Arkk's Weight Lifting / Fitness Thread

I'm sure there is conflicting advice when it comes to stretching pre workout, but unless Mark Rippetoe changed his opinion, just do warm up sets before your working sets for your squat.

Edit: As far as my progress, I have slacked a little since my birthday in October. Christmas is going to do me no good either =(. I currently hover between 185-195. Had a bad cheat meal last night and I feel like I just lost 3 days of training. Fucking stupid me, but the sandwiches this deli by me makes are so good. I need to go back to jump roping on my off days, but it's so cold outside.

I usually hit the bike for about 20 minutes, few minutes of bending over and touching my toes into a deep squat while pushing my knees out with my elbows, and then 1 or 2 sets of just the bar.

Static stretching before anything has basically been panned by most people in the past few years. If you're wanting to do something, do a dynamic warmup. Something similar to what you'll be doing but with light to no resistance.

The rubber band analogy was most clear to me. Think of stretching before working out like stretching a rubber band. Now your muscle is all loose prior to your workout. What you're wanting is springy muscles, however. That's the whole point of them. By loosening them up like that, you're increasing the likelihood of injury.

Save the stretching for afterwards when your muscles are engorged with blood and have constricted. The stretching will help move things around.

Broscience.

Just remember form is the most important thing on dead lifts. They're awesome, but with poor form you're going to hurt yourself in a terrible way.

Major broscience incoming:

What I've always done is work up to my lifting weight. If its squat day, Ill do my first set as 145lbs, for 10 reps or so. Then bump up the weight in suitable increments until I reach my first "working" set of squats, in which is a srs buisness 10 reps. Itll look something like

145x10
195x10
225x10
275x10 (1st working set)
315x8
365x6
405x3-4

Ideally you want to prepare you central nervous system for the heavy lifts, releasing neurotransmitters and endorphins/hormones into the body. Pretty much you want to get "The Pump" before you do the serious lifts, your muscles should be engorged with blood before you do heavy stuff, especially compound lifts like DLs/squats.

/broscience off

Daly_sl said:

Dab, do you do any stretching before squats? I've always found mixed advice on stretching before and not.

Like you, I had knee pain while squatting for the longest time. Do you keep a narrow stance or wide? I tended to use a wide stance, but changed it up about 3 months ago and the pain seemed to go away and I've finally broken through my plateau. I believe you said you had hurt your knee a while back though so we may not be in the same boat. and none of this has any medical backing at all just throwing it out there.

Click to expand...

I jog 5-6 minutes on the treadmill which loosens up my joints. Vibrams are the only reason I can even jog. Makes the impact on the knee much, much less. I also bike to the gym, but now only about 1/2 the time because it's chilly out (3 miles). The running is mostly to get my knees ready to be a runner again. I used to love running. I haven't been able to run significantly for 3 years. I realize I'm kind of stressing them with warmup runs every day, 2 squat days out of 5 (1 of which is heavy deadlift day also), but I'm going super cautious on running now. After jogging I sit in an Asian squat for a bit while stretching ankles.

Then I do a few weightless squats to test my knee joints. Sometimes they just feel like they're going to collapse, like I don't have even a single muscle fiber holding em together. Sometimes it is really stiff inside, like it is inflamed and there's not enough room for the pieces to be moving around. From that I do 5 reps with the bar, 5 reps of 65, Asian squat stretches in-between. If I'm doing ok then, I'll either do another 65 or start the lift at 95. No more stretches from that point.

The heavier the weight, the more it helps my knees. But I can't go right into heavy weight. So if they're feeling alright, even with a little pain, I'm perfect because it improves with each set of more weight. If I can't get to that first 95lb set, I'm stuck. I used to stretch between every set, but it's been better after I stopped that.

The most obnoxious thing is if I don't do anything one day, like sitting at home watching movies and playing video games all Saturday or something, my knees are fucking RUINED for like 4 days. They just seize up like "oh he's not using us today? I guess we don't have to work ever again."

I swear to god this must be what it's like to have a really shitty girlfriend who is always demanding shit of you and then gets annoyed when you finally give in.

