Weightlifting

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by lightblue

As for food, I go for the anti-Atkins diet 60% carbs, 30% protein, 10% fat approximately. I supplement my diet with RDA values for most trace elements and vitamins and the like.

The only time I will allow myself any carbs is immediately following a workout. Intense lifting/cardio drops your blood sugar so far down that your body goes into an anaebolic state - it starts going after muscle for energy. A quick easily digestible source of carbs like orange juice corrects that situation.

I don't do Atkins, but I do extremely large amounts of protein and extremely small amounts of carbs/fats and huge quantities of water. The water is absolutely essential. And if you are lifting for size/strength, you are not maximizing your efforts in the gym if you do not consume at least 1 gram protein per body weight per day. That is actually conservative. Many nutritionists advocate 1.5 or 2 times body weight in protein grams....

[lightblue]

Part of my thing is that i don't only do the weights. The weights is a part of an overall training schedule that consists of a lot aerobic work (rowing). So I need my carbs and i need a lot of them. I do supplement my protein after weight sessions.

On average I'll row about 50km a week on the water, 30 or so on the machine (but more semi sprint work: 2k (as a guideline sit on a ergo rowing machine and try pulling below 6:30, if you can, go join the nearest rowing club) and 5k's), 4 weight sessions and core stability and flexibility stuff throughout.

On average i spend about 20 hrs a week on this, and usually take in about 3500 kcals a day. Burning it off faster than I can I shovel it in though (an hour's reasonably intensive rowing is about 1800 kcals).

[Brundlefly]

Jac, I use the same approach to lifting as you do. I don't think you mentioned what you do to warmup for lifting, though....

You also mentioned something else that I can identify with - shoulder problems associated with bench press. For me, it just started as an irritation between the right side of my neck and right shoulder. Then I began to fail on sets because of this pain and not because of muscle failure. I kept trying to work through it and then I was doing a triceps extension one day and got a sharp pain in my shoulder. Turns out I've got arthritis in the shoulder - I'm only 34! Now I'm faced with finding a different approach to lifting because the doctor told me no overhead pressing and that I should only attempt bench press if I use light weight...... I guarantee you I will find some way to get back to lifting heavy weight. It just may not happen right away...

[Jac de Molay]

Jac, I use the same approach to lifting as you do. I don't think you mentioned what you do to warmup for lifting, though....

For legs, Ill ride a cardio bike fast and stretch for about 10-15 minutes. For upper body, Ill run through a quick circuit on the exercise machines. I'm lucky to belong to one of the nicest YMCA here in Detroit so it's great to have these things. Your results may vary.

You also mentioned something else that I can identify with - shoulder problems associated with bench press. For me, it just started as an irritation between the right side of my neck and right shoulder.

Same here with some rotator cuff problems, although I think the lifting has helped in the past months. Like I said, I stay away from the flat bench except as an "index" of upper-body strength. Some weeks I skip it altogether.

And if you are lifting for size/strength, you are not maximizing your efforts in the gym if you do not consume at least 1 gram protein per body weight per day. That is actually conservative. Many nutritionists advocate 1.5 or 2 times body weight in protein grams....

Im sorry, but this is way,way, way too much protein. If you're a serious bodybuilder or triathlete, you might be looking to consume that much. Even at 1 gram per pound of bodyweight, and supplementing with tuna, chicken, milk, beans, and nuts, I'm maybe consuming 130-140g a day tops, and that is plenty enough.

[vlad]

I have to agree with the quote Jac, depending on your ability to digest protein 1 gram is minimal, 1.5 to 2 is more for the big growth. Like I always tell people just try it for a while and see what happens. I have seen people grow with less than a gram per and I have seen people not grow at all with 2 grams per. Everybody is different, but coming from the land of the powerlifting and bodybuilding everyone thinks more is better

If I may ask Jac, how old are you? Seems you have a pretty solid training routine. How long have you been lifting?

Shoulder pain sucks, I overtrained my shoulders for years, now I need an ibuprofen after presses. The warmer I am in the gym the less pain I feel, also a nice icepack now and then seems to alleviate the stiffness.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Vince278
I lift over 200 pounds every day.

I should've mentioned I do this by getting out of bed.

