Anyone here like to lift weights? I'm not huge or anything, but I enjoy it quite a bit. Which exercises do you like the most? Hate the most? Do you take supplements?

As for me, I love curls and calf raises. There is just something quite satisfying about them. Also, I do pull ups regularly with my routine which are quite fun as well. I'm thinking I might try doing them weighted at some point. As far as hating... I'm not crazy about many leg exercises, which I think is pretty common.

Supplement-wise I have only tried one that I have been using for about 3-4 months. Its called Muscle Milk, and seems to work fairly well. I put on a bit of weight, which isn't very easy for me to do.

I've lifted weights ever since I was in grade school and all the other kids could do things like climb the rope to the ceiling of the gym, and I couldn't. I could run and jump and touch my toes and was very flexible and stuff like that, but had no strength at all and felt kind of inferior because of that, I suppose, so I started lifting weights and doing pushups every day until I was better at these than most of the other kids in my classes.

I honestly can't fathom life without lifting weights. All my friends are wimps and I always have to help them carry furniture when they move and stuff, they seem totally helpless to me.

At home I just have a few sets of weights, but have always considered the possibility of buying some kind of machine like those ones in the infomercials, but I don't know if it's really worth it. I've never tried supplements because I'm a girl and girls don't tend to bulk up anyway (nor would I actually want to).

I like leg and back exercises. When I was on the cross country team my coach always bitched at me for doing too many; she said I'd end up hurting myself and not being able to run in the races, but this never happened.

I have several years of experience lifting weights. You didn't give a specific reason for lifting weights, but if you're trying to get big and look more muscular you need to squat and deadlift a shitload. Curls are pretty much the most worthless exercise ever. I guarantee that you're arms will get bigger from just doing squats than curls.

My squat is 585, deadlift is 595, and bench is 405.

I lifted weights through out high school while playing on the football team, which was nice but after that I took about a 2 year break or so where I just stopped all physical activity basically.


However, I finally got back into the groove this past year and to this day have been working out 3-4 times a week for the last 7 months and I'm quite pleased with the results thus far. I like hang clings, curls, front lat pull downs amongst a few other things.

Do you mean hang cleans?

Yes, I believe that is what I meant. Its been awhile since I've talked about weight lifting.

i'm a sophomore in high school, and i only started lifting last year. however, it was not until about February of this year that i realized any significant gains. i think i pretty much had a growth spurt, but grew out, not up. at the time i began taking "cell-tech hardcore" creatine, and since i've experienced fairly dramatic gains. my use has been sporadic however, so i think the growth more to do with good, athletic genes, lucky me.

my favorite lifts are upper body ones. i love doing incline dumbbell presses and bench presses, as well as decline push ups. all kinds of triceps lifts are welcome. in fact, the triceps are probably my favorite muscle group to work out, although i'm not really sure why. honestly i think its the way they work in tandem with your other chest and deltoids in many exercises. on the other hand, i absolutely despise lunges. i just hate them so much, it's really pathetic.

my max's are far from impressive, i've got a while to go yet; at 145 pounds my bench press was 180, my squat probably around 210, and the most push ups i've done is one set of 65. i can do a decent twenty non-weighted pull ups right now (i weigh close to 155 at the moment), and about six pull ups with a 45 pound dumbbell.

I worked my way up to 280 on the bench, which was my weight at the time. I didn't keep up with it, or keeping the diet, and got rather flabby. So, these days I do mostly aerobic. I can still bench 200, which isn't bad I guess, considering I almost never do it anymore.

Ive been lifting for about 5 years now! I did a short stint in power lifting for osapl!

True very true! Do you power lift?

I compete in Olympic-style weightlifting and strongman going on 6 years now. Been a while since I competed but I'm getting back into the swing of things.

:lol: You and I would be horrible workout partnets. I don't like doing leg OR back exercises.

