An Eccentric Renegade Malaysian Weightlifter

I love this guy!

This guy is hilarious!!! hahahaha!! The way he condemns bodybuilding. I like his post

“Bodybuilding is the worst thing anyone can do at a gym. Bloated muscle mass that comes with bodybuilding is useless. It has no functional use and looks either 1) too scrawny; 2) too bloated. I often read t-nation thinking to myself what sad people.”

He has a damn good point. Lol!

Monday 26 November 2007. I Snatched

I feel proud!!
This is my first snatch, with weights, that look, KINDA cool.

Okay, the first snatch was screwed. Second wasn’t that clean either. My coach keeps telling me that I’m using my strength to snatch, not my technique. I think he’s right.

Anyway, today’s workout went.

ATG Back Squats

100KG x 2
120KG x 1
140KG x 4 x 1
142KG x 1 (hmm, PR?)

BTN Jerk

60KG x 2
70KG x 1
80KG x 2 x 1

Snatch Grip Deadlift

100KG x 4
120KG x 3
140KG x 1 (I noticed this was really a bit too heavy)
130KG x 1
120KG x 1 (this feels just about sweet)

This was when everybody left the gym and I was left alone. Time to go crazy!

Snatches

40KG x 12 x 1 (yes I counted, all 12 times)

Clean and jerk

60KG x 10 x 1

I don’t usually get to train here, but it felt SO good to train back down here. I could dump the weights. I did a 150KG, squat and confidently just threw it away. I was out of the hole, but I felt that “Nah, I can’t do this, my back’s giving me a hard time” and just nicely threw it behind me. It felt so much safer.
All gyms should allow dumping. Then we won’t need power racks so badly no more.

I really need to get a home gym, with at least 200KG’s of bumper weights and a nice solid wood+rubber platform to lift.

Any comments on my snatch? Sloppy, I know. But I’m trying to learn.

Friday 23th November 2007.

GarhH!! Stupid workout.

Warmup:

CNJ: 60KG x 2

Power Clean: 60KG x 1

Work sets:

Back squat:

120KG x 2

130KG x 1

135KG x 1

140KG x 1

140KG x 0 (Stuck in hole, didn’t contract my body enough blergh)

135KG x 2

BTN Jerk:

80KG x 1

90KG x 1

100KG x 1

100KG x 1

90KG x 1

(I’m definitely losing strength here, I actually had to press out my 100KG BTN jerk the 2nd time. That’s never happened before)

Snatch Grip DL:

100KG x 3

100KG x 8 (Don’t ask, I have no idea why I did that either)

100KG x 2

Back Extensions

23KG x 10

23KG x 10 (Decided it was too light)

43KG x 5 (Decided it’s just about a little too heavy. I shall do 35KG x 3 x 8 next time)

Dips+Pull-Up Superse = 3 x 10

Bicep Curls (Random, just wanted to mock a bodybuilder with my friends)

Why You’re A Fool If You Think You’ll Lose Weight Via Diets

First off, I can’t believe I’m writing about a “fat loss” article. Then again, it’s not because I’m trying to apply it to myself, it’s because of the strange sudden influx of friends asking me about losing weight.

Since when did Asian women care so much about losing weight? We’re genetically small boned and small sized. Advantageous to the women because they can argue that they look petite, disadvantageous to the men because half of us look like high school nerds that’s trying to program the latest revolutionary “time-waster”in Facebook (. I mean honestly, Superpoke? WTF) , instead of college football players rushing for a touchdown.

Anyway, about losing weight for those women searching the definition of petite and men looking to lose their walrus sized love handles, here’s a few things I’m gonna tell you about why you CAN’T lose weight via low fat foods.

OOO walrus, you’re gonna need some serious weight loss plan. Consult me! I’ll even pop a bottle of massage oil for those stretch marks.

First off…..this isn’t some totally researched scientific article I’m writing here. Hey I’m writing a blog, not a science project for my final year assignment. So I don’t intend to make you feel special or anything. I’m just trying to find ways to make you feel worse at your dieting, but you’ll still diet anyway cuz you’re one stubborn buffalo.

