NaterMania

That's just for the shake. I don't count calories or carbs or whatever outside of that, usually. I just make sure I never have more than I need at any particular sitting, and I let my body fat make up for whatever difference there is. As long as I'm hitting 30% of my calories for the day with carbs + protein the rest can be body fat for all I care. It works, I feel great, and I don't know what else to say! It's a very cheap way to live and I am a poor guy.

Well, I've been focusing on OAC and FL rows and my lats are getting noticeably bigger. Lots of band work for shoulders and they are getting bigger and stronger too. I'm noticing that lats play a role in HS press work, the more I focus on them the better it works for me. I'm getting to where I am pausing at a straddle L sit HS and then pressing up with muscles instead of momentum so it makes me think my HS press is getting closer.

The band work is helping on everything, along with the specific lat work. My shoulders are becoming more stable. I have started internal rotations now and for the first time they feel good. I get super pumped inside my right shoulder so it makes me think this is very important and that i am actually heavily de-trained in subscap and teres major. It remains to be seen, but I think that consistent work here will pay off with huge strength gains in the long run. It's funny how many weak points I am finding and correcting as this rehab business continues, and how strong I am getting in the process.

For example, I did my first half-decent full lay FL row today. I am starting toe supported tuck planche work as of yesterday, just doing one long hold each day, probably 20-30s. I like daily work, it is really showing quick results for me.

One arm, one leg push ups with an off hand spot are also helping a bunch, and I am doing tricep push ups daily as well, 10-20 reps. This feels good, they don't bother my shoulder (either of the exercises) and seem to be helping a little with the recovery since I know how to do them without causing problems now.

Finally, I have been doing daily scar tissue breaking up in the right shoulder and it is really paying off. It's been a week since that lady worked on me and I am still making progress. I hope she's at the Tavern tomorrow, I could use a second session.

Interesting notes Slizz! Yes i do believe it is possible to detrain internal rotation, in fact that's part of how i created my shoulder issues. I was told by one of my teachers to externally rotate in inversions (headstand, elbow stand, and handstand) and did it to the degree that i tore up my shoulders.

My first experiences with rings blew my mind, and eventually i realized i had to use the internal rotators to create stability. Its also the first time in my life that i've had any signs of a chest.

Its a balancing act isn't it, front and back function together.

It really is, this experience has changed my understanding of shoulder stability quite a bit!

Did 8 sets of 2 OAC (pinkie assist) per arm, 2 FL row and 3 yewkis (turned into 5-7 yewkis and no FL rows for the last 6 rounds), 2 HeSPU (turned into 1 for the last 5 rounds).

3 rounds with 30s rest, 5 minute rest, done twice more with 2 rounds for the third cycle. Felt fantastic!

My grip was what got the most tired, i had the craziest pump in my forearm flexors!!!

OAC work is turning my back into BEAST MODE. It's getting crazy. I can't believe I'm not getting heavier. I'll post a pic in a little bit.

I will say this: I'm not as lean as I was in my last video... between the Rise of the Cookie Dough Monster, The Party on Cheese Block, and the Animal (Cracker) Stampede of 2011 I've managed to undo a good bit of hard work lol! The kind of cool thing is that now it actually feels kind of foreign to be this not lean, so I think it's going to drop off fast.

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Awesome, this is a big part of my interval training now. You get a great workout for the entire lower body AND the back!

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Yesterday's workout. This is just 1 round, the video description has all the details as does this log a few posts back.

Well, here's my back as of right now. I'm cold, not pumped at all. The lighting is off center so it's kind of neat because it shows different details on each side. I'll look a lot better in September lol!

I remember how you looked when you posted pictures from when you were doing your incline walking for an hour vids. Man this is a crazy change!

I'm going beast mode slowly but surely. The fun thing to me is that this is virtually all BW stuff and bands/cables, the bulk of my pull up work is assisted OAC now and my rowing is Yewkis, reverse Yewkis and FL rows. Growth is happening pretty quickly.

Almost all my shoulder work (outside of HSPU) is bands, and cables too when I get back to GSU rec center, but it is 100% effective dude! I have seen massive gains in what I can do.

I am also getting the feeling that I might be able to squeak out a reverse muscle up this September. I can do the XR HSPU with feet inside the straps and I can do at least 1/2 of the inverted curl portion of the inverted MU (rising to SS) as of like 6 weeks ago. I realized this a few days ago when I did inverted curls for the first time in like 8 months and pulled my ribcage up to the bars. OAC work WTF!!! I haven't done anything else and it is really carrying over to a lot of stuff, so I'm just going to do this for the rest of the year and THEN test my weighted chins!

