. Otherwise I'm fine and feeling good by next lifting day. I'd like to be able to maintain at least some level of endurance since the firefighter course is pretty long and intense.
Btw I heard most pros follow a GONBAD diet. Gallon-of-Nerd-Blood-a-Day
Had my second strongman training today. Was pretty good. Started by practicing snatches and boy do I suck at them. Did them from the hang and didn't use any significant weight.
Then we did some axle presses and did 3 sets of 4-5 reps with 60kg. Pretty easy and focusing on getting more leg drive, using thumbless grips and getting proper alignment of the elbows under the wrists.
Next up were famers walks. Stared with pickups (just deadlifted them up and held them in place for 10-20 seconds) at 80kg per hand. Then we did 25m rounds twice. On my first run I dropped then only once because I had the elite of Icelandic strongmen yelling at me not to pussy out lol. Dropped them twice on my second run :/ Having a 185kg, 2m10cm monster yelling at you he is going to finger you if you drop the weights is quite encouraging...
Lastly we did atlas stones. Did two rounds of 3 reps with 90kg stone and they sucked so bad at the beginning. Couldn't get myself properly aligned with the stone so I didn't get any leg drive up. Got a little better towards the end so when I tried 125kg for the heck of it everything clicked right in place and I nailed it!
Also found out I have about 20 t-shirts that are getting unusable because of small size.
haha dont worry everyone sucks at snatches :D (except dim) Strongman shit sounds crazy, its awesome you get to train with some of the most elite strongmen though.
Felt good to finally have a relatively easy squatting weight for once. During the last 10 workouts I thought everytime I would fail, but I didn't, and the weights just got heavier. Found that pretty exhausting mentally to be honest. That being said, the first two sets still sucked ass, last one felt very good. Press is a grind, like every workout, but maybe I have a couple more increases in me. Rows are getting hard right now also.
Power Cleans were decent I guess. 60kg is not challenging at all and I got every single rep easily, with Hook-grip and thigh-touching, so that was good. But it still feels that my arms are pulling too much. At some point I really need to spend some money for a camera.
Wow. This is strange. Ever since my surgery the skin has been stuck to my back in places with scar tissue. But my muscles are enlarging enough it's pushing them off the skin. Quite painful, but good nonetheless,
On May 15 2011 08:55 Froadac wrote: Wow. This is strange. Ever since my surgery the skin has been stuck to my back in places with scar tissue. But my muscles are enlarging enough it's pushing them off the skin. Quite painful, but good nonetheless,
That's great man... mobilizing and breaking up scar tissue is always good. Will help improve performance too
On May 15 2011 08:55 Froadac wrote: Wow. This is strange. Ever since my surgery the skin has been stuck to my back in places with scar tissue. But my muscles are enlarging enough it's pushing them off the skin. Quite painful, but good nonetheless,
That's great man... mobilizing and breaking up scar tissue is always good. Will help improve performance too
Hmmm, how exactly does it work?
Also, not sure if you'd be able to help at all with this: it's stumped phsicians.
I have a scar from a procedure from July of two years ago. It's still bright red.
it fluctuates between just a mild pink, and a dark red. It's hard to tell why. Doctors are clueless.
EPT
