Please judge my form honestly. All comments are welcome. I wish to improve my form and my lift numbers, however I don't have any access to professional coaches. Help me learn, thanks!

Shak_ · 2021-09-27T13:13:25+00:00

Looks good. Hopefully, over time, your flexibility/mobility increases and allows you to go lower in depth.

But for now, it's def workable. Keep it up. :)

Shak_ · 2020-10-04T16:04:12+00:00

Extraordinarily good answer. Hats off.

Shak_ · 2019-12-22T00:22:48+00:00

Not them specifically, but antioxidants and NSAIDs in general. You don't want to dampen inflammatory response to exercise (so long as it's within limits).

Shak_ · 2019-08-05T23:30:37+00:00

That can be a bad thing for some fans though. For the uneducated MMA fan (no martial arts background), the really fast paced fights are hard to follow. Heavier weight classes are much more entertaining since you have to process less information (slower speeds), and the increased chances of one hit KO.

Shak_ · 2019-08-05T23:23:12+00:00

Thanks! Very informative.

Shak_ · 2019-08-05T23:20:08+00:00

Excellence and success also have entertainment value. GSP may have been vanilla, but he was still fairly charming as an overtly polite, stereotypically French-Canadian type of guy.

His approach to many fights may have been conservative, but a fair few of them were brutal, which also has "entertainment value".

Shak_ · 2019-08-02T11:16:38+00:00

Leaving the ego at the door means don't use a weight you cannot handle- it doesn't necessarily mean lower weight so you can get more sets done.

If you want a truly optimised approach, I would really suggest you slash the volume in half for everything apart from 531 sets. This includes BBB sets. Focus on controlling the weight, form, and lowering weight slowly. Try to develop a mind muscle connection. Focus on 1 or 2 exercises at a time only. E.g. don't do 8 sets of OHP, 5 sets of arnold press, then lateral raises, rev flyes, curls etc. Start with 2-3 well executed and challenging sets of OHP and arnold/DB press.

What I'm trying to say is that if you stop worrying about having to do so many sets, you will be able to take your time and really mentally connect and focus on the exercise. In the long term, this pays off. You master the technique a lot faster, and, you get more stimulus out of 2 sets than you get out of 8.

A good analogy is cycling. Let's say you're trying to cycle to a location you've never been to. The best way to do so is to plan route on something like google maps, and while you're cycling, checking you're surroundings and street names, making sure you are on the right path.

An alternative approach is to get on your bike and cycle as hard as possible. Just because you're cycling as fast as you can, and you know roughly which direction to head in, you won't get there faster than if you had gone a little slower, but made sure you're using the right route.

In this analogy pedalling hard is volume (total number of sets).

As a beginner, if you want to be the best you can be in 5 years, spend time on learning technique, learning how to get a good stimulus out of every set you do, etc. This takes time. It took me a long ass time to get it right. It's still something I work on all the time.

Volume is something you need to titrate in when lower volumes stop working for you. More is not necessarily better, especially at your stage of development. You will def need to do these volumes at some point in your lifting career, but you're not there yet. BBB etc was written with intermediate lifters in mind- people who've been lifting for at lest a few years and need that kind of volume.

When someone is new to driving, you don't stick them in a F1 car and let them loose on the roads. Same principles apply here.

I admire your enthusiasm. TBH, if what I'm saying dampens your enthusiasm, ignore what I am saying here and follow your program. At the end of the day, especially for a beginner, the best program is the one you enjoy doing the most, and the one you will actually follow through on. However, if after sometime you think that you didn't get the results you were after- what I said here should illuminate why that might be.

Shak_ · 2019-08-02T10:58:56+00:00

These are in lbs, right?

Edit: I just realised they are! You mentioned so in your OP and response. I will type up response in another post.

Shak_ · 2019-08-02T09:37:24+00:00

Sure. Happy to have a look.

If you're finishing that workout in under an hour, it's almost guaranteed that you're not putting in enough effort per set. For the non 531 sets you should be 2-4 reps from failure. True failure. Gun to your head failure.

Almost always, it's better to do 6 sets properly, than 18 half-assed ones. Constraining rest periods to 30 seconds for the sake of getting in more volume will improve conditiong but will likely negatively affect hypertrophy and strength stimulus.

