Your favourite gym exercise

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Schism said:
Overhand,shoulder width grip (which would equal wide grip for most people :D:D),bent at around 45 degrees or sometimes lower,depending on how my lower back is feeling at the time. I can't do underhand with any real weight,kills my wrists.

I'm not sure how people can do pendlays or almost 90 degree bent rows,it is physically impossible for me.I'm of the opinion that around 45 or slightly lower is perfect anyway,targets the upper middle back nicely. To me,pendlay style is the same as seated cable rows with the straight bar.
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im assuming that when you say 90 degree bent rows, you mean the torso is simply parallel to the floor. the description of a '90 degrees' can incorrectly lead someone to take it as completing the exercise with straight legs which would definately put a whole lot of stress on the lower back. pendlays are done 'near parallel' to the floor, but with a wide stance, knees bent and the arse out, and not leaning forward. its tremendously important to have a slight arch or concave in the lower back. the actual angle of the hip should be far more acute than 90 degrees due to the bent knees. i know you know this, others probably dont.

the hip angle might be similar to a seated cable, but i wouldnt say they are anywhere near the same. the fact that a lifter is standing while doing pendlays, is pulling from the floor, generally has a wider grip, and is attempting to pull powerfully through the body and return the weight with minimal body movement distinguishes this from the seated cable. we're sacrificing a great stretch of the lats and focusing more on the strength to pull that weight off the floor using without the use of legs.

when i do bent bar rows, i generally do them the same as you and whomb.......around 45 degrees, making sure to keep the bar as close to the body as to not put unneeded stress on the lower back and really driving the elbows back and contracting the shoulder blades. if i cant do this, then i know im using too much weight. but i prefer doing pendlays.

now that ive finished another football season, im taking December off and will get back into the lifiting in Jan. basically, i periodise my lifiting during the year around football.

dec - no strenuous lifiting, bit of rehab.
jan to mar - general strength and hypertrophy (yes there's bodybuilding here)......very little conditioning.
apr to jun - max strength and power (when i really start to enjoy lifiting again).....begin conditioning and speed/agility work.
jul to aug - football specific.....team practices.
sep to nov - maintenance lifting.....in season.

does anyone else......schism, whomb, james (we seem to be the only ones here now :eek:) have any structure to their lifting? or is it just get in there and simply changing it up every 6 weeks or so. and what about deloading weeks? i find these extremely beneficial every 5 to 6 weeks and feel stronger and improve my lifts after one of these weeks. anyone else do it, believe in it, feel the same?
 
mcgarnacle said:
does anyone else......schism, whomb, james (we seem to be the only ones here now :eek:) have any structure to their lifting? or is it just get in there and simply changing it up every 6 weeks or so. and what about deloading weeks? i find these extremely beneficial every 5 to 6 weeks and feel stronger and improve my lifts after one of these weeks. anyone else do it, believe in it, feel the same?
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I've just come back from a 6-month hiatus. my philosophy with bodybuilding is not to get too caught up in the exact science of it. I prefer to do four basic sessions a week, trying to cover the body parts that i feel need the most attention. i don't have a set structure, as then it becomes more of a chore for me. as long as i'm making progress i'm happy. my back is really strong and developed, so it's usually my last priority. some people focus on strength, some focus on mass - i sort of sway back and forth and try to keep both areas balanced.

as for diet - i try to do the right things but again i'm not maniacally strict. i like takeaway, but i try to limit myself to healthier alernatives most of the time. i don't count calories, i just have a rough guess of whether or not i'm eating enough of the right stuff.

i'm a business analyst, i work fulltime, and i work hard mentally every day. i'm career-driven, i have a girlfriend who likes to have my attention, so sometimes lifting iron gets neglected. i just do my best. and i bloody love it.

