Interesting. I must get an endorphin rush off it or something because I do enjoy it. I did 3×10 80kg last night.

When you quote 2xBW are you just talking one rep absolute max?

I’ll run tonight having not squatted for nearly two weeks and also stretched my quads. See how that goes.

If you were training 3 days then big deadlifts are a once a month exercise.
If i do a couple of warm up sets and then 3 sets of 150kg then a 1rm of 160 @ 60kg bodyweight then i am busted for 3-4 weeks before doing it all again.
I’m on instagram if anyone is interested in my training @fiftyplusfit

Well, I’ve given up on squats every time. I think they’re causing some sort of muscle imbalance that’s causing the knee pain.. and now I can feel my patella tracking out of line again.

either you’ve gone too heavy too fast & although your big muscles are up to it the smaller stabilising muscles aren’t yet or it’s just a technique thing (i.e. you aren’t doing it right). (Or both!) I made both of these mistakes when learning to squat… took me ages to get the proper technique down. If I were doing it again I’d definitely get someone good to teach me!

I followed the Stronglifts programme which started really light, something like 40kg. I couldn’t find any reference online to squats causing problems with running, but there’s a definite correlation between that and the knee problem I hadn’t had for years.

It might also just be a tightening up which could just be me – I’ve also started stretching my quads with the traditional hold the ankle to your bum pose. That may also have helped – I’ll try a run tonight.

You’re definitely ‘hench’, Twinwall. Those veins are awesome superhero stuff, too.

Like this pic and accompanying text…

Here was going to be an AWeSoMe picture of me deadlifting two and a half times bodyweight, unfortunately the person, (not to be named) even though they insisted they had the shot, did not have the shot, so here’s me getting creative.

Careful… you might get accused of virtue signalling or somesuch… 🙂

Patella pain is more than likely tight calf muscle, do calf raises and stretch it/foam roller.

How’s the weight loss?

The big problem is with outside of knee – could be ITB, could be some other mystery tendon.

How’s the weight loss?

Lost a little before my holiday.. waist is slightly narrower though.

When you quote 2xBW are you just talking one rep absolute max?

yep, I normally do a 5×5 style ramp eg 5×70, 5×90, 5×100, 5×110, 5×120, 5×130 and then singles / doubles up from there eg 2×140, 1×150, 1×155, 1×160 etc

Although I’ve not got past 1×140 recently due to the QL thing….

I would only do deadlifts once a week though, too much load on CNS to do more often.

If i do a couple of warm up sets and then 3 sets of 150kg then a 1rm of 160 @ 60kg bodyweight then i am busted for 3-4 weeks before doing it all again.

My body doesn’t work like that at all, anything over a 1 week rest and I can’t get anywhere near max for squats or deadlifts. I have to lift heavy at least once a week to be able to maintain max strength.

I’m at ease with my lack of sexuality. 🙂

If you are having issues with squat depth etc, worth reading or rereading Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe.

The only thing I have slight issue with in it is around toe position. If you are training for cycling (or field sports) then toes forward is better than having then splayed out at 30 degrees. If you’re not bothered about cycling performance then 30 degree splay is great.

I can get all the way down with a straight back

Back should be neither straight nor vertical throughout a back squat.
The back should keep it’s natural soft S shape and the bar should track over the midfoot as you bend at the waist through the movement.

Front squat is different obviously.

worth reading or rereading Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe.

He’s very dogmatic / rigid and takes no account of people’s varying limb lengths. There are much wiser resources out there (see vids I posted a couple of pages back).

When you lot were grunting away at 2x BW did you find it helped your cycling? Or are they not complimentary activities?

Last year before the op and massive calorie deficit experiment I’d ridden my bike about twice before hooking up with mate for a local blast that starts with a hill climb. I flew up without much effort – even tempted to say it was easier than before I started lifting but, tbh, by comparison I was weak as piss before the weights though I was no slouch when it came to moving heavy objects. I was 71kg then and deadlifting 140kg (160 1RM) so not quite 2xBW but close enough.

Contrary to this…

I would only do deadlifts once a week though, too much load on CNS to do more often.

…I was doing it twice a week on alternate weeks for sometime and am doing the same now. Perhaps 140kg just isn’t heavy enough to stress the CNS but I reached that weight again this week and it doesn’t look like slowing any time soon so I guess I’ll see.

