Pumping Iron

Anger Management

ramoayiraka — Sun, 18 May 2008 11:21:37 +0000

If you don’t already read Melinda_F’s bodyblog you should consider having a look. Her blog posts are inspirational. Something I read on her blog inspired me to post this. It’s not my own, I heard it somewhere and just wanted to pass it on.

There was a boy who was always losing his temper. His father gave him a bag full of nails and said to him, “My son, I want you to hammer a nail into our garden fence every time you need to direct your anger against something and you lose your temper.”

So the son started to follow his father’s advice. On the first day he hammered in 37 nails, but getting the nails into the fence was not easy, so he started trying to control himself when he got angry. As the days went by, he was hammering in less nails, and within weeks he was able to control himself and was able to refrain from getting angry and from hammering nails. He came to his father and told him what he had achieved. His father was happy with his efforts and said to him, “But now, my son, you have to take out a nail for every day that you do not get angry.”

The son started to take out the nails for each day that he did not get angry, until there were no nails left in the fence.

He came to his father and told him what he had achieved. His father took him to the fence and said, “My son, you have done well, but look at these holes in the fence. This fence will never be the same again.” Then he added, “When you say things in a state of anger, they leave marks like these holes on the hearts of others. You can stab a person and withdraw the knife but it doesn’t matter how many times you say ‘I’m sorry,’ because the wound will remain.

Can a muscle’s shape be changed by weight-training?

ramoayiraka — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:23:03 +0000

Have a look at how the shape of Larry Scott’s biceps appears to change with time.

There is an opinion in the bodybuilding world that it is possible to emphasis certain parts of a muscle, e.g., dividing the chest into upper/lower/outer/inner, biceps into inner and outer head, triceps into 3 segments etc. This is accomplished by exercise selection or making tweaks in the manner one performs certain exercises. While one cannot develop longer biceps, it may be possible to develop the lower portions of the biceps to give the appearance of longer biceps. This would be achieved by performing exercises that put stress on the biceps in the stretched position like preacher curls. However, changes take a long time.

Physiques of Pre-Steroid Era Bodybuilders

ramoayiraka — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:49:15 +0000

We need to go back to before 1950 to see what bodybuilders’ physiques looked like without drugs as it is widely accepted that steroid use in bodybuilding began in the 1950s. So I bring you photos from that era.

Bert Goodrich 1939 Mr America

5ft 10in
195lbs
chest 47in
waist 33in
arms 17in
forearms 14in
thighs 24in
calves 17in
neck 17in
wrists 7.6in
ankles 9.2in

John Grimek 1940-41 Mr America

5ft 8 in
195lbs
chest 47in
waist 31in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 25in
calves 17in
neck 17in
wrists 8in
ankles 9.2in

Frank Leight 1942 Mr America

5ft 11 in
209lbs
chest 48.5in
waist 33in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 24in
calves 16in
neck 17.5in
wrists 8in
ankles 9.5in

Jules Bacon 1943 Mr America

5ft 7in
175lbs
chest 44in
waist 31in
arms 15.5in
forearms 12.5in
thighs 23in
calves 15in
neck 15.5in
wrists 7in
ankles 9in

Steve Stanko 1944 Mr America

5ft 11in
223lbs
chest 48.5in
waist 36in
arms 18in
forearms 14.3in
thighs not known
calves 17in
neck 18in
wrists 8in
ankles 10in

Clarence Ross 1945 Mr America

5ft 9in
185lbs
chest 47in
waist 32in
arms 17in
forearms 13.5in
thighs 24in
calves 16in
neck 16.5in
wrists 7.5in
ankles 9.2in

Alan Stephan 1946 Mr America

5ft 11in
205lbs
chest 48in
waist 32.5in
arms 17in
forearms 14.2in
thighs 24.8in
calves 16.1in
neck 17.1in
wrists 7.7in
ankles 9.7in

Steve Reeves 1947 Mr America

6ft 1in
213lbs
chest 48in
waist 31in
arms 17.5in
forearms 14in
thighs 25.2in
calves 17.5in
neck 17.6in
wrists 7.9in
ankles 9.8in

