Whoo! 200lbs ohp today for a single.

Hey, thanks for the tips on the last page guys. Appreciate it! Thankfully, shoulder is feeling good after letting it rest a bit, and I've added some accessory movements to help with shoulder stability and have continued with my stretching routine (phrak's starting stretching with a few extra stretches for my glutes and shoulder dislocates) as well as foam rolling and all seems to be moving along nicely!

200 lb push press is fuckin' boss, brah.

Try just doing laterals for a while instead of overhead pressing movements, as those really put the rotator cuff in a compromising position (especially behind the neck military press). Plus laterals help develop the heads separately as opposed to in one big movement where it is easy to subconsciously overcompensate.

Dude, what's your beef with ohp?

Not only is that wrong, it's completely wrong. It is anatomically IMPOSSIBLE to impinge your shoulders IF you do a proper overhead press: with full thoracic extension, shoulder mobility, and not compromising your lumbar spine. MOST people, including me, DO NOT have the proper shoulder and thoracic mobilty required to do a press, thus putting the rotator cuff and other joints in a compromising position. Rip describes it best here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CnBmiBqp-AI

But yeah, I have shoulder problems from benching and pressing with thoracic kyphosis (stuck in flex ion; the opposite of extension) and terrible shoulder mobility, so those movements only further facilitated the front and rear deltoid musclar imbalance I slreaddy had. I've come a long way in my posture in the past four months though, and it's only getting better! Im actually barbell pressing again!

He has already complained of shoulder problems, and you yourself just said that most people lack the required mobility, and as a result it puts the joint in a compromising position. I didn't say anything about impingement. Seems like we are agreeing here, so moving on..

Always appreciate your input, but I'm not a powerlifter like you, I lift using the bodybuilding style, so we are on opposite ends of the spectrum here. I could care fuck all about how much weight I can lift for one rep, the mirror at home tells me if I'm doing it right. I've been at this for a decade, and I've never been injured, and you are all banged up after just a year of training! I guess it depends on the person's goal. I'm just saying, if something injured you once, it stands to reason you are treading on some measure of ice by doing it again. I'm not going to bombard you with a bunch of Youtube fitness guru videos like I could if I wanted, I'm just sharing what worked for me, and ultimately you have to find out what works for you. Respect as always, Alex.

For sure man! No disrespect intended, and yeah, we have different goals for sure! I'm not trying to be dogmatic about lifting, because like anything else, there is no one, objectively "right" way! Not Christians, not muslims, not republicans, not democrats, not bodybuilding, and not powerlifting!!! Side laterals rule too!

Overhead press isn't even a competition lift anyways, haha! It used to be for Olympic weightlifting long ago though. I think it's cool to train every way. Do predominantly compounds, then do isolation work for a while, and vice versa! Lifting weights is a skill, might as well train to be an efficient lifter AND functional, structured human being....that also looks good naked!

Clean and Press will forever be the man lift, imo >:-O

...but I can understand why it was thrown out of the olympics. Alexeiev's winning press shouldn't have been white lighted back in 1972. Judges handed him the win with a very obvious push press. Clean and Jerk is much easier to judge, though.

Alexeev 230 kg (~507 lb) clean and "press": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7erVblY7aiU

Just moments after Redding nailed 228 kg (503 lbs) with a legit clean and press: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nJrYPVJ88M

Not to take anything away from Alexeev, though... it's gotta be an unreal feeling to press more weight over your head than many lifters can even pick up off the ground (including myself).

I've worked out for several years now, but only started to go regularly a year ago. All the "big lifts" like squats, deadlifts, and bench I usually do 4 sets of 6 with warmups that slowly work my way up to about 80% of my one rep max. I've had good results doing that for the past year. I went from being able to bench 225 once to being able to do it 8 times. Squatting also helped my vertical tremendously. I went from not being able to dunk a basketball to being able to dunk it with two hands with two steps.

Do you guys use pre workout supplements? I almost have to after walking to classes all day and studying. I just feel so tired by the time I work out I need that extra stimulation to wake me up.

Caffeine.

