bozodos

already on it

I really can't see myself dropping the bar - it's only 20kg, and I hate Smith machines. Don't bother with calf work, mine are big enough already, and tbh I've never seen anyone get bigger calves apart from being fat or on steroids.

I don't see how a Smith Machine would be of any more use than an empty barbell

Yeah I was trying it with the clean grip - I've never done cleans or any other Olympic lifts before either! I'll try the arms crossed one, I thought it was bad for you though. Failing that, I'll invest in some straps, since the hand placement isn't an important part of the movement

yeah I think I wasn't really thrusting enough at the top of my deadlifts today come to think of it... tried to front squat with just the bar, felt totally unnatural and weird to get it into the right position on the delts. Might have to look up some more instructionals. Did the prescribed reps with regular low bar squats. Not sure if I'll continue with this assistance template once the cycle is finished, as I keep having to modify it.

I'd thought about doing bb glute bridges as an assistance, but I won't due to someone no doubt recording me to put it on Youtube..

my gym dosen't allow any kind of recording or cameras...

bench press comp is on the livestream for FitX http://new.livestream.com/mysportlive/events/2811998

I think the important thing to look at with these sorts of studies is the metadata - i.e. were some of the mice obese, sedentary or active? What sort of diet were they fed specifically? It's no secret that many of the world's oldest living cultures have a carb heavy protein light diet - check out Alan Aragon's dissection of Paleo here - he goes into this phenomena in some detail http://www.nsca.com/uploadedFiles/NSCA/Inactive_Content/Program_Books/PTC_2013_Program_Book/Aragon.pdf

it's more the fact that it's a correlative rather than causative study- the comments I found were in discussion of the Guardian article of pretty much the exact same thing. I used to get wound up by these things, but there's so many health benefits attributed directly to high protein diets that I find this sort of stuff to be quite alarmist.

yeah it's already been picked apart on several other forums I frequent. good thing I'm not a mouse

touch wood I've never had any back issues ever.

good idea, what about lower back?

yeah I'm still a bit torn between Simplest Strength and BBB as Simplest Strength calls for 3x10 sets of ab and lower back work twice a week, and many respected coaches say that situps and back extensions are bad for your back (most of the fancier stuff like ab wheel rollouts I don't have access to and not strong enough for hanging leg raises).

yeah most of the 5x5 stuff comes from way back, you could always have a look at 5/3/1 alternatively.

5 sets of 5, there's a heap of different programs, Markos always used to reccomend it more for lifters beyond the beginner stage, and I'd agree with that. Common examples of programs are: Stronglifts, LP Greyskull, Madcow, Bill Starr's 5x5.

Thanks Nick. I'll look into a belt - my Chuck Taylors are here so at least I'll have some reasonable footwear. I've had a strong squat and legs since I started, lucky I guess. Been agonising over 5/3/1 assistance templates, I decided on Simplest Strength due to it having a squat and deadlift variant more than once a week, and not eating enough to give BBB a hard go

here's a question (possibly for Markos), why do the different Feds use a different apparatus for squatting (racks vs monolift), and is a squat required to be to the same depth in every fed?

no belt or wraps, just chalk. 250/220/140 are the next goals I'm working towards.

I always go below paralell Birds, I try not to have hamstring touch calf though. Still at 120kg or so unfortunately - diet started to get a bit out of hand again lately. Would have liked to got 240kg squat for double bodyweight, but I didn't want to fail it. Can't really remember my starting numbers, they were pretty damn low though - when I started the PTC routine I was benching around 40kg, squatting 100 or so, and deadlifting 80. I had to do dips with ~90kg assistance, which I can now do bodyweight. I've started doing stair / hill runs and sprints to get some conditioning in too.

Did my 1RMs tonight - 230kg squat, 200kg deadlift, 120kg bench, 70kg press. Stoked about it - I hit all the goals I was after, and squatted more than I thought I could. 8 or so months of PTC beginner routine and eating LOTS of protein. Now for my 5/3/1 to begin! Paradoxically the only thing to cure my calf doms was squatting.

you're missing out then!

keep forgetting to make a foam roller

fark still have calf doms from doing stair / hill runs for the first time a few days ago, even the cricket ball can't rub these ones out!

you won't get big man titties unless you're trying to lol.