New Member With a Few Questions


Hi all. I’m here from the Men’s Health forum because it’s pretty much gone down hill.
I’m 15, 5’6" 150pounds and I totaled 755 not too long ago with a 200pound BP, 240squat and 315dl, nothing special. I’ve been doing 2x week total body and gained 20pounds in 4 months and am now finishing the 1st week of Waterbury High Frequency. I love it so far. I’ve set out 13 weeks for this program and have a weight goal of at least 165, at the same bodyfat. I’m first and foremost a swimmer and have the summer off to lift to my heart’s content.

I guess I’ll start by asking a few questions:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??
How do you do hack squats perfectly without using the lats and the bar hitting your legs?
Hypertrophy is all well and good but I’d love good strength gains on this program as well. Is this too much to expect?

another pic

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
Hi all. I’m here from the Men’s Health forum because it’s pretty much gone down hill.
I’m 15, 5’6" 150pounds and I totaled 755 not too long ago with a 200pound BP, 240squat and 315dl, nothing special. I’ve been doing 2x week total body and gained 20pounds in 4 months and am now finishing the 1st week of Waterbury High Frequency. I love it so far. I’ve set out 13 weeks for this program and have a weight goal of at least 165, at the same bodyfat. I’m first and foremost a swimmer and have the summer off to lift to my heart’s content.

I guess I’ll start by asking a few questions:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??
How do you do hack squats perfectly without using the lats and the bar hitting your legs?
Hypertrophy is all well and good but I’d love good strength gains on this program as well. Is this too much to expect? [/quote]

Dude don’t worry about strength. anything CW does will make you strong, just lift heavy and explosive and you will be strong. oh yeah and eat an assload of food. Be sure to get per during and post training nutrition in liquid form because it looks like you’re a bit ectomorphish, but thats because you’re young too. but eat lots of food that once had a face and oatmeal. luck

-chris

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
I guess I’ll start by asking a few questions:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??
How do you do hack squats perfectly without using the lats and the bar hitting your legs?
Hypertrophy is all well and good but I’d love good strength gains on this program as well. Is this too much to expect? [/quote]

The shoe joke is from a picture posted long ago. The guy was holding a shoe in his hand and asking everybody to estimate his body fat. It’s developed into a bit of a running joke.

I’ve never had a problem with lats getting involved in hack squats, but to keep it from hitting your legs, you thrust your hips forward much like the deadlift. In fact, the movement you’re doing is more accurately termed hack deadlift, not hack squat.

Since you’re a beginner, you’ll see strength gains on just about any program, including High Frequency. If strength is your primary goal, there are many other Waterbury programs designed with that in mind.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
I’m here from the Men’s Health forum…[/quote]

Just by doing that, you put on 0.1kg of LBM. Congratulations!

[quote]Miserere wrote:
muscleshark wrote:
I’m here from the Men’s Health forum…

Just by doing that, you put on 0.1kg of LBM. Congratulations![/quote]

ohhhhh, nice burn.

My lats are used to push the bar back so it does not get in the way during the hack squats/deadlifts. I think that maybe its because I’m leaning forward so I need to look in a mirror doing it.
Also, what’s the cutoff on being a beginner? Just wondering. I’ve got a full year of lifting but only actively gaining weight since february. Once I’m done with the 13weeks off of swimming, I’m concentrating on that almost completely and maintaining what I obtained. Then, bulk again next february

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
My lats are used to push the bar back so it does not get in the way during the hack squats/deadlifts. I think that maybe its because I’m leaning forward so I need to look in a mirror doing it.

Also, what’s the cutoff on being a beginner? Just wondering. I’ve got a full year of lifting but only actively gaining weight since february. Once I’m done with the 13weeks off of swimming, I’m concentrating on that almost completely and maintaining what I obtained. Then, bulk again next february[/quote]

I wouldn’t worry about the ‘cutoff’ per se.
what is you swimming regimen? You can likely train hard weights during that time and put on some muscle. Treat you swimming like a reglur work out and get during and post WO nutrition, (liquid like whey etc. so you don’t puke it up).

Then if you swim in the morning you can lift in the evening. Just remember to chow down at all times and the lifting will likely aid your swimming and the swimming will help your recovery for lifting. You only ned about 2 sessions per week to get growth at your age. With enough food you can do it easy.

[quote]realpeanutbutter wrote:

I wouldn’t worry about the ‘cutoff’ per se.
what is you swimming regimen? You can likely train hard weights during that time and put on some muscle. Treat you swimming like a reglur work out and get during and post WO nutrition, (liquid like whey etc. so you don’t puke it up).

Then if you swim in the morning you can lift in the evening. Just remember to chow down at all times and the lifting will likely aid your swimming and the swimming will help your recovery for lifting. You only ned about 2 sessions per week to get growth at your age. With enough food you can do it easy.
[/quote]

Well, actively swimming and lifting at the same time is rather impossible. It’s not just simple cardio. It’s a serious full body workout, and burns calories like literally nothing else. Think 1500-2000 in a 2hour workout. I can barely do a single pullup on the same day as a swim. So yeah, mixing them would certainly lead to overtraining. During active times(5X a week) in the year, I’m happy to lift once a week to maintain. After February, I went to lifting twice and swimming twice or thrice a week. Now, I’ve got 13 weeks completely off.

