el_flaco

That's true, but actually both methods (stopping short and bouncing) are attempts to use more weight than you can bench full ROM and both are somewhat dangerous. When you stop short you risk the bar dropping into a range you never work and where you are weaker anyway. This is prime pec tear territory. If you have a physical reason you can't bring the bar to the chest you should make the distance you are comfortable benching to explicit. Use a board or a foam press. As an upside this will help you resist the temptation to put your short ROM bench numbers up on internet forums as "how much I can bench". Regarding arch - I don't think a huge powerlifting arch is beneficial for general training, but you should have a slight arch. It helps you keep tension and without it the bottom position of the bench is so weak it will limit the gains you can get. If you don't have something of an arch, I'd think that pushing through the heels would just raise the arse off the bench.

Man you look pretty damn strong already. What kind of weights are you lifting at the moment? Hey bro, I would say I am on the lower end compared to the strong dudes. Typical workout for bench is 245 4-5 reps, incline 225 5 reps. Goal is to increase my max flat bench to 315, right now I am am maxing out at 270, was at 300 about three years ago, dieted down and lost strength and never really got back up there again. Squat 345x6, deadlift 295x5, was at 315x6, max deadlift was 385. I wanna increase my strength with these compound exercises, I would prefer not to use the wieght belt till I reach 330 to 340 on the deads, 380 of more on squats. A guy at my gym suggested that I do a 1 rep max rep everytime I do these lifts. Do you have any ideas. Thanks Sorry man, forgot to check back into your intro thread. You've got solid rep strength there, if you're interested in maxing out it's good to do that more regularly but 1 rep maxes everytime would be pretty tough on the body. Probably best to mix it up a bit.

I think the analysis of your diet is well over the top. It's not so bad. The most important thing is to make sure that you are getting enough calories and with no idea of what portions you deal yourself any further analysis is completely moot. I've met hundreds of people who have built impressive physiques without cutting carbs and while following "bad" diets. I've never gone low carb in my life. Why feel bad, weaken yourself and impact on your wellbeing? It seems pretty clear to me the primary problem is your attitude to exercise. I've never met anyone who developed an impressive physique through lifting water jugs. Not one. Why try to break new ground? If you want the physique so badly go to a good gym. Get good lifting advice. Post up some videos of you lifting weights and get some technique advice. If you are moving solid weights and not gaining size, then we'll deal with the minutae.

Could be that you're looking at the bar as you push it overhear. That causes people to lean back and end up in quite a weak position. Try to push the head through as soon as the bar is high enough to allow it, and really drive that bar to lockout.

There's nothing wrong with bodyweight exercises, and some of the top gymnasts in the world have impressive physiques (although I believe many train with weights). However weightlifting is the tried and tested easiest way to build muscle. If you are struggling, why take the hardest routes? I guarantee you I can teach you to squat and deadlift before I could teach you the pommel horse and iron cross. Why does the PT who told you that you would struggle without animal protein carry so much more clout for you than the vegans who tell you wont? Especially when those vegans are managing to build muscle themselves. Bodybuilding meal plans are overkill. It is in the magazines' and websites' interest to make things appear complicated so that they can offer the solution. Things aren't complicated. In my experience most hardgainers just don't know how to lift heavy weights. Their technique wouldn't allow it, so talk of whether their genetics would is pointless.

Great work Candyflip, really stunning transformation. I visited Helsinki last year (got to hang out with tuc ), loved it. I didn't think the general population was in bad shape. Visited an awesome gym while I was there too (place where they held the Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics in '52).

Pretty much all the guys on this site use a gym, lift weights. If you were receptive to what they had to say I don't think you'd have decided bodyweight only exercises were the way to go. I don't think working hard is enough either, you have to learn to be effective. I don't want to always bring it back to being strong, but if you are struggling to gain size I think trying to get stronger is a good starting point. Did you learn how to do the big exercises effectively? How did you get on with those?

Why aren't you doing any lifting at the moment? It's going to be a painful return to the weights after months of treadmill and under-eating.

I predict a slide to fourth

Best of luck man. Nail the bench comp while you're there

That's just a phoney justification given by lifters whose ego gets in the way of them lowering the bar to their chest Phil - I bench with my feet on the floor. Never tried just the toes but that's not for powerlifting reasons, just never crossed my mind. Feet in the air or on the bench is worthless, why deny yourself stability?

