Fitness And Nutrition General

Wtf lol really

Yeah it's regulated but you can still buy it from the pharmacy for "asthma." I think in the US though you need to provide ID and there's a monthly limit that you can buy, just so they know you're not making a meth lab lol. It may vary by state but I know a lot of Americans on bodybuilding.com have no problem getting ephedrine.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/usplabs/jack3d-advanced.html?&_requestid=578741

For whoever was looking into Jack3d, they just came out with another one. Profile looks pretty good, they added Yohimbe to this one too.

That was me a page or two ago. I already went ahead and got a preworkout,probably going to try a new one after I'm done with this so might try that,craze or assault....or w/e that NO extreme or w/e it was called (previous page is effort)

Unrelated

How much "difference" is there from doing free weight squats vs smith machine squats? I know free weights are better etc,but I have a bad knee and my free weight squat weight is about 40% of my smith squat weight. I know I should probably be trying to improve on the free one,but atm with the goals,it seems like hitting the rep mark would be more beneficial than hitting the higher free weight mark/form/etc

Thoughts?

There is a huge difference between smith machine lifts and free weight lifts. Free weights recruit more muscle fibers throughout the lift, while the set motion of a smith machine doesn't fully utilize all those little stabilizer muscle fibers.

My view has always been if you aren't injured, get your *** on free weights. If you are injured then machines are totally acceptable, otherwise you really shouldn't be using them unless you're trying to switch it up for a few weeks to break a plateau. If you want the best gains, your workouts should be filled with free weights and compound lifts.

Pretty much everything I do is compound (1 or 2 obvious exceptions). I wouldnt say I'm injured,but I do have a pretty hard time with them,and they never improved that much (from doing a few months of free weight before moved onto full time smith squats).

If you're worried about your knees, look into getting some knee wraps if you want to move to barbell squats. Having a hard time with squats is normal, they're the second most taxing lift on your central nervous system. Were you going low enough? Reps in the right range? Squats are honestly the easiest lift to make progress on.

I've got a knee support which I find helps alot.

And as far as free weight squats go

low enough - legs to 90 degrees,i can go lower on smith (i know,i know)
rep range - pretty bad on free (more reps + higher weight on smith)

It isnt my muscles or anything getting in my way or hampering me,its my knee itself,which has got as good as it is going to recover to,a long time ago

Seems like I missed a lot on this thread.

I generally train in the evenings and jack3d was just waaaay too much stimulation, it actually made me vomit a couple times (though, I do sometimes anyway on leg day or back day, this was just random and caused by excess stimulation) Since I workout in the evenings I tend to avoid preWO cocktails. Hemavol is my current fave, but any drink with citruline (sp.) in it is generally pretty good - not to mention the lemon drop flavor is pretty slammin. Also, I don't know if you all have heard but USPlabs just had to destroy $8mil worth of DMAA, which is in the original jack3d iirc, as well as their popular oxyelite pro. DMAA and yohimbine are pretty effective and not too bad on the side effect profile.

My preworkout consists of EAAs (ON brand), hemavol, and 5-8 grams of creatine monohydrate.

Hemavol is good intra-workout too. I also am currently testing IGF-1-DES on my test rabbit, and it is getting quite big (can pm me for protocol on that) - Also intra-workout.

PWO consists of 6grams BCAA's sometimes 5gr creatine, 30grams whey, a few grams of some type of simple carb for the insulin spike.

I try not to over-complicate things.
Daily supps:
ADAM multi
CLA - 6gr day
Fish oil - 2gr EOD
choline
magnesium oxide
Vitamin B6 - ~400mg a day, but I may be switching to an injectable b-complex.
Ubiquinol - 150mg

As for fat loss aids, the list goes as follows, in my experience or the experience of my lab rabbit:

1. CLA (I am unique, in that this only seems to work well for me)
2. PGF2a
3. Clenbuterol/t3
4. DNP/t3 (lab rabbit had pretty bad sides, but lost about a lb a day)
5. DNP - See above
6. t3/t4
7. ECA (The sides make this a no-no for me.)
8. DMAA(getting banned)/yohimbine
9. Yohimbine
10. OxyElite Pro original. (getting banned)
11. cjc1295/w/o DAC + GHRP-6

All of which don't do ***if your diet is ***.



As for squats, both my ankles and knees are pretty shot from playing football most of my life, but have never needed wraps for parallel squats up to 405. ATG is a different story, as I use wraps for those, and in competition. You can say I know I know all you want but you are not doing anything good squatting on a machine.

Wait, you have a pet rabbit you test supplements on?

something like that...

Just feel like ranting a bit is all....

Any thoughts on this?

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=155286373

That's something I made a couple weeks ago, but I haven't been able to follow through with it due to IRL emergency.

Looks ok - I'm presuming at 25% bf you are wanting to cut a lot, so keep that in mind as far as your diet goes - good fats, good carbs, etc.

As far as the workout goes, a couple comments:

My stance on ab training is train them the same as any other body part. It is a muscle group just like any other and should be treated as such. I'm not sure what is included in it, but doing 50 crunches followed by/preceded by an hour or w/e of HIIT isn't optimal imho.

