• Keep up to date with Ausbb via Twitter and Facebook. Please add us!
  • Join the Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

    The Ausbb - Australian BodyBuilding forum is dedicated to no nonsense muscle and strength building. If you need advice that works, you have come to the right place. This forum focuses on building strength and muscle using the basics. You will also find that the Ausbb- Australian Bodybuilding Forum stresses encouragement and respect. Trolls and name calling are not allowed here. No matter what your personal goals are, you will be given effective advice that produces results.

    Please consider registering. It takes 30 seconds, and will allow you to get the most out of the forum.

Maximising Minimalism

PTC said:
Trofius, if you pick up a weight, do 4-7 reps till you fail, rest a few minutes, try again, then one morte time, and you keep trying to lift more and more weight, what do you think is going to happen? Your going to get stronger. Whether its 3x6 or 4x2 or 5x5, it doesnt really matter. Your effort is what you should be focusing on.

The reps and sets arent that important, but if you need structure, I have found around 24 reps per movement is good.

8x3
3x8
6x4
4x6
5x5
12x2.....you need less movements with this format
Click to expand...

Ok then, thanks, So with just a change of what exercises i do and the frequency at which I do them, i should be on the right path.

For the big main movemnets, bench, deads, squats, pulldowns etc
I usually start at a given weight I can do 10 at as a warm up, and then get heavier for sucsessive sets, with less reps, all going to failure or close to, without a spotter.

I will also have to change to a full body workout 3-4 times a week, rather than a 3 day split.

I should see very good gains strait up as I am still feeling a tad week after the time off...I will see if I surpass my previous lifts in quick time..

Apart from the main 6 lifts you quote, do you do any othe rexercises, in one post i saw you place a big emphisis on triceps for bench etc, I am assuming you do exercises to target these aswell. What exercises would be a typical workout? obviously more than the 6 basics, and all in 45minutes?
 
Last edited:
I help out a few guys in the gym, one guy said to me one day "i wonder what it would be like to do 40 kilo d/bell rows" i said well if you never pick one up you will never know. I forced him to do it, he now does 42.5 d/bell with very good form.
AZZA
 
It's true, azza, lots of people - women especially - underestimate what they can do physically.

The classic one for me is when they do it and still say they can't. I was doing bent-over db rows (just 25kg, that's the biggest dumbell in my gym!) and this guy in his 20s with shot-put shoulders (from his zillions of dumbell exercises) and a flat chest came up, I've seen him around for months.
"What's that you're doing?"
I told him how it was done and what it was for. "Give it a go."
"Oh no I couldn't do that weight."
"Mate you have shoulders like shotputs, give it a go."
He bent over and pulled it in for eight good reps. "No it's too much."
"Try the other arm."
Same again. "No I can't do that."
"But you just did!"
He walked away shaking his head.

I've seen him there since May, the guy is the same size and strength as then. Yesterday I saw him again and gave him some advice about dips (he was going right down below parallel, good way to screw your shoulders). He asked what workout I was doing, I told him what and why, he was backing away as I spoke, off to do dumbell lateral raises with the same 7.5kg dumbells he was using in May. He never does bench or full chins, don't even ask about squats or deadlifts. On the plus side, he was at the Smith machine using the bar to do prone pullups, so that's something.

I see quite a lot of guys who are more muscular than me in arms and back, and not really big guys overall, messing around on the assisted chins machine. It's right near the squat rack which is also one of the chins bars, I always say, "You're pretty strong, you should be able to do this, give it a go." They always say no.

I don't understand it. There are lots of things I can't do, and lots of weights I can't lift. How do I know? I tried and failed. But I will try again anyway.

Lots of people don't have that attitude. And so they spend months or years sweating in the gym and nothing happens, nothing changes. It's sad. Fair enough if you are happy as you are and want to just maintain it, it's the ones who want to change but keep doing the same stuff that freak me out.

"No, I can't do that."
:mad:
 
Last edited:
Trofius, only girls do pulldowns, surely you can chin, I dont have a pulldown machine in my gym.

If you can get through that work and still want to do other stuff, be my guest, but all your doing is cutting into your recovery time with useless crap.
 
Lol ok I will straiten up the skirt and give it a go, last time I tried i got about 5 wide grip chins, or are close grip ones better?
 
Only for some.

I can do 20 wide grip chins palm down, dead hang, only around 12 or so palms up.

My wife does 16 wide grip chins palms down, dead hang, only around 10 palms up.

But we do practise the wide grip way 99% of the time
 
PTC said:
Focus. You did read the newsletter .....right. The grip is irrelevant, the effort is the key.
Click to expand...

Yes I did read the news letter, the last 5 or 6 I think, and a few odd earlier ones aswell.

ok then...close grip is heaps easier to do big sets, i used to be able to do about 25..

