***The Exercise Challenge***

Legs

High bar back squat (Olympic style) -- 225x2 (paused), 225x1 (paused)
Front squat -- 185x5
Romanian deadlifts -- 165x5, 165x5, 165x4
Leg extensions -- 130x10, 150x8

Bleh, very fatigued from work so I took it easy today. Heavyish paused singles felt great but I didnt want to push it. Hopefully I have more energy tomorrow so I can max out on shoulder press.

Keep it up lifters!

 

Hej and welcome!

General remarks:
I suggest you to train 3-6 times a week. (With equal workload, say 12 sets of squats, on a 3 day programm: 4 Sets, on a 6 day programm 2 sets per day.)
NEVER and I mean NEVER train to failure. It just impedes recovery and does NOT help to build muscle.
Always work your whole body, NO isolation.
If you have no access to weights:
Do (half)push ups, squats, planks, try to do assisted chin ups, supported dips and getting off and on the floor (standing up and sitting down). And lots of walking. Sounds easy, but you already have your weights on your person, so that's a challenge in it self.
Or Pavels Naked Warrior programm, it's also good.

If you have access to kettlebells:
Pavels Enter the kettlebell is great! (Or just learn the basic RKC/SFG, meaning: The get up, the swing, the clean, the standing military press, the snatch, the goblet squat aand the deadlift.
Start easy! (Progression of exercises may be: Deadlift/squat->Swing->Get up->Clean->Press->snatch) Do Chin ups.

If you only have access to barbells:
Learn the basics:
Deadlift, Squat, standing Strict press, Dips, Chin ups.
They work the whole body.

And in addition to that:
Change your life to being more active. Use the bike instead of the car, if you can.
Change your diet to a healthy one.
No fluff and pump. Whole body training only.
Keep on going and you will see progress.

Do some before photos now. This way you can see your progress.
Good luck and come back to this threat to report your progress!

Cheers!
/Baldur

 

:-O Really?!? I thought it was the other way round. Is that what you say new Science or is it controversial?

 

It's shown that training to failure puts too much stress onto your CNS, which is counter productive. It's recommended to stop doing your set 1-2 perfect form reps before failure. If you cannot do your reps with perfect form than you've already reached failure.

 

This applies to weight lifting, it's not recommended to do deadlifts or squats to failure. But if you're doing calisthenics than I guess it's fine.

 

Pretty much.

Google scholar should help here.
I've heard that there are some different types of failure. Like metabolic fatique after like 20 reps, and muscle failure due to complete shutting down of the motor units.

Not training to failure does help in getting stronger. Why?
Well, considering the 28-48 h muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth) uptime, failing in a deadlift might cause muscle trauma needing to heal more than 48h. Therefore no growth happened during that time.

One can get brutally strong by not ever failing a rep.
Another benefit of it is the reduced risk of injury.

Cheers!
/Baldur

 

I'm in..
I wouldn't be able to join the gym but i will try to do exercise at home.......
Just trying to gain some muscle and fat and get a decent physique....

any suggestions?

 

Day 1:
Did some push ups and did a lot of leg training (beginner level).

 

Yesterday I did great session after a 5 day break(because of prolonged fast I did).

Back squats
Deadlifts
Incline bench press
Weighted dips
Pullups
Barbell shrugs
Face pulls
Arm superset

 

Your training logs are so impressive guys! And thank you btw for the good explanation why not to do the reps until failure. I see I can learn a lot here. This thread is such an enrichment!

It's working out, I'm exercising more already. I exercised on 5 of the last 10 Days.
I'm still working on my work discipline thogh, to stick to my plans and routines that is.
Go to the forum once a week would be good. Then I'd have the time to report about all the relevant stuff and also support some folks. But that's just not yet what I do

 

Just got back from the gym. Today was my rest day, but I decide to hit the gym anyways. I did some plyo ball squats, some abs and arm superset. Normally I would do my calves as well but they still hurt me from the last time lol.

 

Yesterday:
A lot of pull-ups, one hand pull-ups, push-ups, muscle-ups and variants of them. 400 squats.

Today:
some one hand pull-ups
3 km running
7 km walking

Good luck folks!

 

one hand pull ups! 400 squats !
That's amazing.... I can barely do two-hand pull-up and you.......!
That's great.

 

Scroll through this challenge. We've written enough to make a good training out of it.

Edit:
Not meaning to sound rude by the way. It is just the way it is. Scroll up a few messages and you will see what I mean!
Welcome to the challenge by the way!


Update:
Squat, Deadlift, Dips, Weighted Chin ups. Progress is showing up!
Cheers!
/Baldur

 

Today: four hours of slacklining, capoeira and aikido, plus 20 km cycling

 

I just realized that i had been too lazy to scroll down. This thread is awesome.
Thanks for the advice....... Will soon sum up my daily routine.

 

Thursday was a rest day.

Friday:
Three hours of mostly brick wall climbing but also some outdoor gym where I did monkey bar climbing, pull-ups and gymnastic rings

 

You are very welcome! I'm looking forward to your routine!

So... you climbed that wall? Nice!

Update:
Due to injury I keep it light, lifting people and swinging my bells.
/Baldur

 

It's not exactly that wall, I took that picture from google images just to avoid posting meta information included in pictures taken with mobile phones
However, the brick wall on the picture is very similar to the one I climb on!

 

Yesterday: 10 km cyling

Today:
2.5 km running
over 100 pull-ups in sets of 10 and 20
around eight one hand pull-ups on each arm with a few seconds of rest between each pull-up
50 push-ups ("Push-ups by Vladimir Vasiliev" on YouTube)
50 push-ups behind the back
200 squats

My one hand pull-ups are currently improving well, today I felt I didn't have to wait so long time before I could do another one, only a few seconds. I could also do many more than before

Good luck folks!