Number 1 Myth: Don’t eat fats, then you won’t get fat.

GaghH!! Lard!! Oh wait…yummy! I’m no dieter!!

Some people still believe in this! I can’t believe these people. This is what they do, they abstain from eating any form of meat because they believe meat is evil. Thus they eat a slice of wholemeal bread for breakfast and drink a cup of milk. They skip lunch or they take cream crackers for lunch god knows how that’s suppose to make them feel full and energetic for work. For dinner, they serve for themselves a giant bowl of salad and eat tonnes of fruits.

Here’s the funny thing. For breakfast, they eat the bread with butter. They put megatonnes of mayonaise for their salads. They are not directly eating “saturated fats” but how much better is putting dollops of mayonaise all over their food? Question mark? This is totally true to the American diet especially. I have no idea why they like to put SO SO SO much mayonaise on their foods. It’s like, the kids will have “mayonaise moustaches” when they’re done eating their burgers or when they’re done gagging through mom’s salads. Doh! No wonder you don’t lose weight.

Number 2 Myth: Don’t eat carbohydrates

GaghHH!! Why why why? Carbs=energy. Okay let’s not overcomplicate things for youR diminutive brain. Okay mine’s tiny too. Fine.

No carbs, you lack energy. You feel lethargic. When you’re lethargic, you don’t feel like moving (Duh). When you’re weak and slow, you probably don’t burn much calories doing nothing but lazing around in front of the PC reading this stupid article. You don’t burn the calories, you don’t lose weight. Simple enough right?

Eat the right amount of carbs, with the right timing and the right TYPE of carbs, and you’ll be fine. You can look forward to losing weight with proper education on the carb timing and types of carbs. Make carbs work for you dammit.

Those who just said “My body can rely on fats to have energy” come here and let me slap you.

Erh…wait, I forgot why that doesn’t work. Oh well, it just doesn’t. For some reason. Somehow, I’m not too sure. Well….umm,I think so? mOMMMm!!

Besides, have you talked to a carb depleted woman? It’s almost DANGEROUS!! One wrong word and you’re bound to get slapped. Try having the “we need to talk” talk with a woman that’s on the first few days of the Atkins diet. You’re either going to end up with a divorce letter or you’ll be sleeping on the couch for weeks! Lack of carbs makes you annoyed and depressed. Stop asking why. It’s so because I said so. I altered your genetic code the moment you saw the bread picture in this article so it’ll work the way I say it does.

Number 3 Myth: Low calories is going to help me lose weight.

No I’ve not lost my brains. It was never there anyway.

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When you reduce your calories DRAMATICALLY, like from your normal 4 meal a day diet, to a 2 meal a day plan, your body is in a state of shock. It isn’t trained to do such a thing, so what does it do?? The body will think it’s in a state of emergency, where there’s going to be a long drought or something. Remember, the body has a self defence mechanism. It’s the same mechanism that makes you dodge when someone throws a punch.

This self defence mechanism switches on and reduces the caloric usage of the body. Say you were initially using 2000 calories a day, and you cut your calories to 1000 calories a day. The body puts the brakes on and slows down the burning process.

So what you gonna do? Eat even less calories and die of starvation? OR you could up your calories, train with weights and increase your metabolism and burn fat. With the release of endorphines, (I can never spell that word) you’ll feel happy too and you can eat what you like. Just in controlled amounts. Isn’t that a much better way?

So what works? I Don’t Know! Yes I do…I’m just not going to tell you yet. I’m lazy to write about it already, because my cousin’s retarded laptop which I’m typing on constantly jumps the cursor around which makes it very annoying to type. Wait till I write the second part. Now go enjoy your “Roti canai”

How Do You Say NO?

How?

I think we’ve all encountered them. The smart pants that thinks he knows it all. I thought I would be able to escape such encounters as I trained in a weightlifting facility provided by the state government, where all the lifters are trained by a Chinese coach.

