On September 11 2011 18:43 emjaytron wrote: One question for the serious lifters out there, what's a good solution for grip strength issues (I've been losing grip on the bar in deadlifts towards the end of my sets.)
1. Chalk. It makes all the difference in the world. After I first used it, my Deadlift went up by 20kg within two weeks and my grip felt no longer shitty.
2. I like doing high-rep Dumbbell Rows (high-rep meaning 10 in my case, you surely can go to 12-15 if you want to). The last reps have to be really hard. That was an idea I read from Jim Wendler some time ago and I feel it helps. Farmers Walks for holding something heavy with focus on conditioning instead of an additional exercise should work too.
3. Also a very easy fix, just hang from a Chin/Pull-Up bar until you can't hold it any longer. If you are pretty light, you probably have to do that weighted though. I actually love doing this and it really works the forearms.
On September 11 2011 17:52 BouBou.865 wrote: Question: I can go about paralel whilst keeping my lowerback really tight. I can obviously go lower if I let it bend. Is it better to go ass to grass with a non-tight lower back or go paralel with a tight back?
Also how do I stretch my legs (quads?) to allow me to go ATG with a tight lower back?
Aaaaand how often should I do stretches for powercleans? Once a day, hold for 10 secs? Twice a day? Eschlow linked me a crazy complicated source a bit ago, didn't get that at all, sorry
No, only go as far down as you can have good form.
Stretch your calves, and hamstrings. Those are generally the two problem areas. Youtube some stretches for those.
Stretches for powercleans? o_O
On September 11 2011 18:43 emjaytron wrote: Hi guys I've just been having a look through the last 10 pages or so, haven't posted here yet but think I might be able to help people out sometimes.
I'm a postgrad physiotherapy student so if you have any questions about injuries or specific anatomy/biomechanics stuff I can probably help you.
Personally, I'm 18 months on from a major knee operation. Back to squatting 120kg (250lb? not sure on the conversion), powercleaning 70kg (150lb?), and deadlifting 100kg.
One question for the serious lifters out there, what's a good solution for grip strength issues (I've been losing grip on the bar in deadlifts towards the end of my sets.)
Hah, finally another PT related person so I don't have to do all of the injury advice here. :p
As stated before, some specific grip work is usually good.
Always double overhand deadlifts and such until you reach the point of failure. Then if you can keep going up in weight go mixed grip. But yeah, definitely some dedicated grip work will be a good idea.
Is it really true that intermittent fasting doesn't stunt muscle growth? I wanna lose a lot of body fat but at the same time I eventually wanna hit huge numbers on the big compounds (the big three + the overhead press).
On September 11 2011 18:43 emjaytron wrote: Hi guys I've just been having a look through the last 10 pages or so, haven't posted here yet but think I might be able to help people out sometimes.
I'm a postgrad physiotherapy student so if you have any questions about injuries or specific anatomy/biomechanics stuff I can probably help you.
Personally, I'm 18 months on from a major knee operation. Back to squatting 120kg (250lb? not sure on the conversion), powercleaning 70kg (150lb?), and deadlifting 100kg.
One question for the serious lifters out there, what's a good solution for grip strength issues (I've been losing grip on the bar in deadlifts towards the end of my sets.)
Welcome aboard! What kind of knee troubles did you have?
On September 11 2011 11:10 infinity21 wrote: think he's referring to this
The infamous pussypad. I spotted it once in my gym. Then it got hidden away and never returned.
I had traction apophysitis - effectively where my patella tendon inserts into my tibia was tearing away ever so slowly (from playing volleyball). I was doing 140kg squats (i'm 70kg) but not quite to parallel.
Since I had surgery to repair the tendon, I had to rebuild my squat technique, not to mention my entire quads (it helped that I was learning injury management stuff at the time) starting with much lower weight and focusing on full range squats/single leg squats. I understand knees a hell of a lot better for it now haha.
For the grip thing I'm going to try the hookgrip (i'm guess this is one hand over/one under?). we'll see how it goes.
It's interesting being a physio in here since I'm not so experienced with serious weightlifting or bodybuilding, we do far more postural strength stuff and rehabilitation.
edit- some people have a really prominent spine on their C7 vertebrae (like me), so the pussy pad has its uses.
On September 11 2011 22:13 emjaytron wrote: I had traction apophysitis - effectively where my patella tendon inserts into my tibia was tearing away ever so slowly (from playing volleyball). I was doing 140kg squats (i'm 70kg) but not quite to parallel.
