Weightlifting for Kiwis - Discussion and support regarding the art of swole

[Vingle]

Just don't do it again man, trust me it's all good until it isn't. You took minimal doses, so that's good, but I would highly recommend staying off.
I'm lucky to have gotten away from PEDs with minimal trouble, but even SARMs with minimal sides can fuck you quick if you keep playing that game.

I tried it, and didn't get the hype. The economic aspect of it is the main reason as for why I'm not going to do it more (I'm too cheapskate, lol)

 

[Harambe]

Great session today
Making progress on most lifts
Bench isn't flying up but I'm seeing some steady week to week improvement, hitting new PRs each session and able to push a little harder than what's recommended in the program. Hit 85kg for 5 today, which is very surprising for me. Followed it up with 2 doubles at the same weight.
Squat is just ok, I genuinely still don't feel so confident with the lift, I lack explosiveness out of the hole, which makes me worry about hitting depth if I do a rep confidently. I squat low bar with a wide stance so I'm just not hitting ass to grass really easily. Still did 130kg for 5, which is about at par. A fucking grasshopper got into the gym and kept me from doing 6, it crawled under my foot and got squashed, and I squat barefoot, so that really threw me off. Did backoff sets with front squats, and FINALLY got the feel for it on the last set. Finally fucking clicked.
And weighted pullups are coming along, seeing week-to-week improvements, was able to do 2 sets of 4 and one set of 5 with 5kg on the belt, and switched to neutral grip to bust out a few more.

 

[Tsar Nicky]

Do you swole Kiwis have any ideas for a lifting noob about what dumbbell workouts might be good for a baseball pitcher? Most of my fairly limited workout right now focuses on Calisthenics strengthening my core and legs but wanna get some weights in there. Presumably strengthening the shoulder is a good idea but I'm concerned about negatively impacting what little flexibility I have.

 

[thejackal2]

Do you swole Kiwis have any ideas for a lifting noob about what dumbbell workouts might be good for a baseball pitcher? Most of my fairly limited workout right now focuses on Calisthenics strengthening my core and legs but wanna get some weights in there. Presumably strengthening the shoulder is a good idea but I'm concerned about negatively impacting what little flexibility I have.

Towel drill never hurts and for lifting I'd focus on closed chain stuff that involves rotational forces. Here's some examples.

In general as a pitcher you want a strong core and strong cardio, so don't neglect the squat rack and some form of training to improve your overall endurance.

 

[Johnny Salami]

Do you swole Kiwis have any ideas for a lifting noob about what dumbbell workouts might be good for a baseball pitcher? Most of my fairly limited workout right now focuses on Calisthenics strengthening my core and legs but wanna get some weights in there. Presumably strengthening the shoulder is a good idea but I'm concerned about negatively impacting what little flexibility I have.

Up right rows into a shoulder press tends to ensure you keep some form of flexibility and you hit both the pull and push aspect. For boxing we used to do a one arm clean and press (safer than a barbell and you can fix strength imbalances) since it made us use explosive strength. We also did z press to force us to engage our core without support from our legs or a bench like most shoulder press

https://youtu.be/wce-elEhBHw

 

[DSP's Tax Lawyer]

I gave in and bought straps for deadlifting. I spent this week doing 5 sets of 2 to try and get an idea what my maxes currently are. So here are what I currently lift for 2 reps vs (the last time I maxed at 1 rep)
Flat bench 265 (255)
Incline Bench 245 (225)
Weird squat machine 360 (270)
Deadlift 335 (365)
Shoulder press 185 (165)
Back squat 335 (335)
Front squat 245 (225)

My squat didn't improve much but 2 reps instead of barely getting one is an improvement. My deadlift grip will just not improve so straps it is

 

[anustart76]

I finally broke through my weight plateau for bicep curls and shoulder presses. I upped the weight by 10 lbs and was able to do roughly 3x10. I just had to do more reps for a while at the lower weight. I guess I wasn't as getting as close to failure as I thought.

 

[MS Paint Gigachad]

We also did z press to force us to engage our core without support from our legs or a bench like most shoulder press

Idk, i feel like standing shoulder press requires the core to be engaged too, to an even greater extent at that. Granted, the Z press takes your legs out of the equation, but it somehow feels more stable.

