Stupid Questions Thread

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Salutations everybody,

I'm currently thinking about diversifying my training objectives, so far I've been doing mostly barbell stuff and I'm thinking about branching out a bit to include:

1°) Barbell stuff (just like before, classic lifting)
2°) Bodyweight (and maybe gymnastic rings) stuff
3°) Kettlebell and jumping stuff

Understand that I'm not doing 2°) and 3°) in order to get better at 1°), I'm doing them in order to get better at 2°) and 3°), because I find them fun and I have those implements in my garage gym. Obviously if you want to be very good at barbells focus on barbells. I plan to do this emerging strategies style, just like I did for my barbell stuff.

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ? I'm kind of intrigued on how to approach those new modalities.

Thanks !

[DCR]

Salutations everybody,

I'm currently thinking about diversifying my training objectives, so far I've been doing mostly barbell stuff and I'm thinking about branching out a bit to include:

2°) Bodyweight (and maybe gymnastic rings) stuff

Understand that I'm not doing 2°) and 3°) in order to get better at 1°), I'm doing them in order to get better at 2°) and 3°), because I find them fun and I have those implements in my garage gym…

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ?

You’re more than halfway there by going into this treating it as something fun that you can improve in and of itself, without regard to its effect on your barbell lifts. Bodyweight training won’t materially affect your barbell lifts - in the several years during which I switched to bodyweight only training, I lost nearly all of my gym strength. I could do one arm pushups but first day back in the gym had diffficulty benching 135. (I also looked and felt far better than I do now.) The stories you see promoting bodyweight training that reference some mythical champion gymnast who benched 405 his first day benching are total bullshit.

That said, it’s super fun, may induce some hypertrophy, is great for injury prevention, and makes for good baseline work to hold onto.

My advice, in the spirit of fun and a challenge, is to do all of the things that one’s ego often discourages when one is concerned with weight on a bar: pauses, hard count tempo work, one and a half reps, partials to work into a movement, whatever. The goal IMO should be to get awesome at full body tension. Do whatever movements you think are fun.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@DCR Thanks for sharing your experience, and yeah I full agree with you: specificity is the king, and my experience had taught me this the hard way: I could progress on exercise X, and it did nothing for exercise Y, although X and Y use the same muscle groups. Like for instance I kept reading that if you get stronger at weighted dips then your bench will go up automatically, to which I reply "no lol".

Actually there's a parallel (in reverse) with what some of the hardline barbell coaches (not to name any names) preach where they argue that if you get your (insert big barbell compound here) to (insert arbitrary strength standard here) then you'll be great at all things physical. Once again, "no lol".

After trying out a bunch of things I realize (like you pointed out) that full body tension and control is useful, and also that I'm really not good at it, unless its in a "basic" position like a squat or deadlift.

[DCR]

@DCR Thanks for sharing your experience, and yeah I full agree with you: specificity is the king, and my experience had taught me this the hard way: I could progress on exercise X, and it did nothing for exercise Y, although X and Y use the same muscle groups. Like for instance I kept reading that if you get stronger at weighted dips then your bench will go up automatically, to which I reply "no lol".

Ha, same experience with dips / bench, and generally. Even variations of a weighted movement itself rarely amount to anything for me. For example, pause benching never did shit for my touch-and-go bench. I just got good at pause benching.

[James]

I may have done something stupid.

I made a cable belt squat. The problem is the pull up bar one of the pulleys is hanging from is rated for 350 lbs and the pulley mounted to the foot platform is rated for 450 lb. And I hand sewn the webbing the pulleys hang from who knows how much those will hold.

But what I don't know is, and here's my stupid question, are peoples belt squat heavier than their back squat?

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I may have done something stupid.

I made a cable belt squat. The problem is the pull up bar one of the pulleys is hanging from is rated for 350 lbs and the pulley mounted to the foot platform is rated for 450 lb. And I hand sewn the webbing the pulleys hang from who knows how much those will hold.

But what I don't know is, and here's my stupid question, are peoples belt squat heavier than their back squat?