But also if the effort is what is so important than doing pull downs is fine as long I put in the effort, and if my legs are acnchored, then I can load up more...like doing weighted pullups I guess. Thats a good aim 10 at bw plus 10kg see how I go, i do dips bw +20kg

This week coming I will incorporate them into my work out the following week i will change over to the 6 main lifts. still too sore to go nuts yet.
 
Doing a chin/pullup is different to doing a lat pulldown, just as doing a barbell bench press is different to doing a machine bench press.

When you use free weights or your body weight, a lot of supporting muscles have to come into it as you balance the bar or yourself. That's why, say you weight 80kg, you might be able to do 20 reps of 80kg on the machine but can barely do 2 chinups.

I stuffed around on the lat pulldown for a couple of months and it got me nowhere. Put in the chins and bent over dumbell rows and it had a big effect on my strength and size. Nothing to boast about, but a big effect nonetheless.
 
Here in lies the problem. I can make the advice as simple and clear as possible, but because of the way society has gone, someone will always look for an easier option, then try and justify why he has gone down that path.

thanks for the help anyway Kyle.
 
People tend to learn better when their information comes in different formats and words, for example they read it in a book and later hear it phrased differently in a class by the teacher.

Our ways of telling people things are a bit different. Markos says, "this is what works, it worked for me and all this people [insert pictures]." I say, "this is what works, it works because of X."

Both are good ways of teaching people things, but are even better if you put them together.

Doesn't mean you can get through to everyone, of course, but you can get through to more people than you could with just one way of teaching.

Now go do some chinups, trofius :D
 
please re read my post...

free weights are different as they use accessory muscles etc, No offence kyle but derrr..As often as possible in my training I use free weights, I usually only use a machine on a last execise for a particular muscle group, as a safety thing, or if another method is not available.

I am not going to be doing pull downs, in fact i suggested that I will aim at getting to bw +10kg chinups, maybe it wasnt so clear.

I suggest a few exercises and which grip , and you have issues with it. I used the pull down, and which grip question as an example. So contary to what you have said previously, IT IS NOT not just about the effort. If it was just about the effort it wouldnt matter a hoot what exercise or how you did it as long as teh effort is there....Whats the point of putting in a huge effort busting your ass if the way you are doing it is less effective at acheiving a goal. time wasting...Thats why I am asking what to do? what do you find gives the best results...With this information, and a knowledge of what my body can handle right now, I will be able to adjust and try this workout technique..I am keen, dont turn me off it before i start.
 
Okay, you were unclear or I didn't read you properly. That's cool.

It may be "derr" to you, but is not so to everyone. Unless a person has shown that they already know X, it's best to assume they don't and go ahead and explain to them. It's better for everyone to be going "derr" than for them to be going "huh, what? I don't understand."

Remember that this isn't an email or private message, when I'm replying to you in public I'm not just talking to you, but anyone else who might read this today or a year from now. You might know, great! But will they? Not necessarily. So don't take it personally, if I wanted to make a personal message I'd've sent a PM or email.

I never said it was just about the effort. Obviously, different grips exercise or emphasise different muscles. But if someone can only do (say) 2 chinups, they just can't work any muscles intensely enough for it to make much difference if they do wide or narrow grip or whatever. It's like if you can only do 2 reps with (say) 40kg on the bench - narrow grip, wide grip, doesn't matter, it's only 2 reps. You need to be able to do 10 reps or so first.

So when you begin with chinups, first work up to getting a few sets of 10 or so. Then whether you have wide or narrow grip will make a difference.

At that point, it's just as with a bench press or pushup - the wider the grip, the more the muscles on your torso come into it; the narrower the grip, the more your arms come into it.
 
Kyle I ment no offence, to you or Marcos...And as with you I understand the difference a different grip makes, the comment about grips etc and effort were for Marcos, trying to point out effort is not the only thing required, even though it probably accounts for a big part, and I acknowledge that. its true, like everything shit in, shit out...

My idea behind doing pull downs was to get strong enough to get strait into sets of pullups, but I will just jump in and hit the pull ups, if i cant get decent numbers out i will back them up with pull downs.

Marcos....would you suggest I have a go at some max lifts at the main lifts to get some idea as to were I currently am in regards to strength. Or would that be mostly useless, and of no real benefit.
 
I, like most people took a while to jump on the chin up bandwagon, I had pretty good strength on all the machines doing pulldowns and whatnot, but knew it was going to be a struggle to do chins.

I started off doing as many wide grip palms out chins as I could and supersetting them with assisted chins on the machine doing 80% of my bodyweight.

At the start I could only do 3x3 chins, Now I'm doing about 5 sets of 6 ish and it's getting better every week! Long live the chins! :)
 
Chins encouraged me to make sure I had a tight diet- once you have to lift your own body weight, the closest you can get to cheating is minimising what you have to lift!
 
Fair enough bree, but I couldn't do any chinups till I added 3 kgs to my weight!! I guess that was because I had zilch muscle to start off with!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top