sensless

Robert, Did you get any pics of you and the big man at the convention this past weekend? Regards, Sensless

Huzzah! 400 is on the way now! Regards, Sensless

Enough with the leg press and excuses, just start squatting. Your body will thank you by packing on some muscle mass. Regards, Sensless

Just as an FYI - They likely had chalk on their hands and baby powder on their legs. The baby powder helps to keep the bar from sticking to the leg, putting chalk on their would make the surface more abrasive and worsen the situation. It is possible the singlets they were wearing are deadlifting suits. Regards, Sensless

Major compound movement training is essential. Squats, Deadlifts, Olympic lifts, and overhead press are solid in the gym movements. Throw in the assistance work for those lifts and you should be good to go. Outside of the gym get all the fun event stuff in as frequently as you can handle and you are good to go. It isn't very complicated. Regards, Sensless

Whatever method you choose to use, just make sure you continue to use the same method over time to track progress. If you have the scale that calculates bodyfat, you can know that the reading isn't accurate but it should still track improvement. Improvement is likely the goal that you have so that's all you really need to know. Another thing that works well for this is a mirror. Most homes already have one of those installed so it saves cash as well! Regards, Sensless

I played for my college team, it was never specified that we were affiliated with either of those. I just went out and hit people and ran with the ball (played fullback) in two games every Saturday, beating myself to a pulp in the process. I don't even remember the names of most of the guys on the team. I guess having 15 concussions in a span of 3 or 4 months will do that to a guy. Does the USA have Union and League play? Regards, Sensless

In my last track meet of my senior year of high school I ran a 10.6s in the 100m dash. It was a good enough time to win state but the coaches had put me on the JV squad because I didn't bother to go out for track until my senior year. It was kind of a nice F-U to my coaches since they forced me onto JV despite the times I was running. I won the state championship in high school for soccer, beating our cross town rival that was ranked 3rd or 5th in the nation and had beaten us twice during the regular season 1-0. In the state championship game we went into double overtime for a 0-0 tie and then shut them out in the shootout, only needing to have 3 of the allowed 5 penalty kicks. There was a picture in USA Today of our goalie jumping in the air pumping his fist and blocking the last penalty shot. In college I won the rookie of the year award for our rugby team, shattering the scoring record for rookies and for the team. I was offered a contract to play professionally for a team in England but I have forgotten which team thanks to the many concussions I received in that time period of my life (my memory is limited in general for that time period). Sadly I broke my neck in the last game and couldn't take the contract to go play professionally. There are other sports moments, but no need to continue on. Hopefully I'll have some good ones in the future for powerlifting and strongman. Regards, Sensless

If I remember correctly, he uses a substance called synthol (is that right name?) which is injected directly into the muscle to cause it to swell up. I don't understand the purpose of it, but to each their own. Regards, Sensless

I wasn't insulted, I was just curious what you meant by it. I have been blessed with athletic talent, though not to the extent that others in my family have, so in my small world I was a bit of a runt and never thought that I had much. Being older I look back and realize that not everyone can run the forty dash in under 4.4 or have a vertical jump over 3 feet, long jump over 23 feet, and press over 300 overhead. The only thing I noticed back then is that I was always small. Regards, Sensless

What do you mean by this? Yea, the haircut is pretty bad. I had long hair shortly before this photo and had just recently gotten it chopped off. Such was the style of the time I suppose. Heh, this photo makes me laugh. Regards, Sensless

We are renovating our office at work and my sister, whom I work with, came across an old picture of us flexing. This is me when I was 18 or 19 and about 160lbs. She and I posed for this picture for comedic purposes, but I cut her out of it to save her some shame. http://www.musclebuddies.org/misc%20images/duphus2.jpg I'll see if I can get a recent shot to post up to show the difference. Regards, Sensless

If you have a contest that has a deadline, this type of training doesn't always work the best. But if you don't, I think it is a great way to go as long as you listen to your body to ensure you don't overtrain your favorites and neglect the stuff you don't care for too much. I've made good gains following this type of training style in the past. Regards, Sensless

If muscles were still repairing during those weekdays does that indicate that I should only lift weights on weekend and give them a full five days to rest? quote] It may mean that on the days you don't lift weights you should get in some light activity (not necessarily weightlifting activity) that gets the blood flowing to the areas of the body that are sore. For example, if you did squatting on Sunday, then it might be a good idea to go for a long walk, easy bike ride, or light jog on Monday. If you have continued problems with DOMS it could also relate to lactic acid build up after your workouts. I'm pushing my memory pretty far back on this though, so someone else may be able to fill you in better with that. Anyway, one way to help with lactic acid induced DOMS is to finish your workout with some short bursts of work such as short sprints at about 80% of top speed. We used to do this in track at the end of practice by running 100 meter dashes around 14 seconds a pop (which is still running, but nowhere near max speed). We'd usually run about 5 of these things. Just a couple ideas to try. They may work for you, they may not. Everyone is a bit different. Regards, Sensless