And I find no one can relate. Ligament injuries and meniscus tears have a much different recovery track. I'd fucking pay 10g to trade this for a ligament tear. I'd be better by now after all the work I put in. But I had a plica excision, which has happened like 10 times in the history of the world.

Oh forgot to answer question. Stance is in the middle. A tad less than shoulder width. A closer stance causes pain. But Ima get those fuckers to do heavier squats. Knees are feeling great lately (about 10th time, only this time I'm not gonna push too far and hurt them again). I gotta be super careful not to allow any bounce at the bottom of the squat. That's what fucked me up last time.

/diary

Let me ask you guys something. I started jogging diligently six or seven months ago. I've worked my way up to 3-5km (1.7-3 mi) a day, five days a week. I stretch for about five min before going. My path is a circuit around my house on the concrete street.

I feel good, and have improved quite a bit, but my calves remain sore longer than the rest of me. Genetically, bad knees run in my family, and it's starting to affect me as I get older and so my stride has as little knee raising as possible.

Any suggestions what I can do about my calves? I sit much of the day. Perhaps more frequent, light stretching is necessary?

I'm about 1 month in to Wendlers 5/3/1. So far so good. I definitely recommend Starting Strength before anything if you've never done it, but after a certain amount of time you just cant keep it up, and you arent meant to.

Monday: Press, Close grip press, weighted chins, BB curls, abs circuit then push a prowler 10x 50 yards with 90 lbs on it.
Tuesday: Power clean, deadlift, high bar squat, ab circuit
Thursday: Bench, Press, Dumbbell row, BB curl, ab circuit
Friday: Snatch, low bar squat, rack pull, ab circuit then prowler push

Goals: 405x3 for squat, 300+ for bench, 450 for DL, 225 for power clean, 185 press. I also need to lean out a bit so I can do more chins and pull ups. I suck at those and press right now.

I'm 5'11 and just under 200lbs right now, 196 or something. Lean for me will be around 185 I think this time.

I'm definitely lower body dominant. My upper body strength numbers arent in line with lower. I'm much better at any kind of squat or clean than I am at a press or curl or pull up mostly because I never did bench press or overhead press much. Squat I can do 320 for 10, max at 405 but bench I've yet to get 300 for even 1.

I wish I had your problem Dash. I have the biggest chicken legs it's retarded. I've literally got horse legs, big up top, tooth picks at the bottom. My calves don't grow for shit, but my traps... are monumentous as is my chest and back. I wish I was evened out a bit haha.

That sucks. I think calves are mostly genetic. I happen to have big calves but I never did anything for them specifically. Unless it was playing pick up basketball after school that did it. I finally got a broad back and solid shoulders, but my arms need a lot of work. Sad.

P90X. Even if you had a normal workout routine before you wont be able to sit on the toilet or reach your arms above your head to wash your hair for the first two weeks sticking to this program. The only downside is Tony Horton is annoying so after you have gone through all the routines mute that shit and turn the Pandora on.

It gets fun when you start to finish the workouts for the day you were unable to finish weeks before. You can see the results and tell that it's working very quickly.

I have never used Insanity but I hear great things about this program as well. The instructor is less annoying from what I hear but it is supposedly harder.

I use to work at a Lifetime fitness in Atlanta. Personal trainers were losing a lot of money due to these programs.

If you have thin calves, when wearing shorts, wear them slightly above the knee and make sure your socks are no-show ankle socks. Makes the calves look a lot less chicken-like. The worst thing is wearing shorts that hang over the knee. From a guy with the chickeniest chicken legs ever. /omgfashion

I've noticed I use more leg than most people when doing deadlifts. Don't get me wrong, my lower back definitely gets a workout and I push myself to my limits, but I definitely use my legs a lot more during the lift.

I think I did it subconciously when I first started, mainly because I was scared of lower back injury.

Anything wrong with using a bit more legs?

I'd imagine that's a good thing as opposed to using too much back. That being said, you don't want it to be too much of a squat motion.