Basically if i had to put the exercises in a ranking

(less stable, more core engagement)
Standing shoulder press
Z press
shoulder press on bench
(can use more weight)

 

[Rick The Stick]

Idk, i feel like standing shoulder press requires the core to be engaged too, to an even greater extent at that. Granted, the Z press takes your legs out of the equation, but it somehow feels more stable.

Basically if i had to put the exercises in a ranking

(less stable, more core engagement)
Standing shoulder press
Z press
shoulder press on bench
(can use more weight)

Like most exercises, I think it really just comes down to the individual. I agree with your ranking, but clearly @Johnny Salami had the opposite experience.

For example, I can't feel my chest for shit when doing a standard bench. I need to go wide or decline to really feel it where I need to.

So ultimately, imo, it comes down to trial and error. If someone feels their core engaging more doing a standing Military Press, do that. If they feel it more in a Z press, do that instead.

I'd also argue that, in the end, using compounds to feel specific muscle groups is pointless. If someone wanted to work on ankle mobility you wouldn't recommend squats, right? You'd tell them to do Calf Raises and stretch more.

So if @Tsar Nicky is wanting to work on shoulder mobility/flexibility, stretching and yoga would probably be better than lifting alone would be. Because having strong shoulders doesn't mean shit if you can't move em. As for lifts, maybe some lat/front raises and some sort of wide Grip row/rear delt work. You're presumably using every head of your shoulder when pitching, so you'd want to work every head.

But that's all based on my own experience so, grain of salt and whatnot.

Edit: Hell even V Pushups would be a good thing to add into the routine.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Personally, I prefer to train bracing with specific core movements like LaLannes, Dragon Flags, and various gymnastics things. But I suppose for sport specific training you would want to focus on using that brace while moving in order to generate power, which is something kettlebells are amazing for in my experience. For barbells, oly movements like cleans, power cleans, push press, and clean to press are insanely good for generating shoulder power while bracing.
For shoulder mobility, bands for stretching are amazing, yoga is always a great thing to add, and I've even noticed that movements like Skin The Cats, Dips/Ring Pushups, and Dumbbell Pullovers helped my shoulder mobility. Just do your mobility work like bands between regular sets and you'll be gucchi, I've been doing that and it's a really solid way to program boring work in.

 

[MS Paint Gigachad]

Recently benched 100kg/225lb for the first time. Not that my program had a scheduled "test 1rm day" or anything, I just felt like I was close and decided to try it.

As for my program, I'd actually went back to simple double progression, or what's basically an evolved version of what I'd started out with.

Spoiler: Sperging on program

When I'd started out i kinda fell for the "3-5 reps builds strength, 8-20 reps builds muscle" meme you see on many an instagram infographic as well as the idea that being close to failure is necessary to build muscle.

Thus my program became something like this, for any given exercise:
1. Do an As-Many-Reps-As-Possible set to failure
2. The next session, have your working sets be the same the last session's AMRAP (this is to confirm that your working sets were near failure, partially because i did not trust my monkeybrained newbie self to estimate RPE)
3. Continue on in an ever-grinding wheel of "increase the weight -> no longer able to do 20 reps -> train -> become able to do 20 reps -> increase the weight..." ad infinitum

Currently I do a somewhat evolved version where I rely on RPE to decide on whether to increase reps. Also I do a "heavy" and "light" day with each exercise (this was blatantly ripped off from Alexander Bromley's Bullmastiff) where on the heavy day i do less reps, and a variation that allows more weight (eg for bench press, using a wider grip) and on the light day i do more reps, and a variation that limits the amount of weight used (eg for bench press, narrow grip, larsen press, pause)

Day 1. Heavy bench, light shoulder press
Day 2. Heavy squat, light deadlift
Day 3. Heavy shoulder press, light bench
Day 4. Heavy deadlift, light squat

However I'd lacked faith in my program, as it'd been farted out by a dumbass with <6 months of lifting experience at the time with no qualifications. As such for the last ~18 months I'd program hopped like an idiot, going with (at various points in time) jeff nippard's powerbuilding, alexander bromley's bullmastiff, poorly executed conjugate (being too dumb to actually do it properly), and "just show up and go hard". Returning to it feels like I'd been making things too complicated for too long (shit like wave progression), and now I've simplified it. In fact, I'd only returned to it after Alexander Bromley explained Double Progression and it sounded like my original program.

