Fitness Questions & Answers - Page 57

On April 01 2012 01:00 billy5000 wrote:
Why would beginners start off close to their 5rm anyway? Doesn't SS recommend starting fairly below your 5rm so you can make progress without injuries as well as working on technique? And from my experience (and others as well), I doubt I could have really "pushed" my CNS when I first started.

On April 01 2012 08:35 FFGenerations wrote:
hi eslhow

i started stretching the last 3 days, doing the stretches advised on tlnation's http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_repair/hardcore_stretching_part_ii

(except with some modifications eg a better calf stretch, adding forearms/wrists)

that is about 16 stretches from calfs to lower back to neck, and i am doing each stretch/bodypart for a count of 40 (about 1 minute).

so that took 55 minutes today (not sure why, 16*2 minutes is only 32 minutes >_> ).
it took 35 mins yesterday but i was only counting to 20 IIRC instead of 40.

1. ideal to do this every day?
2. 55-60 seconds static hold for each bodypart is ideal? or should be much longer?
3. when i sit plainly on floor, and push legs apart, the inside mid of my legs is suuuper tight. the stretch is supposed to do the abductors, but it is really the area around my knees. what is going on here?
+ Show Spoiler +
4. should i add shoulder dislocates to the end of this routine?
5. in shoulder dislocates, should you try to grasp the towel as close as possible, making the shoulder dislocate very very difficult to do, but possible? if so, should you just hold the dislocate half-way (above/slightly behind your head) for as long as possible, instead of just doing easy repeated ones? if so, should i aim for 1 minute hold again? (its very hard but you can make it easier just by widening your grip fractionally)
6. idk if im stretching my hamstrings when i do the hamstring stretch on that webpage. its like the back of my legs, lower and upper i think, so i guess its doing the job. anyway this isnt really a question, more an observation. not really worth reading
7. any other cool stretch i can add since i am already spending 55 mins+ doing it?
8. are the back stretches completely safe? especially the "lats" stretch listed on that website. it feels like a lower back / lower side back stretch to me. also specifically the neck stretches. i get a bit funny about accidently snapping my neck or my back. edit: actually i am not doing that Lat stretch as pictured. i am doing it with an arched/hyperextended back with my ass out and chest up like i am a woman sticking out her ass, and kinda pushing down so it pushes on my back (it feels like an effective stretch but safe?). in the picture he seems to not do that

On April 02 2012 20:41 FFGenerations wrote:
hrm so i can happily cut stretches that dont appear to be useful or effective for me, like triceps stretch (since that isnt a difficult one for me to do). but since my general mobility is that of someone who has sat at a computer for 15 years and who hasnt done any sports for 15 years, it should still be useful for everyday life, everyday injury prevention, and my compound lifts, and for future endeavours (id like to do fighting at some point in the future) to stretch most bodyparts until i personally feel they are okay enough to switch to a maintenance routine (and to look up which are the best stretches for my personal activities such as squat)

like decaf it might seem silly to you to stretch calfs, but i can bend like half an inch forwards before everything is tight as fuck. i guess if you "feel okay" with your mobility then its acceptable, and there is no need to improve it, but until you do then feel free to work it as often as you want..

On April 03 2012 03:23 JingleHell wrote:
I'd rather avoid google since at least here I can limit the selection of anecdotal evidence to choose between, and frankly, google will find you 76 million "scientific best" answers to something that is painfully less scientific than I wish it was.

Does anyone here know a good resource for a Crohn's friendly diet that isn't overly expensive or utterly neurotic? I've been going about it the way my doctor suggests (eat what doesn't make me sick) for the past few years, and it works wonders, but I'm kind of getting pissed with the incessant fatigue and general "feel shittiness" of not exercising enough.

I'm going to be taking TKD (a kid I grew up with back before I joined the Army actually runs the place), and have a hunch that I should clean up my diet a little, but a lot of the typical "healthy" foods don't actually all sit well with Crohn's.

And yes, I'm aware I might sound a little silly talking about getting into a martial art with Crohn's. Rock climbing a couple years ago got me quite the facepalm from my first GI doc back in Colorado.