Since I had surgery to repair the tendon, I had to rebuild my squat technique, not to mention my entire quads (it helped that I was learning injury management stuff at the time) starting with much lower weight and focusing on full range squats/single leg squats. I understand knees a hell of a lot better for it now haha.
For the grip thing I'm going to try the hookgrip (i'm guess this is one hand over/one under?). we'll see how it goes.
It's interesting being a physio in here since I'm not so experienced with serious weightlifting or bodybuilding, we do far more postural strength stuff and rehabilitation.
edit- some people have a really prominent spine on their C7 vertebrae (like me), so the pussy pad has its uses.
ouch! I've had my share of knee troubles and had to get a surgery to fix my left one. Rehab was painfully boring to say the least.
Hook-grip is when you do a regular double overhand grip on the bar but lock your thumbs under the other fingers.
What you are referring to is mixed-grip, a personal favourite of mine.
I have a relatively prominent C7 but just placing the bar lower fixed that issue for me. The consistency you get from having the bar only outweighs the slight discomfort from not having the pad.
On September 10 2011 01:40 phyre112 wrote: @Eshlow: I'm still having a problem with both my right and left shoulders - it started with just the left, but now get the occasional twinge in my right as well, so I assume I've been doing some "compensating" with my right on bench press and other related exercises.
Started in my left about a month ago, just a little Twinge when I would bench press heavy. It's slowly gotten worse, which, considering I haven't backed off on it (if anything I'm working harder) isn't surprising. An extremely dull pain is now present any time I attempt to extend the left arm forward, such as right now when I type at a keyboard. If I do so with the elbows "spread" (parallel with the floor if I'm standing) It's much more severe than if I have them "tucked" (proper bench pressing form). The farther the bench pressing motion goes, the worse the pain is.
Image above is a very.... general overview of what hurts. The pain is concentrated in the center of the front deltoid, I assume being where the Humerus fits into the shoulder joint. I haven't quite gotten to the anatomy of the shoulder yet in my textbooks - give me a week =p. When I try to complete a pressing motion, the pain is through the entirety of my front delt and upper trapezius muscles.
Bench pressing, or a similar unweighted motion is what hurts. It doesn't get significantly worse with added weight. Overhead pressing is fine, rowing is fine, pullups and chinups are fine. Power cleans are fine as long as I manage to actually get under the bar in time.
Since this all started when I tried bench pressing 4x/week (wanted to hit BW bench by the end of summer) I was operating on the assumption that it was just a bursitis type thing - I've dealt with that in several other joints (knee, knuckles, elbow) before with rest, advil/alieve, and ice. My shoulder isn't responding to that right now though, and I'm going to have a hell of a time getting through my first "real" rugby practice on monday if I can't figure it out. Any advice you have would be fantastic. I'm not completely resting it right now - benching once a week at most, but doing LOTS of overhead stuff (jerks, push press, high incline bench) which doesn't bother me at all, as well as a lot of rowing (I would say I have 1.5x the volume of "pull" around my shoulder joint that I do "push".)
If its not the pectoral tendon (you should be able to tell by feeling it) then I would be inclined to look at a supraspinatus tendon impingement. Supraspinatus has the muscle belly pretty much directly under your upper trap, and the tendon is deep under your deltoid. If your scapula tilts forward when you benchpress you could be jamming the tendon between the acromion (top outer corner of your scapula), and the humerus itself.
The odd thing with that is you seem to be okay overhead.... with that injury i'd expect you not to be.
Aother culprit could be pec minor? its just under the pec major, but instead of moving your whole arm it just pulls your scapula forward relative to your ribcage
test for supraspinatus to test pec minor, lie on your back and get someone to push down on your bad shoulder with your arms by your sides, pinning your chest in place with the other hand.
edit- I think someone mentioned subscapularis too, could be it
whoafff my legs are really sore today, feel like i will perform weak tomorrow and not be able to squat as much as I did the first day =p time will show though.
On September 11 2011 22:48 DoNotDisturb wrote: Hey guys, I'm a skinny ass 17 year old male who's looking to start hitting the gym, but first I'd like to start gaining weight (I'm about 47-49kg).
Any tips for diet habits, those weight gainers or such?
Get Starting Strength, everything, EVERYTHING is in there. We do motivation, SS does the rest
On September 11 2011 22:48 Earll wrote: whoafff my legs are really sore today, feel like i will perform weak tomorrow and not be able to squat as much as I did the first day =p time will show though.
worry not.
by the time you're done with your first warm up sets, your legs will be ready to go.