However, as my current schedule clashes terribly with all my lifting days, I’m forced to train at a commercial gym.

As a person that concentrates more to weightlifting, I am not that big. I’m not exactly (or at all) someone you would consider as buff and muscular and all that. Yet I know my squats and deadlifts, pretty well.

Here comes the annoyances, personal trainers that think they know, EVERYTHING.

I know personal trainers get a LOT of slack from the strength community, and sometimes, I find the comments they get, quite deserving. Because they sport a shirt that says “Personal Trainer“, they find that it’s just their responsibility to bug around people asses.

They will come and explain to you how a “Deep Squat” is bad for your knees, and how a “Half squat” is much better. They’ll teach you why you should NOT deadlift, and why dumbbell deadlifts are far superior. Some of them, will write your routine down while you’re training away, and then tell you what was wrong with your routine (Btw, your routine may have been written by Russian strength coach, S.Y. Smolov that trained half the Russian weightlifting team to success) and yet these guys know better.

You should do dumbbell flies, it hits your inner pecs. Yeah yeah, and I care…

A personal experience that I once encountered at a gym in Kuala Lumpur, was with a personal trainer that spoke about my squatting.

He was staring at me when I squatted, paying a lot of attention to me, instead of his own client. As I always squat, ATG or as low as I can possibly go, I knew that I was probably going to get a few stares already. I ignored it.

However, this PT came over to me when I was squatting half-way and GRABBED my bar while I was squatting! Hell that was 140KG’S on my back! I nearly fell over for god’s sakes. He told me that I shouldn’t squat heavy, it wasn’t good for my definition. I should do lighter and more repetitions.

I was still staring at him in disbelief (huge guy actually) and told him, that I’m nowhere interested in bodybuilding. He insisted he help me. I just asked him, squat the bar first, if he can squat it deep, I’ll learn from him. Yeah, he squatted it alright. Half squat. And proudly said, “And THAT’S how you squat. It will hit your quads and hamstrings”

I was so irritated by that statement, that I just walked to the pull-up bar and did pull-ups instead and ignored him.

What is it with these jackasses? Honestly! I don’t need a PT (Unless the PT’s a certified Oly lifting coach) and I don’t need people watching me when I squat. I just need a good spotter, a solid bar with bumper plates and a platform to lift weights. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t understand why these people cannot just leave me alone. I cannot understand why these people cannot leave any of the squatting and deadlifting community alone.

Like the hell would I need these Pt’s help.

I understand that not all PT’s are awful. The majority are, but some are good. I cannot deny that. If you’re like, NCAA, CISSN certified coaches…then fine. With good experience in lifting real weights (no pec decks don’t count) I’ll gladly come to you.

But these guys are probably just a bunch of guys that liked working out, went to take a course under the company that they were gonna work with anyway, passed some simple test that a 5 year old could handle, and became a so called PT.

That’s……is the pathetic state of the fitness community nowadays.

Wednesday Workout.

Warmups:

Power Clean To Jerk:

70KG x 1 x 3

BTN Jerks:

90KG x 1 x 2
100KG x 1 x 1

Work Sets:

Deadlift:

135KG x 2
145KG x 1
165KG x 4 x 1 (last set couldn’t lock out because of a failing grip. This grip issue has GOT to be addressed ASAP or my lifts will screw up)

Deadlift with snatch grip:

100KG x 4
100KG x 3
120KG x 2

*Upper back was feeling some major burn after this, kinda like a pump. Ouch! I shall SO incorporate this*

Front Squats:

90KG x 2
100KG x 1
110KG x 1 x 3
120KG x 1 x 1 (Big mistake, should just stopped at 110KG’s. Almost fell over LOL! )

Bicep curls:

95LBS x 3 x 5 (Lock for 4 seconds at 90 degrees angle, painful)

19 November 2007

Power Clean

70KG x 2
80KG x 1
90KG x 4 x 1

Back Squats

120KG x 2
130KG x 1
140KG x 4 x 1

Front Squat

90KG x 2
100KG x 1
110KG x 3 x 1

Incline Close Grip Bench Press

135LBS x 2 x 10

DB Flat Hammer Bench Press

42KG/per hand x 2 x 8

*Squats were feeling hella strong. Benchpresses, didn’t feel too good. Then again, I don’t really bother all that much with my benches.