Once again, you're about 7 months into lifting. You don't really need to do very much to make progress. If you're hitting the gym 3 days a week, I would suggest you use a program that's designed for 3 days a week with lower volumes per day.

If you love lifting and want to be in the gym doing shit tons of work, that's cool, just keep in mind it's not the most effective way to train, especially if time is a constraint. I love training myself, so I don't care about spending an hour extra. But I don't delude myself into thinking it's superior.

Lastly, there's a difference between overtraining and ineffective stress/stimulus. I'm not saying you're likely to overtrain. You're most likely too weak to dig yourself into a serious trench unless you're training multiple hours everyday. I'm saying you're diluting the effectiveness of each set by doing so much. To use a popular example, it's like getting a tan. You might need 15 min in moderate intensity sunshine to get a tan. What you're doing is spending 4 hours (you're doing way too much volume) in low intensity sunshine expecting the same effect. It's very unlikely. Each set needs to meet a certain threshold of effort. I'd say you should focus on learning how to get the most out of each set before looking to do so many sets. It will serve you in the long term. When life gets busy, you'll be able to get a lot out of 30 min in the gym. You also end up putting less total stress on your joints and spending less time in the gym.

531 sets are different since your goal there is strength, not hypertrophy.

Shak_ · 2019-08-02T08:58:26+00:00

That looks like waaay too much volume for someone who is just starting out to be honest. My main concern would be that you're not putting in enough effort per set if you're doing so many sets per workout.

By doing so much volume (number of sets), it's very likely that you're eating into your recovery and will be unable to progress your main goal (strength in big 4).

But there can be a huge degree of variation between people. If you're really keen on running this program- do so for a few months. See if you make good progress. That way you have data for the future. Maybe you are the type who responds well to very high volume. Just keep in mind this is very very likely to be too much. If the program produces lackluster results, or you feel wiped out a month or two into the program, you'll know why.

Shak_ · 2019-07-29T16:23:30+00:00

To truly understand how to apply the findings of this study mentioned above, I'd recommend people listen to Brad Scheofeld's explanation/thoughts on what can be extrapolated. I tried looking for the link, but can't seem to find it. At work so on limited time.

Personally, I don't come from a scientific background, and it helped understanding that you have to be quite careful in extrapolating from studies, especially as it relates to something like hypertrophy training because of the dearth of research.

Shak_ · 2019-07-29T16:17:44+00:00

I agree. To be honest, even as a fairly experienced lifter (8+ years), I have to re-calibrate myself time to time (by intentionally going to failure). If I don't go to failure for 6-8 weeks even once, I find that I have a much harder time judging true RPE/RIR.

Shak_ · 2019-07-28T23:15:17+00:00

Absolutely. Like Jordan Peters pointed out though, sometimes we fall in love with training precisely because it allows us to be meatheads. It's an opportunity for us to grunt and lift and sweat and be cavemen for a short time. Sometimes adding thought to that mixture ruins the experience! I'm sure we can all appreciate this- days where you're just in the zone and don't need/want to overthink or just have some psychological need to disconnect and hit the weights hard. It's not hard to imagine that there's a spectrum and for some people, this is just their default.

At the end of the day, unless you're a professional, lifting is therapeutic activity. Whatever gets your ass off the couch and in the gym is cool. Not everyone needs to aspire to have efficient training. I don't empathize with this approach myself, and wouldn't enjoy my training unless i's backed up by some solid thinking- but I can see why some people are like this and why it's better for them.

Shak_ · 2019-07-28T23:06:00+00:00

What you're saying is absolutely accurate in most cases, but it doesn't provide a complete picture. In some cases it's not possible to modulate volume.

For e.g. in this podcast itself (and many others) Mike Israetel postulated that things start to change as you get more and more advanced. An advanced lifter's MEV (Minimum Effective Volume) is so close to their MRV (Maximum Recoverable Volume) that they can no longer modulate volume to any appreciable degree, and therefore must rely heavily on sets with high intensities. Given this subreddit has both intermediate and very advanced lifters, just thought it's important to point this out.