I lifted weights a little bit in high school. My mother is an ex body builder, she's been teaching arobics for 17 years, and weight lifting/cardio exercises are still a part of her daily life. She goes to the gym before her arobic classes, so she can run on the treadmill and lift weights. Because she works at both Gold's Gym and World Gym, I got discounts on gym memberships. So I went a bit in high school, but eventually lost motivation, and stopped.

Right now, I'm on a Navy ship, on a detachment. The whole detachment I'm on lasts just over a month. The first week, I got motivated to start lifting weights again, since I have arms like twigs. I was getting heavy into it for about 1 1/2 weeks, and also getting some really good cardio in. But after that, I got hit with all kinds of sickness. First, I started coughing uncontrollably. That lasted a few days, then I started to feel extremely feverish. A few days later, that went away, and I had a sore throat from hell. I'm recovering from that now. The entire time, I've also been extremely confested, and loaded with phlegm. I've never experienced crazy sickness like this, but its killing me to not be in that gym lifting.

I enjoy doing anything with arms, but I prefer working biceps. At work, I wear coveralls, and they're hard to take off when your triceps are sore I really never do any kind of bench pressing, just because I much prefer to workout alone. I should find a workout partner. I'm finally getting over all this sickness, and am motivated to get back into the gym. Too bad the detachment is almost over, but there's a great gym on my base at home, too

Too many semi-religious gym rats concentrate too much on upper body and abs. It looks silly.

I don't feel the need to work on lower body too much, especially calves... Mine look like they're about to explode! They're huge, and they always have been. I used to walk everywhere I went, all over my town. I also worked as a tour guide for an underground cave... three years of walking down and back up 180 feet, 3/4 of a mile, 5 times a day. Everyone who sees my calves joke about how big they are

I really, really need to do something to beef up my arms. The army physical fitness test always creeps up, and since I'm a reserve soldier you KNOW I don't work out regularly. Push-ups has always remained a killer for me, so usually I'm just on the ground cranking them out - or rarely use the Perfect-Push-up shit.

My biggest concern is doing sit-ups with weights. I used to see my abs when I still had a girlfriend - no I'm starting to get flab and not doing anything about it. I know it's there, I know I can take care of it, but I just don't.

I'm a lazy fuck

I do a lot of strength and power training; it started when I played rugby in high school and I haven't stopped since. Few things are as exhilarating as deadlifting a one rep max with death metal going off in your ears!

if you're looking to maximize the amount of push-ups you can do (and make your abs visible at the same time), you can always try to lose weight. doing so obviously reduces the amount of weight you have to do in a push-up, which in a standard one i believe is sixty-five percent of your body weight (i'm probably wrong). one thing you could try is to mimic that weight on the bench press; you can use the same hand placement as you do your push-ups, and you can maximize the movement of the bar, just as you would your body in a push-up. i don't think you want to lift too heavily however, as push-ups are more of an endurance exercise. also, you can target the individual muscle groups used in a push-up (triceps, chest, anterior deltoids) in the hopes of strengthening them all so the push-ups are easier for you. of course, simply doing push-ups would seem to be an effective way to build up strength. perhaps you should try some decline push-ups.

of course, i'm really no expert, but i hope some of that helps you.

I would like to get a bit toned up...Alot of people I work with use the word "cut"... what is the best way of going about that?

I do a LOT of weightlifting...It's pretty much all there is to do besides read books and listen to music. At least, until my unit finally retrogrades back to the states. I think a lot of people are surprisingly ignorant about weightlifting, but once you grasp the concept it is really simple...human anatomy and all of that. Then again, I've had a lot of time to read fitness/bodybuilding magazines out here in iraq, and pretty much everyone in my unit goes to the gym regularly so there is a lot of accumulated knowledge.

If you want strength- squat, deadlift, press (overhead) and power cleans.

Build your entire workout around those exercises.

Doing 20 sets of isolation/assistance exercises isn't going to make you strong.

