Hamp21

Your body could also maximize the use of the muscle you have. just because you have X amount of muscle mass does not mean you use it at 100%. Your body will tend to use muscle in the most economical way possible to limit energy use but continually strength training teaches your body to maximize the use of the muscle you do have therefore you get "stronger" without adding muscle.

I feel ya. It's hard for me to distinguish between just a shitty day in the gym or moving up in weight too quickly because [insert famous lifter name here] said so.

I went with Greyskull late last year and loved it. It's definitely a step up from SS and SL. I got to the point with SS that squatting three days a week was too much for recovery. Dropping it to two days a week helped me. for the shrug/upright row situation. have you considered high pulls? I have those programmed in to my current program and damn they are awesome. It's basically an upright row, but you do it explosively. It really hits the traps harder than any shrug I have ever done. Just throwing that out there.

I had a whopping 860 total in my first (and only) meet. I look back and I am definitely glad I did it. So I agree with SpecialSundae just go for it. It's pretty awesome to hang out with really strong folks and pick up some tips etc... The upside of lifting "lighter" than the big boys and girls is that you will probably be in the first flight, so the crowd will be into it and give you lots of encouragement .

Usually the federation brings in their own weights and equipment so if you show up before the equipment is there it will be a wasted trip. There is usually enough time between weigh in and the meet starting for everyone to get their rack heights set. maybe if there is a weigh in the night before you could knock it out then?

I second JEFIT. I have been using it for close to 3 years now. Very customizable and keeps track of your stats etc...

Cool stuff there brother!

Ok let me put it another way. Lets say it was bench day and most of us work in the 3-5 rep range. Strength work. then for our accessory we move over to say close grip bench or incline and again work around 5 reps building strength in those movements. Why wouldn't you/when should you program some sarcoplasmic pump work into the mix? I mean we want to be strong and also look strong right? I guess I don't really have my thoughts together on what I'm getting at

Ok....so I've been thinking about this for a while it's time to just get it out there. here's my thinking, before any of us started training our bodies were in economy mode i.e. central nervous system was sparing energy by not fully utilizing all of our muscle. So next we enter into some beginner program (stronglifts, starting strength etc...) and kill it right!?! this is because our CNS is gradually activating more of our current muscle mass to move the linearly increasing weight and we make consistent progress for quite a while. As we slow down we deload a few times then enter into intermediate programs (Greyskull, Madcow, 5/3/1) and continue to get dem gainzz for a little while longer but at a slower pace. As we near the top end of the intermediate programs, the advice becomes find out where you are lacking and hit that with some accessories to continue dem gainzz. If those particular accessories don't work then we switch'em up to something else and so on and so forth. Here's my question. When does this model unnecessarily slow you down due to lack of hypertrophy work? I mean you have to figure that at some point your CNS is working pretty efficiently using the muscle you have after upwards of a year and a half of training. This leads me to believe that muscle mass is the limiting factor and not some well thought out accessory movement to supplement the big 3. Maybe some pump work after the main session would work better. It would make sense to me because the big 3 work the majority of your big muscle groups and to supplement with pump work afterwards would get blood flowing into the area to deliver the nutrients from your PWO and throughout the day. I don't know, maybe I'm way off base, just give me some opinions. TL;DR When is Hypertrophy/pump work better than hitting accessory movements?

Maybe it appealed to me because I hit the numbers pretty close. Reference Back Squat 100% Bench - 75% Deadlift - 121% OHP - 50.1% but I will say that if I added some accessory movements like front squats I could use the article as a reference for loading purposes.

Didn't know if everyone saw this or not. But there was an interesting article on T-nation today. It basically gives you some objective numbers to evaluate your overall strength in comparison to the back squat. heres the link https://www.t-nation.com/training/know-your-ratios-destroy-weaknesses Just putting it out there because I always wonder how "balanced" I am strength wise and thought this was pretty cool and nerdy.

Damn Gainsdalf, that was the explanation I needed.

I was in a meet in December and ended up with a 860 total. So I'm not to terribly far off. My latest training maxes have me at Squat 303 Bench 227 Deadlift 361 Total 891 At least I'm moving in the right direction.

Looks like I started at Planet Fitness back in June 2012 and just did whatever with no real direction. From my logs I can tell i used the smith machine alot. then in May 2013 I decided to get serious so I switched gyms, got the New Rules of Lifting book, and went strict paleo. I went strict paleo for about 3 or 4 months and lost 25 lbs and increased strength. I followed NROL until about February 2014. I found NerdFitness in January and learned what I could and then made the switch to Starting strength and basically started over correcting form and focusing on the big 3 and OHP. with that said I don't feel that I actually started training until I went to Starting Strength in Feb. 2014. So I would say my training age is right at 1 year

I had that same pain once. right on top of my shoulder at the bony protrusion thingy. I seem to recall I noticed it the day after a heavy bench session where form got a little wonky on me. I just made sure to do some rotator cuff exercises (internal and external rotations) and it cleared up fairly soon. I didn't miss any workouts because of it.