It may be DOMS. I believe what happened was by removing your second set of workouts you didn't have any active recovery type of work being done, this allowed the DOMS to settle in and cause the problems. If you are only going to lift on the weekends, which is just fine, just make sure to do some light activity on the non-lifting days to get the blood flowing to help repair the muscle. That should take care of it. Regards, Sensless

It's very simple. Lift big, eat big, and get lots of sleep. Throw in the ability to listen to your body and you are set. Or, in a more verbose manner: I find that eating fewer large meals makes it easier to gain weight. Doing strength related cardio (strongman stuff) allows me to put on size while maintaining a bit of the lean look (this can include sprints-both on flat ground and uphill, which many of the lighter weight powerlifters will do). Focus on compound movements, as the others said, and have a decent amount of volume to help growth. Also, if a person is choosing to bulk, they need to boost their weight up and maintain that higher bodyweight for, in my opinion, no less than 9 months if they want to keep it. From there a person can slowly work towards a lean appearance and better maintain the bodyweight. Boosting your bodyweight to a new highpoint and then immediately trying to drop it off won't allow your body to adjust and it will just remove pretty much everything you gained. Since a bodybuilder originally asked the topic and it is a slow day at work, I have this babbling to also add. Unless a person is a pro at bodybuilding, I don't think their training really needs to be that much different than strength athletes'. The focus should still be on compound movements. The difference occurs in addressing "weak points". For a strength athlete, the weakness will inhibit them in advancing the poundage of a lift, whereas the BB'er will see an aesthetic variance that causes a proportional imbalance. So the secondary or assistance exercises to address those issues may be different than a strength athlete as isolation may be necessary. In general, I think very few people actually need to go with a pure isolation movement to address imbalances that occur, whether aesthetic or strength related. As an example: My ex-bro in law is a pro-bodybuilder and he was at his biggest when he was still playing football. The simple explanation for this is compound movements with lots of food. When he stopped playing ball and got more into BB'ing, he got smaller because he went towards more isolation stuff. He won his pro-card as a light heavyweight and looked great. The thing I find amusing about his particular situation is that his weak points are all being addressed by removing a lot of the isolation work and getting back to the basics. The reason I bring this up is because many beginners skip past the "basics" of compound heavy movements and go right into isolation work. Unfortunately that isn't likely to take them very far. My brother had built his base from heavy compound movements and then moved to isolation work. His mistake was that he, for the most part, abandoned the heavy compound movements (the basics). He has learned his lesson on this and brought the basics back into his routine, and reduced the isolation movements. This has improved his overall appearance and strength, and he has put 20lbs of solid muscle onto his frame. This example shows that compound movements are necessary during all phases of development. Regards, Sensless

I'd like to squat 4xBW, bench 3xBW, and DL 4xBW, weighing 220, and doing it unequipped and drug-free. That's a 2420 total. It is not realistic, but hey, neither is weighing in at 500lbs and still being muscular! My real long term goals are to squat over 700, bench over 450, and deadlift over 700 at 220lbs, and do it unequipped. I don't know if I have enough left in my body to hit those, but I'm working my arse off to try and get there. Regards, Sensless

Hey Attila, Your chest seems to be lacking a bit in the front view. May want to work that a bit more. I agree with wannalift that you need to hit your upper and mid-back more. I'd say to try and work some power cleans or hang cleans with the bent rows. Couldn't really see the lower back, but judging by the upper back development it makes me wonder if you are deadlifting at all. If not, start giving that a go as well. Also, do you have any leg shots? Make sure to strive for some balance and work the legs! Regards, Sensless PS CG, I'll be a boy forever, it's what helps me relate and play with my 3-year old. Ha!

Yea, surgery usually bites but often the doctor's dope you out pretty well so the few days afterwards are a blur. Then after a few weeks the acute pains from surgery are gone and then you realize the chronic pains that put you under the knife are also gone. Then life begins again! Good luck with surgery. I'm sure it will make things better for you. Regards, Jr.

