You can get a real good idea of fitting by googlign around for reviews. People will say they're such and such dress size and how well the wl shoe fit them. If you like be conservative and supposing they're slightly roomier than you prefer, you can wear thicker socks or something. As long as you dont get one that's too tight, i wudnt worry too much about them. My preference is to wear my shoes kinda loose these days after stalking KF/vag conversation a few weeks back.
You already know what I will say - adi powers all the way. Reasoning is they're a proper lifting shoe, if you pick the right size you will use it for years and years to come.
Chances are with the powerlift trainers if you get them, they'll eventually need replacing in the short to medium term and you'll have to buy another pair or some other shoe.
Training FS 1x90, 1x100, 1x07.5, 1x112.5, 1x115 BS 5x60, 3x90, 2x100, 3x107.5 (depth was high tho), 5x100 (ok depth i think) BP 1x70, 1x75, 4x80, 5x75 DIPZ 3x5xBW (new exercise, very shaky on these) BCU 10, 8, 6, 5, 4 Single DB bp 8x20, 6x24, 2x6x22R Single leg press 3x8xwhatever the plates were on foam roller on quads
BW: 76kg / 167.551lb
I think that's the lot, unless i'm forgetting some exercises. I was scheduled to do weighted chinups but i didn't take my chains with me so just did bw ones.. will probably do weighted next workout. oh and I didn't do BSS - didn't wanna stack it in front of everyone on my first day at the new gym. Did single leg leg press instead. Probably the same shit anyways.
FS notes: Well it looks like my form problems are in fact to do with my home gym setup.
BS notes: BS form improved greatly from change of scenery.
Upper body notes: So my flat bb bench liked the new bar. But all this training i've done at home has put a definite strength imbalance there and it wasn't reasonable to expect everything to be perfect so soon. I used the dbs to work on my weak side, doing a few more sets. Will give it a bit of time and hopefully I can bring up R side and then i'll get my bench press nice and symmetrical. Oh and dips. I was shaky on these, new exercise and all. Lets see what this does for my upper body.
So I will prob get another 2 sessions in this gym before going on to gym B. The barbells were very nice. Expensive ones. Was sick using a decent one for a change. In another note, my waist did finally catch up to the scale - i've lost a full 1/2" making my waist 32.5" which is cool.
The only time i've used a SM was on holidays last year when I used one briefly for backsquats. Had to use less weight than usual though. I can't remember exactly what the ratio was but it was around 90%.
The difference that should be concerning you isn't the weight but form and safety. The SM can be dangerous. Can you use dbs and do BSS instead? Just a suggestion.
Possibly FS are better in SM than BS. I am just guessing have never tried.
Uh yea wtf!! How is that for the last so many weeks (5-6?) i've been stuck very frustratingly at around 77kg and then just b00m - it disappears? It makes no sense, esp with the sheer amount of food I ate last night lol.
Somehow yesterdays xmas day excesses have triggered a massive downward scale movement. Whoosh? I've read about this happening, quite bizarrely that a free meal triggers the whoosh / delayed long term fat loss effect or something. Let's see if it sticks over the next coupla days. I'd be more convinced if I had lost an inch from my waist overnight but that's not happened .. anyway this is so close to my goal it's ridiculous. I'll do a final end of year progress summary with before and after details - hopefully having gotten sub 75kg (provided the whoosh is real and today's bodyweight drop persists).
Any takers on bodyfat estimates? I know pics are not very reliable but ball park is fine. My guess is around 13-15%. Training OHP 2x5x57.5, 8x50
FS 5x102 (PR), 5x98 BS 5x102.5, 6x97.5
OHP notes: That's ~76% of my BW for sets of 5 across! I'm now to make 1/2 kg jumps for a while.
FS notes: I kinda know a way to make my form better but I didn't get a chance to try it on the top set. Next time. Plan was to do the first 3 reps rapid fire. Take my time on the last 2? I want better form even for a PR.
BS notes: These sets were very difficult. The first 5x102.5 was a true 5RM today. I had to grind out that last rep with every ounce of my being at the risk of being injured if I failed. Not good.
Absolutely destroyed my diet on xmas day lol. Maybe I'll get some nice PRs tomorrow? Lets see.
My idiot friends convinced me to drink a 750mL double strength dare espresso iced coffee at 3:30am just before going home to sleep. Now i'm completely wired and the last thing I wanna do is go to bed. It's out of revenge because apparently I introduced them to dare a few years back and they've been hopelessly addicted since so they wanted to get back at me for putting them onto the stuff. I was hooked myself for a while and swore off the stuff but man it's like liquid crack. So smooth, so good. Exciting news. Might be joining a new gym with plenty of equipment. I saw they have dbs that go over 80kg and a few squat racks etc. Should be good for training in the summer when it's too hot to workout outside in my home gym.
The only catch is I need them to waive the high initial membership nonsense fees. Supposing I can manage that, then I shud be training there for at least the next 2-3 months.
One key motivation is I want to try out dbs for unilateral work, esp for upper body since my weak side doesn't want to catch up with the strong one on bench press etc. I notice my left pec is much stronger/bigger than my right one. That should be fixable with dbs.