The thing is, I have no doubt any of those programs wouldve worked, the problem is, I'd entered something of an infinite loop of adopting one after hearing a convincing and persuasive explanation of it that 6 weeks into it (by which time I mightve gotten bamboozled by wave periodization and thus wouldve been looking for another program) I'd hear some other convincing and persuasive explanation of some other program. Information overload is killing your gains folks, and I contribute to the problem with this post.

I'd like to end with this quote from Nietzche: "Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity."

 

[Accept Only Substitutes]

Today was my second lower body workout. The machine I do leg curls on was at 40 pounds last week, this week 40 and 50 were both too easy. I did 60 for my last set, it was challenging but I could have done 2-4 more reps when I was done. My trainer says that means I should do 60 for all three sets next week.

I'll take newbie gains!

 

[DoesNotLinkToYou]

Started back up a few weeks ago, and I had a bit of a breakthrough.

I've always stuck to full range of motion when exercising, but apparently going beyond and gently stretching the muscle under load really promotes muscle growth. I tried changing up my curls, doing them in an incline bench (more load on the biceps under full extension), and letting the bicep stretch slowly on the eccentric. Felt great, I got a craaaazy pump, which was a first time for me, and I don't even feel that sore. Applied the same method to my lat pulldowns too, same result. So yeah, I felt compelled to share, do try it out.

 

[Jasper2K]

Been awhile since I posted anything here. Hit 265ibs with the standing military/push press.

 

[Johnny Salami]

Recently hurt my palm. Can't bench, do presses, or push ups. Somehow can still do pull ups. This is a weird injury

 

[coof coof]

I tried it, and didn't get the hype. The economic aspect of it is the main reason as for why I'm not going to do it more (I'm too cheapskate, lol)

To be fair you did a cycle you'd see on some reddit image macro. You took an androgen that doesn't convert to estrogen without anything to remedy that. You need to learn the mechanics of how this stuff works if you want to use it with any kind of success. You also overpaid for probably subpar quality shit lol. In short I agree that you should stay away from PEDs. I mean shit you're still talking about SARMs in generalizations like it means anything at all.

 

[Vingle]

you're still talking about SARMs in generalizations like it means anything at all.

No, you were the one bringing it up again. I did learn my lesson and laid the whole thing dead.

I don't think I got sub-par stuff, because I did notice it working. It's just that SARMS are that weak in effect, and that's why people on roids shit on it.

 

[coof coof]

No, you were the one bringing it up again. I did learn my lesson and laid the whole thing dead.

I don't think I got sub-par stuff, because I did notice it working. It's just that SARMS are that weak in effect, and that's why people on roids shit on it.

Not trying to ignite a flame war or any gay shit but it is clear you have less than no idea what you're talking about. SARMs are just a subset of steroids. They aren't two separate things. Anavar is a SARM. Anadrol is a SARM. You don' t even know what the abbreviation stands for. These things have anabolic and androgenic ratings with clinical data to back it up. Anything with an androgenic rating lower than 100 but an anabolic rating over the androgenic rating is a SARM. You did a retarded cycle and didn't see much results. I even told you in a PM that running solo LGD is retarded and not worth it before you even did it, dude. LGD is suppressive even at doses of one milligram making it pants on head retarded to run it without some kind of base at doses above 5 milligrams. You got lucky but you need to stay the fuck away from this stuff clearly. I mean you didn't even mention anything about bloodwork.

 

[Vingle]

Not trying to ignite a flame war

Then shut up, stop acting like I deeply offended you and stop shitting up the thread.

 

[coof coof]

Then shut up, stop acting like I deeply offended you and stop shitting up the thread.

I just don't particularly enjoy people talking authoritatively about things they are completely clueless about, but you are right that there is no point continuing this. As a final note to anyone reading this; actually do research beyond reading reddit before you put anything in your body. There are no take backs.