It's likely not cutting out meat alone that made your dad lose the weight. It depends how your mum cooks too (and of course if his physical activity has changed at all), because one thing I notice is that some vegetarians are really great at exploring all the healthy veggie options out there while getting in proper protein, iron, calories while others seem to think being vegetarian means eating salads all the time. You can still get in the necessary calories and protein without meat and in itself won't cause you to lose weight. Eggs (with the yolk), milk, cottage cheese, yogurt and other animal products will give you decent amounts of protein and calories. Lentils are also another food very high in protein. A cup of brown lentils can give you 26 grams of protein and over 300 calories. Things like chickpeas and beans in general are great for snacks or mixing into supper. Cutting out meat doesn't mean you have to eat less calories or protein. If you feel it would be beneficial to you and you want to cut down, I'd say go for it.

Reached 175 at the start of September, now working on the gains again. Been hitting the gym a lot with dystopia - going again tonight.

Another progress pic.

All-follicle.

lookin good dude! I've now upped my regular curls to to 35 lbs, three sets of 12, and my push-ups are now an easy 30, with 12 sets. I wanted to work more on pushups, but I've been ignoring my squats, curls, and lifts lately....I've also upped my running by about a mile, so I'm running 4ish miles a day. Couple that with walking the dog and eating more protein and I've made some muscle growth...I'll post some progress pics soon.

Thanks man! Still lots of work to do, but it's been a good time. I'm settling into the gym at Ottawa very well - even have a job there!


You know it.

This entire post is very confusing to me. Are you saying you can do three sets of 12 per arm, or is that alternating so 6 each? And you do 30 pushups, twelve times in a day? Do you go to a gym or just improvise at home? What are your goals? You are doing a lot of cardio for what I assume is a slim build. I can't remember exactly what you look like but I have the distinct impression you were an ectomorph that looked about 140 pounds, but that was a pic of you on stage (if I recall; might be wrong here). Would like to know more..

Getting kinda soft lately. Body weight currently 196, normally hovers close to 185. Too much snacking at work lately. However, I got my deadlift up to 425 lbs and my Clean/Press up to 175. I should probably focus more on my squats, though, as I've been stuck at 275 lbs for nearly a year now... 150 lb difference between deadlift/squat is pretty funky. As I progress with the DL, I'm actually noticing some occasional hitching problems when testing my 1 RM, which is indicative of weak legs/hips.

He really knows what he's doing, and I'm definitely benefiting from that. Seen improvements pretty much all around lately, and switching back to higher rep ranges seems to be really working. For example, hit 250lbsX8 for squats today with no real problems, while a month ago I couldn't even do 240 for 5 without my back caving in. Very slowly but surely losing weight again, which is nice because I'm getting stronger at the same time (but at this rate it's only like 1lb every two weeks). Attempting some moderate cardio again, which I'm pretty damn awful at. I'm a long ways away from a year and a half ago where I could go on two hour runs.

@capeda - Good job on the pull, man. For the squats, 150lbs is a pretty big gap and a year is a long time to plateau. Have you tried switching up your rep schemes? For me, switching to 5x5s helped me break through my first big plateau, and switching to 3 sets of 8 has helped me really see progress again.

Great; glad you've decided to hang around with us cool kids. 8 reps is a nice sweet spot, as long as you have decent muscle control you can make that work for a good long while as long as you are actually reaching failure and not just stopping. All sets to failure.

Also, I am not surprised your body composition is improving. Forget that "bulking" and "cutting" crap, as soon as I got back in the gym and upped my calories bigtime (expecting to get softer right away), I actually got leaner since my muscles started to come back after such a long time off. I'm not counting on that to last, but it isn't always just black or white.

Could you explain failure? Is that when proper form fails under temporary fatigue, or is it something else?

That's it.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Even if it just means one perfect rep.

Only train to failure with a dedicated and attentive partner. Having randoms spot you can leave you exposed to injury, since a good deal of gym goers seem to think it's awesome to allow you to struggle and completely fail before providing any assistance, then allowing you to further break form to try and squeeze out a rep.

The advice of "all sets to failure" conflicts with the information I've seen in lots of places online. I'm not an expert, but based on what I've looked into, I rarely go to failure, and I would encourage others to look into the issue too, if they haven't already.

You know what you remind me of? The nerdy/bookish character in movies that always tries to debunk everything with pseudoscience. I can just imagine you adjusting your glasses as you type this haha. The internet will pull you in every direction if you let it, man. How about figuring out what works best for you? I bet most would agree to go to failure after they do so.