Lifting heavy stuff will, and the best way to do that is with exercises that use your whole body working in concert.

Cleaning up your diet would be the best way of doing that.

There is something called a power cage that you can use to bench press by yourself safely. I think most gyms have them, here's a video explaining it : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCOo3RtKu1E

Thanks kronos - I'll be using that in school - we have an indoor gym there.

Losing weight is probably the best option, though. I ended up going from 150 to 135 while in basic training. They made us do push-ups every time of the day in the heat and I was so used to them I could crank out 60 in 2 minutes.

Now I can barely reach the minimum and my regular eating habits have brought me up to 165. Fuck

Right now, I am a Senior in high school. In the summer between Junior and Senior year, I went to the beach with my friends, and realized that I am VERY VERY VERY skinny, so I started working out. I went from 155lb-ish to my current weight of 180lb-ish in about three months.

I have a whole routine, with a differant muscle for each day. I work with medium/low weights and do a ton of reps (I don't want to get much bigger, just stronger and more defined). My routine looks something like:

Monday - Shoulders - Front bare ball raises, military press, shoulder press (sets of 15 to 20, with about 25lb weights).

Tuesday - Biceps & Forearms - bar curls, dumbbell curls (bar at 30lb with sets of 50, dumbbells at 35lb each with sets of 21, 10 for each hand and one "conclusion" rep with both arms together) .

Wednesday - Running - I just about 2 or 3 miles out on the school track and a half a mile of lunges.

Thursday - Triceps & Chest - Skulls crushers, behind the head skulls crushers, mini-benches, Triceps and Chest pull downs - I usually do about 4 sets of 20reps at 30lb 5 times for the first three exercises, and 10 sets of 20 at 25lb for the second two.

Friday - Lower & Upper Back - Good morning exercises, Hyper extensions, lat pulldowns, and dumbbell shrugs - (5 sets of 12 at45lb for the good morning exercises, 10 sets of 20 with 10lb for the Hyper extensions, 10 sets of 15 for the lat pull downs at 110lb and 10 sets of 8 (15 seconds) for the 50lb shrugs)

Saturday - Legs - Leg press, leg "opening" and "closing" exercises - 10 sets of 20 at 480lb for the leg press and 5 sets of 50 at 140lb for the other two.

Sunday - nothing - Usually do two sets with about 80 reps haha.

I also do abs every day (including Sunday) and start each workout with a 20 minute jog (6 or 7 miles per hour with a bit of an incline).

Finally, a friend of mine "recruited" for the swim team, and after swimming for about a month and a half, my shoulders got twice as wide, I've burned some fat and got a lot more defined. I'm going to add a daily 2 hour swim to my routine once I go to college.

I have a month old picture of myself in a speedo (at a swim meet) which I really wouldn't mind sharing, as long as I have the officials' approval...

damn, that's quite a weight disparity between your military press and dumbbell curls. i've always had stronger shoulders than biceps. i'm curious, are you using very strict form on your curls, or do you rock a bit to get the weight up? i know that the "cheat" form is most desirable for forced reps at the end of a set, but is that what you're doing for the whole set? i'm not trying to shit on your parade, i'm just curious.

then again, i just did that 30 pound bar for 50 repetitions, and it was fairly difficult at my out-of-shape 150 pounds, so you must have some pretty cut bi's.

No I'm a football player. Though powerlifting is a possibility for me in the future.

I just started hitting the gym around here. We're allowed to work out during work hours, and a couple other guys invited me along. Since I just started again after a long hiatus of doing, well, nothing, my arms are really hellishly sore.

Tonight, though, I think I'm ready for more. I need to get back into the swing of things so that one or two little workouts don't leave me in so much pain.

I try to go to the gym about 3 times a week, and I have no car so I walk and bike everywhere. I might start to run once or twice a week too.

I'm a skinny bastard so I'm not very strong, but I'm glad that my lats are now visible. Ribs don't stick out so bad now.