They also have the usual array of machines. Which I want to try out. Maybe i'll get a lot of mileage out of the leg press? Perhaps the single leg press for building quad mass on the weak side.. worth a try..
and i can finally do some beach work and build my guns better than just with weighted chins .. hopefully dbs help there
I'm also finally gonna be able to do conditioning on a bike which should be low impact enough on joints while allowing me to implement a proper tabata. Should get me real fit very quickly. Maybe even try the c2 rower for conditioning..
What else is exciting .. i guess i'll be able to find out how badly my issues with flooring/bent bar at home affects my form on the main lifts when I train with better equipment. Although they don't seem to have any power racks and having instead to use their squat racks with fixed safeties might not suit my proportions? will have to see. I don't mind continuing to bs/fs at home though. if only they had bumpers I cud just drop them.. but that's not gonna happen in an ordinary gym..
But all of this will give me a new fresh stimulus to training since things have been getting a bit stale
Nice to see tall people squat full with good form.
Thank you!
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Get out of that twig weight and lift more volumes. Good things happen the stronger you get - you also have more tissues to absorb the impacts of landing as you squat more weight.
Will do as soon as I can. I can't wait to do more volume and gain some mass both.
I've got doms on doms today. Doms in glutes, lower back, shoulders etc. Glad I decided to bp in the end because I can never bp well the day after front squats anyways. And it would have ruined front squats on weds so that was the right call.
Still keeping a deficit even while eating holiday food which i'm pleased about. I took a page out of KF of fasting prior leaving space for higher cal meals. I'm finding having a lot of self control with portions and not binging as well. 7 days compliant, have no doubt i'll set a PR in days compliant.
I envy you , in the good way! That approach was always my ideal scenario. Pick a workout scheme ( FS + cutting in your case ) , stick with it for a long time, then go to the court after a long time and enjoy the benefits. I know it's not even right , you ( we ) should keep up with jumping to maintain efficiency/mobility needed for ME jumps, its better injury-wise too. But that feeling , hitting the court after months and being a totally different (better ) athlete, priceless. Hope it makes sense! Keep up keeping up!
Thanks vag! That makes perfect sense. The reason I haven't kept up jumping is because i've been juggling enough things already in training and playing basketball and jumping wasn't a priority in the end. If i got a bit of extra recovery ability i'd put it towards building strength/muscle or improving conditioning to aid fat loss! Those just happened to be the main goal. But I do wish i could do more things in training I'm just terribly limited by the cut to stick to a few things only.
I used to love playing ball but I had to give it up because I couldn't improve my lifts and cut and do everything else too.
The other thing is, when i was in middle of the long cut, my legs were tired from all the squatting and conditioning (daily cardio + 3x hiit/SS) I was doing. If I went down to the basketball court, i was sure i'd find i was jumping poorly. Which makes me feel bad because as you might know the feeling, there is nothing worse than doing a max effort jump and being well below expectation. That feel sucks. So mentally I wasn't interested in failure and decided it was just better to avoid failure by avoiding jumping altogether lol.
I bet if I had kept up the jumping i'd be jumping higher now though. You're definitely right about that. I'd have bigger/stronger calves as well. Guess it was just a trade off. Thankfully it hasn't hurt my VJ though which gives me hope that I have a lot of potential left in me when i've all the ducks in a row. Thinking when I finish cutting, push up my lifts a bit more, start doing plyos and eat more food i'll be jumping a lot higher maybe. we'll see.
Hi lance .. just to update. I've been front squatting more or less religiously for the last 6 months (maybe slightly less?). Anyway i've also been cutting while doing so and PRs have been hard to come by, sometimes taking months. But in the process my relative strength has no doubt improved while my lifts have steadily gone up with greater depth and form improvement.
So today I went to test my vert by trying to dunk for the first time in around 4 months. I crisply landed my first dunk on the first attempt - no warmup dunks. Felt so strong. I then worked up to a SVJ dunk which I got pretty easily too (!!) which I had previously only dreamt of one day doing.
Now keep in mind I'm still some 10lb too heavy for my lbm and i haven't been jumping at all in the last 5 months or so. So my vert has gone up just by default since then. I am hoping to finish the cut and then i'll be able to increase my strength more easily once I can afford to gain some mass.
Just a thank you .. i'm glad I stuck to the front squats and they've done wonders for my athleticism so cheers for the direction!
I just saw the video... looked easy as hell man, really nice work! Great work and progress since youve been here man, way to stick with it!!
Thank you! Very easy, almost effortless. Not bad for my very first dunk (literally not even warm ups prior) in so many months. In the past i'd have to do some warmup attempts and then go max effort to land one but now it's submax. which feels so good like I could actually dunk in a game without needing space/run-up etc.
I can't wait to get to an actual gym (with a legit 10" rim - this one is slightly higher) with a bouncy floor and try some max effort dunks!! i've got the happy and bizarre new problem of not knowing what sort of dunks to attempt so i'm a bit lost since I only know one or two and kinda stand there confused not sure what dunk to attempt.