Learn to embrace that soreness it's just a quick reminder of your body that you are making changes to it, and that it wants more! .
On September 11 2011 22:48 DoNotDisturb wrote: Hey guys, I'm a skinny ass 17 year old male who's looking to start hitting the gym, but first I'd like to start gaining weight (I'm about 47-49kg).
Any tips for diet habits, those weight gainers or such?
Muscle won't grow unless it's used, fed and rested. So the earlier you can get in the gym (and start practicing basic technique) the better. As for putting on weight before you go to the gym, well, fat doesn't magically become muscle I'm sorry to say.
On September 11 2011 22:48 DoNotDisturb wrote: Hey guys, I'm a skinny ass 17 year old male who's looking to start hitting the gym, but first I'd like to start gaining weight (I'm about 47-49kg).
Any tips for diet habits, those weight gainers or such?
eat a ton, drink 4 liters of milk per day. gaining weight is easy if you can, eat paleo (see op for more info on that). if not, just try to eat as cleanly as possible (minmal junk food etc)
On September 11 2011 22:48 DoNotDisturb wrote: Hey guys, I'm a skinny ass 17 year old male who's looking to start hitting the gym, but first I'd like to start gaining weight (I'm about 47-49kg).
Any tips for diet habits, those weight gainers or such?
On September 11 2011 11:35 infinity21 wrote: haha nothing against the skinny kids. at least they do the chin-ups The big guys are probably ashamed that they can only do 3 or think they're hot shit doing like 10 quarter-ups
I actually find chin-ups pretty easy even though I weight 160lbs and have only a 70lb bar curl. But wide grip pull-ups, man those are ridiculous, I'd be more proud of doing 15 of those than deadlifting 500lbs.
rather be able to do both
Working on it, doing a solid 40lb assist for 10-12 right now. How many can you do?
For wide-grip i think most i've gotten is 12-15 (bodyweight) and deadlift is 500+
On September 11 2011 21:36 Metallingus wrote: Is it really true that intermittent fasting doesn't stunt muscle growth? I wanna lose a lot of body fat but at the same time I eventually wanna hit huge numbers on the big compounds (the big three + the overhead press).
It does not increase muscle loss. The only thing that increases muscle loss is not eating enough protein without enough calories or in the absence of a stress on the muscles.
IF can be stressful on the body if you're trying to lose weight and lifting heavy though which is why I generally don't recommend trying to do both IF and lift heavy at the same time.
On September 11 2011 22:13 emjaytron wrote: I had traction apophysitis - effectively where my patella tendon inserts into my tibia was tearing away ever so slowly (from playing volleyball). I was doing 140kg squats (i'm 70kg) but not quite to parallel.
Since I had surgery to repair the tendon, I had to rebuild my squat technique, not to mention my entire quads (it helped that I was learning injury management stuff at the time) starting with much lower weight and focusing on full range squats/single leg squats. I understand knees a hell of a lot better for it now haha.
For the grip thing I'm going to try the hookgrip (i'm guess this is one hand over/one under?). we'll see how it goes.
It's interesting being a physio in here since I'm not so experienced with serious weightlifting or bodybuilding, we do far more postural strength stuff and rehabilitation.
edit- some people have a really prominent spine on their C7 vertebrae (like me), so the pussy pad has its uses.
I have the same thing, except it was already bad from osgood schlatter's. However, fortunately mine isn't bad enough that I require surgery but it can get irritated easily if I overdo exercise.
Also, you need to squeeze scaps back to create a shelf of muscle for the bar. That makes it so it doesn't sit on the C7. I have an extemely prominent C7 too and it doesn't bother it if you make the shelf of muscle correctly.
On September 10 2011 01:40 phyre112 wrote: @Eshlow: I'm still having a problem with both my right and left shoulders - it started with just the left, but now get the occasional twinge in my right as well, so I assume I've been doing some "compensating" with my right on bench press and other related exercises.
Started in my left about a month ago, just a little Twinge when I would bench press heavy. It's slowly gotten worse, which, considering I haven't backed off on it (if anything I'm working harder) isn't surprising. An extremely dull pain is now present any time I attempt to extend the left arm forward, such as right now when I type at a keyboard. If I do so with the elbows "spread" (parallel with the floor if I'm standing) It's much more severe than if I have them "tucked" (proper bench pressing form). The farther the bench pressing motion goes, the worse the pain is.
