NaterMania

AWESOME!!!!!

Honestly, I just looked at how the upper back has to contribute to the press and then sort of reverse-engineered the whole process. It's a lot simpler than I just made it sound lol!

I have found that performing upper back work while having cervical extension resistance at the same time helps train the upper back far more effectively. Forces complete trap activation which is very convenient.

Raising test levels:

I have found that 6 egg yolks a day is quite effective. You can't make test without cholesterol! Add the Vitamin D supplementation, some sunlight on your back, and the appropriate chelated minerals and you should have the best results you can get.

Apparently on the supplement side stinging nettle extract can help the free test increase, which is really a good bit more important. I should probably pick some up. Make SURE you don't buy anything with Blessed Thistle in it, that stuff is used to make women lactate. You don't want to lactate, I don't think.

Eh, it's further down the list of my goals. Maybe after I get my back lever to maltese to planche. Hahah.

That is another interesting note! I will give that a shot as well! Should be quite a find. I didn't realize the neck muscles had anything to do with the upperback muscles but when I look at it, it's kind of obvious.

Oh yes I've been doing four eggs for breakfast and four as the last meal before bed. Also supplementing with zinc and vitamin D. Leaning out and getting stronger so fast, it's almost scary.

PHILIP said:

Eh, it's further down the list of my goals. Maybe after I get my back lever to maltese to planche. Hahah.

That is another interesting note! I will give that a shot as well! Should be quite a find. I didn't realize the neck muscles had anything to do with the upperback muscles but when I look at it, it's kind of obvious.

Oh yes I've been doing four eggs for breakfast and four as the last meal before bed. Also supplementing with zinc and vitamin D. Leaning out and getting stronger so fast, it's almost scary.

HAHAHA! Nice Sounds like you've pretty much got it all down dude! No wonder you're making such excellent progress!

I didn't think about the integration between the neck and the upper back at first either but once I thought about what was happening and took a good look, I realized what was going on with muscular shutdown and why it is so hard for lots of people to build proper strength in this area!

I think that kyphosis is, to a large degree, a direct result of the weakness in the upper spinal erectors as well as the neck extensors (both also play a role in forward head posture) and in turn change the mechanics and neural imput/output of almost everything we do. That's the thinking that got me started on all this.

Are you spreading out your protein intake throughout the day or just having meals? Not trying to be critical, just curious about your habits.

Could that have anything to do with the foreward head posture most people display because of desk jobs?

slizzardman said:

Are you spreading out your protein intake throughout the day or just having meals? Not trying to be critical, just curious about your habits.

No insult taken at all! . I tend to have meals with snacks in between. I eat smaller amounts of food and then in between each meal I am usually taking part of that meal as a snack every few minutes. Just helps me never feel overly stuffed which I hate from the days of sugar binging.

PHILIP said:

Could that have anything to do with the foreward head posture most people display because of desk jobs?

slizzardman said:

Are you spreading out your protein intake throughout the day or just having meals? Not trying to be critical, just curious about your habits.

No insult taken at all! . I tend to have meals with snacks in between. I eat smaller amounts of food and then in between each meal I am usually taking part of that meal as a snack every few minutes. Just helps me never feel overly stuffed which I hate from the days of sugar binging.

Absolutely. I have to do daily work to combat this because of the large amount of typing and studying I do. Between learning Swedish, studying for MCATs and being here on the forum I have a large propensity towards forward head posture lol! Fortunately that work keeps things more than balanced out, I am actually correcting my problems. Between stretching and strengthening everything is working well.

My girlfriend is having a similar experience, she does lots of data analysis and is now starting similar workouts and is getting excellent results. One thing she has started doing is sitting at her desk balancing a book on her head and it is helping straighten her neck. I should do that too...

