angelofdeath

dont worry bro, some people will NEVER get it. carrying a firearm is no different than wearing a helmet on a motorcycle, a seatbelt in a car or having a life preserver on your boat. simple insurance and a means to stay alive.

you crazy acer.... the longest i ever run is 3 miles....hahahaha

its a supplement. its safe. helps with muscle 'growth' and some people say it increases their strength. take it. it cant hurt. this is a huge debate. they idea is to get protein sucked into your muscles after you crush them in a work out/get in an anabolic state. the debate is the timing. some say pre work out is best. others say post work out. drink at both times if you are worried about optimal muscle uptake. if you are feeling frisky, drink a nitric oxide supplement before your work out, like white flood or no explode. other people swear by the sugared up creatine products as well. they definitely taste better. you can mix green matrix and white flood together and you have a great tasting pre workout drink and you'll be fueled up like a mofo for your work out... atleast for a couple or three weeks till you get used to the mix. many old schoolers argue that drinking a gallon of milk a day is the easiest way to add the extra calories needed to put weight on. you are gonna need about 500 extra calories a day to gain a pound a week. it can be pretty hard to count calories (it is for me anyway) so its all guess work. eat what you think is 500 more calories a day. if you eat much more than this, you'll get noticeably 'fatter' instead of 'bigger' in the muscle sense. after a month if you are just looking fat cut back on the carbs a bit and keep going. unless you want to make it your life, you are gonna increase your body fat percentage when bulking. its just the way it is for the majority of people out there. granted some genetic freaks who were born with 6 packs might be able to keep their fat low during a bulk, but most cant. if you want to be 235 lean, you are gonna have to go to like 260 then cut fat down to 235. still you might end up @ 225 or 215 depending how lean you want to be, how lean you are now and how fat you got on the bulk.

this is just silly. self defense is self defense. it doesnt matter what method, technique or tools/implements are used to defend yourself. they are all legitimate. wouldnt you want to know how to 'drop' someone your life was in danger or physical harm/GBH was eminent? i have never had a need to use a life preserver but they are on the boat. i havent ever really needed a seat belt, but i wear one. having a skill necessary to defend yourself is just the same as those examples. if i remember you are .mil... and this has always been my one pet peeve with current or past serving. and i deal with an ass ton of SOF dudes, MARSOC, etc a certain percentage of .mil or le always feel the need to tell mere mundanes that they have no 'use' for various techniques, tools, weapons, knowledge, equipment, etc. its quite nerve racking.

both.

agreed. cardio for 5 min, like jumping rope or on a tread mill is fine for a warm up in casek's case, but remember he is trying to gain weight and is having a hell of a time. if he burns 500 or 600 calories every day doing cardio he has to eat that much more to replace those calories. need we be reminded that he is barely moving up the weight gaining ladder right now, so eating that much more might be a real chore.

i dont know man... if he is having this much trouble gaining weight... i wouldnt even do anything except lifting weights. cardio health be damned if he is having this much trouble, it will just burn up to many calories.

i mean, i can sit here and say i did a 'clean and jerk' if i picked the weight up and some how got it above my head any way i could, but i wouldnt have the proper technique and wouldnt fall into the strict and proper definition of the lift. the very definition of a squat, especially in a competition sense, is putting a barbell on your back, free, (not on a smith machine) dropping to parallel then going back up. using a device to stabilize the weight and sitting on a bench that puts you at 'high parallel' not 'true parallel' is simply not the proper squat technique anyway you cut it. not only does a smith machine put your body on an unnatural plane, it completely eliminates stabilization muscles working in the lift. people cling to the smith machine because they think 'it wont hurt me' yet it is probably the most dangerous piece of equipment in the gym. as for box squatting, properly, on a smith machine, is absolutely impossible. when you box squat, you push your ass back about as far as you humanely can. this will result in your knees/shins being past perpendicular to the floor. the idea is to shoot to keep the bar in a straight path, but the small variations in natural body movement cannot be mimicked on a smith machine because your stabilizers arent being trained and because the machine straight up and down is NOT natural in the least. when you come off the box, with your shins/knees beyond perpendicular, you have to actually do a 'leg curl' movement to begin to lift back off of the box and finish the move. when you sit on the box, everything stays tight from your upper back and elbows UNDER the bar to your feet, EXCEPT your hips, they relax. you absolutely cannot mimic a proper box squat on the smith machine no matter how long you try to tell everyone that because you got under a smith bar and sat on a bench that was sort of parallel that you are performing an actual power lifting box squat. i mean really... the only evidence you need that you are wrong about this is NO power lifter uses a smith machine or has ANYTHING good to say about them. a wider stance also reduces the travel of the motion. the same with the bench. with a proper arch with all the weight on your traps and with your lats pulling the bar out of the rack and descending, the decrease the distance of bar travel by almost half then if you laid flat with no arch and no back flex. hamstrings and ass hurting doesnt necessarily indicate that you were doing a lift with proper form and technique, as it is impossible to do so on a smith machine to begin with. it just means your hams got a work out which is what tends to happen when your feet are in front of the bar and you push back/up. if your feet are in front of the bar on a smith machine the weight is on your hips and results in the pushing back motion i mentioned in my other post instead of pushing straight up.

