Edje Noh

I am unsure about raising the weight. I'm really focussing on solid form right now and I feel like when I raise the weight to fast I'm going to start making form errors which is not helpful. What's the point in lifting more weight if you do it in a mediocre or poor way? Sure, it may look cool on the scoreboard, but I think I would not be doing my body a favor by sacrficing form for weight on the bar. I do gradually increase the weight whenever I get a solid 3x8 reps in proper form on each lift. Either I'm just really weak in comparison to other people or other people are more willing to sacrifice form. To be honest, it doesn't matter that much to me, because I think it's not about comparing myself to others, but comparing myself with where I come from on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year basis. Feel free to suggest that maybe I am being a bit to cautious and conservative in raising the weight, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm just listening to my body and paying a lot of attention in perfecting form (which is not even near perfect to begin with due to some mobility restrictions I'm also improving concurrently). Also, I can feel my heart pounding in my throat after every set of deadlifts and squats, I can usually feel my legs being worked the next day and I haven't run into any injury so I take that as a good sign. But perhaps I am not pushing myself hard enough into the quantity of weight. Maybe I'll try a few reps of much heavier squats and deadlifts just to check it out.

I think a beginner is better of lowering the amount of weight on the barbell and mastering form first, rather than dropping a heavy barbell on the floor after each rep...

Aah, okay, must be tough finding quality sources of food in foreign countries. I was just saying that there are basic principles for gaining lean muscle and losing weight. You can abide by them or give yourself a tougher time. Sure you are better off eating fruits and nuts than HFCS, but there are much better alternatives out there. Since you mention eating chicken and fish, you could work to increase protein and fat intake while working in the confines of the limited resources you have available.

You're talking about eating yogurt, all-bran and almond milk for breakfast & avoiding refined carbs in the same post, uuh, wtf? Not to be a rude, but you're diet is filled with carbs, you're eating way too much grains, fruits and nuts. The salad for lunch is a much better meal with more veggies, olives and chicken. I would ramp up the vegetables and healthy fats and protein and cut out grains and legumes and minimize fruit and nuts. Throw in some eggs, fish and meats and other sources of healthy fats (the olives are definetely a good start, but also add avocado, coconut, grass-fed butter). This will help you drop the few lbs and build lean muscle mass at the same time. As for the visiting other people, it's all about building the habit of declining. A lot of the time you can just say: "No, thank you." with a big smile and genuinely thanking for the offer but still decline. Just get in the habit of saying: "I only drink water." If they ask you why. "Because it's healthier." or "I don't like other drinks." If they offer you food, my favorite line is: "No thank you, I have just eaten." If they persist you try: "No sorry, I'm really full and satieted right now." (which is actually true if you're eating satiating meals (i.e. good amounts of healthy fats and protein) that promote healthy insulin functioning. It's more about how you dictate the social context away from 'it's rude and inpolite of me to decline and people will think I'm weird for my strange food habits' towards one of 'these people are retarded for even offering me their shitty sugar food and it is weird that they even offer, but I understand that these are innocent little children that don't know shit about health and nutrition so I'm just going to nice to them and thank them for trying to be kind to me in offering me their shit food and if I can enlighten them on nutrition I definetely will (not by bashing their food, but by talking about my own lifestyle and explaining how my habits are helping me to be fit and healthy'.

You're off tension at times during this video i.e. you're shifting around between being braced in good form and rounding your spine. This happens especially on the way down. I prefer doing sets of deadlifts without having the plates hit the ground in between reps (I keep the plates about 1 millimeter above the ground), helps to keep tension on at all times. You may have to lower the weight on the barbell to be braced at all times and not drop the barbell on the floor.

You need to brace your spine first before you start lifting. Get your glutes and abs tight and roll those shoulders back (externally rotating them) so your chest is firm. This is very painful to watch, please correct this before you hurt yourself more. In Suple Leopard Kstarr mentions that you can move your knees a bit forward if you don't have the hamstring length yet (I think this is what you're referring to). I have that same problem and use that setup too. But you've got to get that spine braced and get rid of that rounding back, it's the most important thing. In the movie where you use that set-up your back is much straighter, so keep using that if you have to. Also, you're knees sometimes unlock earlier than hips, but this will probably go away after you practice the movement more.

Mobilitywod.com really helped for me. Try doing a deep squat (aka paleo chair) for as long as you can in the ass-to-grass position. If you can't do it, use a pole or the foot of a table to stabilize yourself and keep camping out there untill you can't take it any more. Repeat every day along with other type of mobility drills. Also, I found I didn't have the ankle mobility to do pistols, so I tried doing them while being partially submerged in water, which helped me to do them.