That sounds like an interesting way to fix the problem! I do a lot of reading and typing as well as fixing the head posture makes me look like two different people...Think I may be headed to the library later today now though..

slizzardman said:

...she does lots of data analysis and is now starting similar workouts and is getting excellent results...

jelly²

I know, it really is. She got inspired by the women in Africa, she has done a bit of work down there and was impressed by the overall good posture. It doesn't take all that much work to maintain good posture, I mean look how long it takes to wreck it! Just a bit of prevention goes a long, long way.

slizzardman said:

I know, it really is. She got inspired by the women in Africa, she has done a bit of work down there and was impressed by the overall good posture. It doesn't take all that much work to maintain good posture, I mean look how long it takes to wreck it! Just a bit of prevention goes a long, long way.

Slizz, so would a 4 way neck machine help with this? Don't have access to one right now but curious.

Also what were you using for stability that you said really worked the muscles around your ankles?

mikelmarion said:

slizzardman said:

I know, it really is. She got inspired by the women in Africa, she has done a bit of work down there and was impressed by the overall good posture. It doesn't take all that much work to maintain good posture, I mean look how long it takes to wreck it! Just a bit of prevention goes a long, long way.

Slizz, so would a 4 way neck machine help with this? Don't have access to one right now but curious.

Also what were you using for stability that you said really worked the muscles around your ankles?

Yea, a 4 way neck would be ok. The trick is to use cervical extension + upper thoracic extension instead of just tilting the head backwards.

For the ankles, super slow single leg squats (especially in the bottom half) with bare feet or vibram fivefingers work wonders. Even better on something like a bosu ball. I am not as big of a fan of the SLS on a dynadisc, but that's because my foot is longer than the dynadisc diameter which means I can't properly grip with my toes to use all the muscles. Smaller feet won't have a problem there. I am going to put a piece of plywood on top of my dynadisc later and see how that works out. Might end up with me falling and cracking the tile floor.

That is the key to the neck! Thanks Slizzardman. Now I understand why my neck is sore some days and not others.

The Force (of friction) is with me, I have not fallen. My dynadisc is now a more difficult version of a bosu ball.

You're welcome Philip!

slizzardman said:

Patrick Smith said:

That's true... would an abundance of BCAA's make it possible to actually grow stronger/bigger while losing that much fat? It seems like you have two choices in training: 1) Muscle growth while staying lean, and 2) Cutting down while maintaining muscle. I thought there was a way to merge these effectively?

Who said that? You can do both at the same time, they are fundamentally different processes. Anyone who thinks differently is nuts. #1 is what will generally happen when you are where I am at, already big and lean. There's no point in dropping below 6-7% unless you just have a thing for bodybuilding shows.

The protein timing that I keep advocating is your best friend in this regard. You get PLENTY of everything!

One thing that can help immensely is protein with appropriate amounts of Aminogen! It has been shown to boost absorption by around 50%, which is quite amazing. This would be a meaningful improvement.

I can't say for sure that extra BCAA would have no effect, but it will not hurt. Without trying just protein for a few weeks and then switching to the same protein protocol + BCAA around the workout and then Protein/bcaa blend and finally protein/BCAA blend + BCAA around the workout there would be no way to assess any potential additive effects or determine the true benefit of BCAA, when it is most beneficial, and how it affects different nutritional conditions in regards to lean mass gains.

Hey ... happy new year!

I'd agree that at any moment the body may be rebuilding muscule and utilizing fat stores.

Like you say they are two different processes.

I think what Patrick is referring to is adding new muscle while eating at a deficit for fat loss. There are a few cases it can occur for a while but generally it's unlikely over the long term. Now you can decrease your bf% on a relative basis by adding muscle for sure. If that's what you're referring to.

Antoher factor that comes into play is measuring it. As your bf% gets lower

caliper precision decreases. It can be off several percent. So trying to measure

exactly 5% or whatever - pretty much hopeless. If you're happy with your appearance

the number is irrelevent.

From Casey Butts site at http://www.weightrainer.net/ - an overall excellent resource with much theoretical and practical information ...