Well, military press and dumbbell curls work completely different muscles, is they don't really have to have the same weight.

As for the curles, I usually do the first 5 sets properly or almost properly (slight swing with the last 2 or 3 reps), but once I start "slowing down" I cut the number of reps in half. For example, I do 5 sets of 50 30lb bar curls and 21 35lb dumbbell curles, then 5 more sets of 25 30lb bar curles and 5 more sets of 35lb and 11 reps (sometimes 14 or 16). When I start slowing down again, I stop, though since I alternate, its not as hard.

After swimming a lot of Breast Stroke, my biceps got rather strong. It's my triceps that are behind I can bench one rep of 175lb, while I weigh 180lb). Hopefully that will be fixed.

as for being helpful, your 175 pound bench press may be indicative of less developed pectoral muscles than triceps. what kind of grip would you say you use, a wide or close grip? a close grip bench, like one you'd use for a skull crusher, targets the triceps area much more effectively than a regular bench press (and if you want to work on your pecs, vice versa) but as a result you'll need to do less weight. if it's your first time trying it, make sure you start with a much lower weight to get your tri's acclimated to the stress. an exercise i absolutely fell in love with for triceps is any form of the triceps extension. this includes the cross shoulder extension, the overhead extension, and the dumbbell kickback. also, most gyms should have a pull up bar that allows for a grip which emphasizes your tri's; try weighted pull-ups, they will do wonders for you. if you lift at home, i recommend investing in an iron gym, as it is an inexpensive pull up bar that also allows you to do tricep dips. try doing some with a weight plate on your lap, your triceps will explode.

these exercises are all exercises that i focus on for tri's, and i found them all extremely helpful, especially if you're looking to increase your bench press. of course, by no means should you neglect your chest either, but the triceps really are the workhorses of your arms.

edit: if any of this is old news to you, let me apologize if i come off as arrogant; i'm just trying to be helpful

I've been benching and doing triceps exercises for a while now, and I have been getting stronger. I think that you are right, and those are my pecs that cause the problem. Sometimes during my tricep days, I try to do as many bar dips as possible (the problem is that after those, I can't do anything else with my triceps/chest), and I think it works because I feel like my chest is going to crack in half after a few reps. I do do the dumbbell extension, I just always thought it was some extended form of the skull crushers. I do 20 skull crushers and 20 extensions, though on my back, rather then in a sitting position.

I think that with benching, by the time I reached 135, there were some holidays and I missed a bunch of workouts (I work out at school), after which, I kind of stopped benching and went onto other stuff (muscle memory DOES impact exercise efficiency/effectiveness). I was talking to my uncle who lifts a lot, and he felt my arm up and said that mu 'ceps are very soft compared to my biceps. So yeah, it's in progress.

I've been lifting for a while now, probably around a year. Last summer, I lost a bunch of weight, going from a high point of 210 lbs to a little under 160 right now.

As for my training, me and my dad typically alternate chest/tricep and back/bicep workouts every other day, I do abs every do, and cardio/legs are kind of randomly thrown in the mix, though I usually try to do cardio on days that I don't lift. I don't do squats and the like enough to give a proper estimate of my max, but on bench press, I could max out at 200 lbs, haven't actually attempted it, but I have done 185 without much difficulty at one rep before, so 200 doesn't sound unreasonable.

I've done lifting, but I found it really hard to put on muscle mass. I figure my diet might have been part of the problem. So, to kronos and aChapo, since you two seem to be the most gung-ho in this thread, what do you usually eat?

I've been lifting weights since I was 15. I started with a 6.5lb pair of dumb bells before progressing to my dad's 11lb dumb bells. A few years later, I acquired a workout bench and a bar bell and dumb bell set. Unlike the dumb bells I was using earlier, these were made from cast iron so it took me a while to get used to them. The heaviest weight plate I have is 11lb and if I were to put all my weight plates on my barbell, I would be able to lift a maximum of 90-95lb and I weigh 168lb, a weight I've managed to maintain for a few years now. Obviously, this limits how far I can go (the most I've ever attempted to lift was about 70lbs) so I either need to buy more weight plates or join a gym.