I’m casually eating about 5000cals a day. Actually, lifting does not necessarily help you in the pool. It can do quite the contrary and get in the way. It’s all about how the land strength translates in the water, and to do that, you MUST put in the time at the pool(complex CNS motor recruitment stuff).

My swimming regimen: I (or we on the team/club) change up the practices everyday. We have sets and reps like in lifting such as 10reps of 100yards at 1:50 intervals. I usually have a warmup set, drill set, kick set, main set(the bulk of the w/o) and warmdown. (I’m going to be the high school captain as a junior in 2006-2007.)

This site and the articles are gold so I felt like there is no use in being a lurker.

Waterbury High Frequency calls for sumo deads today. I’ve never done those. Anything to keep in mind? Less weight? In my head, it seems like pulling back while in the sumo stance would be harder…

[quote]Miserere wrote:
muscleshark wrote:
I’m here from the Men’s Health forum…

Just by doing that, you put on 0.1kg of LBM. Congratulations![/quote]

He was also smart enough at 15 to figure this out quickly and do something about it. If this kid gets on a decent program and stays focused, they might not recognize him by graduation.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
Hi all. I’m here from the Men’s Health forum because it’s pretty much gone down hill.
I’m 15, 5’6" 150pounds and I totaled 755 not too long ago with a 200pound BP, 240squat and 315dl, nothing special. I’ve been doing 2x week total body and gained 20pounds in 4 months and am now finishing the 1st week of Waterbury High Frequency. I love it so far. I’ve set out 13 weeks for this program and have a weight goal of at least 165, at the same bodyfat. I’m first and foremost a swimmer and have the summer off to lift to my heart’s content.

I guess I’ll start by asking a few questions:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??
How do you do hack squats perfectly without using the lats and the bar hitting your legs?
Hypertrophy is all well and good but I’d love good strength gains on this program as well. Is this too much to expect? [/quote]

If you want to make functional strength gains along with hypertrophy, I’d suggest you try ABBH or CVT. for a program that has been working well for me you can try the Bill Starr 5x5

  • sumo vs regular deadlift: I personally can do around the same weight for both. Bear in mind that although the sumo position may look awkard, the bar has less distance to travel to lockout.

  • issue with hack squats: use a pair of 10lb plates as wedges underneath your heels.

[quote]Konstantine wrote:

If you want to make functional strength gains along with hypertrophy, [/quote]

Because other strength gains are “unfunctional”? Because there are people building tons of “hypertrophy” without gaining strength? Where do you all get this ridiculous terminology?

Get stronger, eat enough, and you get bigger. Every time one of you tries to seperate size from strength, you add to the ridiculous mindset that has many of these guys not even pushing hard in the gym as if the rep range alone will somehow make them “heeeeyyyyooogee”.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??[/quote]

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=1CDB82A0CDCD04ADAA853DF232CCF8E2.hydra?id=868493&pageNo=0

Welcome, good sir! Glad to see another young kid with some goals and sense. A high proportion of muscle can be detrimental in the water. I sink like a depth charge.

[quote]AgentOrange wrote:
muscleshark wrote:
What is the shoe method of measuring body fat that everyone jokes about??

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=1CDB82A0CDCD04ADAA853DF232CCF8E2.hydra?id=868493&pageNo=0[/quote]

haha, that’s priceless!
btw, the sumo deads proved as awkward as I thought. I guess it differs with the person.

Sumo’s took me a little while to get the hang of the form, it does feel awkward but if you stick with them they’re a nice exercise.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:

haha, that’s priceless!
btw, the sumo deads proved as awkward as I thought. I guess it differs with the person.
[/quote]

Yes. I was told that with my body type and limb measurements that sumo’s would be best for me, but when I tried them, although I was still able to pull about the same weight, I found that a slightly narrower stance was most comfortable, and where I can get the most power from.

Try different foot positions to figure out what’s best for you and keep your form as perfect as possible.

Just remember to try and read more articles on this site than anything else in the forums.

Learn as much as you can, and always stay consistent. Consistency is much more important than trying to find the perfect routine.

[quote]muscleshark wrote:
Well, actively swimming and lifting at the same time is rather impossible. It’s not just simple cardio. It’s a serious full body workout, and burns calories like literally nothing else. Think 1500-2000 in a 2hour workout. I can barely do a single pullup on the same day as a swim. So yeah, mixing them would certainly lead to overtraining. [/quote]

Lifting and swimming on the same day will not lead to overtraining. I used to work with a D1 swimming team. They were swimming 10x a week, 3 weight workouts a week, and dryland (GPP) 6 times a week. For some of the kids it seems to be a kick in the balls their freshman year but for most you can tell that they have been training like this for quite some time. So it can be done.