as for your question - breaks are absolutely essential. i'd recommend at least a 2 week break every six months, just from personal experience. you come back and your body is rested and more ready to move to the next level. :thumbsu:
 
mcgarnacle said:
does anyone else......schism, whomb, james (we seem to be the only ones here now :eek:) have any structure to their lifting? or is it just get in there and simply changing it up every 6 weeks or so. and what about deloading weeks? i find these extremely beneficial every 5 to 6 weeks and feel stronger and improve my lifts after one of these weeks. anyone else do it, believe in it, feel the same?
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My deloading/rest weeks usually turn into 6 months:cool:. When training regularly i do a 4 day split. Chest,back,arms,shoulders. Injuries prevent me doing much real leg work so i sort of just throw in bits and pieces here and there on any of the 4 days. Assuming i have the discipline, then yeah i would take a week or even 2 weeks off every 3 months or so,if i trained non-stop for years. That, and a 4 day split gives the body plenty of time to rest and grow.

Again,due to injuries or just general dodginess in the joints, i don't mix it up a whole lot because i've nailed down exactly what i'm capable of and i stick to it.Although i do things like going light/endurance weights for a couple weeks here and there, light speed deads instead of heavy deads once a month,stuff like that.

So my lifting is very structured. It's walk in,ipod on,ignore everyone and everything and it's all over usually in about 30-40 minutes,except back day. At 31,experimenting in the gym is old news. I know what works for me and thanks to genetics it works well. There is stuff i'd like to do but can't at the moment-heavy squats,dumbell flyes,dips and chins,but shit happens:)
 

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Chest, back, shoulders, legs, sometimes arms. A lot of lifting is fairly new to me, I only really started up a year ago after I started up footy after a bout of glandular fever that was pretty horrendous and resulted in me losing a lot of weight in the orignal breakout then gaining a lot in the resultant 2 and a bit months of bedriddeness. Got into a preseason game and was spectacularly gimped around the field by a player 2 years younger than me. Thought "well **** that for a joke" and got into it.

I'm up to 85kg about now and bar my depressingly small bench I feel I'm progressing not too shabbily as I can usually hold my own in marking contests
 
mcgarnacle said:
does anyone else......schism, whomb, james (we seem to be the only ones here now :eek:) have any structure to their lifting? or is it just get in there and simply changing it up every 6 weeks or so. and what about deloading weeks? i find these extremely beneficial every 5 to 6 weeks and feel stronger and improve my lifts after one of these weeks. anyone else do it, believe in it, feel the same?
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my routine is pretty structured, but at the same time i'm not against flexibility. i (permitting work, uni etc) go to the gym monday, wednesday, friday and either of saturday/sunday. my days are broken up into chest/abs, biceps/triceps, back, shoulders/legs, and i work the same thing for each day (i.e. chest/abs monday) for about 5-6 weeks before resting it for a week (give-or-take a few days) and switching the days around (i.e. chest/abs to the friday of next week). that's my equivalent of 'rest weeks', as it gives particular body parts time off, but that way i don't get the non-gym-day itches i always seem to get, as i'm still working out somehow. if that makes sense.

i actually haven't tried deloading weeks; about every 2 months i'll do a week of completely the same routine, except with a heavier weight and less reps, just to shock the muscles, i guess. i'm with james_omahoney in that i try not to get too scientific (although with my expanding knowledge it's getting harder to ignore), i just do what works best for me. earlier this year i tried out a '2day on/1 day off/2 day on etc' split, and found that i was constantly tired, sore and even losing mass from overtraining. so i've finetuned what works best for me.
i also mix up exercises whenever i start to feel myself lagging (probably just as much mental as it is physical), for example i'll switch from lat pulldowns & bent-rows to wide-grip chinups & t-bar rows.

i don't schedule time off to rest, for as already mentioned, and also because i'm a 20-year-old with an active social life, so every so often something will pop up that works out to be my time off (for example, falls festival this year will keep me away for about a week), and i feel this works for both my body and my mental drive.

that's all i have to say about that. :eek:
 
.Shotties. said:
Chest, back, shoulders, legs, sometimes arms. A lot of lifting is fairly new to me, I only really started up a year ago after I started up footy after a bout of glandular fever that was pretty horrendous and resulted in me losing a lot of weight in the orignal breakout then gaining a lot in the resultant 2 and a bit months of bedriddeness. Got into a preseason game and was spectacularly gimped around the field by a player 2 years younger than me. Thought "well **** that for a joke" and got into it.