If you can do 3 sets of 30 reps with 350 lbs with a pause at the bottom then you should probably change the machine.

Otherwise you're probably fine.

[James]

I would rather slam my dick in a car door than do 30 pause reps of squats but yes I guess that would work.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

I would rather slam my dick in a car door than do 30 pause reps of squats but yes I guess that would work.

Yeah make it hurt.

[asdf]

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ?

I'm a hybrid exerciser. I run, lift, and do metcons. My bodyweight, gymnastic, jumping, and dumbbell stuff is all rolled into my metcons. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to schedule everything to minimize interference. My current rotation looks like this:

Day 1: Long trail run
Day 2: (AM) Long ruck (PM) Bench + upper-body metcon
Day 3: Snatch + squat
Day 4: Off
Day 5: (AM) Track intervals (PM) C&J + deadlift
Day 6: Press + total-body metcon
Day 7: Off

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ?

I'm a hybrid exerciser. I run, lift, and do metcons. My bodyweight, gymnastic, jumping, and dumbbell stuff is all rolled into my metcons. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to schedule everything to minimize interference. My current rotation looks like this:

Day 1: Long trail run
Day 2: (AM) Long ruck (PM) Bench + upper-body metcon
Day 3: Snatch + squat
Day 4: Off
Day 5: (AM) Track intervals (PM) C&J + deadlift
Day 6: Press + total-body metcon
Day 7: Off

Thanks for chiming in dude. I am thinking about something similar, where (to summarize) each day is oriented on a particular modality or objective:
Day 1: Bench / Press / Arms Day 2: Squat / Deadlift / Abs Day 3: Bodyweigth stuff / Kettlebell Stuff / Arms Day 4: rest and then repeat the process.

[DCR]

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ?

I'm a hybrid exerciser. I run, lift, and do metcons. My bodyweight, gymnastic, jumping, and dumbbell stuff is all rolled into my metcons. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to schedule everything to minimize interference. My current rotation looks like this:

Day 1: Long trail run
Day 2: (AM) Long ruck (PM) Bench + upper-body metcon
Day 3: Snatch + squat
Day 4: Off
Day 5: (AM) Track intervals (PM) C&J + deadlift
Day 6: Press + total-body metcon
Day 7: Off

Thanks for chiming in dude. I am thinking about something similar, where (to summarize) each day is oriented on a particular modality or objective:
Day 1: Bench / Press / Arms Day 2: Squat / Deadlift / Abs Day 3: Bodyweigth stuff / Kettlebell Stuff / Arms Day 4: rest and then repeat the process.

Nodding vigorously at two arm days.

[AlanMackey]

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ?

I'm a hybrid exerciser. I run, lift, and do metcons. My bodyweight, gymnastic, jumping, and dumbbell stuff is all rolled into my metcons. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to schedule everything to minimize interference. My current rotation looks like this:

Day 1: Long trail run
Day 2: (AM) Long ruck (PM) Bench + upper-body metcon
Day 3: Snatch + squat
Day 4: Off
Day 5: (AM) Track intervals (PM) C&J + deadlift
Day 6: Press + total-body metcon
Day 7: Off

Here's mine:

Day 1: 60'-90' easy run.
Day 2: lower body push & upper body pull.
Day 3: BJJ.
Day 4: off.
Day 5: 30'-60' easy run.
Day 6: lower body pull & upper body push.
Day 7: BJJ.
Day 8: off.
Day 7: Off

[AlanMackey]

It's more a stupid observation than a stupid question, but here it is anyway: I've been pre-warming up with 5x5 with an empty barbell for all my lifts.

It doesn't take much time nor energy and I feel and lift so much better!

[asdf]

Day 1: Bench / Press / Arms
Day 2: Squat / Deadlift / Abs
Day 3: Bodyweigth stuff / Kettlebell Stuff / Arms
Day 4: rest and then repeat the process.