Thanks for the grip tip, I'll adjust and re-test next time There is a rack at the gym, but I sort of like to deadlift and press it overhead and put it in place, but I understand the limitations in terms of adding extra weight, that will be hard to press overhead. Nonetheless, I do not want to be sacrificing form for additional weight. I can clearly feel like my muscle has received a very good stimulus from this work-out, I also know this from checking my the pulse in my neck after the second set (which may be visible in the sped up section of the video). I love this so much about deadlifts and squats, they give the entire system a shocker and ramp up the cardiovascular system. I think adding a rack and substantial amounts of weight will do more harm than good. I am also not a very big fan of doing max single reps. I think the body get's a much better stimulus from a few sets of 5 to 8 reps on a hard load than a single max rep at a very hard load. I'm planning on just adding 5 kg whenever I succeed at 3x8 on decent form. I'm hoping my overhead press will progress in line with this so I can continue to press it overhead and placing it on the back. If at some point I can't press a load that I can back squat with proper form for 3 sets of 8 reps, I will head to the rack. I am not in a hurry to ramp up them numbers and as long as my body get's a good stimulus for building strength that's the most important thing for me.

@Bolson Aaah. yeah, I noticed that aswell that the more weight you put on your back than it does become easier to brace and get in the right position because it also changes the center of your mass as compared to a bodyweight air squat. @bigm14 I had a lot of stalling on my bench press as well but I do want to get it to improve. That probably has to do with the long arms and the fact that I always train alone and without a spotter and benching is scary (even though I'm overcoming the fear). I'm currently at 3x8 60kg and will soon try more.

Yeah, I have pretty long legs. I friend of mine said that body type tends to influence what lifts you excel at. For example, he's a short, buffy type guy and he is relatively better at squatting than deadlifting (off course his deadlift is still heavier than his back squat, but compared to me, a tall lanky lifter, my gap between deadlift and squat is larger because my body has advantages for deadlifts). Do you also find your deadlift is accelerating faster than squat (and perhaps the being lanky disadvantage in bench press)? I know I could probably do heavier weight, but I really want to focus on the form and not start tapping my back to complete the final reps. The main reason I'm keeping the weight this low is to not get as much technique problems. I'd rather do a better form on lower weight, than compromise form and technique and risk injury for the sake of a new PR. My hamstrings are horribly short and my hips are kinda tight too (I think I lack external rotation more than flexion), but I'm doing them Kelly Starrett mobility drills to address those issues. What do you suggest for improving hamstrings, I currently just lay one of the legs on a bench or up against a doorpost or lay on the floor and wrap a flex band and stretch them. I will go for 60 kg next time I'm doing back squats (which I've done before, but with feet at 30 degree angle out and not with feet straight) and try to focus on lowering into the squat slower. Thank you for the feedback.

I filmed myself doing some back squats so I could check my form. Overall, I think it's pretty good except that I round a bit in my back as I drop below parallel in the squat. Also I could make less of a 'pain face' in the later sets. Any feedback is welcome <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Z_qzfEKELIA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Did pretty well during this challenge, in spite of the lack of updating. Here's pre and post challenge photos. Perhaps the comparison isn't all that fair due to the lighting and wrestling I did in the water, but I was happy with my summer look none-the-less. [ATTACH=CONFIG]5330[/ATTACH] I'm upping the work-outs for the next months and planning to put on some more muscle and gain more strength and flexibility. Improved on my lifts, joint mobility and endurance, so it's all good.

Sure, but IMO the whole type of work-out plan thing is not so relevant as long as you lift heavy and eat paleo and do so consistently. This stuff ain't rocket science.

You may want to go hit the gym and try different types of routines and find out what works best for you, not debate about it on a forum.

Got back from the gym, something crazy happened. Started out doing Deadlifts, which went well, so I head to my pulls and chins. After 4 reps of each I notice some red spots on the inside of my right fore arm. I broke both bones in that limb 4 years ago and I've got two titanium plates in there. I check it out and I notice my arm is swollen a bit. I freak out for a bit as I realize it's fucking hemorrhage (internal bleeding). I immediately stop pull-ups and sit down for a bit, freaking out what I should do. Do I need to let someone check it out, go to emergency, whatever. After a while the swelling and internal bleeding stuff stops increasing, so I just sit there, pissed off at the fact that I will probably have to terminate my work-out as I don't want to make this injury worse. I check it out some more and realize that it's probably scar tissue that has been torn/ripped on the inside while doing the chin-ups (which apply quite some tension on the arms). I noticed that the tissue around the scars was somewhat tight as-of-lately, but now it's seems a lot softer again. I figure that I could do some exercises that aren't that heavy on the arms so I proceed with some ab work. After that I do some Pecs stuff and as the injury doesn't seem to effect me I decide to do the rest of the normal training anyhow, except that I do a lat pull machine instead of the pull-ups just to be sure I don't make the injury worse. I'm actually wondering whether this injury was actually a bad thing at this point as it seems that the tissue underneath the scars is a lot softer now, as if it were under a lot of tension prior to the ripping of tissue and hemorrhage. I start thinking it was funny, ignoring the ambiguity of whatever the fuck just happened to my arm. The internal bleeding spots are still slightly visible, but I don't have any pain whatsoever. I think the scar tissue and the muscle stimulation from working out just got a bit messy over the past months. Now it seems a lot better. I guess I'm going to massage these tissues a bit more from time to time so everything becomes more smooth, soft and solid in my right fore arm. I liked the fact that I was pissed off at first about not being able to complete the work-out and then just not giving a fuck, trying anyway and not having any problems on the exercises that followed. No need to panic over some hemorrhage (okay, admittedly I was a bit freaked out at first). That, and I increased my Deadlift.