As for the squat – have a look at Candito’s 9 week squat programme. Some of the accessory stuff is quite helpful for a more balanced development. Sumo deadlifts, for example – good for me after the hernia op as they’re working my weaker areas. Check it out, it’s all grist to the mill and something to try when you get bored. His bench programme is worth a look, too.

Presumably CNS means central nervous system?

Interesting concept.

Yes.

To correct what I wrote above – obviously the weights are ‘stressing’ my CNS but not enough to over cook it, so to write.

No doubt in a few weeks time I’ll be on a different forum asking why I can’t even lift a cuppa, brah…

The problem with all the advice your getting is it’s from folk who aren’t you. Go to the gym, do stuff, preferably without injuring yourself and learn from experience. Don’t be afraid to try new things, if they work for you, great, if not, ditch em.
Training with weights and bodyweight training is a learned skill, patience is the key.
If your going to the gym just to lose weight then you are doomed to fail, you have to love training to truly get the best from it.
I’m currently training the one arm pull up, i’m not expecting to bust one out for probably another six months, but i have the determination to get there.

Great advice!

I’m currently training the one arm pull up

I noticed the pics on Instagram. That lever with weight, too!!

**** nutter, you…

If your going to the gym just to lose weight then you are doomed to fail, you have to love training to truly get the best from it.

I don’t particularly enjoy it.

I’m doing it to see if it a) helps my power and b) helps my weight, and also c) because I am travelling without a bike and I don’t particularly enjoy running either. Also d) I am getting older.

I don’t particularly enjoy it.

But…

I must get an endorphin rush off it or something because I do enjoy it.

🙂

At least give it a chance, learn a movement and go through the progressions to achieve it.
How about training to do a strict dead hang pull up or a front lever.
No matter how strong or good you are there is always something new to learn and while your busy plugging away an air of henchness will engulf you.

On the subject of CNS fatigue, there is a simple test for seeing if you are fatigued or not..

https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-take-the-tapping-test-for-cns-health

Ok teasel – fair enough. I like the act of lifting the heavy thing. But it’s relative. Give me fair weather and a bike, and the gym wouldn’t get a look in 🙂

And it’s partly the faff that annoys me. So many exercises for sculpting this or that in a slightly different way or allowing me to lift a few more kg.. don’t really care about any of that. That’s what I liked about stronglifts – just turn up and do three exercsises as it tells you on the screen.

How about training to do a strict dead hang pull up or a front lever.

I’ve started training for the seven basic gymnastic moves with Gymnastics Bodies: Front Level, Side Lever, Hollow Back Press, Straddle Planche, Single Leg Squat, Rope Climb (arms only) and Mana. ETA is about 2 years less the couple of months I’ve been working on them so far…..

That ^^ appeals to me a bit more tbh.

That ^^ appeals to me a bit more tbh.

If you want to know more, let me know – I can show you the programming etc..

They’re a bit light on detail before you cough up and join.

Another bunch to look at is GMB Gold Medal Bodies similar idea, although I’ve not paid for their programming but have done one of their workshops.

Thanks for that CNS test, Footflaps. That’ll probably be useful in the coming weeks. Got 5 x 145kg deadlift today so a personal best there but I suspect I’m going to need a bit of a rest soon.

No matter how strong or good you are there is always something new to learn and while you’re busy plugging away an air of henchness will engulf you.

One day, when you’re just a memory, your gym will have that plastered all over the wall as some sort of homage to your veiny form. 8)

So many exercises for sculpting this or that in a slightly different way or allowing me to lift a few more kg.

Yeah, I think that’s for the bodybuilders and their vanity. Doesn’t interest me either, though I understand that some folk want to get slightly bigger shoulders or biceps to complete the image they wish to achieve and isolation can be useful for that extra few (barely noticeable) mill of width or “peak”. Definitely a long term project that takes high levels of dedication, as far as I can see.

I would like to add weight gaining is not only depends on Gym workout itself…it is all about your calorie intake, body fat and muscle mass….weight gaining either by large quantity calorie, fat through food or by tight muscles through workouts are different in outlook. But the body fat is more soft and the muscle is more “dense and compact. Often when begin a weight reducing task, it will show an initial loss of weight due to body water lose. If you are workout hard with heavy weights to get fit and see a weight gain, by adding mass muscles by burning calorie!. so body weight may go up as you add compact, tight muscle mass. Weight gaining with good fit outlook is slow process. you should have enough patience, good diet and workout schedules… 😀

I agree Gold Medal Bodies have some great stuff online, i also like Alan Thrall and Omarlsuf.
We’re currently cleaning the house from top to bottom ready for the estate agent to take pics, now that’s a bloody cns shredding workout.
Teasel, i find less is more at the gym, especially with dead lifting, it’s a fine line between waking up feeling you can walk through walls and getting your affairs in order.