I'm up to 85kg about now and bar my depressingly small bench I feel I'm progressing not too shabbily as I can usually hold my own in marking contests
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Who cares what you bench,it is largely down to genetics. Some guys are freaks on bench, others are piss weak.I can close grip bench almost as much as normal bench, that isn't normal, but that is just they way i am built. If you bench is a bit weak,chances are you have a talent for some other lift. It might be deads,or rows,or tri pushdowns,who knows?You'll surprise yourself one day.
 
Jesus, I tell you what, you can get shocked some times. Been training pretty freqently, and you get the feeling you're getting stronger, doing functional strength work and everything, but I went for a surf for the first time in a few weeks today and everythings so just shattered.

Legs, chest, back shoulders all blitzed. Can't remember when I was so sore last.
 
Been doing a full body workout 3 times a week for about 2 months, as I haven't been able to get in every day.

Thinking about changing it to a split routine. Got a recommendation to break it up into Mondays-Upper body(Chest, back, shoulders, bis, tris) Wednesdays- Lower Body(lowerback/legs) Fridays-Upper again. Then the reverse the next week. What do you reckon?

The full body workout seemed to be working pretty well as I've put on about 5-7 kilos.
 
Juddy88 said:
Been doing a full body workout 3 times a week for about 2 months, as I haven't been able to get in every day.

Thinking about changing it to a split routine. Got a recommendation to break it up into Mondays-Upper body(Chest, back, shoulders, bis, tris) Wednesdays- Lower Body(lowerback/legs) Fridays-Upper again. Then the reverse the next week. What do you reckon?

The full body workout seemed to be working pretty well as I've put on about 5-7 kilos.
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Just IMO, that's not a good recommendation at all. I definitely wouldn't do any body part more than once a week. If you're gonna do a full body routine and do each muscle properly then you'd need something like 3 hours and nobody would recommend anyone work out for that long. Assuming you're fairly new to the gym, a full body routine would have probably worked so far because virtually anything works when you start out.

Beginners can usually pack on the most weight the quickest doing any old routine because anything will force the body to grow at the early stages. It's when you hit your 3 month / 6 month / 1 year / 2 year / etc plateau that you have to do things more effectively and efficiently to keep making gains and a full body routine will no longer work.

A simple split for a 3-day-a-week workout might be some variation of:

Mon: Chest, Arms
Wed: Lower body
Fri: Back, Shoulders

As long as you eat, sleep and train right you should be able to keep making gains with a routine like that. Hope that helps.
 
james_omahoney said:
Just IMO, that's not a good recommendation at all. I definitely wouldn't do any body part more than once a week. If you're gonna do a full body routine and do each muscle properly then you'd need something like 3 hours and nobody would recommend anyone work out for that long. Assuming you're fairly new to the gym, a full body routine would have probably worked so far because virtually anything works when you start out.

Beginners can usually pack on the most weight the quickest doing any old routine because anything will force the body to grow at the early stages. It's when you hit your 3 month / 6 month / 1 year / 2 year / etc plateau that you have to do things more effectively and efficiently to keep making gains and a full body routine will no longer work.

A simple split for a 3-day-a-week workout might be some variation of:

Mon: Chest, Arms
Wed: Lower body
Fri: Back, Shoulders

As long as you eat, sleep and train right you should be able to keep making gains with a routine like that. Hope that helps.
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Cheers.

I found this routine which is pretty much what I was talking about

http://www.bodybuilding4u.com/split-workout.htm

I've done that this week and I've found I can manage it in about 45-50 minutes, excluding warm up. As it says.

It also says it is for increasing "muscular endurance and muscular tone".