dang man.... i thought i had it bad. on a side note... get some fiber laxative pills, not an actual exlax pill, but the fiber pills. walmart has them. take 5 or 6 of those a day and you should be GTG on bowel movements.

there is no doubt about it that one can increase their body weight in two months by 20 pounds. but the error is calling it 'muscle.' sounds good to your friends, but its a lie. just sayin as for squatting being the only way to go....it depends what your goals are. as you said, heavy competition style squats are probably NOT the thing for cyclists to do. now if you want to get strong and that is your only goal, you squat. there is no better exercise to stimulate your CNS and in more laymens terms, make a man out of you. you squat if you want to get strong. leg presses are good accessory work for the squat, but they do NOT take its place. i just saw a kid today that couldnt weigh more than 150 put like 8 plates on each side of the leg press machine, pile 4 more on top of the machine and unrack the weight and barely bend his knees and push it back up. then his buddies stood in awe as he got up. this is not impressive. its stupidity. not only is this kid going to hurt himself, he didnt even do 1 rep. in order to squat heavy, you have to train the weak points in the lift. hip flexors, hams, glutes. your quads can handle it, but if you are trying to squat as heavy as possible, you squat with your hams and glutes. you want to try to keep your knees behind your toes but if you actually move to heavy weight and 'squat' with shoulder width stances on a smith machine, trying to keep your knees behind your toes, you are not using proper squat form. your feet will not stay under the bar on a smith machine in proper alignment with a shoulder width stance. it cant be done. what people usually do is put their feet way out in front of the bar to 'protect their knees' then squat down, all the while pushing BACKWARDS which eliminates use of all stability muscles as in a free barbell squat. you dont push BACK you push UP in a squat. this smith machine squat with a shoulder width stance w/ feet under the bar and not going in front of your toes will either result a good morning type move which will hurt your back on this machine or you put your feet out front and to the modified non squat move that is like using once of those squat machines. the same is true of a bench press on a smith machine. to get proper form, your wrists and elbows must be inline with the bar. the smith machine goes up and down in a straight line. if you touch right below your chest and are positioned right, your elbows might be right but when you press up, you end up with the weight in the same line but with your elbows behind the weight. you dont train your stability muscles either. no matter which way you cut it, smith machines cannot duplicate proper free weight squat or bench form. you are essentially positioning your body around the bar to try to achieve proper form and technique instead of the bar being able to be moved slightly in order to achieve proper form or technique. much easier to adjust the bar when your are in tight position than your body. but all this aside, body builders arent the biggest squatters. sure their are exceptions, but body builders want hypertrophy. 1RM squat sets are not going to give you cut up arnold quads. you will only get big as a side effect of getting stronger. leg presses are not the same as a squat. they do not work the same muscles the same way. it is an entirely different lift. its folly to think they are equivalent. the platforms on leg press machines (unless you have that special and expensive machine from efs that has the huge platform) are way to narrow to even attempt to imitate a proper competition squat stance. if anything a squat and dead lift are more the same than a squat and leg press. the same exact muscles are worked but in opposite directions. on a side note i just hit a personal record today.... after working up to a 3RM box squat @ 345, i did a 'widow maker' set of 225 x 22 reps. i was pretty much done after this, on the border of puking.....but did some rack pulls after a little break, worked up to 455 x 2, then some abs and glute ham raises. then i drank that stuff soup drank and gained 19 pounds of solid muscle in 3 hours. true story.

