What did you do today?

You can see the effect in your pics where as you cut you look bigger because more muscles are visible. But with a shirt on its a different story! Good progress I like tris.

You can see the effect in your pics where as you cut you look bigger because more muscles are visible. But with a shirt on its a different story! Good progress I like tris.

 

Thanks!

 

My body weight was up 25 pounds between the pictures. When I cut down this time, I will look a lot bigger than at the end of my cut before.

Haha, you should try weighted pullups sometime too.

 

Will do.

 

Back comparison pics from the end of my last cut (july) to the end of my recent bulk (march)

 

Nice job!! Definitely noticeable.

 

Here is a video from last year with 110s or 115s (I can't remember). Although I only did 7, I have since done 10 reps with 115s in the last couple months. I was about 170lbs in this video. This past week I did 2 reps of 300. I'll try to get some better videos now that I have a better cell phone cam!

 

Wow, very strong for your weight. Good job!!

 

BTW, in the gym today my friend who is 155 lbs tried repping his body weight as many times as he can on the smith bench. Anyway, I will post the video of him repping his body weight. Aaron, you two were close

Thanks Kisco, my back strength has gone off the charts from all the pullups I have been doing for the past 6+ months.

 

I am definitely not that great on bench press man. I have like the worst build ever for it, 6'4 with long arms and a very small frame. I dont really know, but I would imagine 16 reps at body weight is nothing to write home about whatsoever. I hope to improve to 20 and beyond though in the coming months!

Okay, back from the gym with an update. Worked a little too much on Friday and missed my leg workout so I'm making it up Sunday. Got pumped on the idea of the chest bodyweight challenge so hit chest today. Here's how it went on the 2 main lifts (dumbbells).

 

Flat

25lb x 25 (warm up)

80lb x 10

Bodyweight set - 110lb x 14

130lb x 6

Single arm - 70lb x 12

 

Incline

70lb x 12

80lb x 12

100 x 8

Single arm - 55lb x 12

 

Happy with 14 reps with the 110s at this point. I really don't have a measuring stick on that type of lift as I've never tried for max reps on that kind of weight. I will say that it had an effect on the rest if my workout though, as I'm usually able to get more reps with the 130s or even get a few on the 140s and normally go up to 110s on incline. Not this time!

 

Good workout though. I figure I'll do the 1RM pull up and the max reps bodyweight chest press every 2-3 workouts and see how I progress through the summer.

Thanks!

 

My body weight was up 25 pounds between the pictures. When I cut down this time, I will look a lot bigger than at the end of my cut before.

 

Good progress vbox. You look wider but the thing I noticed first was the mid-back thickness. Big gains there!

Good progress vbox. You look wider but the thing I noticed first was the mid-back thickness. Big gains there!

 

Thanks. Also 14 reps with 110 db is really great, and I am sure that number will go up.

Nice. 110 lbs 14x is awesome!!

 

My buddy repped his body weight 19x on the bench press, so he is holding the title so far. He tried to do a dead hang pull up with 52% of his bidy weight added and he couldn't. looks like Aaron will be holding that title for a long time, if not ever..lol.

 

 

Nice. 110 lbs 14x is awesome!!

 

My buddy repped his body weight 19x on the bench press, so he is holding the title so far. He tried to do a dead hang pull up with 52% of his bidy weight added and he couldn't. looks like Aaron will be holding that title for a long time, if not ever..lol.

 

Haha, I did 70.1%, and thats pretty good, although I have seen guys do more. I did it at the end of my bulk, so near the end of my cut that % will go way up, my 3 month goal is 85%.

Haha, I did 70.1%, and thats pretty good, although I have seen guys do more. I did it at the end of my bulk, so near the end of my cut that % will go way up, my 3 month goal is 85%.

 

One thing to keep on mind is that he tried it with a dumbbell between his legs. He was so eager to try it and there was no belt to strap the weigh around him so he figured putting a dumbbell between his legs would work. Now if that would make a difference of not vs a weighted belt, I don't know. He (and i) will try it the with a belt and see what happens. I know I won't be able to do anything impressive when it comes to this particular lift, but I will try.