I've dropped weights on my head, feet, chest, etc. It's all part of the learning experience. I now go to a gym with weight catches on all the equipment so when I achieve failure I can drop it without a care, goodluck always having a training buddy around when people work 9 to 5.

I don't understand this criticism. It isn't nerdy to simply search Google for "should I train to failure?" If one does that, of course there are people saying things "in every direction", and I'm not in a position to really know who knows what they're talking about. But we still have to try to make a judgment based on what we see, and it seems that on a cursory look, people who might know think it's a bad idea to always go to failure. I mean, it's a weird thing trying to reach a conclusion with this kind of shallow research, but precisely because I'm not willing to be nerdy about it, it's the best that is available.

I agree that people should do what works best for them. That is an obvious point. But you were the one who was posing a dogmatic imperative, while I was the one encouraging looking into things. And I also think that you're overestimating how well people can determine what works for them. You can't really conduct any kinds of reliable trials on just yourself, and the relevant data will only emerge over time periods that will defy your attention and judgment.

I don't see what any of this has to do with pseudoscience either. I may be bookish, since I'm an "academic", but seriously -- I was just encouraging a bit of research. Should everyone approach lifting weights in utter ignorance to all acquired wisdom, figuring everything out for themselves because it's somehow bad to appeal to even a little bit of the oceans of data? If you admit that people should accept advice on some issues (e.g. rep schemes) then why not on this issue? Again, realize that you yourself were giving such advice. The inconsistency is baffling.

The rep range I recommended assumed that failure was reached at or around the goal # of reps. I guess assuming that this was a given was an oversight on my part? I'm confident dystopia4 has enough mind muscle connection to handle that. I will admit that newbie lifters don't have that ability to focus on the contraction, so they tend to just pick up a weight and rep it out until something gives out, oftentimes not the muscle they are even trying to isolate.

I was honestly yanking your chain a bit dude, don't take it personally. However, that statement you made (in isolation) perfectly exemplifies what I see as a huge issue with kids today. They read so much shit online, listen to these stupid Youtube "gurus" that preach all of these wonky lifting schemes and diets (while being juicers themselves). It eventually leads to either frustrating and giving up, or realizing that it is much simpler than initially realized and making it work for yourself. Also, fuck generation nothingness and their inability to have any measure of patience.

I continue to inspire people to learn flags, another 3 folks this week, despite, or possibly because of, my weakness--I suspect people go 'oh, that shit always looked cool, but I didn't think about trying it...and if he can do it, I should definitely be able to!'

Probably been asked a million times, but what's the best set of exercises (can involve devices if they are available at a small budget) for a natural upper body? Like, not muscular, I hate that, but more than the David Hyde Pierce upper body strength I currently have. Some natural regular guy body.

Probably using your own body's weight for resistance training, is what I would do. Pushups, pullups, situps, all the ups. You can train just about every single muscle group, with multiple exercises each, using just your body and maybe a bar or something.

Is there a list of all existing ups?

I'm looking for something comprehensive right now. I have a training book that I use at home for reference.

Pullups and pushups are the two most important exercises if we are talking about basic stuff you can do at home. I also did lateral shoulder raises with buckets of water when I didn't have gym access, and close-grip tricep push off of the kitchen counter.

Erotetic is better with this kind of bodyweight stuff but those are my recommendations. That is how I started getting active again myself.

Fuck it, I don't feel like looking around forever to find something that isn't a shitty website. Basically do squats and lunges for your legs, get a pull-up bar to put in a doorway in your house for pull-ups (palms facing away from you) and chin-ups (palms facing towards you). Lastly you have pushups for your arms and chest. The wider apart your hands are, you will work your chest more. Bringing them together works your arms, diamond pushups are great for triceps. And then the ultimate home workout is the burpee (IMO) which you can read about here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise) Basically you start from a stand position, sprawl to the ground, do a pushup, get into a squat position from the pushup and then jump in the air. Rinse, repeat.

It really depends on what you're trying to achieve and what you're training for. If you're primarily focusing on strength (whether you're actually a strength athlete or just someone wanting to get stronger) rather than hypertrophy, pushing until failure for the bulk of your lifts can be counterproductive. Just as it's unwise to constantly be going for your 1RM where strength-focused training is concerned, so can it be unwise to go to absolute failure. Failing isn't necessarily the key to getting strong. Personally, I shoot for the reps that I planned to perform that day and usually I am able to do so while still having a bit of gas in the tank. Once I've hit the number of reps I've aimed for I'll stop even if I have a couple more left in me.

