aj_rock

Sounds like you're doing just fine with your progressions. I for one would NOT recommend adding even more. Assuming your levelled up workout goes well, you'll be making things harder on yourself already. Take your time getting back into things. If you have tons of energy left-over, but you still make progress, that's a very very good thing. It's when you feel dead and sluggish and can't move for days after a work-out that you need to worry. I know not moving faster can be aggravating, but the feeling is born from your old mind-set that 'more is better', which is absolutely not true.

6'5" ? I should hope so ya lanky bastard! Good job though buddy!

Yeah, throw all the tomatoes you want, I too use the lat pulldown. It's easier to load than putting weights on yourself while you do pull-ups. I would stick to barbell stuff first though, if possible. Your gains will progress better that way, because you can load smaller % weight on. You can get much higher in strength doing the barbell, and then do dumbbell once you stop making progress.

You can only really talk about people in terms of how trained they are. Untrained = unable to do a lot of the things you mentioned. Average is so hard to nail down though. Average changes with age, gender, genetics, race, upbringing, habitat... you really can't narrow it down. I'd also like to chime in that most mixed-sports that require fitness AND strength are capable of achieving the same look and athleticism as MMA fighters. Indeed, when you look at weight classes they get about as varied as gridiron football, rugby, or hockey do. Sorry; I couldn't let fighters get ALL the attention

I live in Canada and between working indoors during daylight hours and having overcast skies 24/7, I require vit D. It's definitely improved my winter mood vastly.

What alecto said. Especially if you're trying to get into visible ab range. Your body fights the fat-loss far too much for some protein not to be lost in turnover. What vitali said wasn't untrue either though. If you gain 11 lbs, and the vast majority of it is muscle, then yes bf% goes down as a virtue of your body carrying more mass but the same fat. Actual fat store remains constant, at best.

Even after correcting for 1RM? If so, there may be other underlying problems.

No specific resources jump to mind, but some strategies for implementing it: - decide on your overall rate of weight loss desired based on 3500 cals/lb, or weight gain based on the same (gaining weight = some is fat, no way around it) - Figure out how many calories short or over you should be over the course of a week. Eg, if you want to lose 1 pound a week. That's 3500 calories down over seven days, average of 500 - Assuming you eat more on days you perform training, figure out what number of days are over/under. You can extend your calorie short amount to two weeks if you need to (e.g. you work out every other day, thus needing 7 training days over two weeks) - This is important: As long as these keys are tracked properly, there is no limit to how far you can drop calories consumed in a day. So you can totally fast on non-training days, followed by splurge-arific training days, or eat 750 under, 250 over. However, note that the more variability you induce, the harder it will be to stick with the plan . your body enjoys eating the same amount every day, so the more variability, the more it will complain. - If you do consume a lot on training days, schedule your eating around the training. You don't want to impact your training effectiveness by over eating prior to it That's pretty much it. Variations on this set up in terms of lengths and intake lead to leangains style, eat stop eat style, whatever you like. Try to keep to two weeks maximum for planning out. Obviously, you can't fast completely for an entire month and then gorge yourself the next. Also, regardless of whether you continue eating in this style or not, eat at maintanence level calories at least 2 weeks out of every ten, to prevent metabolic slowdown. So, an example: You have maintanence level at 3000 calories a day, want to lose a pound every week. You train 3 days a week. On non-training days, you eat 2000 calories. 4 x 1000 under is 4000, with 500 left to bump back up. Therefore, you consume 3150 calories on training days for net loss of 3550 calories every week, slightly more than a pound. If you want to attempt a gain in muscle mass at the same time, 500 over on training days is required, meaning a net 5000 calories must be cut over the four non-training days, for a total consumption of 1750 calories on those days. A harsh cut, but necessary for extraordinary goals. Anyways, you could get more in-depth than that, but my lunch break is over

