RANT: R.I.P. Tyrbolift

[im2manly]

After being inceptioned yesterday I went home and did RDL's/Long bar rows



Feels good man

Long bar rows?

[therorschach]

Some bars are longer than others.

[W8isGR8]

Long bar rows?

Basically a one handed t-bar row

[BluntD]

Basically a one handed t-bar row

Meadows Rows have been a great addition for me recently.

[BluntD]

Training talk and ghosts from the past in the RANT? F*ck man it's like 2007 in here all over again.


Hit a 535 deadlift at the end of my most recent training block. Most I've pulled in almost a decade, at the lightest weight I've been in almost two decades; feels good to hit a "mini-PR" while actively eating in a caloric deficit. Once the gym opened back up over the summer my main goal was to lose the Covid fluff and I've finally reached a level of leanness that I'm proud of. But shockingly enough I think I'm probably most happy with running a 5K in under 30 minutes recently, which by runner standards is dog-sh*t slow but I'll take it for a guy who never did much cardio. Approaching the door steps of 40, feels like I'm in the best shape I've ever been in overall. /wow strong journal

[400Lb Gorilla]

Strong presences here lately. 5k under 30 might be dog-chit slow by runner standards but its better than I could probably do right now. GJDM on the 535. What are you weighing in at?

[W8isGR8]

In my younger days I would crap on anyone who did anything besides heavy lifting for exercise. Now that i'm past 40 I understand how important it is to literally do ANYTHING at all for exercise. I still think weight training is the best bang for your buck, but any regular movement is better than nothing

[Hola Bola]

Awesome. It's been probably 15 years since you started a journal here and in that time a lot of people have burned out and quit while you're obviously still training hard. I learned a lot from your training. You always had excellent form and trained instinctively.

If that previous 605 set was a bit lighter and you were wearing straps like most people you would have locked out 635. Pulling 600+ in your 50s is something people will only fully appreciate when they get to that age. A lot of people that age can't tie their shoes without discomfort and you're pulling 6 and a half plates.

Thanks man. I think it just comes down to the fact that I enjoy training, and the day to day struggle of pushing yourself and trying to improve. The past few years have been interesting for me. Nagging back/hip injuries forced me to stop deadlifts/squats altogether, so I decided to put that energy into cardio and get good at that instead. I started doing 5k/10k biathlons, sprint triathlons, and a handful of 5k/4 mile road races. My best 4 mile time from last year was 26:22, and I finished 13th overall out of 2,224. This year all of my races were cancelled so I cut my cardio way back, and started lifting heavy again. I'm still avoiding squats, but trap bar and sumo deadlifts feel okay so those make up the bulk of my leg training. Its better than nothing I guess. /dear diary

Training talk and ghosts from the past in the RANT? F*ck man it's like 2007 in here all over again.


Hit a 535 deadlift at the end of my most recent training block. Most I've pulled in almost a decade, at the lightest weight I've been in almost two decades; feels good to hit a "mini-PR" while actively eating in a caloric deficit. Once the gym opened back up over the summer my main goal was to lose the Covid fluff and I've finally reached a level of leanness that I'm proud of. But shockingly enough I think I'm probably most happy with running a 5K in under 30 minutes recently, which by runner standards is dog-sh*t slow but I'll take it for a guy who never did much cardio. Approaching the door steps of 40, feels like I'm in the best shape I've ever been in overall. /wow strong journal

Thats awesome, keep working at it! Cardio PR's are still PR's, lol...

[GeneralSerpant]

I unexpectedly picked up on close forward facing grip pull-ups as my go to pull-up variation. Practicing upper back engagement on these makes for distinct MMC with the upper and lower traps I think they are, yup. With the arms close together you can feel both areas, when engaged, move together when you levitate the scapula getting ready to pull. With wider arms it drags everything else on the side.

[im2manly]

Nagging back/hip injuries forced me to stop deadlifts/squats altogether

I hear you on that. I messed my right knee up pretty bad a couple years ago. Started over compensating with my left and know it's worse than the right. At this point even deadlifts cause knee pain. Hack squats and reverse sled drags seem to be the only non painful quad exercise I can muster

[GeneralSerpant]

I watched each video as they came out. I kind of had questions after the Athlean X video and the Nippard video kinda addressed what I thought.

Then this guy here seems to have videos emphasizing practice over composition training. So I'm curious his take on the issue.

[Dominik]

I watched each video as they came out. I kind of had questions after the Athlean X video and the Nippard video kinda addressed what I thought.

Then this guy here seems to have videos emphasizing practice over composition training. So I'm curious his take on the issue.

Volume definitely has its place but the question is how much and for how long?