On April 03 2012 04:11 eshlow wrote:


Paleo.... minus other things that bother your stomach

On April 03 2012 06:45 Daigomi wrote:

As eshlow said, what you should do depends on what your goals are. However, for most beginners looking to gain strength, doing Starting Strength (see the stickies in this forum) will be way more beneficial than what you are currently doing. Most people on TLHF are doing SS with very good results. Personally, I've gone from never having lifted a weight to deadlifting about 1.9x my bodyweight in about 6 months, and the same is true for most people on SS.

On some of the specifics of your post: Experience in the gym is not the same as knowing what you're talking about. Almost every exercise plan ever invented will build muscle over time, but better plans will build muscle more quickly and more time efficiently than worse plans. As you mention, efficiency is what's important for novices. Most of the experienced guys in my gym follow horrible plans for gaining strength, but they're all big because they've been doing it for a very long time. To put it in SC terms, it's like listening to anybody that got 100 wins on the ladder. There are way more bronze/silver/gold players with 100 wins than there are masters players, so having 100 wins is not an indication of skill, it's just an indication of time spent.

Regarding training specific areas of your body, it's something that you should only really be thinking about when you get to bodybuilder size. Once again in SC terms, it's like a bronze player spending a whole day practising his stalker micro, and then the next whole day practising probe splitting... When you're starting out, you want to do exercises that train your whole body, not specific parts. Rather than wasting time doing legcurls (which only train your hamstrings), leg extensions (which only trains your quads [I think]), and crunches (which only train your abs), you want to spend more time doing exercises like squats (which train your hamstrings, quads, abs, as well as every other muscle group in your lower body) or deadlifts. The same goes for all the other isolation exercises suggested in that bodybuilding program.

Regarding not resting muscles for five days, it depends on the exercise. Because SS uses only compound exercises and is done three times a week, there will never be five days when something like your entire upperbody is rested for 5 days. In fact, you'll exercise both your lower and upperbody in every session. However, the exercises are chosen so that the muscles that get strained the most in one session, such as your pecs on the bench press session, are strained less on the next session, when you do overhead press rather than bench. As someone on TL posted the other day (can't remember who, sorry): Lifting heavy things up does't make you stronger, recovery after lifting heavy things up makes you stronger. After a session of deadlifting your max weight, you really need 3-4 days of recovery if you want to gain strength and not injure yourself.

I realise this post is getting long, so I'll close it by quickly giving you a summary of what SS is:

1. You gym three times a week for between 45 minutes and an hour.
2. Every exercise is a compound exercise, so you train your whole body with only a few exercises.
3. Every exercise (except deadlift) is done 3x5 (that is, 3 sets of 5 reps). Deadlift is 1x5.
4. Every time you successfully complete an exercise (that is, finish 3x5), you increase the weight.
5. There are only two sessions which you alternate between: Session A - Squat, Bench, Power Clean; Session B - Squat, Overhead Press, Deadlift.

That's it. You can get more info on SS in the TLHF sticky.

Hopefully that helps

On April 03 2012 07:09 Ahzz wrote:
Alright, thanks a lot for the help, I'll be sure to check SS out.
Yeah I guess now that I think about it, 80 pushups and such are simply endurance and its a bit of a silly goal, and is there only to brag. At the end of the day, I want to feel stronger, build muscle and be able to to control my body the way I wish, and those things do not necessarily mean that. I'll be checking this out for sure. I'm really excited that I might have something somewhat reliable to work out with, instead of going off with a random program I got from google.

Also, I'm sure this has been more or less answered in the stickies, but a quick question:
Recently I've been trying to eat a lot of healthy food along with working out, but are protein shakes necessary after training or so? As I mentioned, I'm a tad skinny (not bad, but I weigh less than I should for my height, so its all about gaining mass, and not so much fat burning, seeing how I probably dont have much fat to burn anyway). I'd prefer to stay all natural food and healthy, but I won't mind taking a simple protein shake that speeds recovery after working out or so.