The Gym Thread...

[Joe_Elding]

Glad to hear it.

[Dan-Walker]

Hmm I see were your coming from, but ive still got 12% body fat which is what i've always had. Because of my body, if I was to train with out having all these extra calories, I don't have any body fat to burn, meaning id either become really toned and chiseled out, but my aim is to bulk first.

what do you use to measure your body fat ?

[Ali C]

I hope thats bum to floor.

my understanding is that going below a 90 degree bend in the legs has no advantages to strength building than just going to 90 degree.

My maximum squats are at 140-145kg with 10 reps, but thats with knees at 90. I do jumping squats with 40kg, I think I could do heavier, but any more than that and I struggle to get the weight on my shoulders.

[tmks88]

my understanding is that going below a 90 degree bend in the legs has no advantages to strength building than just going to 90 degree.

My maximum squats are at 140-145kg with 10 reps, but thats with knees at 90. I do jumping squats with 40kg, I think I could do heavier, but any more than that and I struggle to get the weight on my shoulders.

do ass to grass squats

they are better for strenght and your knees.

[Sam Ward]

do ass to grass squats

they are better for strenght and your knees.

atg isnt better for your knees, nor is it better for your leg strength

it is however better for your core to go deeper as it puts it under more strain

[TheCircus]

OKAY GUYS I WANT TO BE MUSCLES HOW DO I DO IT

[Sam Ward]

OKAY GUYS I WANT TO BE MUSCLES HOW DO I DO IT

that dere cell tech

[ManxTrialSpaz]

OKAY GUYS I WANT TO BE MUSCLES HOW DO I DO IT

[manxrider]

atg isnt better for your knees, nor is it better for your leg strength

it is however better for your core to go deeper as it puts it under more strain

How isn't better for leg strength? A much larger ROM will surely mean more muscle is being worked, and you can squat a hell of a lot more going just to parallel than doing a full squat so to squat heavy and atg will take more strength than doing the same weight to parallel surely? . Plus there also better for hip flexibility.

And squatting to parallel places more stress on the knee's than squatting deep does, because when you squat deep the pressure is shifted to the hips which can handle more pressure.

[tmks88]

OKAY GUYS I WANT TO BE MUSCLES HOW DO I DO IT

silicone implants

ive seen some pictures of people having them in arms so its looks like huge triceps/biceps

[Joe_Elding]

atg isnt better for your knees, nor is it better for your leg strength

it is however better for your core to go deeper as it puts it under more strain

Well your glutes and hamstrings arent even engaged until you're past parrelel so they wont be getting much stronger unless your ATG..

ATG squats are also a lot easier to measure, and to honestly improve at, because you know your getting the same ROM each time, whereas with half squats you're never realistically sqyatting to the same place each time.

[Ali C]

I forgot who told me it doesn't help with strength, but it was looking at it from a trials point of view. How often when you preload (for taps, gaps etc) are your knees past 90 degree? Going past that in training will only add mass to other muscles that are not being used and putting on pointless weight.

Going past 90 does help with core muscles, but I can think of other exercises that help core muscles more than squats

[manxrider]

Strictly trials related you may be right, but I do think explosive full squats would be more beneficial as long as you don't bounce at the bottom of the squat. It's always worth a try to see if it does improve anything, and if it doesn't just switch back to half squats.

[tmks88]

you wont gain more weight by doing ATG squats. you can weight only when you eat enough, theres tons of people who have improved their strenght a lot and keeping their bodyweight same

[Muel]

I've just managed to complete a routine for the first time since before christmas.

I think I've finally managed to kick the various illnesses I've had these last few months, I've still got a chesty cough and a cold, but I didn't go all light headed and woozy which is a good sign, I nearly dropped the bar bench pressing last time I tried.

I had to drop the weight on flat and incline bench press, but other than that they've all stayed the same, but some are looking like I'll have to put them up because they were too easy. Maybe it's the amount of trials I've been riding over the winter, but i did 5 sets of 10 shrugs and it was a piece of piss.

[tmks88]

has anyone ever measured here their vertical jump?

mine is 73cm/28.7inches

if you dont know how to measure vertical jump but would like to do it then

stand next to a wall and take a piece of tape and put it as high on the wall as you can with one hand while your heels are on the ground

then take another piece of tape and jump as high as you can without any run up just a static jump and put the tape as high on the wall as you can and measure the difference between those 2 pieces of tape

or just measure your one hand reach and touch something higher than you while jumping

like when your hand reach is 250cm and ceiling is 300cm and you can touch it when jumping then your vertical jump is 50cm

something like here, he touches those little things above him

[Muel]

Don't forget to warm up and stretch properly kids! My legs are killing now, I can barely walk after I decided to ignore the stiff/hurty feeling while I was squatting.

[Fishy]

I thought you weren't really supposed to stretch whilst squatting?

[Muel]

It kills me if I don't though, its like they pull/tear too much.

[Joe_Elding]

Stretching immediatly before any weight training is bad, there is a certain amount of time you should leave it but i cant remember what it is...

Your best way of warming up legs is standing on one leg and just swinging the other gradually high/faster. and hold your arms up and air squat. And make sure you build up gadually, i always go bar, 40, 50,65,85 etc.

Also if you havent squatted in a while then there always going to hurt like f**kkkkkkkkkkk. I rememebr when i first started squatting and would literally fall down the stairs when i got out of bed the next day,

Edited March 17, 2009 by Joe_Elding

[Muel]

Cheers Joe, I'll give that a go next time I'm doing my legs.

I didn't touch the weights last week, I had a really bad week of going to bed late and feeling ill etc. Back on track this week though hopefully. (Famous last words. )

[kells]

The only reason as to why stretching is 'bad' when weight training is that it's been linked to a small decrease in power.

[Muel]

From here onwards.

Well I bought one of those pull-up bars that go into your door frame, it's pretty good! I'm using it on a decent wall, it does bend a bit but it works fine.

Been sticking at it pretty much every workout for about a month now, added 5kg to my bench routine (4 sets of 10) already, gone from 30 to 35kg. Still a very long way to go though.

I now warm up and shake down first, do the workout then stretch afterwards, works brilliantly, I havn't had an injury since I started again.

[ManxTrialSpaz]

Can anyone recommend a good pull up bar to shove in/on a door frame? I've been looking at some but don't really want to buy one without someone's giving their own opinion on it.

[Muel]

From here onwards.

Well I bought one of those pull-up bars that go into your door frame, it's pretty good! I'm using it on a decent wall, it does bend a bit but it works fine.

I also have a chinning bar, depends whether you want to do chins or pull-ups really, neither can really do the other.