One thing to keep on mind is that he tried it with a dumbbell between his legs. He was so eager to try it and there was no belt to strap the weigh around him so he figured putting a dumbbell between his legs would work. Now if that would make a difference of not vs a weighted belt, I don't know. He (and i) will try it the with a belt and see what happens. I know I won't be able to do anything impressive when it comes to this particular lift, but I will try.

 

Good luck, hopefully you guys do well and dont pull anything. I definitely recommend using the dip belt over dumbells between the legs.

So I tried max repping my body weight today. I didn't do it as a first exercise since I didn't want to interupt my regular workout schedule. By that I mean today I was scheduled to start with an incline movement, so I did just that.

 

Incline bar:

95x10

135x10

185x8

235x5 (tried to do 6 to move up to 245, but couldn't get it)

 

Flat bench:

body weight: 175 x 23 (wrist started killing me at 23 - I don't know why it started to hurt, never happened before)

225 x 8

250 x 5

 

etc.

etc.

 

Video:

 

Next week I am back on Flat Bench, and I am going to give it another try as my first exercise (after warming up, of course). I will report back and see how it goes (and hopefully I don't have a shooting pain through my wrist and down my arm, lol)

Great job, 23 reps is impressive and it looks like you could have gotten more. I have had wrist pain issues with presses in the past many times. I am not sure what causes it.

Great job, 23 reps is impressive and it looks like you could have gotten more. I have had wrist pain issues with presses in the past many times. I am not sure what causes it.

 

Thanks.

 

Ya, it was very weird. I never had this kind of pain before. When I got to 20 reps I felt it, when I got to 23 it was excruciating and I had to stop. I think I could have gotten 25 reps but I just didn't want to risk any injures for a few measly repls, lol.

 

I will try it again next week with a set of gloves and see if that help, along with doing them on my first exercise rather than the 2nd..

 

nice job!

Thanks Kisco, my back strength has gone off the charts from all the pullups I have been doing for the past 6+ months.

 

I am definitely not that great on bench press man. I have like the worst build ever for it, 6'4 with long arms and a very small frame. I dont really know, but I would imagine 16 reps at body weight is nothing to write home about whatsoever. I hope to improve to 20 and beyond though in the coming months!

 

16 at body weight is nothing to sneeze at for non pros. Of course, for the hardcore out there I'm sure it's nothing.

 

I think the most I've done body weight is probably 10-12.

Thanks, I think I have improved my back more than any other body part, its all the damn pullups I do I guess.

 

Could you break down your pull up exercises? Sorry if you did before, I haven't been keeping up with this thread.

 

I've found it hard to really grow in the pull up area. I guess at some point I should do it on the machine with the weight assist?

I started doing pull ups when I did p90x a year or two ago. I couldn't do but 2-3 at a time, but i worked back twice a week and spotted myself using a chair under my feet to push on while I did the movement. I did overhand wide grip, overhand narrow grip, and underhand (bicep) grip. To me, pull ups are strength and practice - do them even though you are going to suck at first. Within 30 days, you should be able to get 5-6 no problem if you've worked back 6-8 times during that 30 days.

 

After I could get 8-10 in a row, I started doing the one-handed towel pull ups. Ever tried these vbox? Drape a towel over one side of your pull up bar and twist it up. Grab the towel in one hand and grab the bar in the other hand - now do 7-8 reps, reverse the towel position, and then do 7-8 more. Cool feeling of having your hands at alternate positions vertically.

Could you break down your pull up exercises? Sorry if you did before, I haven't been keeping up with this thread.

 

I've found it hard to really grow in the pull up area. I guess at some point I should do it on the machine with the weight assist?

 

I have done all sorts of pullups in the past. From assisted to body weight to weighted. I have done chin ups (palms facing in), pull ups (palms facing out), hammer grip (palms facing in), all different ranges of motion, different speeds, and different amount of reps and rest between sets. Lately I have been pretty much concentrating just on full range of motion (dead hang) pull ups.