There are a few older supplements that have been discontinued (because they work) like Hot Stuff and Jack3d (original formula). Even then, it didn't necessarily warrant the higher price point if there was no ephedrine in it. I'll stick to coffee.

C4 preworkout, DMAA (while cutting), ZMA, phenibut, and I sip on about 30g of BCAAs everyday mixed in with 1 gallon of water. No protein shakes. Eating 2000 calories a day while cutting, <50g carbohydrates daily unless it's Sunday... not much different than the cyclic ketogenic diet, but perhaps falling a little bit outside the rules.

All pre-workouts are basically the same, so I usually switch them up pretty frequently.

@King_Hands, nice 666 squat \m/

That must be so god damn painful...I can't even imagine. How long have you been cutting consistently like this?!

Although, I've been in a constant bulk since I started lifting consistently (a year and some months), so I have no idea what a real cut like that would be like. I try to eat 400g+ carbs per day, but I'm bulking! I feel like 100g of carbs would still be hard to not go over for me! Squatting every day + roofing is exhausting as shit, if I cut carbs out I would die within a week!

It's not that hard if you structure it coherently and plan ahead. Smaller meals spaced out throughout the day, lots of water to keep your stomach full... and personally I chew lots of gum to keep my mind busy.

A lot of practice and mental trickery... I tend to view food as a 'drug' of sorts. On a cut, I try to see it as 'fuel' and use just as much as I need. Even on a bulk, I'm a fan of the "warrior diet" style of eating, where you may just eat one giant meal a day after your workout... basically just a variation of intermittent fasting. It's tough to transition into, but it feels normal after a week or so.

This gets tricky on a caloric deficit... hence forcing myself to drink a gallon of water throughout the day. I throw BCAAs in there (which adds about 150 calories) since studies suggest it has a protein sparing effect and you maintain more muscle mass. If I'm feeling hungry, I just keep chugging liquids. I definitely still get hungry, but that gets offset by the nausea that accompanies drinking that volume of water. At the end of the day, you just have to ask yourself what is more important... eating a meal and temporarily getting rid of that hunger, or keeping on track with your fat loss goals. It's just mind over matter.

Low carb is easy for me, as well... I grew up having a taste for red meat. I naturally veered into a paleo style diet when I first started taking my fitness seriously. Meat, veggies, done. I don't really need the weekly high carb day, but I throw it in because most 'bro-science' suggests that cyclic ketogenic diets burn more fat than pure ketogeneic diets.

Strict pressing is one of my favorite exercises. I've been doing around 135lbs 5x5. That's still pretty light, but I will try to find my max in the next couple of weeks. And then I'll try push-pressing just so I can feel what it's like to hold 200 pounds in that position! If I could one day get 225 push-pressing, that would be so much fun.

You know what's a better lower back exercise than any deadlifting routine? Shovelling all morning and lifting heavy stones all afternoon. That was two days ago and still feeling it. Love my new job, but it's kind of hard to figure out how to keep deadlifting in my weight lifting routine. Guess just do heavy loads with low reps once a week when I don't have to work the next day. Still, love doing this kind of stuff and I think it will make my strength more balanced in the long run. Just gotta eat a shitload, stay hydrated and prioritize sleep.

I just picked up the Nike+ app (after being asked to do so from a friend), and it's a handy jogging/running tracker. If anyone else uses this, I'd love to add you as a "friend" on it.

Did my weight this morning, and even though it took a little longer than I would have liked, I'm finally under 180 lbs. That's now 84 lbs. I've dropped in about 2.5 years.

Damn, that' some decent progress! Are you dealing with any loose skin coming down from that weight? I would guess it is minimal since you didn't drop the weight super fast.

Nope, no loose skin, but I am smaller than a lot of my pants now, and me having no money to get new fitting ones makes wearing them a bit annoying, even with a belt.

