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el_flaco

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Everything posted by el_flaco

  1. We had the same pricing scheme at the gym I used to run. Must be a Scottish thing. Lefty socialists at work most likely.
  2. Looks like we're going to be based in Santa Monica. There's a couple of Real Food Daily outlets in Santa Monica so looks like they might be an option.
  3. Thanks vegimator, that quarrygirl blog is fantastic. Shame we can't sort the venues based on location, but it would be churlish to complain about having so many vegan options in a city that you need to do a little research. Madeline Bistro looks great, would be nice to stick it on the company expense account. I've got a feeling my workmates are going to be more after a quick visit to some dodgy steakhouse then an evening of drinking though
  4. Alright Folks I'm going to be in LA on business next month, based at the LACC (not sure where I'll be staying yet). There's quite a bit of LA vegan information out there, but without some knowledge of the city it's hard to judge what I'll be able to get to. Anybody got any thoughts on where is good to eat near there? Or just some reliable links. Cheers
  5. Doctors reading blood work and deciding you can't eat pinto beans? Sounds really dodgy to me. I'd be tempted to ignore it.
  6. I think that answers your question. I don't see complexes are replacing the powerlifting in your weekly routine, they're just a (decent) form of conditioning. In that particular complex most people will be so limited by the overhead press that they wont get much out of the squats.
  7. I take it this thread is fairly representative of the quality across this forum? If so, yes, you need better moderation. It isn't a question of rights. The banjos are still free to post their nonsense online. The community has the right not to give them a platform. The problems are compounded if the banjo is unable to determine the significance of their opinion. Rather than putting it out there once for discussion they decide it merits debate on every thread. If someone is unable to play nice with the other children maybe they need some time on the naughty step to think about what they've done. Maybe a banning order doesn't have to be permanent. I seem to remember veganpotter was banned not for an outrageous offence but for the overall health of the community. From the outside it seems in worse shape now than then, but maybe I'm wrong there.
  8. For the "God Delusion" to be influential to someone I'd argue that it must have changed the path of their life. If you don't believe in religion and have never felt any kind of religious calling, what influence does reading it have? Surely it's just a warm feeling of confirmation, nothing more. I read "Walden" shortly after I got my first proper job and had money to spend. It knocked me sideways into ascetism.
  9. I'm not interested in b12 in the slightest, but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes
  10. I thought the point in deadlift slippers was that the rules state you have to be wearing shoes, so competitive powerlifters go with the thinnest shoes possible. I don't think there's any advantage or any particular suitability to them outside of fulfilling the rules. Buying a pair to train in seems like a waste of money to me. Like sosso says, just take your regular shoes off.
  11. I think you are right with this. You need to pull your shoulders down, not back. You could do this before you even start to bend the arms, it's kind of like shrugging in reverse.
  12. That is first response that actually makes sense on a spiritual level Seems a bit perverse to me. If a bodybuilder is what you are why can't it be admitted? It's not like it's any kind of boast. Apply it to any other pastime and it sounds ridiculous. "I don't go around telling people I'm a chess player. Others do it for me" "Just tell people you push little carved wooden figurines around a chequered board".
  13. I completely disagree with this. While it's true that you wouldn't call someone a marathoner unless they run marathons, the person who runs for fun and exercise is still a "runner". You wouldn't take that away from them because they don't compete. To me, the term "bodybuilder" is the generic term, and one who competes is a "competitive bodybuilder". Without this distinction you lose the most obvious term for someone who trains with weights to build their body. That's too useful a term to throw away just to pander to the egos of guys who enjoy standing on stage wearing a thong and a few gallons of mahogany paint. The "recreational bodybuilder" may also have a far more impressive physique than the "competitive bodybuilder" *. Why not honour their work? Worth noting that I detest competitive bodybuild though, maybe that colours my view. Strange choice if you aren't snatching and clean and jerking * - actually there are recreational swimmers who have more impressive physiques than some competitive bodybuilders
  14. Hey man. I guess it's important here to try to find out if the training and the bad day are linked. If the squatting lead to the knee/hip pain then you'd have to be pretty careful trying to introduce them into your routine. If the bad days are going to be pretty random you might just have to accept them, train when you feel good and cut back when you feel bad. I've got no experience with Lyme disease so you'll have to take the following advice with a pinch of salt. I think intensity is more important than exercise selection or training frequency here. I would avoid any high-intensity techniques. I wouldn't take any sets to failure, keep the reps fairly low. No drop sets, supersets, anything like that. Try to up the weight, especially in the big lifts, but do it gradually. Keep something in the tank. Make sure you're successful on all your lifts. Keep the workouts fairly short. This way of training might feel a bit alien to you, you won't get very sore. But you can progress this way. Not trying to grind yourself into the ground each workout might work given your health problems, leave the body with some recovery ability in store. It also makes questions of how to combine exercises less pressing, not taking them to failure means you're less likely to be overtraining anything. I'd be tempted to drop the deadlift for now as you get back into squatting. The deadlift is a great exercise but it's very taxing, focus on the squat until it's more obvious how you cope with it. Maybe go for 2 or 3 sets of 5 on the squat, kick off at 160lbs or so? That'll be easy for you, but maybe a good starting point. Not sure how to fit that together, it depends on what exercises you like. I'd probably go for some kind of pretty straightforward upper/lower split. That helps keep the frequency flexible. If you're having a bad day you can just chill, take another day or two off and get back on the split easily. If you have a more complex four day program missing a day isn't as easy. Not sure what you make of any of that. If you liked some of the Stuart McRobert stuff it might have some appeal - very simple and based on just slowly progressing the weights on a few favoured lifts. The key thing for me in regard to the original point (sick of trying to gain muscle) is to try to reintroduce the big "bang for your buck" exercises and see how you react to them. I'd sacrifice some variety and program complexity to try to figure that out.