 

One workout I do is 100 pull ups as fast as I can for time. With this workout you can choose how many you do on each set, and the goal is to get them done as fast as possible and with proper form. So you might start out with a couple sets of 10, then start doing 5s, and near the end you might be only doing 1-2 per set. My best time so far on this is 12 min 35 seconds. I hope to improve on that soon.

 

I have also been doing a lot of weighted reps, from 1 rep max to max reps with a 45 pound plate to max reps with a 100 pound plate. Every so often I will do just body weight reps to failure.

 

 

I started doing pull ups when I did p90x a year or two ago. I couldn't do but 2-3 at a time, but i worked back twice a week and spotted myself using a chair under my feet to push on while I did the movement. I did overhand wide grip, overhand narrow grip, and underhand (bicep) grip. To me, pull ups are strength and practice - do them even though you are going to suck at first. Within 30 days, you should be able to get 5-6 no problem if you've worked back 6-8 times during that 30 days.

 

After I could get 8-10 in a row, I started doing the one-handed towel pull ups. Ever tried these vbox? Drape a towel over one side of your pull up bar and twist it up. Grab the towel in one hand and grab the bar in the other hand - now do 7-8 reps, reverse the towel position, and then do 7-8 more. Cool feeling of having your hands at alternate positions vertically.

 

I have never done towel pull ups, but have heard good things about them. I should give those a try soon. I started off doing pull ups just to workout my back and build muscle, now I just want to get better and stronger at them for fun.

Very cool....you guys are pull up machines!!

 

I look forward to breaking 10.

 

I must say the feeling you get from doing pull ups is pretty nice, sorta like a good bench press.

Very cool....you guys are pull up machines!!

 

I look forward to breaking 10.

 

I must say the feeling you get from doing pull ups is pretty nice, sorta like a good bench press.

 

Gotta start somewhere just like anything else. Pull ups are hard. When I first started getting back into working out 5 years ago, I could only do 2-3 pull ups and those werent even full ROM. Now I can do 23-24 full ROM body weight pullups.

 

05LSV, I forgot to mention, the other day after doing a bunch of weighted pullups, I decided to give it a try with 100 pound plate added to me for reps. I got 3 reps, but I think when fresh I might be able to get 4. One guy I know (from online) did 10 reps with 100 pounds added....same guy who has done 404 pounds (body weight 202+202 pounds added).

Gotta start somewhere just like anything else. Pull ups are hard. When I first started getting back into working out 5 years ago, I could only do 2-3 pull ups and those werent even full ROM. Now I can do 23-24 full ROM body weight pullups.

 

05LSV, I forgot to mention, the other day after doing a bunch of weighted pullups, I decided to give it a try with 100 pound plate added to me for reps. I got 3 reps, but I think when fresh I might be able to get 4. One guy I know (from online) did 10 reps with 100 pounds added....same guy who has done 404 pounds (body weight 202+202 pounds added).

 

That is ridiculous man. Absolutely crazy. 4 reps with 100lbs on you is serious. I was thinking of going for 110lbs for 1 rep on my next back workout since I got the 1 rep with 95 last week. 3-4 reps? Different story completely. lol

Damn I think most we did was 8 reps with 25 added may be 3 reps with 45 full ROM. but I don't know if I can do that now.. did pullups last night was doing pretty well but here is a thought - I think width wise pulldowns might be better? Because on those you can lean back just a bit and have more squeeze, where on pullups for me at least I feel the biceps and shoulders a lot more. I am trying to get wider so if anyone has good exercises for that and also rear/side delts, forearms and traps I am all ears.

That is ridiculous man. Absolutely crazy. 4 reps with 100lbs on you is serious. I was thinking of going for 110lbs for 1 rep on my next back workout since I got the 1 rep with 95 last week. 3-4 reps? Different story completely. lol

 

Well I think I might be able to get 4, I only got 3 so far (but was tired when I did them). I have tendonitis in my forearms from too many heavy pullups lately, so I am going to switch to body weight ones for awhile.

 

 

Rawr,

 

Last time I tried reps with a 45 pound plate I got 13. I am hoping to get that up to 15 in the near future.