casek, you tried the 'drink a gallon of milk a day' thing? i have heard of some guys doing some crazy shit to gain weight. you may have to start eating a tad 'dirtier' if you are still having problems. im talking like eating a whole pizza for dinner in addition to protein and when this isnt a hard task, pour some olive oil on top of it type stuff. you might also try eating handfuls of almonds through out the day in between meals.

ha... me either although i am seeing those things pop up everywhere. i got a pair of asolo boots a few months back at a super sale at a huge outdoor store and those vibram dealies were flying off the shelf. casek, despite that lee hayward guy being cheezy, i think he pretty much knows his shit. i wouldnt be surprised if that approach works. i've heard people talk about similar cycles, although it was more of a 'eat a fuck load of carbs on this heavy training day then eat no carbs on your off day.' stay in the hypertrophy rep range, but i'd also throw in some heavy sets of 3 or 5 to keep your strength up. i've noticed when i cycle off of a strength type routine onto a more body building style of training my strength drops. but he is speaking truth when he says you have to bulk up a shit load then cut back to get lean. i've become pretty convinced for most people that arent genetically gifted bulking up big and staying under 10-12% body fat just isnt happening.

not necessarily, although it doesnt hurt. there are plenty of huge guys at my gym that lift moderate weight and fail at 8-12 rep range. lifting is only one element. the main element that decides if you are going to put on muscle or loss weight is your diet

i dont have experience with those shoes but flat soled shoes are recommended for deads/squats. you can just kick your shoes off if you feel like it when doing these moves. most people dont want to spend a ton of money on metal squat shoes and frankly... power lifters probably need these as much as michael jordan needs nike jordans. the cheapest shoe for serious squat/deads are chucks. cheap. flat soled. your feet wont roll out of the sides of them. and they wont squirm around and 'bounce' in the soles of cross training/whatever shoes. some guys wear wrestling or boxing shoes. i usually just wear chucks when doing lower days and whatever cross training or running shoe i currently have on upper days/cardio/etc days. plus you get mad scene points if you wear chucks and a west side barbell shirt on the same day.

i say go for it. i used to not wear shoes for a long time when dead lifting and squatting... then they yelled at me and told me to put my shoes on. i usually try to keep a belt off until i am at a weight that is about 70-75% of my 1rm. then i throw one on.

chucks

the beginning of that segment gasface posted is actually the 'proper' way to do chins

you mean doing knee bends on a smith machines. affirmative. smith machines lead to injury

you were watching this werent you... before you and your 'football' buddies were doing your smith machine knee bends

what leads to injury? squatting like an idiot on a smith machine? exactly

i just sent the memo out to the entire power/olympic lifting community that Soup has spoken on the squat issue. they are now changing all the traditional training styles to smith machines, shoulder width stances, dime plates under their heels, and sitting on benches while using the smith machine. new squat world record will now take place from these new improved stances. guaranteed. from to

do squat contests happen on smith machines? (wait, you didnt even know the name of the machine, but anway...) do you see guys squatting any decent weight with their feet shoulder fucking width apart? if your feet are shoulder width apart, you are mostly using your quads. if you actually think that squatting on a smith machine and on a monolift or squat rack is the same, i just dont know what to tell you. you should just probably stick to yoga. so lets recap... you didnt even know what a smith machine was called. you think that keeping your legs shoulder with apart is the proper way to squat. you think a bench puts you "90 deg" yet you cant perform a proper depth squat because your knees hurt, most likely from squatting like an idiot asking for injury on a smith machine. the reason why i know this? because i had knee problems, low back problems and lower quad aches from using a smith machine and listening to guys like you. once i learned proper technique, i havent had an ache in 2-3 years.

you mean knee bends on a rack that doesnt train any stability muscles and leads to knee problems. got ya

you arent even squatting. you are bending your knees on a smith machine. if you cant get parallel (sitting onto a bench does not equal parallel) because of your knees, you need to work that out first. and a smith machine isnt helping matters. widen your stance, get off the smith machine, and stick your ass back as far as you can. you squat with your ass, hams, glutes... not quads. the only people complaining of knee problems when squatting are people that dont know how to squat. period.

sorry man... but smith machine squats just justified everything gasfacevictim has said about you. and a bench doesnt put you at parallel unless you are 7' tall. if this were the case squatters would not squat onto a box, they would just squat onto a bench.