How OFTEN do you SWITCH EXERCISES?

[Mad Max]

A hip-slead is a machine that you sit in at about a 90 degree angle. Your feet point towards the ceiling kind of. Your feet are place on a flat platform about 2 by 2. The weight is lowered by 2 railes that the platform is connected to.
A hacksquat is something you stand in that has shoulder pads and the weights go on the outside and it is a guided movement that you sqaut down to do. Most gyms have both of these.
---PEACE---Mad Max

 

[c3bodybuilding]

I'm curious why this hasn't been moved to the training bored yet. Thats where it belongs....

 

[Girlwonder]

A hip-slead is a machine that you sit in at about a 90 degree angle. Your feet point towards the ceiling kind of. Your feet are place on a flat platform about 2 by 2. The weight is lowered by 2 railes that the platform is connected to.
A hacksquat is something you stand in that has shoulder pads and the weights go on the outside and it is a guided movement that you sqaut down to do. Most gyms have both of these.
---PEACE---Mad Max

Ok thanks

 

[Debaser]

That ain't it.

The reason you're weaker is the reason it's effective.

When you stick with one exercise, the body adapts and becomes more efficient at performing it. That's why if you want to bench more weight, you practice benching, not developing the pecs. In order for a muscle to grow it must work harder, not easier.

You need to choose whether you want to be strong or muscular. Sure, when you get muscular you get stronger and when you get stronger you get more muscular, but they're side effects of each other. It's possible to be good at one and not very good at the other.

The muscle doesn't care what the weight is. It only knows stress.

(BTW: Lot's of people will disagree with this, but they're wrong).

Damn I guess I better tell doggcrapp, who is now over 300 lbs, to quit training for strength because it won't make him any bigger.

And those powerlifters who can squat over 1000, tell them to haul their tiny physiques and chicken legs out of here, and stop concentrating on getting stronger on the big basic lifts, because all they're doing is practicing them!

Size is a biproduct of strength. Period. If you are deadlifting 100 lbs now and in 5 years you deadlift 600 lbs, you will have gained some serious size along the way. Before some smartass talks about the one guy they know that weighs 40 lbs and can bench 700, this is referring to someone that is not a genetic strength anomaly, and is not eating to stay in a lower weight class.

I'm curious to know, before you started your first cycle, what were your bench (or dip), squat, and deadlift poundages? And what are they now?

 

[Nelson Montana]

Debaser: You missed the point completely. I think this happened once before. You read half the post and draw a conclusion based on that. Read it again.

Also, just because someone is BIGGER, doesn't mean they're more muscular. Sure, you can train heavy, eat like a horse and take a ton of gear and grow like crazy. But I've seen an awful lot of big strong blobs. I've also know some strong motherfucers who weren't real muscular. And yes, there are small guys who can outlift guys 100 pounds heavier. Shit, look at those strongman competitions. Those guys are big, but a lot of them don't have much of a body.

You're asking me about my lifts? What does that matter? I never trained for maximum lifts. I will say this: In the quest for a better looking body my squat tripled. And that was in my 30's -- totally natural.
My bench always sucked. When I dipped into the juice it started coming around, then I blew my shoulder out. (Let that be a lesson to me). I was able to do around 25 dips though. Today, at age 49, I have no desire to impress anyone with how much weight I can lift. I just want to look good and feel good. And I do.

 

[Debaser]

DC is pretty lean. Not contest shape but he says he can always see his intercostals and the line down the middle of his abs year round.

The reason I asked you about your lifts:

Stuart McRobert and several others have always advocated the 300-400-500 guideline. He says that in general, the 5'9" male once he reaches 300 lb bench, 400 lb squat, and 500 lb deadlift he will have reached around 190 lbs at 10% bodyfat. Isn't this right around where you are at except you took gear to get there? Not a slam but I think you just were not training correctly. You were focused on the wrong ideals instead of increasing your strength in the big basic lifts. If you increased your strength to those levels you would have seen significant physique changes. Realgains "proper steroid free training" post on the women's board is a really good read and reflects his own knowledge on the subject.

 

[Nelson Montana]

I've spoken with Stu and agree with a lot of what he says. But he sometimes falls ino the same mistaken mentality of many other strength coahes. They simply don't take into account that there are "hardgainers." (They don't want to bother with people who dont make good gains -- doesn't look good to show your methods don't work o everybody. It's easier to dismiss them) Strength coaches and guys like Stu will say the "hardgainer" is a myth and those people just don't train correctly. That's ridiculous. If that were the case, why can't all women get as strong as men? Why can't someone 80 years old get as ripped as someone 25? Hormones you say? No shit. So how can someone with a T level of 400 grow as much as someone with a T level of 800?

And that's just a PART of the puzzle. There's mitochordia selection. Prepensity towards nitrogen retention. RBC count.% of fast twith fibers vs slow twitch. Tendon insertion. Adaptation abilities. The list goes on and on.

I used to think the same thing about musical ability. I felt that as long as someone practiced enough they'd get better and better. But after teaching music for years I can say with all conviction, the truth is, some people just aren't as talanted as others. And no matter how much they practce they'll only get to a certain ability before leveling off. In the same sense, some people simply don't have the sufficient muscle fiber to grow as well as others, no matter how hard and how heavy they train.

Yes, I wasn't training correctly for years. I trained mostly the way you advocate. It isn't like you're informing me of something I didn't think of in 20 years. I thought, like everyone else, that the stronger I got, the more muscular I'd get. But I kept hitting a wall -- as is the case with thousands of other people. Then I learned that a hardgainer must train in a completely different fashion. Once I figured out how to do that best, that's when I started growing.

Had I done this in my 20's, who knows how much of a difference it would have made?
But I get a sense of redemption by being able to help others. Most every day I get letters from people who say they wish they read my book soonner. They could have saved a lot of time and a lot of money.

So that's what I do. And if I do say so myself, it's more meaningful than being able to lift another 50 pounds.

 

[Debaser]

That post strikes me as somewhat odd, considering Stuart McRobert pretty much made the term "Hardgainer" popular and even has a magazine called "Hardgainer" with 80+ issues and his style of training is referred to as "hardgainer training." So I doubt he will tell you that the term hardgainer is a myth. As a fan of Stuart it doesn't even sound like you are talking about him.

This training is a solution for those who are genetically average or below (though will still work wonders for the genetic elite). That's why it was created in the first place. Do you think you have worse genetics than THIS guy? I've never heard of a man, short of a quadrapeligic that was less suited for lifting. 6'3", 140 lbs wet, severe scoliosis, displaced hip, rounding of the shoulders, less than 6" wrist, 39" inseam and 36" sleeve. And he put on 72 lbs in 5 years. Now enlighten me on how this training supposedly doesn't work for "hardgainers."

 

[promet1]

Every 4 Weeks I change one in each muscle group....

 

[powerforward]

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