"Part of the problem with routine claims of ridiculously low body fat levels comes from the fact that most body fat measurement methods use estimation equations calibrated based on the normal population (i.e. not contest-ready bodybuiders). As already mentioned, popular skin-fold methods in particular are notorious for underestimating body fat percentages in lean and dehydrated bodybuilders by up to 4%. So when a bodybuilding champion claims 3.5% body fat based on skin-fold estimations (or any other body fat estimation method) then that really could be as high as 7.5%. Yet I've had people tell me that the 6+ year study I've done on elite-level drug-free bodybuilders is flawed because so-and-so's uncle is 225 pounds at 3% body fat and Bench Presses 500 pounds in his basement every Saturday morning. I'd like to slap these people for being so stupid/naive, or at least tape their mouths shut so I don't have to hear the crap that comes out of them anymore."

http://www.weightrainer.net/training/rules.html

Yeah I wouldn't trust BF% measurements too much either. I have seen a few people with REALLY low body fat... Those guys were working out a lot 5 day splits - daily morning + evening cardio, eating strict rice + chicken nothing else, and on several drugs + ongoing steroid cycles. And that realllllly low bf% look is WAY beyond having the six pack/8-pack look...

Anyway interesting stuff about posture slizzardman, especially shoulder health and correct posture for the upper back! I have started working more on stuff like that since your reading what you've said on the forum in misc. posts. Definitely good stuff. Ty.

btw there's lots of ways to raise test levels. I personally eat a ton of olives.. And of course a lot of protein. Love it. Vitamin D is definitely good as well. There's lots of different ways to go about it but I believe stuff like Vitamin D is essential, especially in countries like Denmark.

FIN: This is all very true. Hydrostatic weighing and DEXA are really the only two test methods that can be relied upon.

I would never want to be 4%... ugh. I like thermoregulation

slizzardman said:

FIN: This is all very true. Hydrostatic weighing and DEXA are really the only two test methods that can be relied upon.

I would never want to be 4%... ugh. I like thermoregulation

Yeah that could make for a rough winter

I do think the measurements are useful as a relative gauge of progress. As well, nice to banter about.

I had estimates of 15% going into my dexa 6 months ago, which told me I was about 18%. However, it also includes all types of fat, and doesn't break down the different categories. Organ fat, visceral, subcutaneous - were all treated the same. Perhaps there are some versions of the machine's software that break that down but the one I had didn't.

As well, even with dexa there was a stated error range of a percent or so either way - I think.

Edit: According to this, it could be worse.

http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=260

The series starts at http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=146 and is very eye opening!

Anyway 15 is my immediate goal, and I know what will get me there now. I only picked at it is something of the top end

of professional athletic types in the sports I'm involved in, and seems to be conducive for general health.

The difference is something like 5 pounds (fat) between that and 12%, and I'm content to carry around the 5 pounds

extra baggage for now. Hopefully it will be around my internal organs.

slizzardman said:

FIN: This is all very true. Hydrostatic weighing and DEXA are really the only two test methods that can be relied upon.

I would never want to be 4%... ugh. I like thermoregulation

Slizz i just got my bodyfat done with a ultrasound. Says im 8.1 at 147lbs. How accurate are ultasound test?

Also, Would you take creatine on non training days?

Lastly, lol are you taking 200,000 iu of d3 a week? like 30,000 a day?

mikelmarion said:

slizzardman said:

FIN: This is all very true. Hydrostatic weighing and DEXA are really the only two test methods that can be relied upon.

I would never want to be 4%... ugh. I like thermoregulation

Slizz i just got my bodyfat done with a ultrasound. Says im 8.1 at 147lbs. How accurate are ultasound test?

Also, Would you take creatine on non training days?

Lastly, lol are you taking 200,000 iu of d3 a week? like 30,000 a day?

I can add something if you don't mind Slizz...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20016146

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025814

Seems to be way better than air displacement and electrical impedance, a bit better than skinfold and a bit worse than Dexa.

The caveat with even the more accurate measurements is that even though the group accuracy average is close to 99%,

the standard deviation is several percent and we don't know where we are on the bell curve.Probably 80% of the people are going to be within 2% of the stated measurement, that type of thing.

