Adarq.org

I would have agreed with you strictly from a purist perspective b/c the squats go something like:

text book paused ATG FS -> text book paused ATG BS -> ... -> belted barely parallel lowbar squat

but purity aside, what's best for athleticism? it need not be the exact same thing.

belts help with IAP yes but that's not all they're doing. They also help the leg muscles contract harder (hams, quads, glutes). That part might be cause or effect (im not sure) but the effects all put together are helping train the lower body to contract more forcefully. Now with the belt the torso also has greater time under tension AND finally for most ppl the belt helps exactly where the squat gets hardest (the sticking point) which is about halfway up. The belt allows you to continue producing force at that very point to help complete the lift (more time under tension). It's basically a way to make the squat more efficient. The IAP alone might be worth the price of admission but if that's all it was achieving it's not why it's a more athletic way to squat. I'm still a squat purist but from a holistic perspective, training with a belt a will get you more gains and that's a good thing. Training with a belt and without a belt offer good synergy because there is a carry over there. All of this will be proven if i can get my vertical back to 32" now that i've started using a belt.

Quote from: maxent on December 09, 2018, 10:43:15 pm

no way of measuring on the road

watch plus map?

the times ive tried to sprint with my phone  i always end up dropping it along the way. that's on grass but if i drop it on road it's prob gna break.also not sure if the gps wud work if it's in my pocket

Any major high schools around your area or Little Athletics Clubs? You may be surprised and find a track closer than 25 minutes away.

Apparently there are only two in the entire state? But the article is from 2007 and they were talking about building one in Rockingham which is far away from the city. Pretty shocking. Seems most clubs just run on grass. 25 minute drive every 10 days might be okay? but right now im just embarrassed by lack of athleticism to be seen at a proper track lol so i need to address that first anyway. What do you recommend, is it worth trying to join a club or would i just be a bother at this point? I don't just feel slow i look slow. In the past when i felt fast i probably still was actually slow to look at but now it's much worse.

My goals for the rest of dec:

- get vertical back over 32" (my PR is probably ~36" but that seems a galaxy away now)
- maintain bw (~79kg and def keep it under <80kg)
- get daily squat max to around 150kg

Summer 2019 - 12 week goals
Running:
 - tempo/long run at 10 km/hr for 60 mins (10km)
 - medium run at 12 km/hr for 40 mins (8km)
 - fast run at 15 km/hr for 20 mins (5km)
Lifting:
- 170kg raw squat @ <85kg (no belt)
Jumping:
- 40" vertical.

i think it is for sure.. but not half court. intense full court should get you fit. adding stuff in will only help (line drills, gassers etc). but ya, i wouldn't expect half court to get you anywhere fit for full.

Perhaps it ought to work for the average player but i must be a non-responder. i find a full court competitive game to be more of a 'test' and just doing that test doesn't actually get my body to adapt to becoming fitter for the sport. It's just too strenuous to be considered training. Training should be something that gives steady improvements with time. A test doesn't always do that.  I know that from my experience with the sport and i understand it runs counter to what ppl think. For me it would be like doing heavy squat 1rm attempts and thinking it will make me stronger - it works, kinda, for a bit but it's not the best way to train to achieve the goal of getting stronger steadily over time. Same principle might be at work for basketball fitness. I need a way to build the fitness - a game is too much of a test than a builder.

it'll definitely help. bball is start/stop tho. if you want to really improve your ability in game, without playing games, you need to mimic that a few times per week at least. could be part of your 5k run, just mixing it up fartlek style (sprint/jog/sprint/jog) random stuff etc. additionally, basketball is start/stop using all kinds of forward/backward/lateral movements, so - very different than linear running (which is alot easier). changing direction is rough and takes alot more energy. but still, 5k every day is much better than nothing. it'll surely help considerably.

Good points, i'll try that and see how it goes. I did my first long run yesterday (7km over 60 minutes). And today i'll go the other way and aim for 5km in 20 minutes in repeats of 400-500m at around 4 min/km pace. If i alternate between these two workouts every day, how does that sound? When i can eat more food (soon) i'll add in a sprint session as well but right now im at the edge of recovery between daily running + squatting.