That said, neither am I really concerned about hypertrophy or bodybuilding. Someone who is, though, is perfectly fine training until failure because they are not focusing specifically on increasing their lifts. Bodybuilding/hypertrophy is very much about the pump, and pushing to form failure in the 8-12 rep range can help get you there. Going to failure in that case is only dangerous if you continue past the point of being able to keep proper form.

Many tanks, rexxz!!

Also knee lifts off the chin up bar. I had a Perfect Pullup for a while. It actually worked really well. It came with straps that wrap the elbows, but (at least in my case) those were more for form than for support.

As far as calisthenics, Hannibal is pretty nuts.

Lat spread @ 170 or so lbs. Quite excited about how it will look once I am 25-30 pounds heavier. Angle is a bit crooked; I had a hell of a time figuring this phone camera out.

or leg raises and L-hangs, or toes to bar if you're a little stronger and more flexible. or on stall bars if you're l33t (anything you can hang from with wall-support on your back -- makes it significantly more difficult).

I agree with Diamhea, the fundamentals, done properly, are essential and invaluable.



I don't really do anything other than the stuff we talk about on the bodyweight fitness reddit.

I dunno anything about David Hyde Pierce, so I can't really comment to that effect (hard to judge how strong someone is without seeing them doing anything, he could have a better deadlift than me for all I can tell), but bodyweight work certainly isn't going to hulk you out unless you're crazy dedicated and eat an awful lot.
here's me hanging out at our bodyweight local...

Sure, a lot of the guys on youtube are beefy, but that's by no means guaranteed, especially if you're a taller guy. in terms of bodyweight exercise, слава шипилов is probably stronger than any of us posting here, but he looks like some weedy teenager who just plays video games...you can't see the crazy amount of strength someone can achieve without bulk, but it's certainly possible if that's what you want.
https://youtu.be/TADoeSo5eW8?t=4m34s
(I encourage anyone here to find the nearest bar and see how easily with a one-hand grip you can invert your body the way he gets his hips higher than his head...it's hard to appreciate just how strong he is without giving even his least risky moves a try.)



PPPU are actually pretty good, too, though they're done with the hands right against the body, but it's perhaps unsurprising given their resemblance to a chest dip.

Man you make me miss doing gymnastics.

I wish I'd learned that shit as a kid, eh, I have so little coordination or body awareness (been trying to learn front and back flips lately...apparently you should learn that before you're 6' tall!! grrr)

what did you used to do? (what age did you train? did you have proper coaching? favorite skills? how much do you think you can still do?)

I was in kids gymnastics for a few years around the time I was 9. There was proper training/coaching. I wasn't planning to go into competitive gymnastics. I ended up switching into rugby and weightlifting... and have stuck with both of those to this day. I was very skilled with rings, parallel bars and flips. Terrible with trampoline. These days? For a little while I went with friends to recreational gymnastics at my university, but I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be. I can do some things when it comes to rings and I can still do flips, but it's not as easy as it used to be. I'm a lot taller, thicker, and heavier.

sick. you should post a vid some time!

Slightly related subject, is there a good and reliable list of which veggies need to be fresh and which retain their nutrients frozen? A lot is simply a lot more convenient frozen.

Some time ago I posted about my miserable (but very funny) try of a one-arm push-up. Thanks to Hellancholy I took a rather logical approach (I hadn't thought about though ) by decreasing the incline. I use the bar of a bench/shoulder press rack-machine at the gym and am now below waist level with the bar doing 3x12 each arm. I steadily (but slowly) keep decreasing and I will reach my goal sooner or later. Feels good , especially when you keep in mind that I am far from skinny and have a bit of weight (210 lbs) to push I do that stuff besides my regular training schedule btw. Just wanted to let you know because I'm happy with the progress.

Staying steady and making gains. New progress pics for the month (and I've finally figured out how to use the timer on my phone):
http://i.imgur.com/GFXtXMa.jpg

And a back pic, for the hell of it:
http://i.imgur.com/5nFFBRQ.jpg

Okay, your belly definitely isn't as skinny as it looked in that picture thread post, that was just the angle then. That definitely looks good.

Nah, my belly could still use work.