I like this Bulgarian MTR thing.

Greasing The Groove? WHAT?

Did I tell you this is a blog of a weightlifting and powerlifting, or strength training enthusiast?  Sorry bodybuilders, I don’t know much about bodybuilding. Never liked that sport.

Greasing the groove? I’m not too sure what this means either, but I think it has something to do about, doing something repeatedly, till you’re so dammed good at it, it’s scary. Fine.

This is a concept, many old school trainers used to go by. Until the days of Westside and the periodization method, this method probably have been used for all the older strength athletes. I believe both ways have their advantages, and disadvantages, but Pavel Tsatsouline, the Russian strength coach that has been training the Americans still goes by the old school method. Repeated action, till you’re good. Great. Awesome. Amazing. Perfect.

Practice makes perfect.

Okay, Pavel’s article, can be found here. But while reading it, I had a few parts where I had to stop and think and wonder;

“What is this nutty Russian talking about? Oh, it’s a joke…pbthh…”

It’s either I’m too bloody dense, or his jokes, are a little off site, and I think I’ll go with the latter.

Facts About Greasing The Groove

1. It is through a process called “Synaptic Facilitation” that you get stronger when training via this method.
2. Repeatedly training with reasonable intense stimulation of the motoneuron, increases the synaptic connections and CAN form new synaptic connections as well. (Synapse, you probably read that in Grade 10 text book. I’m sure you remember)
3. Simply put, repeated squat efforts, will increase your squat numbers. Repeated bench press efforts, are moderate intensity, increases bench press numbers.

How To Take Advantage Of This?

1.Intensity

The secret, is train with “Reasonably heavy weights doing loads of work”

Train with 80% of your 1RPM for the normal athlete. Train with AT LEAST, 85% of your 1RPM if you’re an elite athlete. But many can be successful training about 60-80% of their max, if they emphasize, high muscular tension, good breathing techniques, right mental training.

If training to have better endurance, lighten weight loads and train a lot.

Do NOT come to failure when you train. Triples with your 5-RPM is good enough. Just do more work. Lots of triples , sets.
2. Repetitions

For some reason, these crazy Russians ALWAYS use repetitions and sets to kill their athletes.

Luke Iams says, “Anything over six reps is bodybuilding.” TOO true. TOO true. I’m not about to condemn bodybuilders (edit:narcissist…SHH!!!!) but truthfully, above six reps, is probably not that important to your strength anymore. So keep your reps, below six.

And a bit of Chinese training methodology put in this, our coach tells us to really bang out the sets, but keep it within 3 reps. I squat, 10×3 at 85% of my 1RPM, thrice a week. And I’ve only done this for about 6 weeks and I’m definitely getting stronger, after having got stuck in the same pit for months!

Any you squat, ONCE a week?

3. Volume 

No, turn down your speakers dumbo. Not that volume.

Volume in this case is the TOTAL weigh you carry in a week. Let’s take for example, your maximum deadlift is 500LBSx1. Last time you pulled 400×5x2, 450×5x2. Take (400LBSx5×2)+(450LBSx5×2)=9500LBS. The theory is, if your numbers increase, your strength should grow.

See how important it is to have a routine and record? Train by feel doesn’t work for strength. It may work to a certain level, but it restricts if you don’t do it right. It’s like playing tennis, with a random grip. You can still play, but you’ll probably be picking up balls most of the time instead of hitting it right. I recommend, continental grip for noobs.

The training volume, must not come at the expensive of intensity. The average intensity, is counted by dividing, poundage, by the total number of lifts. 9500LBS/20=475LBS. The intensity, is expressed in either poundage of 1RPM.

