^ Yeah I really need to start those. I usually skipped them in high school cause when I was in the tenth grade playing football I injured my back pretty bad deadlifting 315.

 

If you have a good spotter, hang cleans do wonders for drawing the combined use of muscles together and also developing explosive power. If you do them wrong, you can really hurt yourself though. You have to start light and when you get the form right, your lifts will jump like 50 lbs.

 

yea ... im doing light right now it seemed tough even on light weight doing it for the 1st time in 2 years after highschool as well my spotter is juiced up so yea i have a nice spotter lol

 

Are you talking about deadlifts or hangcleans. Hangcleans are where you hold the bar above your knees and flex in order from your calves up to your traps, jump a bit and roll your elbows under the bar ending with it at upper chest level.

 

deadlifts.

 

I love deadlifts... I always wear a belt however when i go over 300lbs. I just cant risk it because ive pulled numerous back muscles and dont want to pull anymore. I am sore as hell today after do deads for the first time in a month yesterday. I got 350lbs. up 4 times though. I was surprised cause i figured id be a little bit weaker after loosing 15lbs of body weight in the last month and a half.

 

dam nice bro im doing 250 lol and yea wearing the belt as well... what i really love are butterflys for ur chest i got nice pecs but im trying to work out the bottom of my pecs need some form i got the middle formation and sides love the feeling of my chest burning and arms.

 

^ I was wearing a belt when I hurt my back haha. When I start back, I am not going to use a belt for a while (I just won't go that heavy) so I can strengthen those core muscles to help prevent future injuries. I've read pro's and con's to wearing belts. Some don't wear them because they think belts keep your core weak and will often lead to injury instead of preventing it. I personally have never felt any safer wearing a belt. After my injury, I usually passed on wearing a belt. I just never maxed on anything like squats or dead. If I do hang cleans or anything crazy like that though i definitely will wear a belt.

In regard to pecs, there is a great article in this month's Musclemag International that approaches working chest in a way I've never done it before. Basically you use an adjustable bench and do presses from every angle the bench will go to. You either have to use dumbells or the smithmachine. Also trying different grip widths on barbell flat bench (I mean like 6 different grip widths.) You do a lot ofsets. It seems like a good way to really blast your chest. You can dothe same thing with dumbell flyes. I am very interested in tryingthis approachwhen I start back at the gym.

I stayed home yesterday with my 5 & 1/2 month old baby (thought she was sick but she wasn't.) I watched Pumping Iron cause I was bored. If you haven't seen it before, I recommend buying it. I bought it a whileback - I think I paid like $7.50 for it on Amazon.com. It really motivates me to want to get in the gym. I love the workout scenes. On the special features there is some footage of ou Ferrignodoingbicep curls on an incline bench (the ones that are harder than standing curls cause they isolate themuscle and don't allow you to cheat as much) using 100lb dumbells for multiple reps. It also shows him doing standing military presses with 335 lbs for like 8 reps.One peice of footageshows Franco Columbu bench pressing what appears to be 645 lbs (the plates look like 100 pound plates instead of 45's -much thicker than 45's - there are 3 on either side of the barbell)for multiple reps as well while Schwartzenegger cracks jokes making him laugh in the middle of his set. If you buy the 25th Anniversary edition they have a fairly currentinterview (I think it was done in 2000)with Schwartzenegger in the special features. It's pretty cool cause he explains stuff about the movie and what it was like bodybuilding in the 70's. It also has a video biography on Schwartzenegger.

 

Did anyone watch "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" last night? they had the world's strongest man Phil Phister on there - he only won 25k. They also had the World's Strongest woman Jill Mills on there. She can bench 390 and squat over 600lbs! She won 50k.

 

i cant run 100 yards without being winded... but i sometimes bench press (the ladys like the big chest and arms) i press 265