Scott: jdanger and vitali have the right of it. Those three are vitamins everyone should probably take. At the same time, there's a reason I pre-faced with 'for serious athletes'. most supplements are meant to take you above and beyond what you can achieve without them. General fitness that results in a prolonged life span and increased quality of life is easily accomplished through proper diet and training, so if you're not heading toward the goal of performing in some athletic event, be it a tough mudder, record setting mountain climb, or the next weekend-warrior get away. As always, 80/20 rule still applies. First 20% = proper diet will get you 80% there. Next 20% = training will get you 95% of the way. Supplements, used correctly, will get you 99%.

athlete zone =/= visible abs zone, not for guys or girls. A lot of sports require you carry a bit of pudge around in order to protect your vital organs. You'd be surprised how many professional athletes, both male and female, that do not have teh visible abs. Setting your goals this way is dangerous though; you need to make sure you don't end up losing weight too fast. Setting a relative short term for a lot of change invites crash-dieting, which is generally a no-no.

What cable exercises were you planning on using? I mean, your logic is on the right track, but the issue is that some of the exercises put emphasis on stabilizers that normally never get them, and they end up getting over worked. For instance, say you did cable curls (not the best exercise, but the easiest to demonstrate. With barbells, all the weight is driving downward, and you oppose a downward direction. With cables, because of geometry you must stand away from the machine and thus exert a force downward AND outwards from your body. You get pulled forward in an un-natural way. Just try to avoid where possible. Use common sense otherwise.

It's just guidelines really. I'd say as long as you're not behind where it says you should be, you're doing good.

According to the chart you must weight over 200 pounds Spez. The women's section is probably grossly under-estimated due to poor population numbers. Maybe you just have a fantastic genetic background. Who knows. Not me. no siree

Grass != grain? I thought it did :/

That't what I mean though; most people, even those seriously TRYING to, won't get to the elite level. They just either don't have the right genetics or are prevented by acts of nature. I dunno. I'm not there yet, but at least for me, I'm sure there will be a point where I stop making gains, and I go 'Ok. Enough is enough.' Considering that excessive powerlifting will prevent me from playing my sport effectively, I'll probably stop my squats at three plates, deadlifts at 4.

There are many many ways to observe the principle of 'eat more sometimes, eat less sometimes'. The different effective methodologies are essentially endless. Basically, eat more sometimes, eat less sometimes. Replace less with nothing for some programs. Sometimes is a variable length. Some programs say monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly. 24 hour fast once/twice a week is popular. So is 16/8 hour fast/feeding. So is zig-zagging, where you eat 500 calories below maintanence one day, and 500 above the next/on training days.

Strength Standards @ exrx.net Maybe zees wheel help? :3

Obviously the human body has limits, and I agree with what jdanger said. My only point to add is this; are you really going to try and lift so much weight you potentially cause catastrophic failure in your limbs? Anyways, I was posting this link in another thread but I'll re-post here because it's somewhat relevant: Strength Standards @ exrx.net Not advanced/elite? Don't worry about anything but bad form. Elite? Foggy area due to lack of studies n what not.

Here's a conundrum. It's only paleo if the person being eaten was grain-fed. Therefore, zombies must eat non-paleo eaters in order to be paleo themselves.

Depends how intense the BW circuit is. Very high intensity I'd have to say bad idea. If you don't see any symptoms, just do what you gotta do, and listen to your body. The resting HR thing will work, trust.

Symptoms and signs of overtraining: - the icky urine colour - unexplained fatigue and soreness - fogginess of the mind - decreased exercise capacity. Yes, when you overtrain, you cause performance to go DOWN. - injury is much much much more likely to occur Basically, overtraining = BAD. However, there is a term known as overreaching that is very similar. Basically, you train at an intensity that would cause overtraining eventually, but only for like, a week or two at most, and then taper off significantly. A lot of event-oriented athletes use overreaching to finish off their program and then taper off before the event. All the same, to prevent overtraining, all you really need to do is ensure your training does not overcome your body's ability to recover. That means either decrease training, or increase recovery To increase recovery, you can - get more sleep - eat maintainence level calories or higher (overtraining is very easy to slip into on a prolonged dieting/cutting phase) - ensure adequate vitamin and mineral intake - incorporate appropriate time intervals between training (at least as it pertains to muscles/systems used. Doing legs one day and then running right after? Not so good. Chest workout followed by HIIT? Maybe later in the day.) - recovery naturally should improve over time assuming a good training program is followed Either way, the two BEST methods to detect overtraining (before symptoms show up) is one called HRV, or heart rate variability, and resting HR. HRV is hard to measure, but basically your heart rate should increase slightly when you inhale, and decrease slightly when you exhale. The wider the gap, the better suited for training you are that day. With HR, measure what your usual resting HR is, and then track it upon waking every morning. If it elevated by 10% or more, then you are headed toward overtraining. If elevated by 5%, go ahead, but keep intensity down. If no elevation, or depression, you're fitter than you were before! Kick ass today!