Shoulder press is good - but I prefer arnold press if I am gearing toward body comp. If I am gearing toward strength, I would probably use a regular press instead. Cuban rotations are awesome for shoulders as well. If you have access to a smith machine, reverse barbell shrugs are awesome - I would replace regular bb shrugs with them. Front raises are missing - if you are going to do real and lateral, you should throw in front too.

Legs, ditch the leg presses unless you need a psyche boost. Replace with Dimel deadlifts.

Chest/tris dips are almost a MUST.

Was going to record an entire Fossil run since it's the last time James an I will be collaborating before he moves, but it was starting to get dark, so here's a clip of us on the warmup

Don't mind the arm wrap. Gave blood a few hours ago, lol

I would suggest more protein in your diet, you're getting 110-185g a day at 190lbs body weight. At the very least I would aim for 1.5g per pound, especially on a cut when you want to retain as much muscle mass as possible. If you really want to remain at that amount of calories per day then just replace some of your carbs with more protein.

This is just my personal preference, but I generally don't like to do triceps on the same day as chest because they are pretty spent. Instead I like to hit them indirectly on chest day, get minimum 2 days rest throughout the week, and then focus on direct tricep work on arm day.

My weekly routine is as so, you might like it. Lets you really focus on Biceps and Triceps when they're well rested.
Monday: Chest
Tuesday: Back
Wednesdays: Legs
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Arms
Abs every other day

I personally like to hit everything twice a week; but since I don't have enough time for that, I go for most things twice a week.

Mon: Chest/Biceps/Triceps (with calves thrown in between sets; try for 5-6 sets of calves)
Tuesday: Legs/back/shoulders
Wed: Chest/Biceps/Triceps (with forearms thrown in between sets; aim for 5-6 sets)
Thursday: Legs/back/Traps (pretty much shoulders again, just using diff exercises that i feel in my traps more)

Thursday-Sunday: Fossil Park obstacle course

Biking: Generally around 150 miles a week.

I think he's still a beginner though, DOMS in his first month would prevent him from a routine like that unless he really limits himself to 4-5 sets per muscle group. I would need like 3-4 days rest when I first started per muscle group cause the pain was so bad lol.

Man how long you at the gym for doing that lol? Arms and chest on the same day for me would probably take 3 hours.

About an hour and a half, but I set up a rotation to minimize rest.

Instead of a min rest for chest -> chest; then another minute for the next set.

I go Chest, Biceps, Triceps,-> 1 min repeat. So I can fan through the ***pretty quick.

Usually, I've been working on a pyramid. Start with high reps low weight, work up to a 1 rep max, go about halfway back down, then do a burnout dropset for the rest of the prior weights for my primary exercise for each body part.

Then I'll pick a second exercise and do 3-4 sets for each.

Primary movement is generally the same each time (bench press for chest for example, weighted dips for triceps; etc. May vary bench press with dumbbell press but that's about as much change as it gets)

Then secondary movement will be something I come up with as I'm going. So may be machine bench, may be flies, cross overs, etc.

You have knee wraps?

Just one,for my bad knee

Adding in a slight lol from today's gym visit too.

Was doing arnold presses,and a big built polish guy I know there walks up to me and says "arnold presses!" in a big polish accent,was close enough to the real thing to almost make me laugh and I lost focus lol

For my clients with bad knees I make them wrap both. If 1 side is injured the human body tries to compensate. Usually by making the other bare more force. Also do partial hack squats for your tear drop which really helps the knees stability.

Just finished a healthy meal,was watching this before hand,bad idea though. Tempts you!

When's the best time to take the following 2 supplements?

http://www.optimumnutrition.ie/essential-amino-energy

and

http://www.optimumnutrition.ie/l-carnitine-500-tabs-1



Currently taking

http://www.bsnonline.net/info/hyperfx.html

If any of them clash or affect each other or anything.

I use Carnitine in my pre-workout stack before cardio. My pre-workout drink for lifting already has Carnitine in it otherwise I'd probably use more there too.

BCAAs & Glutamine are somewhat of a touchy topic. Some people will tell you that you get so much of it throughout your day from natural food sources that you don't need any more, others swear by it. Bottom line, they're found in almost everything you eat. If you are really constricting calories throughout your day, take it.

Personally I only ever use BCAA/Glutamine (Xtend by Scivation has both in it) as an intra-workout drink instead of just drinking water. If you do empty stomach cardio in the morning, I would recommend taking BCAAs before as well. Otherwise, BCAA are an abundance in almost all the foods you're eating throughout your day and it's really not necessary.

So,would I be right in saying

preworkout + carnitine before workout

and

amino energy during workout

Would that be right?

Correct. Amino Energy in the morning as well if you don't eat right away. If you eat immediately upon waking, forget it.

I try to eat right away most mornings,but sometimes I cant find the drive and put it off for a while. At least now I'll have something to fill the gap. Thanks for the help!

No problem. I really do suggest eating ASAP in the mornings since your body has come off from fasting for the last 8-10 hours, and even longer if you don't eat before bed. BCAAs won't act as a meal replacement, but you'll at least get some amino acids into your muscles quickly after having nothing in them all night.

Simple breakfast tip: Make your protein shakes in bulk every couple of days, store them in containers in the fridge. Drink one in the morning with a carb source on the side and you're good to go.