Then there's this one; http://www.bodybuilding4u.com/3-way-split-workout.htm

Which it says is "increasing muscle size(bodybuilding).

The one you recommend probably leans towards the second one a bit more, not saying it is good or bad, just another option.


So I've got three choices, not really sure which is best. Can't go to the gym weekends either.
 

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just on the topic of working a body part more than once a week.. i'm currently in the middle of reading arnold's "the new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding", and in his "advanced training" section he suggests working (with a double-split) a body part three times a week, with a day rest in between. obviously arnold and his colleagues were a lot better with nutrition, rest & recuperation, as well as certain enhancers... but for me personally, i could not think of anything worse!
 
whomb said:
just on the topic of working a body part more than once a week.. i'm currently in the middle of reading arnold's "the new encyclopedia of modern bodybuilding", and in his "advanced training" section he suggests working (with a double-split) a body part three times a week, with a day rest in between. obviously arnold and his colleagues were a lot better with nutrition, rest & recuperation, as well as certain enhancers... but for me personally, i could not think of anything worse!
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It is ridiculous to even try it without some serious chemical support. Who the **** is going to train for example back or triceps 3 times week?Laughable.Forearms and calves maybe,thats it though.

Gotta laugh when some of the biggest juicers of all time (like Arnold) carry on about hard work,mental strength and discipline,like thats what got them where they are.Drugs got them where they are,that is the beginning,middle and end of it.Even worse, they try to sell silly training routines that are actually more likely to injure people or halt their progress.
 
james_omahoney said:
Just IMO, that's not a good recommendation at all. I definitely wouldn't do any body part more than once a week. If you're gonna do a full body routine and do each muscle properly then you'd need something like 3 hours and nobody would recommend anyone work out for that long. Assuming you're fairly new to the gym, a full body routine would have probably worked so far because virtually anything works when you start out.

Beginners can usually pack on the most weight the quickest doing any old routine because anything will force the body to grow at the early stages. It's when you hit your 3 month / 6 month / 1 year / 2 year / etc plateau that you have to do things more effectively and efficiently to keep making gains and a full body routine will no longer work.

A simple split for a 3-day-a-week workout might be some variation of:

Mon: Chest, Arms
Wed: Lower body
Fri: Back, Shoulders

As long as you eat, sleep and train right you should be able to keep making gains with a routine like that. Hope that helps.
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full-body routines of around 1-3 sets per bodypart per workout will allow a lifter to do a full-body workout around 2-3 times a week. ive done it and I found it useful.

working out properly doesnt mean a lifter has to blast a bodypart with 8 or 9 or 12 sets at every session. the more volume on a bodypart (and each set has the highest intensity), then more recovery will be required.....from my experience.

but your 3-day split is pretty standard for the next stage.
 
Fellas ive just started hitting the gym, what type of protein do you reccomend i use to bulk up?

Whey protein, Soy protein etc. I'm thinking about getting 'musashi bulk', is that any good?
 
Just get regular whey protein ... cheaper and better quality / bio-availability than soy and the other types of powdered protein. I wouldn't waste your hard earned on the weight gain formulas.
 
whey protein

dont listen to the bloke selling it, they will recomend a shitload amount to use everyday which will go to waste (eg the bloke was telling me 3 scoops 3 times a day which is ridiculous)

i enjoy the benchpress even though I'm shithouse.
 
I've used a few different WPI and WPC products but I am really happy with one I bought which is made by the people who run Replenish, A local health food store.

Also started using Ascend, it's great so far.
 
whelan=legend said:
Fellas ive just started hitting the gym, what type of protein do you reccomend i use to bulk up?

Whey protein, Soy protein etc. I'm thinking about getting 'musashi bulk', is that any good?
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I would not bother with soy. Maybe a tiny bit here and there but generally just use whey. Of course then there are all sorts of other products you can use like creatine, NO-xplod and so on.

I don't think there is any substitute for a really good diet though.
 

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