By all means watch these clickbait videos for entertainment but keep in mind they're no different to female bloggers being paid to write for news sites with a rolodex of male bashing topics to keep everyone triggered on the daily so they keep clicking.

The basics work. Training does not need to be complicated unless you're an athlete who needs specialized training and periodization to peak for specific times of the year. Focus on lifting with good form targeting the 6-12 rep range even higher on machines and isolation exercises. Throw in a circuit or supersets near the end of workouts if you're running short on time but there's no need for junk volume.

I made a lot of progress in the first year or two doing 3-5 sets of 8-10 reps on everything. Whatever I felt was the weakest weak point I'd train first. Always warm up properly. I've seen a lot of people in the gym warm up on say bench press, then go to dumbbells and train heavy on their first set figuring their chest is already warmed up. Every movement is different and the muscles fire differently. I warm up on every exercise.

The key is progression. Log your workouts and track all your PRs. Make use of the smallest plates in the gym so you're going up in increments smaller than 5-10lbs. Beyond a certain point you can't keep adding weight so try adding reps, sets, and both. Experiment with frequency to see which muscle groups respond best to being trained once a week e.g. lower back and then muscles which you can hit more frequently like 2-3x a week without it affecting the rest of your training.

[GeneralSerpant]

The key is progression. Log your workouts and track all your PRs. Make use of the smallest plates in the gym so you're going up in increments smaller than 5-10lbs. Beyond a certain point you can't keep adding weight so try adding reps, sets, and both. Experiment with frequency to see which muscle groups respond best to being trained once a week e.g. lower back and then muscles which you can hit more frequently like 2-3x a week without it affecting the rest of your training.

I hear what you're saying on all of it, but I don't think it applies to everybody, most specifically to the sphere of people that Jeffs were speculating over. Then as I finished the video I'm getting a response from Greg consistent with yours here. Athlean X btw was the start of all this saying that beginners specifically want to focus on doing effort closer to failure instead of with artificially lowered RPE, and kinda wasn't specifically talking about not doing high volume I believe, though that is implied somewhat but still not the same thing technically. His idea was to tell ANY person that they should be specifically pushing inexplicably harder in order to determine their training parameters.

What Nippard said at mainly one part of his video with I believe Mike Israetel that rings with me is the matter of practicing to iron out inefficiencies. Not everybody is naturally going to deadlift, squat, and bench correctly. The average person in the gym is definitely not training hard as is prescribed, but there's also the matter that they quite possibly don't have the posterior chain coordination necessary to do these exercises at higher RPE safely anyway. I don't think hypertrophy specific training with only as much volume as necessary addresses that, especially the less formal of instruction (eg: online forums and YT videos), and of course a bit of experience and natural build.

edut: I was saying intensity here, but I was meaning RPE for all of it, sorry.

[Dominik]

What Nippard said at mainly one part of his video with I believe Mike Israetel that rings with me is the matter of practicing to iron out inefficiencies.

Which is one of the benefits of higher volume while keeping intensity in the low-medium range. When you're still pretty green you need the practice of those repetitions to get your form dialed in and find the right groove not only for strength but the mind-muscle connection for bodybuilding.

The longer you train becoming more advanced and closer to that genetic ceiling the closer you will be sailing to the wind with failure when you perceive it. I know when it's my last rep every single time. There's nothing left and trying to muscle it up would require garbage form and there's a good chance I'd fail to lock it out anyway. As a beginner what seemed like approaching failure was miles from it. If you put a gun to my head of course I could have cranked out more reps. I've never used the term RPE but I do make a note of how many more reps I think I could have done on heavy sets which is very useful programming future workouts.

So I'd say the less advanced you are the more you can probably push yourself in terms of "going to failure" or "10 RPE" or whatever those guys are on about provided you've warmed up properly and your form is good since when you think you can only do 10 reps you've probably got a few more in the tank whereas when you've been at it for over a decade doing everything right and essentially at or approaching your genetic limit you just know when you've reached failure and there are no more reps.

There is a technique I like on certain exercises, mainly back, called rest-pause. You crank out a certain number of reps, take a few breaths, knock out a few more, rinse repeat until you reach the point of failure. However I wouldn't prescribe that to a beginner. Just roll up the sleeves and get through those sets and reps and add a little more weight next time. Making your training unnecessarily complicated will hurt your progress and confuse you. Been there before. These days I walk into the gym and I know what I want to do. Sometimes I'll have something planned like deadlifts and just know my energy levels aren't there so I'll do shrugs or rows instead. With experience you don't necessarily need to follow a plan provided you're logging those workouts and can chart progress over time.

That being said when you're new to this a workout program is always a good idea. You need to hold yourself accountable. I always train late when the joint is dead and I see guys come in and train for 30 minutes on a circuit doing random exercises for a pump and leave. They'll always sit there and assume the guy making progress is "on something" while their training is garbage.

