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Topics - entropy

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ADARQ & LanceSTS - Q&A / some questions

« on: September 07, 2012, 03:19:24 pm »

I've been waiting for the right time to make a thread on your Q&A and always held back because I wasn't sure if it was a good enough question but i might have one now.

1. Tell me about the SSB. You are aware of my issues with squatting (fwd lean out of da hole, squatmorning tendency, trouble making it a quad dominant exercise rather than my stronger hamstrings etc). I've been reading about the safety squat bar. Could it help me? I tend to lose good position coming out of the hole, and according to what i've read the SSB allows you to be strongest in the weakest position (bottom) of a normal squat which is where I am having trouble

2. I made the change from LBBS to HBBS recently and it helps with the issues above but my squat is still very hamstring dominant. I have hamstring soreness postworkout even if I haven't done any specific hamstring exercise and no sprinting. In fact if you didn't know where I was putting the bar, it would be hard to distinguish it from my LBBS. I also think the imbalance btw hamstrings and quads is part of the reason why i've got problems coming out of the hole. Anything I can try to fix the imbalance? Because it seems if I just try to push my squat up, my hamstrings just get stronger, and my quads not so much.

2. I have a friend who is about 25, 6' tall, a good athlete in his day and weighs a fat ~90kg/200lb (maybe a few kilos less than this). He's got a wicked first step and very quick to accelerate from stationary even though he's fairly overfat. How does this work? Is it just genetics? I ask because he's far from the 10% I would need to be athletic, he's probably closer to 30% and yet the excess (dead) weight doesn't seem to stop him from being able to accelerate quickly when guarding him

Nutrition & Supplementation / comparing staple foods

« on: August 17, 2012, 04:47:32 am »

What the title says

I was surprising to see potato ranked a bit lower than rice, more of a middle of the road staple really, which was beaten by wheat. Wheat! That stuff we've been avoiding because of the paleotards and their crusade against grains.

Wheat wins the award for best new comer, highest protein, highest fibre, magnesium and phosphorous, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, niacin, and vitamin B6. Its got a good amount of potassium too for what its worth. It seems fairly balanced compared to the other staples.

TLDR: Don't let the fucking paleo/carbphobes take away your wheat man. I guess i'll be eating more wheat now than I used to.

Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / deadlift start position vs squat

« on: August 05, 2012, 01:38:30 am »

I've heard it said a few times that we don't want to turn the deadlift into a squat. But if the start position of a deadlift looks like a (quarter) squat - why is this bad exactly?

I found out last night I can pull with better form using a slightly wider stance (sumo) and maintain a flatter back from start to finish. With conventional I struggle big time to have a flat back from the start of the pull. The only caveat is that my hips are a bit lower so it looks somewhat like a squat. Now for me the option is not to deadlift at all or to pull squatish with a wider stance. Given that i'm already squatting would you it be redundant to pull this way?

Injury, Prehab, & Rehab talk for the brittlebros / sciatica no more.

« on: July 26, 2012, 04:39:06 am »

Long story short, for over 3 years i've had chronic sciatica. I would get some bad bouts where it would be painful even getting out of bed. I sought medical treatment and I believe on last count tried 3 different physical therapists, a massage therapist and two 2 doctors. This was a complete waste of time. The first doctor told me it was ok to take ibuprofen for up to 6 months. I can't imagine anything more negligent than this advice. I took that stuff, and probably did more damage to my body than good. The physios prescribed a battery of different stretches, did that stuff, it made things better or worse sometimes. I did the foam rolling bullshit the bros love, the tennis ball and softball rolling all of that. It sometimes helped and sometiems made things worse.

Come 2012 and I just resigned myself with the though that i'd have this problem for the rest of my life. and hey, i got pretty good at managing it, i could use dencorub and ibuprofen when things got particularly bad. I knew the stretches i could do make me feel better. But i just accepted that it would be a life long thing.

So the last few months ive had no problems with my back. I've felt normal. But it was only today that I realised i was completely cured. I did the one test which always failed - lying on my back and raising my left leg into the air. Normally it would go about 50-60 degrees before I couldn't go any further, i'd have to stop there from sciatica caused discomfort. But what a shock when I found I could go all the way to 90 degrees, pain free. I'm cured. I can't explain this at all.

If i was to attempt an explanation, i'd say adding sprinting into my training, doing a lot of RDLs and staying away from deadlifts and working hard on my squatting form has made me better. I can't explain why these things would help, but they have. Perhaps my sciatica was caused by some kind of imbalance? I don't know. I couldn't tell you. I just find it completely stunning that i've fixed something that defied treatment for so long.

This is the best training community around. There is a focus on movement, strength, athleticism and so on. I know if I was doing what i had been for the last few years i would still have sciatica but being around here and doing sprints and jumps and working on form and different facets of movement, even trying different exercises has been a godsend. I think you guys are genuinely on to something with the multifaceted philosophy and training approach.

Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / Whats Lebron James doing

« on: July 17, 2012, 11:47:56 am »

While the gif was loading I noticed his knees rise a fair bit just before the dunk? Is that supposed to happen? Because it's pretty counterintuitive to me, I subconsiously try to dip down/get low as much as possible before jumping but looking at lebron he's got high knees, obviously he dips down at the end but before that he's high. If i'm wrong, tell me, i don't mind.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDDWjROBUE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDDWjROBUE</a>

Risking posting this despite the chance of seeing raptors bare legs

Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / how much squat for athletes?

« on: June 18, 2012, 12:04:59 pm »

Wondering about the Double Bodyweight Squat Rule of Thumb (DBSRT) as a goal for guys wanting to improve their sprint and jump.

Take two guys

- A. 5'9", solid build, weighing 80kg at ~12% bodyfat, he's build for lifting and quickly attains the double bw squat for reps.
- B. 6'2", long limbs, slender build, weighing 80kg, 12% bodyfat, he's not build for lifting and struggles to squat 1.75*BW for a max.

It seems to me, that the rule of thumb doesn't do a good job distinguishing that the double goal is fairly easy for A but very difficult for B. B needs to gain a lot more bodyweight before his max can even approach the weights which B is currently repping regularly for say 5x5. The rule doesn't take into account that A is very close to his maximum lean/athletic mass, while B is not and requires a lot more muscle to have better levers, but if he did gain the bw it might be a big tradeoff, costing athleticism.

Then you might have a guy C. 6'3", solid build, 100kg @ 12% who can squat fair in excess of both A and B, but you can expect that very few if any B's could become Cs.

Wondering if a better rule of thumb ought to be based on BMI rather than just BW.

As for myself, I'am struggling with even squatting 1.5BW for reps, leave alone even thinking about 2*BW any time in the next 18 months. It might not even possible for me to squat 2BW without gaining a lot of BW which would kill any dream of being athletic.

Basketball / mile time

« on: June 08, 2012, 11:25:16 am »

What's a good mile time for a basketball player

a. as a best effort kind of thing
b. as something he should be able to do any time
c. something he should do often in his training as GPP
d. if a mile is too short to mean anything, then give an alternative distance and time

just looking for guidelines here, i'm going to google around too and post what I come across here for discussion, checking etc.

Strength, Power, Reactivity, & Speed Discussion / The Myth of HIIT (Why foregoing aerobic work is foregoing gains)

« on: June 07, 2012, 05:58:18 am »

Flies in the face of everything you might think you know about training. The pervasive myth behind HIIT is that a diet of low reps, low volume, heavy weighs and nothing else is sufficient to get one strong, lean, fast, big etc. I think it's taken for granted here and elsewhere that anaerobic activity is superior to aerobic, that aerobic work detracts from strength, speed, power etc.

Here is an ebooklet that contradicts this idea -

http://anthonymychal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/TheMythofHIIT.pdf

thoughts?

Progress Journals & Experimental Routines / chasing athleticism

« on: May 01, 2012, 02:24:18 am »

RVJs: 26" (Jan 2012), 31" (17 Aug 2012)
SVJs: 23" (Jan 2012), 30" (24 Aug)
Sprint 30m times: >5s (Jan 2012), < 5s (1st Oct)

SVJ dunk (1 hand) - 22 Dec 2012

Program Review / program review

« on: January 07, 2012, 01:10:22 am »

delete pls wrong section

Introduce Yourself / Too fat, too furious

« on: June 17, 2011, 04:07:27 am »

Hi everyone -

My stats are:

Bodyweight: 195
Height: 6'3"
Bodyfat: 20+%
Standing Reach: 98"
Standing Vertical: 22"
Back squat: 3x5 130kg

Looking to take my vertical to 28" ish, to dunk at will. I can hit the rim with my wrist but can't dunk with the ball, one or two handed. Guess too heavy, too weak, too slow. Will look to fix this by losing 10+lb of fat, and taking the backsquat to 2BW and implementing some jump training.

What brought me here: I've followed Gary here from another board and think this is the right place for my goals.

Background: I started off with good intentions but a horrible introduction to weight training by following the obesification advice of a famous internet coach whose advice I implemented a little too uncritically, bulking up to 250lb in a few months starting from a chubby 200. I was quite skinny fat to begin with, needing to gain a lot of muscle but bulking from a high bodyfat only led to fat gains, as I understand now this is due to insulin sensitivity being quite poor for fat folk, and getting worser with each added kilo of weight. In short I was never going to put on any muscle starting skinnyfat. Since then i've spent the last year losing some 60lb of fat to a low of 188 earlier this year.

My goals are to continue getting stronger, leaner and more powerful and hopefully the payoff for all of this will be some impressive dunks when playing some ball with my friends.