Natty on Pennies

I live off of irony

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Haha your a champ don’t worry about it!

I think i need to get to the gym unscheduled this week to give these deadlifts a go. Any tips on them?

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I can offer you a couple of tips, but I’m reality it’s all about getting intense

But yeah:

  • Brace hard
  • Pull the slack out of the bar before actually pulling it up (just like in a normal deadlift)
  • Don’t fear grinding, it’s a safe movement as long as you are bracing (but I’d suggest to not do those 15-second grinders)
  • It’ll take a couple of tries to figure out where exactly you should have the bar in the beginning of the movement, it’s a game of physics
  • Don’t try to do slow negatives, the position you’re in doesn’t really allow that
  • Try not to drop the bar on your calves, it hurts
  • Try starting the movement from a sitting position. Put your belt on, sit down onto the end of a bench (make sure it doesn’t get in the way of the lift), strap up and get intense.

As a final tip: watch this video before going in (this may also clear up how to start from sitting position)

Thanks man!

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Fuck thats loose! Haha I think I’ll start conservatively at around 600lb :wink: thanks @danteism

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Hey danteism how are you? I have a question, what is your opinion on giant sets and are they beneficial?

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I’m doing great man, how about you?

Depends on the individual and the way they are implicated - for a natural trainee simply getting stronger on basic lifts using straight sets will most of the time be the best way to gain size, but if you’re pressed for time (or you have to get your heart rate up for one reason or another) they could be implicated.

The rational behind using giant sets is usually that you can create a lot of lactateand stimulate hypertrophy that way - but I’d argue that you can just do a couple of long sets with shorter rest intervals (with only one exercise) to create the same effect.

Now let’s think about where giant sets could be really useful?
Well, as finishers of course.

If we think about it, bodyweight circuits and barbell complexes are giant sets, in a way, and thus I’m using them as well.

Bottom line:
Giant sets are a good tool if:
-You’re pressed for time
-You want to burn fat
-You want to improve your conditioning

But do not impliment them in the place of basic, heavy work. Only exception would be if you wanted to do something similiar to @Alpha 's program, for strongman competitors conditioning is a crucial part - and he’s not forgetting the basic heavy stuff, he’s just giant setting it! (And that’s fine, it a just that usually people do only isolation exercises as giant sets)

Here’s one circuit and one complex for you, give them a try sometime!

Circuit: (repeat for as long as you want to)
25 Push-ups
15 Pull-ups
50m Farmers carry
(Adjust accordingly)

Complex:
15 Front squats
15 Back squats
15 Good mornings
15 Back squats
15 Front squats
rack the bar
25 Kettlebell swings

All squats are deep and you don’t rack the bar unless instructed otherwise, start light.

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:clap::punch: Thanks for the thorough response. I appreciate it man!

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I was looking at this program and it combines two main lifts then giants sets? I dont know why but i went through programs and this just really interested me. What do you think? The Strong Bodybuilder Program

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Awesome! Thanks

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You’re welcome!

If you were on steroids and only did fluff and pump work this could benefit you, but for a natural guy it’s not really too great (of course young guys and beginners can grow with practically anything, but getting used to proper programs early on always helps)

So, in short, I don’t like it.

If we look at the program and evaluate it’s frequency, volume and intensity we can see that the frequency is low (most of the bodyparts are hit only once a week), intensity is low (from the RPE standpoint as well as from the % of 1RM standpoint) and volume is high.

So basically it’s the complete opposite of what I do and advocate.

Now why do I not like programs like this?

For natural guys you need to have a decent level of frequency, because the muscle protein synthesis is only elevated for a rather short time after training (so basically, if you train a muscle once a week you are wasting 4-5 days worth if growth because the MPS has already returned to the baseline after 2-3 days and thus, the growth of the muscle has stopped - unless it’s trained again)

Apart from that, doing those workouts would take hours if you’re really working hard, and hard work is essential.

If you scroll to the very beginning of this log you’ll find the tale of the squat dude - the guy who made unreal progess in just ten short weeks.

He worked hard. If I told him to do a 5x3 on squat with a couple of sets of assistance exercises it could take him 2.5 hours to do just that. Why? Because if you work hard you have to rest longer. If I told him to do 8x8 on squat and then do 3x10 on front squat it would’ve taken him 10 weeks to complete a single workout!

Oh man, accidental rant.

Conclusion: I don’t like that program at all

You’re welcome!

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19/6/17

-Upper body stuff-
DB Row 10x84kg/185lbs
-Crying on he floor-

I’m just giving @MarkKO a chance to catch up…

But for reals, this was probably the worst training session I’ve had this year.

In short, I drank my coffee as usual, got to the gym, warmed up and then I noticed that the only squat rack was in use. (I needed it for my overhead press - before you call me out I’ll just say that anybody can work in with me at any time)

So I think to myself - she’s probably not going to use it for long, I’ll just wait.

15 minutes pass, she’s doing her second set of deadlift. When I try to ask her if I can work in she just starts doing shrugs, so I don’t even bother with it.

After she’s done with deads she starts rowing, and again, working in is not a possibility - she pretends not to see me. (At this point I started to think this was something personal)

So I decided to do my pull-ups while waiting, so the session wouldn’t take the whole day. (I wanted to OHP before rowing because after I have done the rows I’m too gassed to do any really big movements)

After 75 minutes she finally leaves. It has been an hour and a half since I drank my coffee and there is no energy left. When I finally made it to the rows it had been two hours since I drank the coffee, so understandably it didn’t go too well.

But I’m still gonna row that goddamn 200 pounder this month.

Stuff like this really makes me want to set up a home gym

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Now that you pointed that all out 8 sets of squats does seem a little excessive.

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R.I.P 200 pound rows😢 haha nah man youl get there!

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We are on the same boat then, high frequency it is.

Exactly, if you can train chest every 2 or 3 days why would you only do it once a week?

It doesn’t make sense to me.

I’d suggest you look into supersquats, it’s a brutal program with high frequency. Really pretty much any program with the frequency of 2-3 sessions per muscle group every week will do, and the bar program is one you like and will stick to.

A little indeed

It seems that I was faster with my response than you were with the edit button :wink: oh well

Yeah, I’ll get there, and I’ll do it before @MarkKO does
(Psychological warfare at it’s finest)

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Thanks for writing that up. I’ve only read through it once quickly but I’ll get back to you if I’ve any specific questions once I’ve read it a bit more.

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You’re welcome! If you come up with any questions I’ll be glad to help you out with them

I’m terrible at these sort of challenges @danteism. Always happy to take part, then I generally don’t change my training to increase my chances of winning. Still, I’m in with a small chance.

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In that sense we are polar opposites - if someone challenges me I’m going all in (maybe even a bit too much at times)

As long as the challenge doesn’t include alcohol or loss of money I’m absolutely in as well

We all know the tale of the rabbit and the tortoise I’m crossing my fingers now - please no bicep tears

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Haha thanks again man,

:joy::+1:

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