To the person who asked if your muscle needs to be sore to feel whether or not there is growth, here is my opinion.

I mostly train for strength, for the past year I've been on Rippetoes, 5x5, WS4SB and now 5/3/1.

One thing I notice consistently on 5/3/1 (which is supposed to be a more 'powerlifting program), and to a smaller extent with the other programs, is that despite the lack of direct arm work (I seriously cannot remember when was the last time I curled), my arms consistently grew in size.

This was especially apparent during 5/3/1 when I did pullups two times a week and chinups two times a week. 3-5 sets each time.

With that said however, I feel that my arms are disproportionately smaller than the rest of my body. This could be because I have not done any direct arm work in a long time.

So initially when you first start out, you may not need to 'feel' the muscle soreness so much to grow. But once you get a little more advanced, you would need to do more work to stimulate the muscle to grow. That is my opinion.

That being said, I totally hate post leg day soreness because it means walking around like a dumba$$ with my legs open due to my sore adductors, a half penguin half clown hybrid would probably look more graceful.

Many pro bodybuilders started out as powerlifters, one good example will be Ronnie Coleman. But since you're not a professional bodybuilder, so that's beside the point haha.

Strength training will be especially useful to people like you who constantly go to 8 to 10 reps. It's hard to progress in terms of weight when you're on that rep scheme. Strength training will definitely help you gain muscle down the road. How? Think of this example:

Let's say your 1 rep max for bench press is 50kg, and you constantly bench 30kg x 10 during your workouts. Jumping from 30kg x 10 to 35kg x 10 is not easy at all. Say you change your focus to strength training, and eventually after a few months you increase your bench press to 70kg. What happens when you go back to a 'bodybuilding' program now? You can possibly use 50kg x 10. Now which is going to make your muscle grow more? 30kg x 10 or 50kg x 10? Get what I mean?

You should always lower the bar until it touches your chest when you bench press, otherwise it doesn't count

I believe there is a Fitness First at Island Plaza, not sure if it still exists. Someone should open one at Queensbay Mall.

5x5 is mainly focusing on strength, which is why you won't really feel the pump. In fact you're not really supposed to.

Not every program is a 'bodybuilding' program. Different programs exist for different needs. Don't compare apples to oranges.

Hello, glad to see you're starting on the right path, by doing Rippetoes. I've had very good progress on it. However, I'd gladly suggest you drop the 'I'm afraid of looking stocky' issue, it's probably one of the least of your worries.

Anyway, my suggestion to you is find a way to get to a gym that has squat rack and barbells. That said, you can do dumbbell front squats:



Don't do the 4th step of the picture though.

Hope this helps, don't be afraid to ask questions.

Just got a couple of questions for you

1) How and when do you take the oats? Do you mix it with your whey? Breakfast?

2) What brand of creatine is that, seems kinda expensive. Ego, Ultimate and Universal sell 1kg for less than rm150. Ego creatine goes for RM102. But maybe yours is of better quality? Just curious.

Hi pizzaboy, apparently in today's newspaper Penang was assured that they would be considered host next year's World Weightlifting Championships.

If that does happen, I hope to see you competing okay? I'll hire a bunch of pretty cheerleaders to wear t-shirts that say "I'd do Pizzaboy anytime, but only in a Squat Rack".

Taken from http://nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/article...icle/index_html

Penang may get to host World Championships

2009/10/27

PENANG has been assured that it will be offered the job of hosting the World Weightlifting Championships, possibly next year.

The assurance was given by International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) vice president Sam Coffa during the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships farewell dinner on Fr iday.

Also present at the dinner were Commonwealth Weightlifting Federation president Vinson Detenamo and secretary general Paul Coffa, who is also Oceania Weightlifting Federation general secretary.

“The hospitality and professionalism of the host have encouraged and motivated the international body to consider offering the world championship hosting job to Penang."

“This is the second time the Commonwealth Weightlifting Federation has been to Malaysia, the first being the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur."

“The Penang Amateur Weightlifting Association, the Penang State Sports Council and the state government have done an excellent job,” said Sam.

Penang Amateur Weightlifting Association (PAWA) president Datuk Ong Poh Eng, who is also an IWF executive council member, said it was a great honour to Penang and PAWA will consider the offer.

Ong said PAWA will only bid for the championship after consulting Malaysian Weightlifting Federation president Datuk Wira Gan Boon Leong and with the approval of the national body.

Anyway T-Nation just published an article all about glutes. Very interesting read, and lots of a$$ pictures:

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article..._glute_training

I have no idea what you are talking about. I was err, too focused on the article

Sorry, but I couldn't resist highlighting that part out lol

Anyway to those of you having back problems, perhaps this will help:

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/nlarch...r+14th%2C+2009/

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/nlarch...r+21st%2C+2009/

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/nlarch...mber+5th,+2009/

But anyway, lots of foam rolling or rolling with a tennis ball will definitely help. Also, focus on some glute activation work.