I was going to make a thread on conditioning for basketball and found out i already made one 6 months ago  . Literally have never been fit in my whole life and i was seduced by the idea that just playing basketball was enough to 'build endurance' for basketball. Or running some intervals lol.  Probably never played that much full court basketball in any case but even when i did regularly albeit infrequently (1-2x week) i would always redline very quickly into a competive game. I'm talking about seconds into the game, probably because my adrenaline gets jacked way up and my HR maxes out almost immediately.  Never figured it out but the demands on conditioning are pretty high and i don't think just 'playing ball' is a good way to train for that conditioning. Which means to me, somehow, people who do play basketball regularly and do so in good condition for the sport must have developed the fitness in a way I missed out. Maybe it was high school training which probably involved a steady diet of suicides or long steady jogs etc etc which i never did because i didn't play basketball in school.

Which brings me to the question of how do you build (basketball) fitness in someone who doesn't have it? From what ive read in studies, there are non-responders to exercise out there which turns out means only that these people need to train more (harder and longer and more often) than responders. If i consider i am a non-responder then my current approach has been (and nothing planned about it, just happened lol) to run around 5km every day. I vary it up, sometimes i go for speed, breaking it up into 1km blocks, other times i go for time and so on. There isn't any rhyme or reason but i have read the average basketball player covers about 5km during a game. So if i can run an easy 5-6km at a good pace my hope is that is enough of a conditioning surplus to play what will probably be bench minutes at my age of 35.

From what i remember, Todday suggested doing only ME all out sprints for you to teach your body learn to move fast and not worry about anything else. I think a similar thing applies to me also in that even in my maximum effort sprints on video i look to be moving in slow-motion. So by going all out every time, you'll be training speed, and nothing else. For fitness get it from running. I'm prioritising building an aerobic base before i worry about sprinting because while my lack of speed is a huge weakness, an even bigger deficit exists for my fitness. I'll get fit first then get fast and in doing so i'll get even fitter as well rather than trying to do it the other way around. Anyone can get fit, even a lot fitter, not so much can be done about how fast you are (in the sprint sense), that's probably more genetic than anything else. Right now i've trained my body to recover better by running every day. Even my hamstrings are bigger which i found surprising because i'm not doing any sprinting at all. Just daily squats + running. That seems to be working really well for me, fitness is coming and surprisingly my strength too.

Quote from: maxent on November 09, 2018, 08:17:20 pm

Nah don't worry about some hypothetical better way, it doesn't exist. Your experience is more valuable because you know what works for your body and training. 1 week cut/bulk cycles are a bad idea though because you never give your body a chance to 'adapt' to fat loss / reduced calories which is what you need to burn fat efficiently. Keeping a weekly deficit but eating more calories around training helps you recomp and recover from training, which makes sense and seems to work well in practice.

If 1 week cycles never give my body a chance to adapt to fat loss, then what about cycles even smaller than that like i’m currently doing?

Then you will have sub-optimal fat loss. you have to pick your priority but you've picked a small amount of fat loss so you can maintain (and perhaps slightly improve) your overall performance which is reasonable if that is your goal. If you were prioritising fat loss you'd have a weekly deficit with perhaps one training day where you go on a +500kcal surplus, the other training days would be smaller deficits or even maintenance. It's a choice based on your goals.  The problem with doing 1 week cycles is that you will go from carbohydrate metabolism one week to fat metabolism the next. It will be inefficient at either goal and the transition between the two will difficult physiologically and psychologically.  The body adapts better to something you do consistently. On the week you eat more carbs you won't get much fat loss and when you switch over the following week there will be a challenge to switch to fat metabolism and vice versa.

One suggestion id make is to keep protein the same on all days, will help with adherence and satiety. The macro you want to play with is carbs. Use more around training and less when you're resting. Find the right amount you need to eat every day so you can sleep and function normally and eat a bit more than that when recovering from harder training days. But your experience with what works best for you is going to trump any of this so let that guide you.