To me this is why you need standards. It helps you keep quality in your training. Once the exercises you use as strength tests become poorly defined it is a short road to them being poorly executed. If the bench is to "somewhere near my chest", the next time you max it might stop a little further from your chest. You used more weight, but are you stronger? If your max numbers are done "with a little spot", the next time you max how do you rate the spot? It might have been a little more. You used more weight, but are you stronger? If you max out with dbells, are they the same size, do they hit your chest earlier or at a different angle? Is your rep with 100 and deep as your rep with 90 was? You used more weight, but are you stronger? When you test yourself, squat to parallel, bench to the chest, deadlift from the floor. These things won't change. If you use more weight you are stronger.

I'm loving ralst's overhead progress, but I should point out that Jr on VF has nailed the 300lbs a number of times, once for 4 reps on push press (and his push press was pretty much a strict press, very little legs in it). Out of the current crop ralst is favourite. I nailed 297.5lbs, failed 308lbs couple of times, then lost my access to stands and had to clean the weight up. I can't clean 300lbs. I think ralst's log is actually more impressive than his work with the bar. Ballsy.

Ach, nein I'm really struggling for holidays this year because of going to Australia in January and trying to organise a honeymoon. I can't see me managing to get there this time. We wouldn't have the apparatus for a 500kg attempt anyway, need 50kg plates

You used to wrestle professionally? Now video of that would make for an interesting show I remember being in the gym late with a couple of mates when a guy who ran some small-hall shows in the UK came down for a chat. He was in need of wrestlers. We laughed about it for while amongst ourselves, came up with names and tag teams, but didn't go for it. I sometimes think it would have looked good on the CV though.

"persons"? If you exempt xPhilx, Ralst and VE, I think it was only myself and 4x4 that commented. I don't think I bashed anyone Regarding smith machine squats, I made some good gains last year when mixing up barbell squatting with squatting on a machine. Not a smith machine, one of the ones with a lever arm. I'd go heavy on the barbell squat for a single, then load up the machine for 3 or 4 sets of 5.

I'd be interested to see a vid of what you consider to be deep. The description I wrote of how deep I can squat isn't very good. I don't have a video camera. I'm squatting as deep as I can go which is deeper than most of the videos I've seen people post on this forum and a few others I belong too except for olympiclifters.It doesn't have to be a vid of yourself, just some deep squatting on the web. For me you have to tamper your desire for depth with the realisation that your back must be in a position to support a heavy weight. If you are squatting down and to gain inches you are rounding your back over, you wont be able to progress with that style. When the weight goes up it will bury you forward.

I'd be interested to see a vid of what you consider to be deep. For me, if I high bar squat, upright back, my knees go forward and to be honest I only have a couple of inches below parallel to play with before my hamstrings are on my calves. I hit parallel higher with low bar wide stance. A proper parallel squat is a deep squat. Not "hamstring" parallel, hip crease below top of knee.

If your fed allows you to bench without heels on the ground Have to say I'm enjoying the real lifting talk on this site recently, makes a nice chance from low-carb diets and tanning oil

No, for strength doesn't increase linearly with bodyweight.

Aye that's a change I made a while back on squats and deadlifts too. Feels a lot more natural to me to keep the spine elongated. In defense of Octo I used to train in a bodybuilding gym and that depth of squat is the norm. I don't see a problem with it if they get the muscle building results they want from it. I wish they wouldn't quote squat numbers on that back of it though.

Ah sorry, got posters confused. To my eyes the form looks a little strange but hard to put my finger on it. The bar looks quite far forward due to his body lean, I think with a heavier weight he'd struggle to make that work. I checked youtube, I've only got two squat vids up. One is very dark, the other is old. The good old days - amuses me how much time I spend shuffling about before squatting

Nice vid 4th guy is "Mellos" on VF, not sure of username if he's on here. All nice guys, I was over in Germany with them last year. I especially enjoy my battles with romianuk (looking forward to the 500kg tandem deadlift one of these days man)

Apologies for the bad picture quality, but this is a oly-style (fairly) high bar squat. 295kg.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBK-4Q-IlP4

I squat high-bar and low bar, but mainly high. Not saying I'm a good squatter though. i can't follow your argumentation here. what are you trying to say? I'm saying that with increased weight comes truth. You can theorise about the optimal way to move weight but heavy weights will test those theories. The style displayed in the video simply wouldn't be replicated if he added 200kg (looks like he maybe has 40kg on the bar there). It's by no means a bad squat, but it's clearly a light weight example squat. I also don't see that it is so much deeper than the other squat videos posted, it is only just below parallel to my eyes (which is fine).