Also, pretty much none of this weight loss was attained through a religious workout routine. It was entirely from making drastic changes in my eating habits. I eat a lot more natural stuff now, and I've jettisoned all the processed, boxed shit I used to eat out the window. Lots more produce, actually making the meats I eat myself rather than buying bagged, pre-cooked meats, watching the calories and added amounts of sodium and sugar, and just generally eating healthier. Still eat the same amount I used to though, just different stuff is all.

Well, yeah. Diet is 90% of it anyway. Glad that is working out for you.

I won't go so far as to say I eat "clean" though, because every man has his cravings. I won't pig out on that shit anymore though, as opposed to me 2 or 3 years ago who thought drinking a 2 liter Pepsi was a good idea. Blech.

You've finally kicked the TV dinners?

It was that big tiff in the FFA that actually made me realize how nasty what I was eating was and decide to alter what I eat for good. Plus when you learn how horrible the stuff really is, the sodium overtakes everything else and it begins tasting like shit too.

Glad to hear it, man. It's a miracle that you managed to lose weight eating that stuff in the first place.

Even when I was still eating that stuff I just downsized it considerably. I do still eat carb-heavy stuff like bread and pasta, but I make sure it's the healthier types of it. Hell, I got a steak sandwich during the show on Saturday from D'Angelo's on multi-grain bread, and it tasted better than if it was normal white bread. I can't stand white bread anyway.

It really isn't so much what you eat, but how much of it you eat. You could literally eat nothing but Cheetos and if you burned more calories than you eat you'd still lose weight.

Eh, it's not just about calories. I could do the same thing with Big Macs and Whoppers, but even if I lose weight all the other nasty shit in those burgers is gonna do some kind of harm. There's 37 grams of fat in one Whopper alone, and 33 in a Big Mac. The former has 911mg of sodium and the latter has 1007mg of sodium.

Concerning weight loss alone, it really is. But kudos to you for trying to eat clean/healthy/whatever. Your TDEE is going to continue to drop as you lose fat, so you are going to eventually stall if you don't start eating smaller portions. You can take it as far as you want to, naturally.

I lose weight eating In N Out five days a week . Gonna agree with Diam on this one haha. It mostly boils down to "calories in < calories out." Thermodynamics and shit. Granted, what/when/how often you eat definitely has an effect on your endocrine system, and your endocrine system has a big effect on your metabolism... but that's kinda advanced dieting and only really matters when you're trying to go below 10% body fat.

There is also the argument that eating junk food makes portion control harder and saps your energy, discouraging you from being active and exercising.

As something of an addendum to my posts here from a few days ago, yesterday I went to the market and, in my haste to add as much produce to my food haul this month as possible, I bought three pineapples. And that's in addition to the watermelon, the 8 lb. bag of apples, the assorted bags of grapes, and the assorted berries I got too. I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do with them, but what I'm thinking of doing is making cubes out of one, spears out of another, and rings out of the last.

Oh, and I got 30 bucks worth of raw chicken breasts. Because when you make a conscious decision to eat healthier, you make some weird food choices.

That's the way to do it, chicken-wise. Freeze some if you have to. I don't know anything about you, but it's important to keep vegetables in mind too. Fruit obviously rules, but focusing on just that at the expense of vegetables isn't a great idea. I have to heed this advice too, since I love fruit and am bored by most vegetables.

Yeah, that's what I did. There are five breasts in a package, so I put one package in the fridge and two in the freezer. I usually go through about a chicken breast a day (healthy AND fills you up!), so I've got a good half a month of chicken breasts at my disposal. The thing I realized at the end of April was that the market I go to (Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market a town over from me) has both their store brand chicken breasts and Perdue breasts, but the store brand has five breasts in a package for $2 more than the Perdue breasts that only have three in a package. And the store brand breasts are bigger.

As for veggies, I didn't neglect them. In addition to the produce, I got three bags of fresh made mixed veggies, all of which contain corn, peas, carrots, and green beans. I put them all in airtight containers and froze them for future use. I'll use those as the side when I make my chicken and fish combos.

be sure to bag 'em up in freezer-safe bags, or at least a few coats of standard plastic wrap. supermarket meat is 'wrapped for display' not to be well-protected in frozen storage.

So what's everyone up to lately?