The intensity of 475LBS is about 97% of your 1RPM (500LBS), so it’s good. If you dip to about like….70% of your 1RPM, that’s ….not so good. Increase your intensity by either increasing the weights lifted, or the repetitions and sets.

Confused yet? I already am. Bloody nutcase writes articles like a drunken baboon yet they’re so good.I’m trying my best to dissect it and explain in simpler terms. I can’t figure out a better way to explain this.

Do it gradually, don’t try jumping from 3500LBS total to, say 7000LBS total in a week. You’ll probably die.

4. Frequency.

Effective strength training, is training as often as possible, and as fresh as possible.

The Russians, found that breaking up the training volume, into smaller units is very effective. It promotes strength adaptation in their nervous system.

In simpler terms? Training ONCE a day, 1 set of five reps, is better than training five sets, of five reps, every five days. I recommend reading the above sentence again, SLOWLY, if you’re as dumb as I am.

Okay, easier.

Having sex ONCE a day, daily, is better than having sex, 10,000 times, in an hour, once a year. Get it? Law of diminishing marginal utility heloooo Economics lecturer I actually bloody listened in your class!!!

Specificity Of Exercise.

Choose one exercise you wanna be dammed good at. ME? I recommend the squat or the CNJ. Keep doing it. 10×3x85-95% 1RPM. Do that, over and over again. You’ll be good at it. Take a break once a while, lower the weights, do more reps and sets. Increase it again. Train, get your maxes up.

This method, summed up in simple terms is;

1. Lift heavy weights, as often as possible.

2. Lift when fresh

3. Don’t overtrain, don’t fail.

4. Listen to your body.

Source:
Dragondoor.com

The Variations Of Pull-Ups

Variations Of The Pull-Up

Alright, so we’ve gotten the pull-up down, (WTH?) now we need ways and means to make it more challenging.

These proposed exercises;

1. It probably doesn’t do nuts for hypertrophy.
2. It almost DEFINITELY makes you look like a moron.
3. It definitely makes you feel like a weakling. Try dropping to 2 reps from your previous triumphant 10 rep pull-ups.

Weighted pull-ups

There are a number of ways you can do this. Buy a dip-belt. Add dumbbells between your legs. If you have short pants, clamp the weights between your thigh/quad area. This should

The best method, would of course be buying the dip-belt but if the access to this apparatus is not an option, the other two can do. It WILL feel extremely awkward clamping the weights between your legs, but it’ll feel better after sometime.

Also, as the weights are in an extremely stupid position, it’ll force you to contract the lower body muscles, which you OBVIOUSLY would forget to contract if nobody said “Squeeze all your muscles hard” all the time. Might even help you rep out a few extras.

Also, as this variation allows you to add more weight, it can actually be trained as how you would train a squat. RE, ME, DE methods can be applied here. I’m at 60LBS+bodyweight and I can pretty much “fly” up the bar when I’m pulling up. Some serious DE down there.

It also trains your grip like nobody’s business. Static hangs can be of great asset to your grips. Just add, a couple of 45LBS’S there.

Tips:

1. Do not ever swing. Oh trust me, this is no kipping pull-up. You don’t want to swing
2. Grip, grip, grip the bloody bar properly. This isn’t a normal pull-up, you’ll probably want to recruit as much muscle fibers as possible, and hanging off your fingers like you would for an average pull-up, isn’t the best way to do it.
3. Straps could be very useful. Chalk too.

The L-Seat Pull-Ups.

This is an L-Seat. Simple enough? Alright.

Do the same movement, while hanging static on a bar. It should be relatively easy to hold this position. Here comes the not so easy part.

While hanging on the bar in this position, PULL yourself up as you’d do in a pull-up. Notice the immediate increase in difficulty? Your leg will definitely swing downwards. It’s up to your “core” strength to maintain the parallel position of your feet.

