medman

Really, does that matter at all? Are they going to go out and buy 20 new drums because you joined, or are they going to just be using the drums that they've already had for years? Honestly, it's stuff like that that really gets me sometimes. It's like saying you're not going to go to a concert at Carnegie hall, because the 100 year-old piano they'll be playing has keys made of ivory. Would your participation change what happened in any way? No.

This overall sounds like a pretty convincing PCOS type story, though I hope your problems are short-lived and that you get well soon!

Forget the steamer, I need that back!

Yeah, I've never heard of a supinated (palms facing you) overhead press either. I will tell you what I found to be very comfortable and advantageous: when an experienced powerlifter showed me how to use a thumbless grip on it. THAT felt great. Did it a bunch with low weight to get used to the feel/set-up, but I've been loving it ever since. If you want to talk about dangerous exercises, how about the idiots you see doing squats on bosu balls? I just want to scream at them. If you want a quicker way to blow out a knee ligament, I don't think I've heard of one. I agree about those behind-the-neck presses, though. What's worse is that, at my gym, I often see someone doing a behind the neck press ON A SMITH MACHINE. It's like a perfect storm of completely awkward movements to injure your shoulders.

It's so great to see you training like this again! Throwing tires around and lifting bigass rocks is what comes to mind when I think of you!

Bahaha, good one, Marcina. Please don't be discouraged from discussing anything you want to. Besides, ovarian cysts are super common and not gross in the least. I hope you feel better soon! And like veganluv said, don't worry about exercising when you feel up for it!

I sincerely hope you're being facetious.

Haha, in my family, the black sheep is one of my brothers who has gone back to eating meat...my other brother, parents and I are all vegans.

Thanks guys! Yeah, taking the squats down when I realized my form was bad, and taking that week off were the two best decisions I made since starting stronglifts. I was feeling worn down/on the verge of hip injury all the time, so ignoring that could only have had terrible consequences! I think I need to take a picture on my next deadlift day like your 185 one, Adena!

I'm going to have to go with chrijs on this one. You can make a case for being victimized if something happened like the cop lied and you were charged for carrying a large amount when you really only had an eighth of an ounce on you. Just because you believe what you were doing wasn't wrong, doesn't make it legal. If you felt weed was helping you medicinally, the option was open to you to keep buying it in small amounts for personal use, and not getting involved in moving large quantities. I think the "jerk" comments you've received have stemmed from the fact that you are playing the innocent victim. While you may feel many injustices were perpetrated on you, the fact remains that you were caught with a large amount of an illegal substance. You also throw wild ad hominem attacks at every person who disagrees with you, calling them idiotic or ignorant, which isn't likely to win them over. Yes, what's happening to you sucks, but you haven't given us any reason to be convinced that you actually shouldn't be going to jail. You've also violently disparaged law enforcement officers who many of us have had positive experiences with. Even if the cop lied about how it went down (which you still haven't told us about), if he came out of the exchange with you in cuffs and a 2 kg bag of weed in the other, most members of the public would say he did his job well.

Thanks guys! I just finally updated my log so it's now current with the photos!