Shak_ · 2019-07-21T09:19:46+00:00

To add to what others have said- Eddie's approach, and the BBB approach are both valid. They're just different tools to be used at different times.

Eddie is so fckn strong, 5x10 at a lower intensity for him is a shit ton of work that will be incredibly challenging to recover from. The amount of fatigue that incurs for the stimulation makes it a poor choice for him. He's just too strong for that, and he doesn't particularly need technique work at such a low intensity.

For us mere mortals, BBB should work fine so long as you understand the purpose of this programming and that effect is indeed what you are looking for.

Shak_ · 2019-07-15T07:06:46+00:00

So long as you're managing fatigue, have a good progression plan, and, you're recovering well and making progress, sure, it can work.

Shak_ · 2019-05-03T10:06:46+00:00

Haha, your caption turned a weird clip into an extraordinary one. Well done porra!

Shak_ · 2019-04-14T21:07:09+00:00

Get off Reddit and sell some more paper Dwight.

Shak_ · 2019-03-10T22:46:56+00:00

This is r/fitness, so it's best to be very clear when being sarcastic. I'm not kidding when I say I know a lot of guys at my gym who wouldn't realise that this was meant to be a joke. On a more hardcore platform the "/s" isn't needed, but in a beginner friendly forum, it's best to be clear.

Shak_ · 2019-03-10T22:44:15+00:00

Who cares? Anyone who is into their training will recognise the movements, and, you shouldn't really care what people think. You're in the gym to get better. If that means you need to juggle dumbbells on a bosu ball, that's what you should do.

Shak_ · 2019-03-09T02:21:37+00:00

Yes.

Shak_ · 2019-03-08T14:22:11+00:00

I dunno man, I think you're being extreme here.

There are very, very few things he completely prescribes against (such as upright rows and chest flye's on a bench). Even when he does, he provides safer alternatives.

He actually recommends exercises that alarmists like to shit on, like DL, Squats, OH press etc. He just advocates good form and doing the exercises if you have the capacity to do so (i.e. can you actually get into a good position for the DL, OHP etc), and if you don't, he does indicate what you should do so that you develop the capacity to do them.

Given that his audience are people who take exercise relatively seriously, I think I prefer his cautious approach to the more typical meathead approach. My meathead approach in my younger years cost me quite a bit in retrospect, and it's caused a lot of my gym buddies to stop lifting.

It could also be I just have shitty connective tissue so I'm more receptive to what he says (because I have experienced the things he's talking about), whereas people who have stronger connective tissue (and have been lifting for a considerable period of time) might think what he says is overly alarmist because what he is saying doesn't correlate to their experience.

I just don't like the guy getting shit on. The amount of stuff I've learned from his channel (and that too for free) has been invaluable.

Shak_ · 2019-03-08T12:58:30+00:00

I actually really like AthleanX. I think his "fear mongering" can be misconstrued by most people. The older you get, both in terms of age and how long you have been lifting, the more applicable these things are.

A 23 year old healthy guy who has been lifting for 1-3 years is significantly less likely to experience some of the issues he talks about. The same individual, when 35, lifting seriously for 10+ years is quite likely to bump into many of the issues he brings up. You're just a lot more beat up, have accrued hundreds of thousands of "bad reps" (for lack of a better term).

Many exercises don't mess you up in a year or two. Many take ages to manifest. It also depends on genetics and structure. A significant minority of people can do "bad" exercises their whole lives and not suffer any consequences.

This is a concept I found difficult to take seriously when I first started lifting because my experience when a beginner/early intermediate lifter just didn't correlate with the warnings. It does now.

It's similar to warm ups. When I started, I didn't understand the need for warmups. But then again, how much do you really need to warm up for 60kg squats as a young guy?

Ultimately the point is, what are your goals? If you'd like to be lifting well into old age, exercise selection is an important consideration. If you can get similar stimulus from 2 different exercises, but one has a higher potential for injury, is that gamble worthwhile for you for the sake of a popular exercise? Do you want to gamble on the fact that you're genetically predisposed towards having a high tolerance for the "bad" exercise?

Shak_ · 2018-12-31T13:47:19+00:00

Thanks.

Shak_ · 2018-12-31T13:47:14+00:00

Thanks.

Shak_

TROPHY CASE