If your back pain does not allow you to squat or deadlift, consider alternatives such as reverse lunges, lunges, bulgarian split squats, single leg romanian deadlift etc.

STOP MAKING ME HUNGRY ROAR!!!!!!!

Anyway that is a wonderful plan. Thanks for sharing.

Did you get that from the 100 reasons to squat article?

Some of the reasons there made me laugh out loud, especially "Because it prevents others from curling in the squat rack".

It's funny watching the weightlifting championships. A bunch of lifters come out and struggle through 3 attempts, then the chinese appear and make those weights look like warmup weights.

I even remember for one of the women's category, while the competitors were doing the C&J, this chinese lifter was warming up inside. Her warmup weights were equivalent to what was being done on the platform.

Made me go WTF!!!!

It does

You can find many sources out there such as Dave Tate who claim that the deadlift is the best overall strength builder.

Even Mark Rippetoe, who constantly says great things about the squat has admitted that the deadlift is the best exercise.

The problem is, it's very difficult for most people to deadlift 3 times a week, unlike the squat. Also if you do not have good technique, obviously you're gonna screw things up.

Many people don't do deadlifts because there's no 'halfway'. The bar starts on the ground, either you lift it up all the way, or you don't. Unlike the squat where you can call a squat that has range of motion shorter than my d*ick 'a full squat'.

Exactly. The full squat will strengthen your knees, while half squat could potentially injure them.

Full squats are the only squats that you should be doing. Yet look at the gym, you'll be lucky to see anyone going past PARALLEL in the first place.

Full squats are tough and you will have to use lighter weights. Ego always gets in the way. After all you have to agree this sounds cool:

1) Load up the bar with double the amount of weight you can possibly handle. If your gym has different colour plates, you get double points if you can create a rainbow of plates on the bar.
2) Let out a war cry as you approach the squat rack
3) Let out another war cry as you walk out with the bar from the squat rack
4) Proceed to bend your knees a little. Don't forget to grunt on the way up.
5) Repeat for as many reps as necessary
6) Another war cry as you rack the bar
7) High five your training partner, you get extra cool points for every additional person you manage to high five
8) Bonus points if you leave the weight plates on the bar for the next person to unrack

I hate it when people like that use up the squat rack. And for some reason they need to take 5 minutes rest between sets. As if it's very hard to do.

To those of you doing full squats, I commend you and you have my respect. Keep it up

At least you guys are addicted to deadlift, not curling in the squat rack.

Anyway yesterday was an interesting day for me. I intended to do only 2 exercises, snatch grip deadlifts while standing on 15kg plates, and military press.

The snatch grip deadlifts felt so heavy (I managed to do 10 sets of 5 on Monday), but somehow I managed to grind out 12 sets of 5. So I thought okay let's just finish up the military press (I managed 8 sets of 5 on Monday).

On Monday, I did military press first, and deadlifts second. Yesterday it was in reverse order, so I assumed I would barely be able to make 8 sets of 5).

In the end I did 20 sets of 5 on the military press.

I'VE GOT DA POWA!

You use much more weight on the deadlifts than you can use on the romanian deadlifts.

The deadlift works almost every muslce in the body (except the pressing ones) but the romanian deadlifts works more of the hamstring and glutes. Romanian deadlifts are more of an assistance exercise.

And Reddice, this isn't a personal attack at you, but I've noticed many times in this forum where people just say X is without giving any justification whatsoever.

It's better to go 5x5 in some cases, it's also better to go 20x5 in other cases.

5x5 is not a cure all. Better to go heavier weight? What if my technique is horrible? What if my lower back is very weak? What if heavier weight wasn't my intention? See what I mean.

It isn't very heavy, it's slightly more than 60% of my 1RM. And it's done on very short rest period, only one minute plus, so it does increase work capacity.

I'm actually doing a little experiment based on Pavel Tsatsouline's Russian Bear program. So far it's working very well. I will do an extensive write-up about it when I'm done.

Basically in terms of hypertrophy, I've never really responded well to high rep schemes, the typical bodybuilder 8-12 reps and 3-4 sets. I gained muscle very well on Rippetoe's program which was basically low repetitions, so I decided to give this program a shot.

I'm currently focusing on hypertrophy and putting on as much weight as possible over the next 3 months. We'll see how it goes.

Hey guys, I wrote an article and I would appreciate if you guys can give some constructive feedback here:

http://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?act=ST&f...0#entry30389757

Thank you