medman

You keep the hips completely immobilized and row the bar by "exploding" and arching your upper back, and only your upper back (feels like trying to touch your shoulderblades together). Other barbell rows tend to involve some mobility in the hips. It's hard learning to keep the hips totally immobilized, but with practice I feel I'm getting better at it. Power cleans are definitely a great exercise, I'm just intimidated by how much more technical they seem.

Both of you should definitely compete! And Derek, I think you're obviously at the same level as our other proud vegan BB champions! I hope you enter that contest with your trainer, it seems like it would be a shame for you to NOT compete!

I try my best to do Pendlay Rows: http://stronglifts.com/how-to-perform-the-pendlay-row-with-correct-technique/ That falls under the "torso almost parallel to the floor and touch the weights to the floor between reps" category you listed. Just did some today...I feel it in my upper back like no other exercise, so I plan to stick with them!

I don't think you could cause any pinched nerves from doing squats. There are only two ways the spine could actually compress in a way that leads to pinched nerves: one is by stress fractures in the vertebrae, and the other is from what we call degenerative disc disease, where the cartilage cushions between the vertebrae shrink. Weight-bearing exercise increases bone density, and bone density is the biggest protective factor against stress fractures. As for the intervertebral discs, they usually shrink due to dehydration, not because of compressive forces applied to the spine. Besides, when you're holding a loaded barbell on your shoulders, all your core muscles are tensed to support the weight. It's not like it's propped up on your spine. The spine might be the frame, but the muscles are doing the work supporting that weight.

I will definitely try to keep it short and sweet! I'm thinking of maybe doing something like 2-3 weeks of hardcore cardio coupled with a maintenance level of calories. I know that when I actually put effort in, I burn fat like a mofo, and I'm sure the added muscle will only increase my metabolic rate. I've been meaning to rehab my cardio fitness, so it will be nice to focus on that for a couple of weeks. I'll still be doing my lifting, and it will be interesting to see if the heavy cardio will impact that. After the experiment is done, it will be back to lifting and eating BIG.

No, you didn't at all! Sorry if it sounded that way. My comment about her knowing what's going on was meant as encouragement to her, not a reflection on any implications you made to the contrary. I just respectfully disagreed with you with respect to external sources of estrogen. I didn't think there was any concern that her problems were being caused by them.

I'll have to second that. The food you write in your log doesn't seem sufficient to support intense training. Are you leaving stuff out from your posts?

This is such a useful post! I'm right around the point where you were at week 13 (made good progress, put on a lot of weight, have a bit more bodyfat than I'd like). I'm planning to do exactly what you recommend - a quick cut, then get back to eating and lifting big!

Congrats! Looks like those injuries you had didn't keep you from improving your fitness over last October.

Good job! I'd be really pumped too if I was posting those kinds of numbers! Keep up the fantastic work. How much do you weigh?

Derek, have you ever entered any natural bodybuilding competitions? You could surely win like some of our other forum members have.

That's awesome! Glad to hear it, congrats.

You're a second degree black belt? In what? Whatever it is, you should be able to kick the ass of anyone who tries to make fun of you for doing anything

I would also go to a doctor. I REALLY wouldn't blame something like this on omega 3. Especially since most vegans I know get more omegas than omnis. But also because I really don't believe that low omega 3 intake would affect your memory tangibly...if that were the case, there would be millions of people with severely impaired memory in this country alone.

Gaia, with all due respect, environmental factors like BPA won't cause this type of problem, and Marcina is right about the body "not being that fragile." The thing about phyto/xenoestrogens is that many of them are of extremely low potency (in the case of phytoestrogens) or extremely low exposure (in the case of xenoestrogens). One thing that is important to understand is that there are a HUGE number of estrogen receptors, and very few have any female sex hormone activity (regulating ovulation, breast tissue growth, etc). For a compound to be classified as a phytoestrogen, it just has to be able to bind to ANY of these receptors, and even when it does bind, it may have extremely low activity. The phytoestrogens in soy, for example, have been shown to bind to the estrogen receptors in the cardiovascular system. They still haven't figured out whether they decrease the rate of cardiovascular disease, or have no effect at all. Nobody has shown a soy phytoestrogen to have ANY impact on the sex hormone-type receptors in either men or women. All the evidence has been related to either cancer or cardiovascular disease, and even in those, we're not sure if they make any tangible difference. Marcina, it is clear that you are bright and understand how these less common problems are figured out. I wish you all the best and hope you get to the bottom of it soon.

I have trouble believing that the shoulder press machine wouldn't help at least partially preserve your strength in the "real" lifts. I look forward to seeing what you can do when your shoulder is better! It's awesome to have a guy like Kirk in your corner...the next year will be very interesting to watch unfold!