Yeah, I think I’m going through a mad phase at the moment because I feared not getting back what I’d lost through the hernia op recovery. I feel good – no noticeable fatigue or excess ache. I’m eating lots, too, and the strength seems to be returning very quickly.

As for deadlifting – in the grand scheme 145kg isn’t that heavy, is it? I mean, I like to think I’m still right at the beginning of my lifting time as opposed to the end or reaching limitations but I’m almost as old as you so maybe I’m kidding myself.

Ebb and flow – I’ll probably feel it’s time to make a will in a week or two…

Weight gaining with good fit outlook is slow process. you should have enough patience, good diet and workout schedules…

Yep. And a good dose of what this guy used to peddle…

I dunno if I’d want to deadlift 145kg. I mean, I’m a cyclist not a weight lifter. This is all a means to an end, and that end is not lifting heavy weights.

Flexibility is another goal I think. Even the pre and post workout stretches have helped quite a bit.

‘s cool, Molgrips. No one is gonna force you if you don’t want to. 🙂

But, getting all Socrates with a Yoda-esque voice – contemplate this, you must…

“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a [person] to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which [their] body is capable.”

But I honestly don’t see why the two things have to be mutually exclusive. Strength is strength regardless of application. That’s why I lift at present – I like the strength available to me when lifting, say, a large chunk of tree. Or perhaps moving multiple stone slabs or blocks, digging a bloody great hole without feeling weakened or simply getting up from the floor without the aches and pains of age. If you lower your body fat to single digits (like Twinwall) you can even look good. What’s not to like…

Strength is strength regardless of application

Well yes and no. Time in the gym might help my cycling but there’ll come a point where the effort and dedication required to increase my deadlift say will take enough time away from my cycling to reduce my overall performance.

As for realising my full potential – the time for that has long passed 🙂 And with regards resisting age – stuff like gymnastics, martial arts, yoga, pilates would probably all have more of an effect I suspect.

I’d love to lower my body fat to single digits, but only because it would make me climb like a rocket and win races.

Well yes and no. Time in the gym might help my cycling but there’ll come a point where the effort and dedication required to increase my deadlift say will take enough time away from my cycling to reduce my overall performance.

Really? You could easily slot in a session of 30 minutes or less even going as far as just doing DL. Adding just a few kilos a session is easy as you know and before you know it you’re lifting twice as much as you found a struggle a month or so ago. Strength is strength.

the time for that has long passed

What are you – thirty something…? I was fitter at 37 than I was at 25 and I’m stronger now at 49 than I was at 37. When I stop sodding about with weights and complete a few major chores I’ll start the hill sprints again. When I was doing that last year alongside the lifting I was the fittest I’ve ever been – at 48. Two years before that all my joints were aching, cycling was a struggle, general labour tasks were harsh on my body and I was generally knackered. I don’t recognise that person nowadays – a weak shadow of my better self.

But hey, I’m rambling. It’s your choice. I’m just adding my two pence of bollox.

You could easily slot in a session of 30 minutes or less even going as far as just doing DL.

Yeah but it makes me tired then affects my MTBing the next day.

I guess I could road ride and take it steady, but I’m pretty over that these days.

What are you – thirty something…?

41. I think I have (or had) the potential to be a proper athelete. It’s in my genes, my mum was an Olympic hopeful once (110yd hurdles), I could have followed on but I just didn’t fancy sprinting in the end. By the time I found something I did like, realised what it takes to be good at it it was too late and life was in the way.

I should have been a track cyclist or perhaps a rugby player.

Oh Molly, never change x

It’s not a complaint, it’s a fact. I’m unlikely to win an Elite race now, let’s face it 🙂

Agreed, but you could…

Go and have a go at some races.
Sort out your diet and get to single % BF.
Take the advice on here and get really strong.

Stop talking about what you could have been and go and be the best you can now.

That’s what the whole thread has been about. Don’t imagine I’m sitting around dreaming 🙂

But back on topic – according to the internet and some other threads on here, doing points 2 and 3 at the same time seems to be rather tricky.