[Ted Striker]

Two most important injury preventers:

1) Keep your hamstrings loose. You should be able to lay your head down on your ankle. To keep your back safe you have to have flexible hamstrings.

2) Build and maintain a strong rotator cuff. ANY pressing movement will tax the shoulders and the rotator cuff will wear down or become prone to tearing

Random thoughts:

1) Squats are the best mass builder but can wreck serious havoc on your body.

2) Bench isn't the best mass builder and has wrecked many guys' shoulders. Other things like dumbell bench, or dips can pack on mass with a way lower risk of injury. Do dumbell bench with 100+ pound dumbells and tell me you aren't growing! Even the hammer strength machines are good mass builders.

vlad is a good guy to listen to for those of you that have questions

[Ecthy]

I do serious weightlifting everytime I take a pee.

[Ecthy]

does dumbbell bench harm my shoulders too?

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Two most important injury preventers:

1) Keep your hamstrings loose. You should be able to lay your head down on your ankle. To keep your back safe you have to have flexible hamstrings.

I don't stertch at all prior to exercising. Maybe I should consider it.

2) Build and maintain a strong rotator cuff. ANY pressing movement will tax the shoulders and the rotator cuff will wear down or become prone to tearing

Please go into more detail of how to build/maintain rotators as I will need to do this to cope with my shoulder problems as I work to get back to the heavy weight I was once lifting.

Random thoughts:

1) Squats are the best mass builder but can wreck serious havoc on your body.

The knees can really be damaged if you are not using proper form. ALWAYS make sure that your kneecaps do not go beyond the tips of your toes when you are at the bottom of the motion.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by vlad

Shoulder pain sucks, I overtrained my shoulders for years, now I need an ibuprofen after presses. The warmer I am in the gym the less pain I feel, also a nice icepack now and then seems to alleviate the stiffness.

So you are not concerned about doing further damage to your shoulders at this point? All you need to deal with then is the inflammation, correct? Do you take any other vitamins/supplements besides ibuprofen? (Man, if I take that I'll have to stop drinking!)

Can you go into a little more detail about your warmup prior to lifting? You said before that you stretch before and inbetween sets. I guess there are specific stretch motions related to each bodypart that I should know. As I said before, my warmup = warmup sets and no stetching. I do a series of progressively heavy warmup sets per bodypart prior to doing a series of exercises for that bodypart.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
does dumbbell bench harm my shoulders too?

I believe dumbbell bench is less harmful to shoulders than barbell bench because your range of motion with barbell is more restricted.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Two most important injury preventers:

1) Keep your hamstrings loose. You should be able to lay your head down on your ankle. To keep your back safe you have to have flexible hamstrings.

Flexibility is important to prevent injury, but I doubt I could ever put my head on my ankles (isnt that something from the kama sutra?)

Another injury preventer is to stay warm- literally. More injuries happen in cold environments than warm ones, hence the "warm-up".

2) Bench isn't the best mass builder and has wrecked many guys' shoulders. Other things like dumbell bench, or dips can pack on mass with a way lower risk of injury. Do dumbell bench with 100+ pound dumbells and tell me you aren't growing! Even the hammer strength machines are good mass builders.

Dips with weight can be very hard on the rotators, especially as you age. Dips done on a machine are better but its virtually impossible to go over bodyweight without doing some very odd stuff.

The problem with heavy dumbells is that they are damn dangerous. Even if you stay within weight that you can handle for say 10 reps, the mass of the dumbells becomes a problem when lifting them up, laying back on the bench, etc when much over 100% of body weight.

If you weigh 200lbs and work with 100lb dumbells the problems are bad enough, I bench near 400lbs (180 Kg) in competition and working with 150lb+ dumbells is ****in crazy.

Dumbells are good assistance training, just stay away from max-type lifts and forced reps!

[Brundlefly]

Has anyone ever used a behind-the-back triceps press machine? I think the final straw for my shoulder was attempting to use this machine with heavy weight. My elbows went way higher than my shoulders at the top of the motion giving me a really awkward and unusual stretch of the shoulders.

[Solly]

For triceps, cable pulldown is probably the safest and eliminates shoulders pretty much.

Here's a cardio challenge for you. Run as far as you can in twelve minutes. A good sign of how fit you are..I used to struggle to make 2km (), but am on around 2.37km at the moment.