  15. Sounds like a bodybuilder to me. Just not ready to admit it yet
  16. Hey man Just a quick suggestion - do the technical part of your workout before the strength part. For this one it'd be hang cleans before deadlifts. It won't take much out of your deadlifts, might help you warm up. Done the other way around I think deadlifting will kill your cleans. I'm not going to offer much technique advice on the cleans as I have no technique of my own. The main problem I have looks similar to yours in that we both pull with our arms and bend them early. That might be why you are feeling it in your arms a bit.
  17. There's very little value in doing all these types of curls. It's only been six weeks. Don't sweat it. Seeing any results after such a short period training is fantastic.
  18. As my mum would say "the cat can look at the queen". Anyone is welcome to give advice regardless of level. I go to one forum where a 650 total is on the low side of average, WSM competitors are called out on things they say there just like anyone else. I don't have a problem with the advice NicholasV is handing out. I don't disagree with it. It's the language he's using that bothers me. Maybe it's just a culture thing, US-style self-belief often sounds conceited to us Europeans.
  19. No worries man. Those pressing numbers are pretty good. The main reason I like to focus the discussion on weights is that I've met very few natural big guys, guys who look powerful in their clothes, who don't move a ton of weights. Maybe it's the opposite of what you'd expect, but I've known guys on roids who get big just by looking at weights and don't seem to train that impressively. I've not met many natural guys who hadn't really figured out how to get a lot from each exercise. I agree with you that missing out squatting and deadlifting isn't the best. It would be good to be able to reintroduce one of those and progress on it. You said you had a good squat workout last Monday, what kind of workout did you do? I'd be tempted to keep the intensity very low on them for a while, build the weight up slowly. Nothing anywhere near failure. Even some of the programs that work well for beginners might be worth avoiding for a while - find a halfway house between rehab and training to see what you can do and what you can recover from. You've shown the dedication to keep going so it doesn't matter if the progress is slow, as long as there is progress you'll get somewhere good. You mentioned earlier that not looking like a lifter with your clothes on was a frustration. I'd say that is pretty common for bodybuilder types who keep their bodyfat low. They are pretty difficult goals to balance. Maybe it'd be worth loosening the diet a bit, upping the calories. Your training would get a boost and you might feel better about your progress.
  20. Classy. Where did I insult you? You said yourself you've never got the results you wanted. Making light of that in the face of your bold arrogance when handing out advice barely qualifies as an insult. The absolutism with which you deliver your advice can only be found in beginners. Moving on, this is another one of those bizarre VBB threads where we'll discuss diet and training programs in minute detail. Recovery time, macronutrient breakdown, HGH levels (!), high intensity techniques (negatives, rest-pause). But for some reason asking how much someone can lift is ignored. Talking about the reasons for a lack of progress without knowing the level of the lifter is completely pointless. It has a direct impact on the frequency with which you can hit the big exercises. It could also be that the lifter just needs to learn to move more weight and the discussion is better moved in that direction. At 6'3, 200lbs and with a long lifting history I'd expect boardn10 is moving a lot of weight, but it doesn't hurt to check.
  21. Try reading what I posted, I never asked you to emulate them. I don't know why you have such a hangup about bodybuilding theory, you are arguing against a straw man. There's been a seismic shift in training habits over the last ten or twenty years, incorporating elements from oly lifting, strongman and powerlifting. Coming to a forum railing against bodybuilding training habits as if you are Moses descending with the ten commandments is misguided. If you'd been in the gyms rather than hidden in your basement you would realise this. I'm not trying to stifle your desire to regurgitate what you have read in books, every forum needs its armchair expert. I'm just saying prefacing it with an insult is pointless. Maybe read some books on coaching. Barely used. You could get a good price for them on ebay.
  22. No, there are many rights and many wrongs. Step away from Starting Strength for a while, spend some time in the gym and witness the different approaches and styles. See the guys doing crazy stuff and doing well, see the guys training according to the book and getting nowhere. As none of the knowledge you have has worked for you, how are you critically appraising it? Consistency is a vital part of training, nothing comes quickly. Telling people they lift with horrible form and know nothing isn't going to encourage them. Maybe with more experience you'd recognise the importance of this and how damaging your snide remarks are. Perhaps part of the reason you seem so keen to make people feel bad about their efforts is that you've never managed to get strong yourself? It isn't more difficult.
  23. Why do you feel the need to preface all your advice with insults? From the deadlift thread: Try being nice to people, you'll find you don't need to apologise all the time. We can't all be 6'1 130lbs internet gurus.
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