The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

sub'd need help lol. finally joined the 200 club on bench recently but then skipped the gym for almost 2 weeks. work stress and baby sick but im headed back today to asses the damage and to get the ball rollin again.

 

you weren't kiddin. Damn. Lol.

 

I've always heard that after two weeks of not working out, you start losing power and after 4 weeks, you start losing size, so you should be alright. Just try to hit chest at least once a week and you'll keep making progress. I try to add 5-10 lbs. to my bench a month, which isn't too hard to do at all. I alternate lifting heavy and not-so-heavy every-other-week, as lifting heavy=strength and lifting not-so-heavy=size. Just remember, put enough weight on there so that your last rep makes you feel like you're about to die. Don't do 4 sets of 10 with 25 lbs on each side lol

Ex. heavy chest day:

bench: 4 sets 6-8 reps
incline bench: 4 sets 6-8 reps
decline bench: 4 sets 6-8 reps
pec dec: 4 sets 6-8 reps

light chest day:
bench: 4 sets 8-12 reps
incline bench: 4 sets 8-12 reps
decline bench: 4 sets 8-12 reps
pec dec: 4 sets 8-12 reps

I do tri's with chest, but didn't include that on here. You'll be at 250 on bench in no time!

Told ya I'm drinking one right now with milk. So good and so good at putting some meat on my what-was-once a skinny ass lol

 

You loose strength and size much faster then four weeks. How much depends on a lot of different things. Especially how much extra muscle you're carrying around compared to how much you need for your daily activities when not in the gym.

When I had my shoulder surgery, I lost about 40 lbs in two months. Most of it appeared to go in the later part of the first month. I stopped losing at 145, which is where my skinny self usually sits if I don't lift. I got up to about 160 pretty easily, but was much weaker. Now I usually sit comfortably at 165-170. I haven't got back up to 185 since the surgery (5 years ago) but that's bc my workouts and needs of fitness changed.
185 I was doing a ten minute mile and dying, but all I did was lift.
165-170 I can do sub six minute mile, and 12 miles under 2:30 with 50lbs on my back.
Bf was/is about the same at all weights at sub 10%.


In two weeks you probably lost some strength and muscle. How fast it comes back depends on how long you've been lifting and activity level while away from gym. But I doubt it'll take too long.

 

i usually dont drink anymore.... special occasions but I ALWAYS drink casein before bed... your body needs it... if I go out and i know i wont be eating, I also drink casein... slow digesting carbs

 

I was going off something I read a while back...it was probably wrong lol. I've never gone more than 6-7 days w/o being in the gym, so I can't speak from experience.

 

I've never thought of drinking casein before going out...I'm gonna try it in a few weekends at the UGA LSU tailgate....as for casein before bed, I do that too...either that or cottage cheese. Cottage cheese digests pretty slow, as well. A lot of ppl don't like it, though.

 

i actually do chest a probably 2-3 times a week and when i do chest i only do chest (75% of the time) and i usually start out with the one rep method so its pretty much 6-8 sets if bench press then incline becnh 3 sets decline 3 sets standin chest flys dumbell bench. how i test if i had a good chestwork out is by attempting to do a push up. attempting is the usual lol

 

haha damn! I'm no expert, but I think 3 times a week is a little overkill for a muscle that big. I've always heard for muscles like chest, legs, and back, 2 times a week is borderline over-training. If your muscles don't have time to recover, they're not going to grow. But, I've read a lot about people on here over-training and it works for them. I'm just not a fan. 1 45 min. chest workout a week is all I need.

 

when i came back from my vacation which was 2 month with no real gym, i lost some strength, but it only took about 2 weeks till i got it back and then some. i don't know the science bit of it, but every time i take a long break it usually sucks when i get back into it but a month after i usually break my old PRs.

 

yeah man that way your tummy is full and you wont be enticed to eat that delicious tail gate food haha

Id do cottage cheese but its so easy to down a shake and crash

 

New PR on bench today!

255. Went up 10 lbs in about a month. That 255 was after a 4x4 workout at 60, 70, 80, and 90% of 245 (my previous max). Then we went and did 5x5 on decline, last set at 225.

 

That's what I'm talking about!

 

over training works for me i try to fit everything in atleast twice a week but im good at knowing when my body is truly over training and thats when i usually take a few days off and usually come back stronger lol

noob question. what does "PR" mean?

 

PR means personal record.

 

I took a week and a half off the gym to help a buddy remodel his house. That was a workout in itself. Popcorn ceilings, demo, hauling shit to the dump.

Today will be my first day back: chest, biceps, squats. I think I'll be back on par where I left off.

 

So who has had some good results with back exercises? I want to get some more definition in my back, especially my lats.

The current exercises I usually do is one arm row, pullups, t-bar row, and of course deadlift.

Who has had some decent results with back exercises for putting on muscle mass?

Also, more sets would help get more muscle right? Depending on the reps and obviously not doing 20 sets but say 4-5 sets per exercise a good amount?

 

I've gotten a really nice v just from mixing things up lately... but I also train bi's right after back

warmup - treadmill walk 4mph 3incline and some dynamic stretching
Back-
wide pullup (still warming up) 4 sets of 10 (or more) 60s in between

Bent over Tbar row 3 sets of 15 then a drop set (ds)

close grip front lat pulldown 3 sets of 12 then a ds

straight arm pull down 5 sets of 15

you really want to focus on the mind muscle connection. If you don't feel it in the muscle you're training, then its too heavy. I always do a couple of light reps to feel it in my muscle. Then I go to town...

hope it helps

 

I do a back/biceps day and it looks like this:

Back:
wide grip pull-ups: 4 sets of 10 reps
lat pull down: 4 sets of 10 reps
upright row or t-bar row: 4 sets of 10 reps
bent over row: 4 sets of 10 reps

My biceps workout are isolated and don't hit the back, so I won't add those.

The main thing I'd say is to go heavy: put enough weigh on so that you can only do 6-10 reps before your eyes are about to explode out of your head lol. To emphasize on the lats, do lat pull-downs and wide-grip pull-ups. On the pull-ups, keep your legs straight and don't move them an inch. A lot of people use them for extra thrust, which is cheating. If you can do more than 10 pull-ups without stopping, put on a weighted belt or clinch a dumbbell between your feet.

I pretty much do the same back workout as Kyle (KCDuran), except I do lat pull-downs wide-grip, rather than close-grip and don't do straight arm pull downs b/c they don't work for me. But like he said, focus on the muscle at hand. I can curl 135 with enough moving around, but to actually stand still and only use my biceps, I'd be hopeless. A good way to make sure you're doing all the movements right is, when you get to the top of the movement (right when you're about to go from up to down or vice versa), flex...and if you can't flex for more than a second or so, you're doing it right.

Ex. If you're doing t-bar rows, once you get to the top and you're about to let the bar back down, flex your lats as hard as you can...if your lats are actually doing the lifting, they'll burn like hell and you'll have no choice but to release.

I wasn't getting anything out of skull-crushers until I tried this. Now, I flex at the peak of every exercise I do, just to be sure I'm not cheating myself out of GAINZZZZ