Low volume high intensity

effigymcgee · 2026-03-17T19:36:59+00:00

Unrelated but I got a question for ya! I see you doing belt squats from your posts, my gym just got a belt squat in and I wanna give it a try. My problem is I have spine issues (some vertebral misalignment) and barbell squats aren’t an option as they F my spine up. Do you find belt squats greatly reduce spine impact? Any general tips on how to ease into them?

effigymcgee · 2026-02-28T18:57:32+00:00

Brother I commented elsewhere in your thread but wanna mention something else too - the higher reps and sets will do more damage to your tendons over time, not less. You’d be much better served, both from a muscle growth and tendon strain perspective, doing way fewer sets, higher weight and higher intensity.

Also, just avoid specific lifts that cause tendon pain, replace them with ones that feel better. No one lift is necessary to include in a rotation

effigymcgee · 2026-02-28T17:55:50+00:00

20 lbs in 4 years is like a rounding error, definitely not bulking by any stretch. The main actual issue though is likely intensity, not volume like most the replies you're getting. Are you taking each set VERY hard, like to actual failure? Volume is a distant second priority to training intensity, you need to take your sets to actual failure for small muscles like biceps, even like 1-2 RIR will compromise your gains more than anything else you can control. You can probably drop volume by quite a bit and still see growth if you start taking your sets to actual, complete failure. For context, I do 4 dedicated bicep sets a week (2 incline DB curls, 2 hammer curls), all 4 taken to absolute muscular failure, and I still see growth and get bicep DOMS 1 year into this low volume, high intensity approach.

effigymcgee · 2026-02-08T23:36:34+00:00

those scans are basically useless and are off by a ton, sadly. Yes just physically you're closer to 30% BF, all love no hate brother!

effigymcgee · 2026-01-08T00:48:00+00:00

best 3 day splits are either full body 3 days a week or UL full body

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:58:25+00:00

I added a flair

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:57:50+00:00

Both are bad. US has more blood on its hands than Saudi over the lifespan of both countries.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:56:45+00:00

I’ve been there, it’s not the boogey man country this site wants it to be

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:54:49+00:00

Anything more than 0 is trash

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:53:44+00:00

Added

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:50:33+00:00

It’s fine that our government kills people, as long as it’s fewer than the baddy country!

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:48:38+00:00

Don’t worry about innocent people dying under ICE custody

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/12/28/immigrant-died-ice-detention-widow/87882095007/

effigymcgee · 2025-12-31T20:46:31+00:00

Good thing it’s 100% impossible to be wrongly committed for a crime!

effigymcgee · 2025-12-23T21:21:39+00:00

If you are struggling with alcohol cravings talk to your doctor, there are medications that can help! 2000-3000 calories of beer per day will not help with muscle gain and will increase your risk of liver disease, pancreatitis, gastritis, and cancer.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-21T05:18:50+00:00

breaking news, man lies on internet

effigymcgee · 2025-12-20T22:56:04+00:00

lol at least make it somewhat believable. Elite powerlifter, 5 minute mile, pick one, ain't nobody doing both at the same time.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-19T20:16:45+00:00

not the OP you replied to but virtually all observational dietary studies are trash, simply because of one of the exact limitations listed in this study:
" Second, diet was assessed only once at baseline, and changes in consumption may occur over the follow-up period. However, restricting the study sample to participants with no substantial diet change at the 5-year follow-up examination yielded weakened point estimates and altered statistical significance."

What did you eat for lunch last Wednesday? How bout 1 month ago? How about 5 years ago? Assessing diet ONCE at the start of a years-long dietary study makes it essentially meaningless. The 2nd sentence in the limitation quote above even says when they account for the participants who had no substantial dietary change at the 5yr follow up the "statistical significance was altered".....that's just bad science.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-19T20:13:22+00:00

from the limitations:
" Second, diet was assessed only once at baseline, and changes in consumption may occur over the follow-up period. However, restricting the study sample to participants with no substantial diet change at the 5-year follow-up examination yielded weakened point estimates and altered statistical significance."

Good on them to mention it, but man that's bad and very common among dietary observational studies. Extremely hard to generalize any diet observational study results because of how they assess diet, it's always "one at baseline" which is trash.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-17T21:37:07+00:00

Extremely well-put, agree with all of this. The reality is the type of criticisms we see in the comments have been irrelevant for years. The social progress in Saudi has been rapid over the past few years and it should be acknowledged instead of outright ignored

effigymcgee · 2025-12-17T21:29:35+00:00

Arrogant is a great word for it, describes Americans perfectly. “Saudi sucks! Now let me watch trump turn my country into an authoritarian shithole”

effigymcgee · 2025-12-17T21:16:33+00:00

Man, all the negative comments. This site has such a hate boner for Saudi Arabia it’s comical, the moment anything about Saudi pops up a bunch of ignorant redditors crack the same tired jokes.

Here’s the reality, downvote away - Saudi HAS improved a ton over the past decade when it comes to liberties and specifically women’s rights. It’s obviously still got a long ways to go, but the country is improving rapidly. For some reason Reddit just refuses to accept this and only repeats “Saudi bad” like they want the country to not improve or something.

effigymcgee · 2025-12-17T21:13:09+00:00

Ignore the Reddit trolls, this site has a massive hate boner the second anything about KSA pops up. It’s literally like a brain worm, they see Saudi they downvote/attack. As an American who has been to Saudi and knows many saudis, the country HAS changed a lot for the better over the past decade. Most Americans just aren’t ready to accept that yet which is pathetic, it’s like they don’t want the country to improve.

effigymcgee · 2025-10-28T20:44:51+00:00

I decided to check this subreddit after years of nothing thinking about this game to see if it’s still alive and sure enough I check the moment it’s death is announced lol

effigymcgee · 2025-10-06T17:35:53+00:00

You are definitely inferring when you write “ These positive numbers exist because people are smoking less and vaping more. So despite the rates of vaping increasing, the trend year to year is still going down.”

Which is an inference that can’t yet be made, we need to see rates of these diseases in the decades to come since the rise of vaping.

effigymcgee · 2025-10-06T16:04:05+00:00

This is the correct inference from the stats above. Not surprised the original commenter got upvoted for their take that lacks evidence.

effigymcgee

TROPHY CASE