Unacceptable. I expect compliments on a more timely basis. Thanks a lot! Thanks! It's nice to have some encouragement. It can get frustrating watching my buddy outpace me on the bench and overhead presses. I keep reminding myself that I have no control over my genetics, and that I should be grateful that my squats and deads have progressed so nicely. The really frustrating thing, though, is that he has much bigger legs than me. I'm getting strong but still have marathoner legs. They're not quite as skinny as they were, at least. I'm trying to keep a powerlifting vs a bodybuilding mentality...I'm more concerned about building strength in my legs than how they look. I'm super stoked about how fast the gains have been, but being realistic, I know they'll be slowing down soon! I'm anticipating needing to switch to an intermediate routine by the end of the summer. These past couple of weeks have been lame (only going to the gym about twice a week) because it's exam season, but my final exam is next Friday, so after that I'm going to refuse to let myself miss any sessions all summer. I've also been considering cutting a bit. Because these past couple of weeks haven't been as intense lifting-wise, I'm trying to fill in the gaps with cardio I can do at home. I've already lost 1-2 lbs of fat, and might try to lose another 1-2 before the lifting (and eating) gets intense again. My abs have hypertrophied so much, it would be nice to cut down a bit and show them off!

Even at what you're calling "rehab" levels, I am in awe of your strength! I practically spat out the water I was drinking when I read 380 lbs on the incline press machine. You are a freaking tank! I can't wait to see your progress in this log. I hope you stave off those injuries for good! Oh, and PS - 700 lb squat at 230? Sounds like he's giving you some pretty solid advice there.

Psh, this is just an opportunity for you to push yourself even harder What I've come to realize is that my legs and back are really my biggest strength. My gym buddy and I started at very similar strength levels, but I've surpassed him by about 25 lbs on the squat and 100 lbs on the deadlift, while he's surpassed me by 10-20 lbs on the overhead and bench presses. I seem to be quicker at building lower body strength while he's an upper body guy. Kind of a neat scientific experiment, with two guys doing the exact same program and getting different results. I wish I could see the kind of gains on my presses as I've had on my squats and deads. My presses have gone up by about 20-30% since starting, while my squats and deads are approximately 100% higher than three months ago!

Oh no! Food poisoning sucks!! Though it's fortunately much less common for vegans. Good idea though, take a day to eat lots and get your strength (not to mention glycogen stores) back to weightlifting levels. For bench, have you thought about trying dumbbells for a bit to change things up? I also think Ryan once gave the advice of specifically training the part of your range of motion you have trouble with. Are you getting stuck bringing the bar up when it's down at your chest? Or do you get a couple of inches up and then get stuck? If you have a spotter, you can do partial reps of just your range where you usually fail. That, or because incline bench works your chest pretty equivalently to flat bench, maybe you could switch to inclines for a while and see if that helps you?

Thanks, guys!

Dude, that is effin' ridiculous! Good job!!!

Videos would be great but are also beyond what I can do right now (no camera!). As promised, here's an update, together with a photo of me at the top of one of my 235 lb deadlifts (yes, it's 235 and not 225...there are two little 5 lb plates hiding at the very ends that don't show up in the photo). It's not so much a smile as a grimace (I always get my game face on when putting in crazy effort...I have no control over it so I've decided to embrace it). It's funny because this photo has shown me that, apparently, I fan out my sternocladomastoid when I deadlift, which makes me neck look much thicker than it actually is... http://i346.photobucket.com/albums/p437/mbene085/StrongLifts/17-05-10_2108.jpg As for the workouts, here's the latest: Squat: 5x5 @ 185 lbs (finally worked my way back up to it!) Overhead Press: 1x4, 2x3, 2x2 @ 90 lbs Deadlift: 1x4 @ 235 lbs Weighted Chinups: 3x5 @ 20 lbs I should have had the 5th deadlift, but I forgot to buy chalk, and the bar I was using really didn't have the best grip. My hands had gotten sweaty, and it was really a grip failure that kept me from doing the 5th rep. I need to get myself some chalk so this doesn't happen again. Oh well, I'll nail 235 next time! My 4th rep still had good form so I think I can easily get the 5th with some chalk (or one of the better bars in the gym). Overhead press DESTROYED me. I got 5x5 at 85 lbs last time, but 90 lbs killed me. I think part of it was psychological (really wasn't my best gym day), and part of it was my shoulders being tired from all the striking practice I've been doing for my krav maga class, which really does a number on my shoulders and arms. On the plus side, I made up for it by nailing my previous PR of 185 lbs on the squat. Last time, I barely made it through the sets, and was in so much pain by the end that I could barely sit down on the bench afterward, and could barely get myself up off it after a couple of minutes. That was when I vowed to drop the weight and learn to squat with better form. I nailed 185 with much more confidence and power (and didn't feel dead afterward at all). I want to repeat this weight though, because my gym partner told me I wasn't quite hitting parallel. I might drop the weight 15 lbs or so and build back up, going below parallel. I don't see much point in trying to break 200 lbs if my form isn't perfect. Weighted chinups are getting hard. I was really feeling the 20 lbs (just moved up from 15), but then again, I do them right after my heavy deadlifts, so what can I expect?

Excellent work, especially on your deadlift day! Why did you decide against chalk? I tried it for the first time the other day and am in looooooove!

The reason you can't do as much weight as on the Smith machine is because the bar on a Smith machine is counterbalanced to 0 pounds. It doesn't add 45 pounds like an olympic bar. The reason you can't get as low is because you haven't developed the combination of strength, flexibility and balance that a deep free squat takes. With the smith machine, the bar can't move forward, back, or side to side, so you could be "leaning" and the bar would keep your balance for you. Start with low weight, and work on getting deeper and deeper. Three months after starting regular squatting, my range of motion is lightyears beyond where I started.