[Dominik]

In case you don't want to read all that let me just add that there are people here who know a lot about training and have achieved great results so you should listen to them. That's what I did years ago as we all bounced ideas around in this thread and in journals 10-15 years ago and I can vouch for it being very solid advice that works.

I'm sure there's some great content in some of those videos but like bodybuilding magazines back in the day they're throwing a lot of random stuff at people to see what sticks and gets them clicking so they can make money. That can be confusing.

[GeneralSerpant]

In case you don't want to read all that let me just add that there are people here who know a lot about training and have achieved great results so you should listen to them. That's what I did years ago as we all bounced ideas around in this thread and in journals 10-15 years ago and I can vouch for it being very solid advice that works.

It was a sufficiently nuanced take I'd say. It's not exactly as if I'm not paying attention, mind. Part of my concern over the dispute was making sense of my own progress through principles espoused here that you're referring to.

That being said, yeah it's a bit clearer to see where all the coins fit as far as what the videos are saying and the argument between. Thanks.
As far as the videos, personally I don't think Nippard's being overbearing when saying you can introduce the idea or at least practice as you say of RPE. I thought he addressed its distracting issues alright. Also I get that the specific details in the video aren't familiarized by you.

[Hola Bola]

I watched each video as they came out. I kind of had questions after the Athlean X video and the Nippard video kinda addressed what I thought.

Then this guy here seems to have videos emphasizing practice over composition training. So I'm curious his take on the issue.

I like Greg's take the best. I've always been a fan of the "go harder" philosophy. The bench press video I recently posted is a great example. I couldn't have got 1 more rep if you offered me a million dollars. Most people I see in the gym would've stopped at 4 or maybe 5 when it got hard, but I can almost always tell when I can grind out 1 more rep. That whole workout was a great example of what he was trying to say as well. My plan for that day was 275x5x5, but by the last set it was so easy I ended up doing 8 paused reps. I wasn't satisfied not going hard enough that I threw on 300 and said "F it, lets see what I can get." That's the main downfall of set/rep schemes vs training instinctively with a pyramid set scheme. You aren't able to change the intensity based on how you're feeling DURING the workout. Some days you feel better than others. Some days it just clicks and you feel like superman, other days everything feels heavy. I would've left alot in the tank had I moved on after 275x5x5, which essentially ended up being 5 warmup sets like Greg mentioned.

So yeah... do a few warmups, go all out for a set or two, and move on.

Volume definitely has its place but the question is how much and for how long?

By all means watch these clickbait videos for entertainment but keep in mind they're no different to female bloggers being paid to write for news sites with a rolodex of male bashing topics to keep everyone triggered on the daily so they keep clicking.

The basics work. Training does not need to be complicated unless you're an athlete who needs specialized training and periodization to peak for specific times of the year. Focus on lifting with good form targeting the 6-12 rep range even higher on machines and isolation exercises. Throw in a circuit or supersets near the end of workouts if you're running short on time but there's no need for junk volume.

Yep.

I made a lot of progress in the first year or two doing 3-5 sets of 8-10 reps on everything. Whatever I felt was the weakest weak point I'd train first. Always warm up properly. I've seen a lot of people in the gym warm up on say bench press, then go to dumbbells and train heavy on their first set figuring their chest is already warmed up. Every movement is different and the muscles fire differently. I warm up on every exercise.

Same here. I always do at least 1, if not 2 or 3 warmups on every exercise.

The key is progression. Log your workouts and track all your PRs. Make use of the smallest plates in the gym so you're going up in increments smaller than 5-10lbs. Beyond a certain point you can't keep adding weight so try adding reps, sets, and both. Experiment with frequency to see which muscle groups respond best to being trained once a week e.g. lower back and then muscles which you can hit more frequently like 2-3x a week without it affecting the rest of your training.

This is one of the biggest things people (myself included) tend to miss. I can say from experience that when you get lazy and don't track your workouts, you will quickly fall into a groove of doing the same thing over and over again. Tracking your PR's is a huge motivator, and helps you train harder (since you're constantly trying to beat them), which leads to progress.

[W8isGR8]

I agree as well about the workout log. The only times Ive made serious progress is when I kept a log and focused on progress.

[GeneralSerpant]

When does it help? Accountability is priceless so I don't wanna assume, but I feel like I've just never had an issue with remembering where my progress is at when running around say ~8 sets of bench.

[Hola Bola]

When does it help? Accountability is priceless so I don't wanna assume, but I feel like I've just never had an issue with remembering where my progress is at when running around say ~8 sets of bench.

So what are your current PR weights on bench press? I'm talking everything from 1RM to 20RM. You don't need to know all of them, especially as you get into the higher reps, but you should be constantly trying to beat your 1RM, 2RM, 3RM, 4RM, 5RM, etc.