Without going too much into it, the load that I'm referring to is much reduced from the amounts some people used to take. It also takes a bit more finesse to make it work. First the muscles must already be depleted of glycogen. This ensures that any insulin spikes drive available glucose into muscle glycogen stores. Thus, a 20g load, combined with previous glycogen depletion and an adequate supply of carbs and water, can drive excess glycogen into the muscle, creating 'supercompensation'. That sounds like a good thing, right? But absolutely, if you take 30-40g of creatine in a day, you won't lift heavier things; you'll just get massive stomach aches and unfortunate bowel movements. As for the CSA thing, I know it's counter-intuitive, but you're right in that it's an increase in ACTUAL strength per say. Larger CSA gives you a mechanical advantage to exerting force, much the same way bone-tendon insertion and lever length does. In the name of progressive muscle overload, it could potentially help one get over a plateau by temporarily increasing that mechanical advantage. The idea is that, you lift beyond your capabilities, then stop taking the creatine, and some of the protein synthesis that occured while lifting heavier weights remains active. Lachy: BCAA's = branch-chain amino acids. Basically just a small group of protein AA's that have been shown to be very important in muscle maintanence and building. While an adequate supply of protein usually supplements enough BCAAs to do what they need to do, some people choose to supplement them because either their protein sources aren't getting them an adequate amount, or they wish to perform exercise while fasted, in which case BCAA's can contribute to maintaining an anti-catabolic state, at least until the first meal of the day is consumed. If you have trouble gaining muscle mass, I've seen some people in the same position who started taking BCAA's along with a good training program and diet and see better results. Deficiencies are best left discussed with your doctor, but the most common ones are w-3 (the fish oil), vitamin D (in winter months), and iron (in women). chairohkey; kudos for being the first to mention the EC stack! Not my cup of joe (had a bad experience with it), but if it works for you then all the power to yah buddy! Pat G: YAY another rugby guy!

jdanger, I actually really like that simple explanation of supplements: most ones that are PROVEN to work only supplement key ingredients that are already found in our bodies to some degree or another. Bruce: you've piqued my curiosity. Why? Feel free to shoot me a PM if you're uncomfortable about it. For everyone: I actually know quite a bit about how creatine works, but it would take a while to write everything out. Maybe I'll do an article later, but for now, know that in order to get full usage out of creatine, you really should either take it chronicly (well, cycle it), or load a day or two before the desired impacted worktout. You should also concentrate on consuming a LOT of carbs before hand, and drink lots of water. Creatine drives carbs and water into the muscles, filling them out and giving them extra energy. The increase in cross-sectional area should make them stronger, the increased energy storage should improve fatigue-ability and recovery, and, potentially, although not proven, it can improve calorie partitioning. If that whets your whistle, let me know and I'll be more motivated to write more on it

Welllllll cuz you called me a rock star, I'll give you a direction to go Here's a few key words to just plug into google and let 'er rip: Intermittant fasting cyclical (or targeted) ketogenic diet calorie zig-zagging These are all basically variations of the same thing, but the long of the short is, you eat a lot some days (hint hint* when you work out), and eat less on rest days. And I usually tell myself NOT to make website recommendations. But if you want a good, scientific, easy-to-digest primer on EXACTLY what different macro nutrients do in your body, I'd suggest heading over to bodyrecomposition.com. Very knowledgeable guy, won't try to sell you on any of his products (well, a little bit, but he warns you when he does a book plug and never while giving you the low-down), and is easy to understand.