Day 1: 60'-90' easy run.
Day 2: lower body push & upper body pull.
Day 3: BJJ.
Day 4: off.
Day 5: 30'-60' easy run.
Day 6: lower body pull & upper body push.
Day 7: BJJ.
Day 8: off

Both of those look good. I actually prefer 4- or 8-day rotations like you guys have. But I train with my wife and she works a regular Mon through Fri job. Our long trail runs and rucks need to be on the weekend, so we cram everything into a 7-day microcycle. Sometimes it's a bit much.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

@asdf Yeah I agree having some flexibility in the schedule goes a long way. Sometimes I'll take an "autoregulated" rest day and I feel that it makes a difference.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

My question is: does anyone here train in this kind of "hybrid" fashion and what was your experience ? any recommendations ?

I'm a hybrid exerciser. I run, lift, and do metcons. My bodyweight, gymnastic, jumping, and dumbbell stuff is all rolled into my metcons. The biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to schedule everything to minimize interference. My current rotation looks like this:

Day 1: Long trail run
Day 2: (AM) Long ruck (PM) Bench + upper-body metcon
Day 3: Snatch + squat
Day 4: Off
Day 5: (AM) Track intervals (PM) C&J + deadlift
Day 6: Press + total-body metcon
Day 7: Off

Thanks for chiming in dude. I am thinking about something similar, where (to summarize) each day is oriented on a particular modality or objective:
Day 1: Bench / Press / Arms Day 2: Squat / Deadlift / Abs Day 3: Bodyweigth stuff / Kettlebell Stuff / Arms Day 4: rest and then repeat the process.

Nodding vigorously at two arm days.

Big arms big paychecks, dumbbell curls and good looking girls brother.

[dw]

Thoughts on the guy who died squatting? (You can Google Justyn Vicky if unfamiliar.)

There's a death video which I haven't watched. It sounds like it was a fairly straightforward squat failure (400# I read) without a failure plan.

[Culican]

My question about this is, isn't it almost always better to just use safeties so that you can lower yourself down and rest the bar on the safeties rather than have someone stand behind you and spot you?

Edit to add: Someone asked me to spot them a few weeks ago at the gym. It was ~275lb or so and I took a position where I could grab the guys torso if needed (not like the spotter in the video who grabbed the bar) but still I had thought that if things went wrong I might not be able to help. I think I will turn down future squat spot requests.

Warning: The video is not for the faint of heart.

[janoycresva]

squatting heavy without safeties is fucking stupid, categorically

I don’t care how much experience you have or how you “know how to fail” or whatever, you’re one freak injury or inattentive gymgoer bumping you away from something life altering

[Hardartery]

My question about this is, isn't it almost always better to just use safeties so that you can lower yourself down and rest the bar on the safeties rather than have someone stand behind you and spot you?

Edit to add: Someone asked me to spot them a few weeks ago at the gym. It was ~275lb or so and I took a position where I could grab the guys torso if needed (not like the spotter in the video who grabbed the bar) but still I had thought that if things went wrong I might not be able to help. I think I will turn down future squat spot requests.

Warning: The video is not for the faint of heart.

Assuming this linked video is the incident in question, he is a victim of a whole lot of stupid going on. I can see a side spotter at the beginning, again assuming here, the side spotters should have been hands on plates to help that. The center spotter should have been arms around the chest like a hug waiting to happen and been chest on back and squat it up with him. Either one of those things separately would have been sufficient to prevent death or injury. Dumping the bar forward is almost always a stupid idea, and something you get away with only of you go ragdoll limp on the dump and just go forward. Trying to stay upright in any way is a problem with this "Dismount", and the spotters may have been 100% culpable in the death. He appears to break his neck, which would be from sheer force from the bar being held back towards his body instead of propelling forward and away instead of down and across the neck. He would have been safer with nothing at all, no spotters, no safeties, he would almost certainly have just dumped it backwards to no or very little injury.

It's important to have a good spotter if you are going to use one, not just some gym bro who happens to be there, there is actual skill involved in spotting correctly. The lifter also should have stayed back and simply called for the dump at the bottom instead of going forward like that, but I'm not casting blame on him, that is a difficult thing to control in the moment, especially if your spotter is a dipshit pushing the bar path the wrong way.