The factor that made this workable was learning to pull with my lats instead of my shoulders. Now everything is going smoothly, and the daily shoulder scar tissue massage I'm doing to myself is making a massive, massive difference. That therapist is out of town this weekend unfortunately, so I'll get the real deal hooked up this coming week.

Life is getting exciting, my friends!

I remember seeing a video of you doing a dynamic pulling WOD a long time ago. What a difference!

Thanks! Well, I'm getting nice and ripped again, tire sprints for the win!

The daily tire sprint intervals are working incredibly fast. I may actually achieve my original bf% goal for the seminar at the rate this is going! I am quite amazed.

7 tire intervals today, very tough!

I then did 10 sets of 2 OAC per arm, 4 sets chin up style (palms facing me), 4 sets neutral grip (palms facing center), and 2 sets pull up style (palms facing away). This was with a pinkie spot. Today was a noticeable improvement over a few days ago, I was very strong and I was using the lats and traps the entire time. This shows in the muscular development as well, and biceps are starting to get huge. You'll see in September if you're there.

My buddy observed me and we determined that each of these hits the lats very differently, which was what I was feeling. It is good to have visual confirmation. Pull up style produced the most even recruitment, with neutral being about the lower 2/3 of the lats firing and the chin up style was pretty much just the really long bundle that goes down to the pelvis.

I then went to the local gym and just hung out outside and worked out! I did 3 sets of 3 wall HS press, bent straddle up to parallel and straddle half press from there up. Feeling strong, this is good! Bands = great improvement on this.

I also did 3 sets of 10 reps each arm one arm one leg push ups. These, my friends are pure gold. They produce powerful lat and serratus activation and are actually HELPING my shoulder rehab. This is way up from barely being able to do 5 with a much heavier spot a few weeks ago, I used a finger and thumb spot today for all reps. Hands are at middle/bottom of chest level. It's almost a slight one arm PPP. I believe this will be of massive importance down the line, I mean when I can do this without a spot, which should be by year's end, that will be equivalent to doing 140 lb dumbbell presses. That's ridiculously strong, I never thought I would get there. I do believe these are a very good movement to incorporate into GB for the simple reason that they teach lat and serratus recruitment. It is also a fact that serratus is much more effectively trained unilaterally, and these are the best way to do so. Video coming soon.

I also did a few sets of 50 1 leg calf raises, these are getting easier as well. My calves are starting to look slightly crazy and I am getting very very fast. I attribute this development to the sprinting, the consistent bouncing I am doing and the sled pulls.

I am going to make eyes pop out this coming May.

I see from your first post you are 6' 2"

How much do you weigh?

What bodyweight / bodyfat are you looking to hit?

Don't answer these questions if they are too personal.

I was 201.2 this morning, which surprised me. I appear to have gained muscle, especially in the lats. The OAC work and yewkis are building lats FAST, much faster than I expected, but the key is to actually use the lats. This takes some practice, but will lead to the ridiculous strength gains that I am getting. It's kind of silly to be this size and to actually see multiple reps of unassisted OAC becoming doable by year's end. I'm barely halfway to January and I'm already not that far away, and what I am instituting is working extremely well.

I'm looking to hit 5-7% and stay there for a while. At my size that will look downright scary. I'll be staying in the 200-205 range for a long time I think, it is very comfortable and doesn't require much food.

I believe this is another example of understanding the concept behind a movement: Movement itself doesn't matter unless you are using the correct muscles. In this, the bodybuilders have been way ahead of athletes. Just because they use this idea to get huge doesn't mean it is not the correct way to develop extreme athletic ability. I am demonstrating this now with my own body.

In the next few months I will learn how to dunk just to show that a guy my size who was barely touching rim for most of his life can add a bunch of height to his jump in a fairly short period of time without all the complicated programming that is out there.

Todays workouts:

Workout #1: 8 sets of 6 yewkis. These are, in my opinion so far, slightly superior to FL rows. I was doing half lay for the first 3 sets and flat tuck for the last 5 sets. 60s rest between sets. I was daydreaming for about 2.5 minutes between sets 5 and 6.

Total time: 14 minutes.

Workout #2: 6 sets of 100 stiff knee toe bounces. Total time: around 10 minutes.