If you're a guy who's thinking long-term, continue strength training dispite being fat and think to the future.
IMO even in that long term scenario ( bulk till you cant gain more strength , then cut ) he would have much better success if he first cut down to at least 15%, so the bulk would be better ( more LBM , less fat ). Bodyfat is not just extra weight, it affects food partitioning heavily.
+1.
The other thing is, suppose you bulk starting from 17-20%. Then when you're done bulking and you top out somewhere between say 20-30% you have a very very long cut ahead of you. It's hard to maintain motivation, strength, muscle and discipline for THAT long when you've got 6-8 months of dieting ahead of you. You might gain extra strength by fat bulking past 15% but can you keep those gains in the face of a long cut? Probably not. Better to keep your cuts short (3 months max) which means keeping your end-of-bulk bodyfat around 15% and then you have a better chance of keeping your gains post bulk.
FS notes: I tried this new thing - front squats are exhausting on upper back, obviously. But what I was finding is when sets go on for ages, you get really fatigued just from standing there with a bar. So I tried to get thru the set quicker. It worked, was easier. But I found my form was breaking down a bit from having to rush thru the reps. So i think there is a sweet spot where you do it just quick enough, but not too quick so that form is good and excess fatigue does not occur. Good discovery.
BS notes: In warmups with 90kg: SHIT secret unlocked! Basically at the bottom of the bs - i shud let my hips psuh me down, kinda liek what happens in front squats. I wasn't doing this til now, but having done it ive noticed it gives me that extra depth which I was missing in BS. LBSS might be happier now with my depth i think.
I wanted 6 reps of 102.5 but got 5. Would have got an ugly 6th (form on 5th was breaking down) so didn't bother. Next time 102.5x6 and hopefully 105x5 as well? Maybe we'll see.
BSS notes: I tried using my lifting shoes for these - big mistake, was very unstable and wobbly on the bench leg. L leg is beasting, finding all the weights easy, even with brief rests following R leg worksets. For weak R leg I did 2x volume of L leg again. Not sure if I wanna keep up this R skewed training but like i've said before, R leg doesn't mind, it's L which gets the doms .. which makes no sense but that's what we have yup. Oh wait, maybe it does make sense! L leg is more of a n00b, R leg is intermediate. So R leg is chilling and recovering ezy because it's on that newbie flex. That makes sense right? Whatever.
Was in two minds whether to do concentric heavy front squats or BSS. Decided to stick with BSS on this high volume day. I can do the concentrics on the higher CNS intensity days. Either way, i'm confident i'll get that 120 front squat PR by friday week.
Should i continue full squats and do some half/qtr squats?
Yes. Squat, whether it's full, half, front, BSS or whatever you like and you're good at.
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and should i worry about the body fat ~25% after i get stronger. my current full squat is 310.
Yes.
Best thing anyone can do for their athleticism is to reduce their bodyfat down to their essential bodyfat (thanks t0dday). Which means ~10% bodyfat. Most people have no idea how much weight they'd actually need to lose to get down to a legit 10%. Especially for those over 15%, they're probably underestimating big time. If you're 25% then you're too heavy to be athletic and that would be a priority for you if you care about athleticism. I'd even say that dialing in your kitchen game is going to do more for your athleticism than anything you do in the gym.
sick, you're 6'3 i'm 5'8 and i weigh 10 lb more than you... that's how fat i am... i dunno if i should cut or maintain and go for more strength (maybe hit 385 full squat) before cutting. i guess cutting doesn't mean i can't still gain strength.
ha yeah its freaky. if i were you, i'd put weight gain on hold, try to maintain or slightly reduce your bodyweight (so say a 10% deficit). And keep pushing your lifts up til you reach your desired milestone. Whether it's 330, 350 or 385, whichever one can get to without stalling hard. Then start the cut for real. Going from a bulk straight into a cut is a mind-fuck because you get so used to easy PRs and then they become just that much harder and rarer on a cut so it's hard to deal with psychologically unless you've been accustomed to training under maintenance or a slight deficit first.
So diet wise go to caloric maintenance -> slight deficit -> moderate deficit. Training try to push your lifts up for as long as you can, then go to maintenance when PRs vanish and it becomes a struggle to make new ground without risking form and injury.
Finally a whoosh. I've been strict for 6 days and the scale finally got under 77kg. I have decided that since I can't do carb reloads properly, I shan't do them at all. Instead I had a larger carb meal last night for dinner and left it at that. Much better, didn't lead to any crazy binging. I think the reason the scale finally moved is because of the free meal? Which is a cool side effect.
Somehow i'm managing to navigate the dieting landmine that is this time of the year without crashing over. Actually doing really well, feels like I could go the distance this time around. I think the extra motivation of seeing the effect my training/nutrition has had on my athleticism is giving me more reason to stay the course.
edit. oh and i'm hoping to get close to 75kg by the end of the year if I get a coupla whooshes. But we'll see what happens. Might have to do some extra conditioning since I haven't been doing any lately.
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