It's been a while so here is an update of my last couple of sessions! My bodyweight is currently hovering around 136-137 in the morning. Squat: 5x5 @ 175lbs* Bench Press: 3x5, 2x4 @ 125 lbs Pendlay Rows: 3x5 @ 105 lbs Weighted Dips: 3x5 @ 35 lbs Overhead Press: 5x5 @ 85 lbs Deadlift: 1x5 @ 230 lbs Weighted pullups, chinups: 3x5 @ 15 lbs *I got as high as 185 for my 5x5 squat, but found I was doing my reps way too slowly, which was causing a lot of hip flexor pain even on rest days. I dropped down to 155 and focused on doing nice, deep, below-parallel squats and exploding up with speed instead of my previous "you-can-tell-how-much-I'm-struggling" pace. I've now made it back up to 175, and am doing the reps with far better form than ever before. Deeper (I've been working on hip flexibility), and FAR faster. As a result, I haven't had hip pain in weeks, while before I had it for 1-2 months nonstop. I'm excited to break 185 and beyond with my better form and increased power! I barely failed my last bench attempt at 125...I needed a bit of help from my spotter on the final rep of the last 2 sets, but feel confident I can get it next time and then go for 135. Overhead press was a b*tch. Between my poor shoulder flexibility and being tired from doing killer, slow squats, I used to be spent before even attempting them. I've been increasing my shoulder flexibility (by hanging from a chinup bar at home), since my problems were partly due to my tight lats. Dropping my squat weight and fixing my form also made a huge improvement. Today I rocked 85 lbs on the overhead, which was a real accomplishment for me. I think I posted an 80 lb press in this log, but I later realized I did it on a day I skipped squats due to knee soreness. As soon as I tried pressing after squatting again, even 75 lbs was too much. So I basically worked up from 75 lbs to 85 lbs in the time since my last post on this log. Ah, now for the deadlift. My pride and joy!! Last time, I pulled 2 plates for a total of 225, and today made it 230. I feel like absolute death afterwards, but haven't had any issues with rounding my back or anything like that. Getting ever closer to that 2xBW lift! Pendlay rows have been a learning process. I haven't been able to increase the weight much, but I feel I'm doing it with better form each time (avoiding using hip drive, etc). Wanted to make sure I'm actually doing Pendlays (keeping completely immobilized hips) before moving up in weight. My strength has definitely been improving on this despite a relative lack of change in the numbers. My weighted dips have maxed out at 35 lbs and I think I'm going to have to drop the weight and build back up. My tiny little arms can't seem to handle 40 lbs yet, especially after bench! I just finished doing chins and pullups with 15 lbs on the weight belt, and am moving up to 20 lbs next session. Overall, I think I'm doing well considering it's exam season! I took a week off 2 weeks ago, both for studying purposes and to give my body its first true rest week in 2 or 3 months. Other than that? A month ago I started doing 4 hours of Krav Maga a week with the Canadian director of the IKMF (the international krav maga federation). It's intense, but so far I've been able to keep up both the class and my lifting. Other than one day where we did 2 hours of nonstop striking practice, after which my upper body was so completely destroyed that I could only do my squats the next day. Bench etc just wasn't going to happen. As my conditioning improves I'm sure I won't have any more days like that.

I can't speak for your experiences, but I get the impression that American police and Canadian police are very different in many ways. Our reputation for politeness seems to extend even to our cops. Proportionally speaking, I believe we put far fewer people in jail.

janthraxx, it's clear you have strong opinions regarding the police, and marijuana. You are angry that some would support the police for violating certain laws, but feel you're right in breaking other laws because you view them as unjust or unconstitutional. I'm not trying to side with anyone here, but you have your opinions of certain laws and they have theirs. Regarding the search, I don't know the details of what happened, but I do know that there is wiggle room in certain situations, for example if they smelled weed when you rolled down the window, which gives them just cause for a search. I don't know if that's what happened or how it went down, but if the search was truly illegal, your lawyer shouldn't have any issues getting you out of it. I don't understand the "it's a plant, not a drug" philosophy. Ricin is from a plant. So is opium. One is a deadly poison and the other is a narcotic. Cannabis has over 30 psychoactive compounds in it, so despite being a plant, it's still a drug (technically, a combination of many drugs). And right now, medicinal marijuana's legality varies geographically. You got involved with medicinal marijuana in a place where it was illegal. Getting busted must have been part of the risk-benefit argument you had with yourself, and this outcome was part of that risk. Despite living in a country where medicinal marijuana is legal, and being interested in chronic pain management, I have to oppose the idea of groups of people self-medicating with marijuana and proclaiming it as medicine. Yes, it has benefits for certain conditions. But the difference between a patient and a doctor deciding that marijuana is the right medicine is similar to things like oxycontin - one has the legal right to proclaim it as the right treatment and prescribe it, the other doesn't. Even in my country where it's legal, it's only legal if a doctor says it's the right treatment. Otherwise, it's just being used to chemically cope, as people can do with any other drug or alcohol.

I'm really glad you're doing better! But be VERY careful about returning to rugby with a sore foot...the last thing you want to do is come back too soon and re-injure yourself. I'd say it's better to take an extra few days off than to risk re-injuring yourself and causing multiple weeks more of frustration.

Congrats on the race! Those unexpected challenges (freezing fingers, getting your gear on) are something I know well! My favourite discovery on my first tri was that a well-fitting bike jersey doesn't seem all that well-fitting when you're wet. Took me a good 30 seconds to get my bike gear on, and most of it was that damn shirt!