He does really take that much D3. I've increased my intake to 1200iu daily by pill. These represent the levels currently understood to have likely performance benefit, and the maximum amount tolerable, respectively. You can also go high dosage for a few weeks to accumulate a high blood level because it takes time, and then cut down to maintain it at the minimum level that you find helfpufl. If you're going to stay really high, you should get a your calcium levels checked a few times during the year. He's a big guy too so a high dosage is less a concern,

though there are individual differences in the way D is metabolized as well.

By all means, add away

I talked to Dr. Benardot, my nutrition professor, about what I am doing nutritionally with the protein and carbs and he pretty much said that it is as perfect as it gets. Kind of cool to hear that from a guy who was the first American to be appointed to the FIG medical board and who still works with several Olympic teams as well as the US national figure skating team.

Slizz, I remember you doing a certain biosig detox with a certain fiber. Do you mind me asking you how effective that was and the amount of weight loss that happened?

slizzardman said:

By all means, add away

I talked to Dr. Benardot, my nutrition professor, about what I am doing nutritionally with the protein and carbs and he pretty much said that it is as perfect as it gets. Kind of cool to hear that from a guy who was the first American to be appointed to the FIG medical board and who still works with several Olympic teams as well as the US national figure skating team.

Great! You mean with whey sipping, glucose, and non-grain sourced carbs? You're setting a fine example

I've picked up and increased my use of glucose from you most recently. It just makes sense since it replenishes both muscle and liver glycogen. Also have ramped up my use of whey and Vitamin D though not to the extent of making it a primary protein source, or megadosing... thanks!

Most likely you're going to have a notable and even stellar career in the fitness and nutrition field. Some people in life are extremists, and I guess that you may fall in that category. Extremists take things to logical though not neccessarily proven

conclusion and can be fabulously successful. Not everyone has or can acheive this mentaility. But by setting a lofty example, even if people are motivated halfway up they are flying higher than otherwise! At the same time, there can be risks being at the forefront at times ...

FutureisNow said:

slizzardman said:

By all means, add away

I talked to Dr. Benardot, my nutrition professor, about what I am doing nutritionally with the protein and carbs and he pretty much said that it is as perfect as it gets. Kind of cool to hear that from a guy who was the first American to be appointed to the FIG medical board and who still works with several Olympic teams as well as the US national figure skating team.

Great! You mean with whey sipping, glucose, and non-grain sourced carbs? You're setting a fine example

I've picked up and increased my use of glucose from you most recently. It just makes sense since it replenishes both muscle and liver glycogen. Also have ramped up my use of whey and Vitamin D though not to the extent of making it a primary protein source, or megadosing... thanks!

Most likely you're going to have a notable and even stellar career in the fitness and nutrition field. Some people in life are extremists, and I guess that you may fall in that category. Extremists take things to logical though not neccessarily proven

conclusion and can be fabulously successful. Not everyone has or can acheive this mentaility. But by setting a lofty example, even if people are motivated halfway up they are flying higher than otherwise! At the same time, there can be risks being at the forefront at times ...

The protein and carbs, yes. Without blood testing to ascertain the need, he would probably disagree with vitamin D dosing as I am doing. He also probably isn't anywhere near as worried about the grain sourcing of carbs, just slow carbs in general. Natural sources and such.

I definitely don't expect people to copy exactly what I am doing, it is all about how far along the spectrum from crap to perfection each person wants to make their home, which changes over time as life circumstances change. You just do the best you can. I don't think I'm an extremist in the sense that I believe one thing is the "secret" but I am an extremist in the sense that I want my health to be as awesome as it can be.

The crazy extremists have given healthy extremism a bad name

Yes, anyone reading ANYTHING on the internet needs to make a risk/reward and cost/benefit assessment.

The onus of responsibility is on the reader.

Hey, Sliz, done any more experiments since Christmas?

Depends on what you call experiments lol! I have discovered how to teach myself a proper straddle HS press, which is nice. My elbows are still slightly bent during parts of the concentric but I can lock out and lower down under control. The key is the cervical spinal extensors and upper thoracic extensors. I have found that the postural corrections I am making, mostly due to reactivation of these muscles, carries over to the other statics as well and changes how they work, making them much more effective strength builders.

At this point I believe postural variance plays a large role in the wide range of results people get from their workouts in general.