Workout #3: A bunch of sets of band work for shoulders. 2 loops from Iron Mind were used. 15-20 reps, 3 sets for supraspinatus and medial delt, 3 sets external rotators, 3 sets combined traps/rear delts/external rotators and 2 sets just traps. Total time: around 15 minutes. These sets are fast so rest time is the bulk of the workout, with about 60s rest between sets. That is more or less the order I went in, but not quite.

I also did 10 minutes of my tire pulls, I only did 5 sets of 1:30 or so. Light day.

As I get leaner, alcohol affects me much more quickly. It's kind of weird.

Beastmode for sure.

Props. Your killing it. very very good stuff

on a side note i did my little warmup/fsp pre pre reqs and was depressed i was only able to hold about 30's of the basic ones. all this time off sucked.

im aslo eating like twice a day if im lucky. I really gotta get this diet in check.

i would love to pick your brain if you ever get a chance your new stuff is more inspiring than your old stuff.

Good job Man

Thanks! I'm running around here and there trying to get things lined up for school next week so I haven't gotten around to answering emails or PMs really.

If you could hit a true 7% @ 200 lbs., that would be very impressive. Seeing the way you look on some of your videos / photos, it looks like you will actually hit these marks. MOST guys that are trying to build muscle have very unrealistic expectations and vastly overestimate muscle gains / underestimate body fat.

Listening to you on your videos, I think you might find some of these articles interesting:

http://www.weightrainer.net/potential.html

http://www.weightrainer.net/maximum_potential.html

http://www.weightrainer.net/rate_of_gain.html

I'm 6' 3/4" tall. I recently got a bod pod bodyfat test. I was 210 lbs. @ 15.5% (I test in the morning after fasting for ~12 hours to try to get an "honest" measurement). My goal is to be 195 @ 10%, which I think I will hit by Thanksgiving / Christmas.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions. Also, a bigger thank you for taking the time to post all of those wonderful videos. I've been doing gymnastics bodies style exercises since the beginning of the year and feel I'm progressing nicely. I often refer to your videos for tips and instruction.

Best of luck to you and thanks for all your help!!

r2473 said:

If you could hit a true 7% @ 200 lbs., that would be very impressive. Seeing the way you look on some of your videos / photos, it looks like you will actually hit these marks. MOST guys that are trying to build muscle have very unrealistic expectations and vastly overestimate muscle gains / underestimate body fat.

Listening to you on your videos, I think you might find some of these articles interesting:

http://www.weightrainer.net/potential.html

http://www.weightrainer.net/maximum_potential.html

http://www.weightrainer.net/rate_of_gain.html

I'm 6' 3/4" tall. I recently got a bod pod bodyfat test. I was 210 lbs. @ 15.5% (I test in the morning after fasting for ~12 hours to try to get an "honest" measurement). My goal is to be 195 @ 10%, which I think I will hit by Thanksgiving / Christmas.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to respond to my questions. Also, a bigger thank you for taking the time to post all of those wonderful videos. I've been doing gymnastics bodies style exercises since the beginning of the year and feel I'm progressing nicely. I often refer to your videos for tips and instruction.

Best of luck to you and thanks for all your help!!

Regarding the opening statements, some of that is true and some is silly, and pretty much all of it is educated guesswork since in the end this stuff is not really tied to testosterone production as tightly as people have been led to believe by the supplement industry. That thinking is good for sales but doesn't really hold any water in practical application. Look at the ENORMOUS increases you have to get in testosterone to make a difference in the gym! you have to go from 450ng/dL to 6000nd/dL or so to get the steroid effect. That's teh kind of increase you get, and these people still only gain like 20 lbs of muscle in 6-8 weeks! You can gain like 6-10 without the drugs, so there is clearly a non-linear progression here.

I have a slightly larger than average bone structure and I've been 232@11-12% before, that was at my biggest. I had 18.5" biceps measured tightly.

In the end it's all engineering: stress/strain relationships. As long as you keep approaching strain but not CAUSING strain you will keep getting bigger.

Weight and size are also very different because muscle LENGTH has absolutely nothing to do with strength, only thickness does. A person with shorter muscles with the same muscular CSA as a person with longer muscles will be stronger at any given weight. CSA is a cross-section across the thickest part of the muscle, and that's all that matters. It's like rope: a 1" thick manilla rope has the same breaking strength whether it's 2 feet long or 400 feet long.

That maximum mass potential formula is pretty interesting, very cool!

I love the maximum potential page, putting math to all this is neat! Pretty smart stuff, thanks for sharing!

These really are GREAT links, I mean there is very little common sense out there regarding body size potential and all that! I think it silly in a way, because even at 80-90% of potential max size you would look HUGE no matter who you are!

