Hi themattmeister, No disclaimer, area well matted out and either myself or my Mucker Bob is in attendance, have had to catch one or two at various times but touch wood NO serious accidents in 18 years. Have got Rope and Pulleys for Ropes, Nets and Regains for first timers.
10K I think I'll invest in some Helmets
StinkyFurby, I believe nothing compensates for Free Weights, Machines don’t give you the same intensity. Where possible use Bar Bells and Dumb Bells. Instead of boring routines on the Step Machine do Step Ups and Lunges with Dumb Bells.
If you want a ROUTINE to work from PM me with Age, Height and Weight.
You got a repitation of being a SIDEWALK STINKY, Dont Fake with me OR I'll set the PitBull (Artist) on to you.
Just a bit of feed back lads. How does your Gym fee's compare with ours.
£15 Joining Fee and £5 a week Training Fee. For those prices you can train for as long as you want and as often as you want between the hours of 09:00 and 21:00, Sunday to Friday. Saturday OUR DAY.
"qualified" personal trainers are 10 a penny these days yet most dont know how to get strong. The fact is that you can get strong and fit, just forget everything you learnt from bodybuilding magazines and forums.
First dont equate muscle size with strength, it has no correlation, 180 pound bob peoples lifted over 900 pounds from the floor!, if you want to get strong you need to lift heavy weights often, while staying fresh, the russian power lifting team trains 8 sessions a week on the bench press. Strength is all about adaptation, you already posses enormous strength in your muscles, you just have to train it, ever heard of grannys ripping car doors off? The key is to focus on lifts like the deadlift, squat, pull up, dip and bench press, very low reps are in order too so you avoid muscle breakdown and soreness and sets should be low too , 1-5. Forget feeling the burn too, there is no correlation between muscle soreness and strength gains, you should feel stronger after a workout than before, also, rest at least 4 minutes between sets.
Big muscles look nice but are not suitable for soldiers , a heavy body is not suited to running or marching and large muscles need lots of protein and other foods plus lots of rest to grow, this is ok with a 9-5 job and regular sleep but the army is`nt like that, bodybuilding training, high reps to the burn, leaves muscle soreness that hinders performance, you cant say to your sergeant that you cant do a parachute jump coz your quads are burning.
Build a solid strength base through regular training, 5 days a week lifting iron, add weight slowly for 4 weeks (a cycle) then have a week off and start a new cycle at say 70% of what you were lifting at the end of the previous cycle. Staying fresh doesnt mean not putting in effort, it just means that 2 sets of 4 with a really heavy weight and lots of rest between sets is better for pure strength than half an hour spent with countless sets of 10 reps with numerous different exercises. If you are deadlifting 50kilos 5 times and think you can do 10, dont rep out, stop at 5 and add some weight next workout, if you rep out to maximum you`ll be sore the next day and unable to train.
A good training plan is to do weighted pull ups, dips or presses 5 days a week for the upper body and running with the lower body.
'Qualified' trainers are indeed 10 a penny Kettlegav, and they indeed don't tend to know much, which is exactly why I'm a bit skeptical of what you are saying. What do you do exactly and how are you qualified to be giving this advice, because it runs contrary to most everything I've heard.
Surely low reps with high weight merely builds tears muscle, builds bulk and single-lift high-weight ability, both of which are utterly useless for the military, as you say. Press-ups et c, on the other hand, build muscle stamina and recovery through high reps, use of multiple muscle groups, and a sensible weight. Similarly your ideas on rest seem tailored to build bulk, not strength.
As for training to failure, and being too sore the next day to train, I know for a fact that is bollocks. When I started out doing the upper body circuits in the RM training program on this site (high reps, high sets), my muscles were completely exhausted at the end, but I kept at it 5 days a week. After a while, not only was I not exhausted at the end of a circuit session (though pushing the number I was doing to essentially the maximum, every day), but I could go and swim crawl using just my arms for 2 miles in the evening, as I had to when I picked up a leg injury...and I was still doing this 5 days a week without problem. My muscle bulk has increased minimally during all this, and my strength is about proportional to my bodyweight I would imagine, but I have stamina and endurance through the roof.
From everything I have read and heard, your program there would have just given me nice large biceps which could do bugger all, even though this doesn't seem to be your intention. Anyone else who knows more want to chip in?
As usual the russians go forward in military fitness training , the americans get hold of it and make it better and then we catch up last. Gone are the days when push ups and sit ups were the best military exercises, ok they are good, but just because they are good doesnt mean there isnt something better.
Strength training is a science and a lot of studies have been done with its effectiveness in the military, especially in russia and the US, i read an interesting post a few years ago on a forum about an airbourne ranger who had radically changed the way he trained. Basically after he saw action in the gulf he realised that push ups and sit ups and endless runs were good for training to pass a PT test but not so good for making good soldiers. Lets take strength for a soldier, a soldier needs strength for carrying equipment and injured comrades, he needs explosive strength for getting up from prone, sprinting to the next position and firing, he also needs endurance for rucking and the like, so the russians, too pragmatic to waste their troopers time on endless push ups and sit ups, broke down the training and simplified it, cut away all that was un-necesary and concentrated on what worked. The training methods for spetznatz was top secret but now it is starting to come out thanks mainly to an ex-spetznatz master trainer who defected to america and is now teaching the FBI, Delta force and navy seals. If you dont believe me go to
I recently went to lithuania for some cheap parachute jump training and a bit of a holiday
and there were 2 ex spetznatz guys training us for the jumps and though they were de-mobed they made royal marine commandos look like table tennis players and im not b/s`ing
i have been using the methods for 6 months and will be trying for the parachute regiment, if you want proof i`ll message you in 6 months when i join and let u know how i get on.
Sarastro you are right mate.
Low rep high weight training (which better suits people whith a high % of fast twitch fibres anyway) versus high repetition bodyweight excersises, is no contest from a Military training point of view. The pushups etc win everytime.
Gav you are obviously a lifter who focuses on the powerlifting side of things, with the rest times you cite etc and I can see you know your stuff but that discipline of weightlifting is probably the least relevant to military training.
Sorry to be a bit of a pedantic git, but your wrong about the 900lb deadlift.
Here is a list of the few people who have lifted that much.
Have got Rope and Pulleys for Ropes, Nets and Regains for first timers.
How does your Gym fee's compare with ours.