As a species our lifespan has been increasing, so perhaps we are moving closer to the 13X you are speaking of. I've never heard that ratio before, that is pretty interesting. I would like to look into that more closely to see how long it takes those mammals to reach puberty in comparison to how long they live, as well as the puberty age vs. death age. I'd assume that there may be some diminishing returns for the multiplier the longer it takes a species to reach puberty age. My sisters' hit puberty around 10-11, I hit puberty at 13-14, so I wonder if that gender difference in puberty age reached is a constant with other mammals. Of course, diet is only one thing to consider with quality and length of life, so other environmental factors need to be considered as well. Blast it all, now I will be distracted thinking about this at work today! Regards, Sensless

To be honest, I don't know what the recommended amount of vitamins and minerals are per the FDA (in the US I guess that would be the "modern nutrition"). I think that any time a person makes a drastic change in their dietary habits, they should expect some drastic changes in the way they feel or look. It could be that your body has grown accustomed to the fruitarian diet, so that when you go back to cooked foods you have a transitionary period that could last several months. During this transitionary period is when the bloating and everything I'd guess is most likely to occur. When I stopped eating meat, I went through several months of profuse sweating and weight loss. I could have viewed this as a bad sign, thinking that something was wrong, but instead I stuck it out and realized some of the benefits from the dietary change. Perhaps the bloating you experienced would subside after taking on the diet change for a long enough period of time. Also, if you have excessive bloating perhaps there was something specific in your new diet that caused this. I would assume that the fruitarian diet doesn't have much sodium in it, so that could be an easy explanation right there. Just a simple guess. It could also have to do with caloric intake, amount of fiber, etc. I'm hesitant to simply disregard many decades of research because something works a bit differently for me than it might for someone else. I know that my body is quite different from VeganEssentials, but even with those differences we can still use the "modern nutrition" recommendations as a general guideline, or starting point, and then we adjust from there. I think that is what they are likely intended to be, instead of a hard and fast rule. Regards, Sensless

I think you need to look at how much size and strength can you gain on your current diet. It appears you gained the size and strength when you weren't on a RAW diet, and now are looking back saying I haven't lost much. This is similar to arguments I've heard about protein consumption levels. To gain, it is a good idea to eat a relatively high amount of protein, but to maintain you don't need that much. It is still possible to gain on a lower protein diet, but the gains may not come as quickly and/or your recovery periods may last longer. Also, I think it is relevant to consider that proper diet for an individual just trying to go about normal daily activities vs. a diet that is for an athlete or someone trying to cause some physical changes with themselves will vary widely. So given that we are all people trying to change our bodies in some sort of drastic manner, our diets will more likely need to have more precision than an 'average' individual. Also, how are you getting away from modern nutrition? What do you consider "modern nutrition"? Would you consider a vegan diet to be part of "modern nutrition" if not, then is it really relevant that one non-modern nutrition diet is better or worse than another non-modern nutrition diet when discussing the "correctness" of modern nutrition? Just my two cents (less), Sensless

Granted I have a tendancy to shout during full exertion lifts, this one was really just for showmanship. This particular contest is done at Summerfest, a huge festival in Wisconsin, and there is a pretty sizeable crowd on hand (300-500 people + random walkby). So the kilt (which is in the family plaid), the beard, and the shouting was to try and get them riled up. I think they cheered more for me than the guy that pulled an easy 730lb DL. Though that may have been due to shock at his impressive powers. Robert, I started posting a log again on VF.net if you want to take a look at it. I've been training at a place in town called NX Level Athletics, which is a strength and conditioning gym for athletes (high school through professional level). It is all one on one coaching with some real experts (not internet certified or 3-6 month cert. class trainers) that have the degrees, experience in training, and experience actually doing it (all the trainers are stronger than me). Otherwise when I was on my own I'd generally train one to three times a week (usually twice) and go very heavy triples and singles for about six months and then try to do some mid-rep range work (sets of 6). I would mostly just do compound movements, isolation stuff was worthless for me. We can talk about that more in private if you would like. Regards, Sensless

Don't have any recent shots. But here are a couple: http://www.musclebuddies.org/misc%20images/555DL.jpg 555lb deadlift. no belt, wraps or suit. tore some cartilage in my hip on this pull. Now I can't sumo stance anything. Couldn't really train deadlift for all of 2005 because of this. Blast it all. http://www.musclebuddies.org/misc%20images/Sensless-stonelift-cropped2.jpg Another picture from October of 2004. Some random large rock VE and I hoisted. http://www.musclebuddies.org/misc%20images/sensless530DL.jpg This is last summer DL'ing 530. Had failed with it on the previous attempt and was coming off a broken rib and sprained back. Was pretty happy to get it, a new PR for conventional stance actually. Regards, Sensless

You made it look easy too. I've got my work cut out to stay ahead or even with you on the squat. Regards, Sensless