Image above is a very.... general overview of what hurts. The pain is concentrated in the center of the front deltoid, I assume being where the Humerus fits into the shoulder joint. I haven't quite gotten to the anatomy of the shoulder yet in my textbooks - give me a week =p. When I try to complete a pressing motion, the pain is through the entirety of my front delt and upper trapezius muscles.
Bench pressing, or a similar unweighted motion is what hurts. It doesn't get significantly worse with added weight. Overhead pressing is fine, rowing is fine, pullups and chinups are fine. Power cleans are fine as long as I manage to actually get under the bar in time.
Since this all started when I tried bench pressing 4x/week (wanted to hit BW bench by the end of summer) I was operating on the assumption that it was just a bursitis type thing - I've dealt with that in several other joints (knee, knuckles, elbow) before with rest, advil/alieve, and ice. My shoulder isn't responding to that right now though, and I'm going to have a hell of a time getting through my first "real" rugby practice on monday if I can't figure it out. Any advice you have would be fantastic. I'm not completely resting it right now - benching once a week at most, but doing LOTS of overhead stuff (jerks, push press, high incline bench) which doesn't bother me at all, as well as a lot of rowing (I would say I have 1.5x the volume of "pull" around my shoulder joint that I do "push".)
If its not the pectoral tendon (you should be able to tell by feeling it) then I would be inclined to look at a supraspinatus tendon impingement. Supraspinatus has the muscle belly pretty much directly under your upper trap, and the tendon is deep under your deltoid. If your scapula tilts forward when you benchpress you could be jamming the tendon between the acromion (top outer corner of your scapula), and the humerus itself.
The odd thing with that is you seem to be okay overhead.... with that injury i'd expect you not to be.
Aother culprit could be pec minor? its just under the pec major, but instead of moving your whole arm it just pulls your scapula forward relative to your ribcage
test for supraspinatus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjHOqydDhxo to test pec minor, lie on your back and get someone to push down on your bad shoulder with your arms by your sides, pinning your chest in place with the other hand.
edit- I think someone mentioned subscapularis too, could be it
I do not think it's pectoral tendon b/c pec would also be irritated going overhead (due to clavicular head of pec pulling on the tendon). Likewise, so would supraspinatus. If it was impingement it would also hurt going overhead moreso than the bench press motion.
I don't think pec minor fits either since if that was tight it would be more aggravated going overhead like the above structures b/c if it's tight and irritated it wouldn't like elongated for upward rotation & superior translation of the scapula.
If it's something it's probably subscap (due to external rotation going overhead probably not going to aggravate it) and bench has a bunch of subscap for stabilization. Since it's deep it could be that or it could be something capsular or labral related. Usually anterior part of the shoulder and deeper is biceps tendon but pulling exercises don't hurt so it's probably not that.
Achy and gets better during the day usually means it's tendonosis or capsular/cartilage/labrum type related stuff and not usually muscle belly so it's probably not a strain of some sort. No shooting/radiating/burning pains so that probably rules out some sort of thoracic outlet syndrome or other nerve impingement.
Generally, do not like dull persistent pains because that tends to mean labrum-ish issues. I mean, in most cases if flexibility of shoulder structures is poor general mobility type work can help to start fix the problem, but it's better to get a diagnosis from an ortho/pt for this.
This is actually one of the fewer cases where it's hard to narrow things down since there isn't a lot of movements that hurt with the place it hurts that make a lot of sense for certain structures. That's why ortho or PT is a very good idea in this case.
I'm generally pretty good with "internet diagnostics" for extremities (shoulder -> hand, hip -> foot) but this one has thrown me for a loop. o_o
On September 11 2011 21:36 Metallingus wrote: Is it really true that intermittent fasting doesn't stunt muscle growth? I wanna lose a lot of body fat but at the same time I eventually wanna hit huge numbers on the big compounds (the big three + the overhead press).
It does not increase muscle loss. The only thing that increases muscle loss is not eating enough protein without enough calories or in the absence of a stress on the muscles.
IF can be stressful on the body if you're trying to lose weight and lifting heavy though which is why I generally don't recommend trying to do both IF and lift heavy at the same time.
But you can try it.
Thanks eshlow. I think I'll forego IF for now, getting my numbers up is more important to me at this point and I think that as long as I keep my nutrition clean and add assistance work to my routine the fat will go down by itself.
EPT
What kind of knee troubles did you have?![[image loading]](http://www.treadmillfactory.ca/product_images/1306248623-1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://doubleyourgains.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/hookgrip.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/shouldere.jpg/)