As far as favourite exercises, I like doing tricep extensions, shoulder presses, bench presses, deadlifts and bent over rows. I used to hate doing squats but I'm pretty comfortable with doing them now. I perform them with my arms straight and holding dumb bells as I lower myself towards the ground. I'n thinking of trying them with a weightless bar bell to get used to performing the exercise in a different way before adding weight to it.

Despite the fact that I have been doing it on a fairly regular basis for the past 8 years, I still have not achieved the kind of body I want. I feel part of this is due to a lack of cardio/ab work. There's an ab plan that I'm thinking of trying tomorrow as part of my workouts and I'm also aiming to go for an extended walk at least 4-5 times a week. I am lucky enough to live a few minutes away from a large walk and often walk around, taking in the park's hilly bits for more leg work. There's one large particularly steep hill there, which is great for this. It's also common for me to walk to places 2 miles away from me to do various things rather than take a bus or train like I would have done in previous years. I hope making an effort to do all those things, combined with a good, varied weights programme performed 3 times a week and getting the right nutrition, will result in the body I've been striving for all these years.

When I decided to get big and buff, I started eating like crazy, and upped my calorie intake by a few notches. I got a lot bigger after a few months of lifting and eating, the problem was that I've gained some fat in mah belleh as well. So you want to go easier on the carbs.
What you want to do, is eat a lot more vegetables and fat less meat (or chicken) and ad some carbs to your diet (carbs are energy).

I've recently started taking some protein supplements (GNC AMP Wheyabolic extreme), which gave me somewhat positive (I've only taken like, 7 servings) results, but if you are just starting to get serious about lifting/eating, id recommend waiting for a bit with those.


Edit:

Has anyone ever try burning fat by cold showers? It should work on paper, and I feel a bit more toned after the aforementioned, but most people I know who work out and have experience working out couldn't give me an answer.

Protein shake 60 minutes before you work out, protein shake immediately after(VEEERRRYYY important), and lots of lean meat, nuts, beans, et cetera. High protein diet.

well, it depends on the type of lifting you're doing as well as your actual diet. could you possibly do a breakdown of what you eat over the course of an average day?

as for me, well, i had to maintain a weight of 130 during the wrestling season and i ate vegetables, egg whites, baked potatoes, and when i could afford to drink it, water. that was all. so, when i no longer was required to make that weight my calorie intake drastically increased from 1200 or so a day to about 3000. throughout the season i had been weight training, and i continued to after it was finished, to a degree (though with less equipment available). the added fats, sugars, carbohydrates and proteins, while adding more body fat certainly, also brought increased muscle mass and density from my weight training. my maximum bench press jumped 50 pounds in about two months. daily i eat...whatever i see, really. 4 eggs are pretty much mandatory every day for breakfast. and at night i'll usually have any type of pasta or meat with a vegetable. of course, i am still growing so i can get away with this wanton eating and not serious exercise.

Only problem with this is that it becomes very expensive... I only take one after for this reason.

I've heard oatmeal is supposed to be great before a workout before because it has slow acting carbs. Anyone else heard this?

The protein shakes were already being consumed, so that's nothing new. On an average day, I only eat some sort of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not a lot for the first two meals, nor do I snack, because there is pretty much no food variety at my house. Can't say that I consume a great deal of vegetables either, because I prefer them raw, but the family always has microwaved stuff. So, my diet kinda sucks.

But thanks to everyone for the feedback.

There's always Centrum or Men's One-a-Day pills. I take those in lieu of actual health food since my diet has always including inordinant amounts of Mountain Dew and pizza. The latter of which I really don't have these days.


I miss Davanni's.