The "Rate of gain" page is brilliant and true to a large extent. The first 20-30 lbs come fast and after that it all slows down a bit and continues to do so, or at least that is how things have worked for people so far. I think putting numbers to this stuff is a bit iffy, but it's definitely true that you can't get the same rate of muscle gain in year 4 that you had in year 1!

slizzardman said:

Well, here's my back as of right now. I'm cold, not pumped at all. The lighting is off center so it's kind of neat because it shows different details on each side. I'll look a lot better in September lol!

[attachment=0]My back 13 august 2011.jpg[/attachment]

THE CAAAALVES!!!

What would you recommend for maximum development of jump power? calf work? stiff knee bounces? those bounces are like maximum height, or just low heigh rebounds? I would like to have a big vertical jump and rebound for FX work and future double flips. Of course without gaining much mass in my legs.

Falcon said:

slizzardman said:

Well, here's my back as of right now. I'm cold, not pumped at all. The lighting is off center so it's kind of neat because it shows different details on each side. I'll look a lot better in September lol!

[attachment=0]My back 13 august 2011.jpg[/attachment]

THE CAAAALVES!!!

What would you recommend for maximum development of jump power? calf work? stiff knee bounces? those bounces are like maximum height, or just low heigh rebounds? I would like to have a big vertical jump and rebound for FX work and future double flips. Of course without gaining much mass in my legs.

What I have done over the past 2.5-3 months or so is I started off with 20 low bounces, maybe 2-3 inches off the ground. I did this for 3-4 sets 2x per week for about a month. During this time I also did standing calf raises for a few sets (1-3)of 30 reps every day, depending on how I felt.

The next 4 weeks I did sets of 40-50 bounces , this seems like a big increase but it felt about right. Same height, but once a week it would be more like 5 inch hops for same reps. I did this by feel, so it was anywhere between 2 and 5 sets based on how things felt. I did this 2-3x per week depending on how I felt. I started doing single leg calve raises for maybe 8 reps 2-3x per week for strength work, pushing on the ceiling for balance to make sure I couldn't cheat the weight! You can use the underside of a table too, anything that lets you apply the balancing force in a way that doesn't make you lighter.

Now all my hops are 3-5 inches and I'm doing 3-5 sets of 100 every other day. This feels good. 4-5 days a week I am doing 1-4 sets of 20 slow single leg calf raises and then 20-30 bouncy ones in the same set to finish it off. It's a big increase in volume but it feels fine.

I have also been doing lots of sprinting, which I am laying off of because I am just producing way too much force for my tibialis anterior and posterior muscles to handle, and so I am getting shin splints. I'm starting to do strength work for those so after a month or so I should be able to leave shin splints behind forever.

That is seriously it. I realized pretty early on that my calves and lower legs in general were what held me back and what holds people back in general when it comes to jump height. I have done no leg work at all and I have increased my vert at LEAST 6" without having to screw with any of my other training at all. Now I am getting back into front squats and soon the lunges like Coach has us do in the WODs but for now this is my focus. My upper legs and hips are strong as hell, so I'm not worried about that at ALL. My lower legs are making rapid improvements since they are basically untrained for several years. The bouncing is very important, it trains the nervous system to be FAST and POWERFUL! It will also help facilitate a transition to more fast twitch fibers over a few years of consistent work, which is why most of my lower leg training is explosive in nature.

I am being very careful to not increase the forces very much just yet, I'll probably start doing higher bounces at the end of the year or maybe even next summer. You have to approach this stuff very similar to planche training because the connective tissues will be your primary limitation! Take your time, build the tendons, and you will FLY!!!!

You don't have to be big to do so either, I'm not gaining much size. A little, but not much. I DO one day want to have some pretty impressive calves, but they're already looking pretty decent so I know that by the time I'm posting a true 4.3-4.3 40 yard dash and a 40+ inch vert my calves will be pretty crazy looking!

Thanks for noticing!

I'm glad you enjoyed the articles. I was guessing that you liked numbers, so I thought you might like them. The $10 e-book he sells goes a bit more into his methodology and is a very interesting read. It's one of the more interesting things I've read in the world of bodybuilding. That said, I'm not really into bodybuilding per se.

I'm probably going to pick that one up and if it's good I will promote it on my site. I like real talk!

I'm not so much into straight up bodybuilding, but I'm not even going to TRY to pretend that I don't enjoy the physique changes that come with getting stronger! I have always had a strength/performance focus and people always seem to not know how strong most of the old-timers were, especially Grimek. THAT was beast mode!!!