George Eiferman 1948 Mr America

5ft 7in
195lbs
chest 47.5in
waist 32in
arms 16.7in
forearms 13.4in
thighs 25in
calves 16in
neck 16.5in
wrists 7.3in
ankles 9.6in

Jack Delinger 1949 Mr America

5ft 6in
195lbs
chest 47.5in
waist 32in
arms 17.2in
forearms 13.8in
thighs 25in
calves 16.6in
neck 16.8in
wrists 7.7in
ankles 9.5in

Bench press: affect of angle and grip width on pectorals

ramoayiraka — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:30:23 +0000

Many bodybuilders believe that to emphasise the chest when bench pressing one should flare the elbows out to the side, stick your chest out and have a slight arch in your back that is in accordance to the natural curvature of your spine.

For bodybuilding purposes you should not tuck your elbows into your torso or have a big arch in your back. This is a powerlifting technique designed to spread the load across chest, shoulders and triceps. The purpose of the exaggerated arch is to reduce the distance you need to lower and lift the barbell. Both of these techniques enable you to lift more weight but do not necessarily do favours for your physique.

Grip width affects where on the chest the emphasis will be placed. A grip where the hands are over the elbows when the upper arm is parallel to the ground puts most of the emphasis on the mid and outer pectoral strands of muscle.

A grip wider than this will put the primary emphasis on the outer chest fibers.

A close grip stimulates the inner chest. The trick here is to push your hands towards one another continously throughout each rep positive and negative without actually moving your hands. The tension will cause your inner pectoral fibers to contract. Try to lift the barbell on the strength of this contraction rather than pushing the bar up with your triceps strength.

The bench angle also has an affect on where on the chest the muscle-building stress is placed. A decline angle puts stress on the lower chest, flat on the middle and incline on the upper chest. Many benches can be angled at more than just three settings. The pectorals are a fan shaped muscles with a multitude of fibers stretched across your upper torso. The advantage of using a variety of angles is that you can stimulate all the fibers.

Some say that where on your chest you lower the bar also has a bearing on where the stimulation is aimed. This is most noticeable when the bench is in the neutral or flat position. Lowering the bar to the lower area of the chest will tend to stress those parts of the chest whereas if you lower the bar to your neck or upper chest the stress will go there.

Squats: the significance of foot stance for leg development

ramoayiraka — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:23:02 +0000

A wide stance emphasises buttocks, hamstrings and inner thighs development. This style of squatting is common in powerlifting circles as it allows you to lift more weight than other styles of squatting.

A narrow stance (hip width to heels touching) and keeping the torso as upright as possible focuses growth stimulation on the middle and outer quads.

This style is also favoured by Olympic weightlifters for strengthening their legs.

Some people have trouble maintaining balance on narrow stance squats. Common remedies include:

Putting a weight plate or a one inch thin block of wood under your heels

Use Olympic weightlifting shoes which have heels

Or squat in a Smith machine

Some people object to elevating the heels by using wood claiming it increases knee stress. You should do your own research and make up your own mind. I believe that if this were true, Olympic weightlifters, who routinely use heeled shoes with much heavier weights than bodybuilders use and with more knee jarring, would have a high occurance of knee injuries compared to other sports. However, the statistics I’ve seen suggest otherwise.

Back exercises that fatigue your back before your biceps

ramoayiraka — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:42:01 +0000

Chin ups and pull ups are my favourite back exercises. However, sometimes a change is a good thing. I’ve found a common complaint is that people say they don’t feel their backs working with chin ups and pull ups for a number of reasons. There are some really great pieces of advice on how to increase your mind-muscle connection on the forum. Here are Defiant1’s tips in response to a trainee who says he feel his biceps and forearms more than his lats when doing chin ups: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=34362871&postcount=3

While pull ups, chin ups, pulldowns and rows are staples in my training, for a change of pace I like to include the following exercises.