Great job!! Holy crap are you ever tough and fit. Keep up the amazing work.

If the goal is strength, yes. I like the 5x5 (low reps, more sets, high weight) because it gives you huge strength gains, and if you eat enough, it still gives you big mass gains as well. You're a naturally skinny guy like me, and this program had far more success for me than 3x8, so I think it could work for you too.

I like vega personally. Sometimes the variety in my diet isn't as great as I'd like (like when I'm studying and run out of fruit for a couple of days). I don't take it every day, but I take it in those crunch times when I feel like I need to keep my nutrition up. I'd have no problems with taking it every day except for cost. As for my info, I got it from med school . A combination of lectures and my own reading from a variety of texts.

I'm glad you're taking that advice! I tried suggesting that once to you before, because I can tell you work hard and wanted to see you gain the most benefit from your work that you put in! I really recommend the stronglifts 5x5 as a starting point. My gym buddy and I have never had such success in the gym before...it's gotten to the point that I'm just about addicted to going to the gym, and I NEVER felt like that before this program! Mostly because I always got nowhere, which was not very motivating....

No. Overtraining is from working the same specific body part too much or too frequently, or just plain working out too much (e.g. 2 hours a day, every day, for weeks on end when your conditioning isn't up to that level yet). Your individual workouts should be HARD like sosso said. There's a big difference between "I did 12 different triceps exercises today and now I can't move my arms because I've blown out the tendon" (overtraining) and "those heavy squats, deads, and rows I did today killed me. I can barely summon the energy to get up off this bench." For the first time in my life, I've come to appreciate what truly hard workouts feel like. In the last 3 months of doing stronglifts, my strength has reached levels I never thought I was capable of, and I added 12 pounds to my frame. I realize now that what I was doing before (with the fear of working too hard) was just not working hard enough.

Yes, I'll have to update the log soon! I've been working on form recently so there haven't been as many weight increases lately. As for how much I eat...I basically eat constantly. Every few hours, until I'm as full as I can get. I don't keep track of calories...when I work out, my hunger goes up like mad so I just let my body let me know how much I should be eating! Never let a hunger pang go unfed is my bulking motto. And so far, it looks like it's giving me good results without any significant increase in body fat (I have fat calipers and have been somewhere around 15% for the past few months, which I consider fine for bulking). I'm debating at which point I'll want to start cutting, but right now I'm having such an easy time building muscle that I don't want to change anything!

Thanks! I've recently dropped the squat weight 10-15% to concentrate on form and speed (I realized I was going WAY too slow with my reps). I'm working my way up and hope to get that 1.5X bodyweight squat before too long! The deadlifts are definitely my favourite though...nothing like being the smallest guy at the racks but pulling 2 full plates on each end!

Headaches have nothing to do with iron. The only symptoms of excessive iron intake have already been brought up several times (namely: constipation). And realistically, many people only absorb 2-10% of the non-heme iron they eat (for the many reasons people have discusses here). Out of the 18mg you're supposed to get daily in your diet, only 2-4 maximum are actually absorbed. Your body also stores iron in the form of ferritin within the cells of your intestine, and if you don't need it (e.g. to replace blood you lost), those iron-filled cells slough off into the feces when they die, which is constantly. So basically, you absorb only a tiny fraction of what you take in, and even what you absorb might never make it into your bloodstream if you don't have a great need for it. It takes a tremendous amount of iron to produce symptoms like constipation in most people, so if you aren't all bound up, there's really no concern you're getting "too much". There's no way to go toxic from dietary iron intake unless you're downing pills. An extra 18mg from a supplement won't do any harm at all for the reasons everyone has already explained.

Any run to cure any disease supports medical research. There isn't a treatment in existence that hasn't been developed using animal testing. Even in vitro studies, which some AR activists seem to push for, involve sacrificing animals. Everyone's got to draw their own line, but never lose touch with the reality that all medical testing involves animals to a greater or lesser degree. You just have to decide whether or not you're ok with it. And I don't think it's an oxymoron for charities to support "animal testing" as you put it. They're out there to cure whatever disease they stand against, and this is the only way to do it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is out of touch with how research is actually done.