[GeneralSerpant]

So what are your current PR weights on bench press? I'm talking everything from 1RM to 20RM. You don't need to know all of them, especially as you get into the higher reps, but you should be constantly trying to beat your 1RM, 2RM, 3RM, 4RM, 5RM, etc.

Definitely true. I've always glued myself to one rep-scheme at a time, especially for bench, and my shoulders probably hate it for that.

[Dominik]

This is one of the biggest things people (myself included) tend to miss. I can say from experience that when you get lazy and don't track your workouts, you will quickly fall into a groove of doing the same thing over and over again. Tracking your PR's is a huge motivator, and helps you train harder (since you're constantly trying to beat them), which leads to progress.

Back in the day you were doing an "AMWRAP" set after your work sets before it was a thing and I've been doing it ever since. That got me into the habit of hitting high rep PRs which not only feels good but I think it's good for the joints and connective tissue to pump more blood into them before moving to the next exercise. Anyway I keep track of all those PRs as well and it's rewarding to beat them by a rep or two. I think it's also a good idea to make a note in the log of rest times. I know you did all that, your journal was very detailed, but I'm just mentioning it for anyone else who might be following. Obviously if you do the same sets x reps x weight but resting a minute less you're working harder.

I also like to make a note of the form I used. For example on chest when I'm training with heavier weights I won't go quite as deep because the risks are higher and I like to leave a safe margin — most tears happen at the bottom and there's a reason why powerlifters will incorporate board presses. With light to medium weight I go as deep as possible. The strength I build from those heavy sets has the knock on effect of helping me lifting more with medium resistance which is the sweet spot where the bulk of the muscle gains would come from.

Some of those plate loaded machines can be a little tricky because the starting position of the handles is often too deep like they were designed for someone as thick as a phone book so I'll press one arm into position, rotate a little, then the other and start my set and lower one side, rotate myself, and then the other. Ultimately what we're all doing is R&D on our body. You use what works and discard what doesn't. Last year I tried going wider with an underhand grip using a longer bar on seated rows, which is a lot more external rotation than close grip, and I tweaked something at the back of the shoulder. Fortunately that resolved but the key point is there was no reason to change when close grip works well for me and never causes any issues.

Anyway the most important thing is logging it all so you can go back and see what you changed, take regular progress shots in the gym in the same lighting so you've got a point of reference, etc. Only thing I don't do these days is weigh myself because I don't want to play the numbers game there.

[W8isGR8]

bump off page 2....sad

[GeneralSerpant]

bump off page 2....sad

The posters these days...

[GeneralSerpant]

Roasting at 250 degrees for reverse sear for second time. Doesn't make strip steak any more particularly tender.. But damn is that some consistent color wall to wall. No oxidative coloring for a 3/2 inch there.

[GeneralSerpant]

That'll never work.

[PapaBurgandy]

Nice, thanks for the info!

[Orlando1234977]

Roasting at 250 degrees for reverse sear for second time. Doesn't make strip steak any more particularly tender.. But damn is that some consistent color wall to wall. No oxidative coloring for a 3/2 inch there.

Did you see the new released trailer? Looks like LaRusso and Johnny are joining forces. Well anyhow. Time to go play with my new snow tires.

[W8isGR8]

Roasting at 250 degrees for reverse sear for second time. Doesn't make strip steak any more particularly tender.. But damn is that some consistent color wall to wall. No oxidative coloring for a 3/2 inch there.

Looks good

My go-to steak is Tri-tip. Best bang for the buck IMO. I know everyone says rib-eye but I think it's too fatty and expensive. My wife loves new York strip but it's a tad tough for me.

[GeneralSerpant]

Did you see the new released trailer? Looks like LaRusso and Johnny are joining forces. Well anyhow. Time to go play with my new snow tires.

Yes and I am watching Season 2. I wasn't going to say anything 'cause I thought you ran away from the Rant.

I can't believe Hawk is your favorite Cobra Kai member after he did what he did.

Looks good

My go-to steak is Tri-tip. Best bang for the buck IMO. I know everyone says rib-eye but I think it's too fatty and expensive. My wife loves new York strip but it's a tad tough for me.

I have a theory that New York totally sucks as a rare steak but totally kicks ass as a medium rare one. As I was saying, slow roasting at 250 just did not do any favors. I pulled them both out of the oven at a square 120. First one was grass fed, and the next one wasn't. I still have some experimenting to do with rest and I'm gonna try marinating, but yeah, not looking good for reverse searing.

Do you do fast tri tip or slow tri tip? That's a roast where a lot of people like it done fast so it comes out more like steak, but cooking it like a roast actually works pretty good for it.