Lat Shrugs

Hang under a pull up bar or pulldown machine (bar/grip of your choice to hit different areas of the lats) and “shrug up”. Imagine pulling the bar down without bending your arms or performing a reverse shrug. Your shoulder blades will go downwards.

This exercise can also be done from dip bars. Put extra padding on the dip bars with towels. Balance yourself over the bars by putting your upper forearms on the bars. Sink your body down with your forearms in front of you then pull yourself back up purely by lat contraction. DiamondDelts demonstrates in the photos below.

Rearward Shrugs

This is a trap/rhomboid exercise where you lay face down on a raised bench with a barbell or pair of dumbbells beneath you. You shrug back the weight without bending your arms. You can also perform this on a row machine. You need to raise the bench if you use freeweights otherwise you won’t be able to straighten your arms. You can use step aerobic steps, blocks of wood or 45lb plates.

Pulldowns with arm straps

Get a pair of arm straps that are commonly used for hanging leg raises / knee ups like these on sale on this website: http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/pgrip/hang.html. Attach them to a pull up bar or pulldown machine and perform pulldowns by pushing down with your elbows/back of your arms and NOT by pulling with your hands. Keep your palms open and not grasping the straps.

Rows with arm straps

Same as above but attach the arm straps to a low cable for rows or a barbell for bent over rows. Again, very important not to grasp the straps with your hands. The range of motion will be less than regular rows otherwise the straps will slip off your arms.

Here are some related discussions from the forum:

Here are some discussions on them from the forum:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/search.php?searchid=95856241&pp=20
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/search.php?searchid=95855811

Note that not everyone uses uniform terminology. Where I have called each exercise a different name some people in the linked forum posts call all of the above exercises lat shrugs. Don’t let it confuse you!

BodySpace Workout Tracker: My ideas for updgrades

ramoayiraka — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 18:12:31 +0000

I think the Workout Tracker would benefit from the following upgrades:

1. Be able to edit the number of sets. Ofcourse one can do this when entering the workout but if having submitted a workout you realise you omitted a set or two then you can’t add them in. You have to delete and start from scratch.

2. Be able to edit the exercises. You can edit or delete existing exercises but you cannot add new ones to a previously submitted workout.

3. Be able to view all workouts “at a glance”. The charts are great but being able to view all your workout entries on one scrollable page would be a great addition, even if this is limited to a month-by-month basis.

4. Be able to submit multiple workouts per day. At present you can only submit one.

5. The ability to track cardio workouts.

6. When you click “want to use your own exercise name”, have a drop down menu that remembers what you typed last time. The benefit of this would be accurate tracking. If you write wide grip pulldown in last week’s workout and wide grip pulldowns in this weeks, BodySpace treats the two as different exercises, so your statistics for volume, weight and reps are skewed.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Monster Gym in Cheshunt UK

ramoayiraka — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:41:38 +0000

Most days I workout at home. I have a simple bench, a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a pull up bar. Recently I visited Britain’s only American warehouse style gym, Monster Gym in Cheshunt, England. It has a 20,000 sq ft floorspace with a huge variety of Hammer Strength and Cybex plate loading and selectorised machines as well as a variety of cable stations. There are loads of freeweights, benches and racks. It has dumbbells from 1kg all the way up to 150kg (yes kg!). Here’s a photo of my workout partner posing by the monster dumbbells.

There is a row each of treadmills, stepmills, eliptical machines, rowers and bikes. There is also a hall just for martial arts and boxing training complete with a ring and different kinds of punch/kick bags. The gym also houses a mini-restaurant where protein drinks and other famous brand supplements are served aside steak, chicken breats, pasta, tuna and fruit smoothies. If you feel like relaxing after your workout there is a lounge of leather sofas where you can chill out while watching training DVDs on a widescreen TV. As a non-member I paid £5 for a workout which is quite a reasonable price compared to other gyms. Although this gym is a bodybuilder’s paradise, it was not dominated by bodybuilders. There were people of all ages using the gym training for different goals. It was a really nice experience topped off by friendly staff and a vibrant gym atmosphere. I sincerely hope this type of gym catches on in the UK.