Just finished my 7th week of Ice Cream Fitness. Only missed two days so far, which were due to food poisoning. The last couple of weeks I've been able to move up in weight with more regularity, so that's been nice. Have not yet been able to go heavier on the bicep curls and tricep extensions. My squat is definitely what's improved most. I'm up 25 from where I started. My deadlift, on the other hand, is just terrible. I guess it's a weak back, but I've had to go about as light as my bench to get it up without rounding my back. And going back down is an ordeal in and of itself. Overall I'm really enjoying things though.
Video your deadlift and people can give you some cues to think about. Also, how have the barbell rows been going? If that's progressing then I don't think a weak back is the problem
MA don't worry too much about going heavier on those isolation exercises. Just make sure you're getting a good squeeze on those
They're going fine. My left shoulder gets fatigued from the motion of it, but no problems keeping the back straight. I'll see what I can do on the video.
That ice cream fitness dude is one of the biggest douchebags the Internet has ever had. And that's saying something.
Finally feeling good about my bent barbell row form. Getting up to 135lbs was the key so I could rest the bar on the ground between reps like a deadlift. Core strength too, big factor.
A good cue to keeping your back tight when pulling is imagine holding a tennis ball in your armpit then squeeze the shit out of the "tennis ball"
In today's installment of "holy fuck I'm weak" here is the current WR raw bench holder doing 529lbs.....for 10 reps
Haven't done them in years but when I did I would only use <= 25 pound plates so as not to limit ROM.
newest craze at both gyms I go to: sitting in the plate loaded chest press machine turning 90 degrees one way pressing across your body with one hand (ie - sit down, turn 90 degrees to the right, and press with just your right hand) seems like an odd way to work the inner chest, and very unnecessary kinda curious if Men's Health or somebody published this as a "new chest move to give you MASSIVE PECS IN JUST ONE MOVE" because I'd never seen it until about 2 months ago... and I see someone do it every single night now
Yeah same guys will do the plate loaded lat pull machine like that too. Tryna hit the right angle on those muscle fibers I guess. Absolutely awful position for your shoulder to be in.
Absolutely unnecessary unless you're an Olympia competitor and you need to fill out one section of your anything.
Holding a barbell in flat bench position, but only lower one side for 5 reps then lower the other side for 5 reps
West Side vs the World preview on YouTube. Those guys are chodes and while I have no interest in power lifting, its motivating as fuck
I do them occasionally. Not something I have written down for sets but in the beginning part of using the machine I'll superset them in with either regular press or close/wide.
Pretty sure I pioneered this workout back in the early 2000s when I was in college. https://www.outsideonline.com/2159281/hot-box
Me too. Old School Westside is awesome but then they became a caricature of themselves IMO. Louis was certainly a pioneer and really pushed the limit for knowledge on strength training.
I think a lot of people don't know the impact those guys had since there's been a massive shift from gear to raw.
Agree, I don't mind the gear stuff so much. They wanted to move as much weight as possible and that's the culture they created. But the geared lifts started to get out of control...in large part to the westside crew. Their half squat 1000lb squats and 3000 total, etc became a joke. Then they started putting boards under their singlets for benching and it just became a shitshow. Hell, when the westide gang was in a meet you instantly knew the meet would be a circus. Everything was being white-lighted. I love the push to raw but hell, now there are so many different variations of raw... raw, raw modern, raw with wraps, etc. Personally, I've always competed in pure raw, no wraps, no sleeves. Wraps felt weird on my long skinny legs so I just said fuck it. Raw allowed me to win quite a few meets, even as a 242 due to me being raw...ok, sometimes I was the only pure raw lifter at that weight. Strongman was never my thing, used to think it was kind of hokey. But I've come around to it. I admire the all around strength capabilities of strongman.
Hoff putting that towel or whatever under his shirt and pressing was so dumb. It's obvious that's not his stomach making that shape. I think there's a certain few feds that led to multi-ply getting out of control. No one stuck to their guns on calling a legit deep squat.
that reminds me of the Bigger, Faster, Stronger program we did for football in highschool. Towel Bench = foam cylinder about 5 inches wide you put under your shirt and essentially bounced the bar off of it. Of course our lame ass coaches used the towel bench numbers for the whatchamacallit program that details the football team's height/weight/maxes in it
Strongman is getting a bit out of hand, as well. It's not that guys are using gear or anything like that, it's just that it's become so accessible that there are some real freaks of nature who've found the sport. And I'm not just talking at the professional level, either. In the US, we have guys in the 231 class who can deadlift 700 for reps and press a 350 log. Hell, some of the event weights at an amateur lightweight contest are comparable to the events at the WSM contests not more than 20 years ago. Drugs or not, that's inhuman.
Some friends and I had this discussion the other day. Powerlifting, strongman, weightlifting, even crossfit has just made insane gains in strength over the past few years. I think social media has made these sports way more popular
Between Golds and your "pretty gym" (Pure Austin??) and the shit box gyms...you gotta find something better. Austin is big enough. What about Hyde Park.
My gym is in the downtown of a major city yet the one squat rack is still almost always available. Can't complain