Do NOT sway. Swaying isn’t blooming allowed. Who said you were doing a muscle up?

See? No swaying.

Tips:

1. If you sway, learn to LOCK your hips. I hate the term lock, so I’ll call it “maintain the rigidity” (okay, fine, lock then) your hips, tight.
2. Lock your lats and shoulders.
3. Maximize the contraction in your entire body.
4. Stretch your hips, glutes, hams sometimes please. Stretching isn’t for sissies.

Towel Pull-Ups

I actually learned this from ……okay, this is embarrassing, but…..yes, bodybuilding.com . Okay, fine we all do that sometimes! Right? I mean….well…fine

The good thing about this variation of pull-ups, is that it strains your forearms like nobody’s business. Because you’re forced to grip the hell out of those towels or risk falling down, it does wonders for gripping strength. Many a time, people focus too much on their strength, they forget about their grip. Seriously, a strongman with no grip, ain’t no strongman.

One however, should use a towel that’s strong enough. Nothing of those thin towels. Also some people recommend putting a little water around the towel, so it dampens and strengthens the towel. You don’t wanna have it snap off right?

It’s done pretty much like an average pull-up, so no description needed?

Ring Pull-Ups And Muscle Up

Ring Pull-Ups= Pulling up using those rings. Simple right?

Ring MUSLCE Ups.

This is a variation that’s almost silly to do. No, I’m not sayin gymnasts are stupid to do it. It’s because it’s so difficult it’s almost stupid. For the untrained individual, these rings MOVE! And when I say move, I mean, REALLY MOVE. They swing left and right, front and back! They never stay still so it’s integral to learn the motion of your body. They make you look extremely stupid honestly when you try to muscle your way into a dip.

Getting into the “Dip” position, from the ground isn’t really that hard. Just kick hard and hey presto, you’re up. It’s holding the dip position that’s stupid hard. You have to lock your entire body, no excess movement, learn to flow with the rings. It feels extremely awkward.

HOWEVER, getting into the “Dip” position, in midair. Oh, that’s a completely different agenda altogether. This guy would explain it much better. But I’ll dissect his article and slap it here.

1. Hold bar with a false grip.
2. Bring the rings, close to you, and pull inwards.
3. Keep the rings close to your body, and get your shoulders, OVER the rings and OVER your hands. Lean forward. It should feel like your shoulders, are ROLLING from BEHIND the rings, TO over the top of the shoulders. (I think that’s what it means), or you could pull REALLY hard and lean forward.
4. At this time, try and turn the rings OUTWARDS. Your hands, will split to shoulder width…..as you try to move into a dip position. No no, not too far out. Just enough to dip.
5. PUSH! Into a dip.

Alright, that’s probably the worst dissection of an article you could ever have. Head on over to his site instead. Don’t read mine.

Pics Thanks To:
www.beastskills.com
http://www.crossfiteastside.com

One of the world’s strongest men.

That’s it. That’s all I want to blog about today.
This guy, Magnus Sammuelson, has a 305LBS “cheat” bicep curl, (nothing significant for most things, but extremely useful for his sport of Strongman), a 560LBS bench, won the World’s Strongest Man, and Sweden’s Strongest Man, for as many times as I can bother counting.

He’s done it all, in the strongman scene. I love two things he said. He once said;

“I train for strength, not for beauty. I’m already pretty enough”

““Do it because you love it, not because you’re good at it.”

I can almost say, I live by the weightlifting days, because of these two quotes. Honestly, weightlifting isn’t really going to bring you very very far, unless you’re as good as Leonid Taranenko or Galabin Boevski. I’m not even that good at it. In fact, I suck quite badly at it, but it’s okay. I totally don’t train because I’m good at it. It’s only because I really love it.

It’s also because I love this sport so much, that I actually took the initiative to sit for hours a day, learning about nutrition and training. For someone like me to , SIT and read in front of a monitor, that’s gotta be some serious love for it.

Wait for the whole video to load. It’s absolutely worth the time.