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Thread: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

  1. #141
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lory View Post
    You start off with your heaviest weight and do as many as you can, then you take a smaller weight and do the same again and repeat until your at the lightest weight. Its quite amusing to see these really big guys struggling to lift 1kg at the end!
    Yeah - they're normally called burnouts, for fairly obvious reasons to anyone who's done them. I don't think you can do them very often without overtraining, to be honest.

    It is actually possible to really muck yourself by doing a fairly light exercise to exhaustion. I'm sure it was a freak occurrence, but there's a horror story of a guy who did something like 1000 bodyweight squats for a bet, and his quadriceps fascia became so inflamed he needed surgery. (Can't remember the details, but someone posted a picture of the massively swollen leg pre-surgery. Still could be apocryphal, of course).

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    the quick posts are catching me out!

    I think there is a terminology thing here with the word "exhaustion"

    Simple science, you can tear up a muscle doing small reps and large weight - which adds bulk, due to the repair thing.

    You can do lots of reps with a smaller weight normally to "tone" or gain fitness.

    Once you go past what your muscles can normally deal with... you are then "doing the bizz"

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    It's subjective, because "muscle tone" as used by the general public is really an aesthetic term anyhow. In terms of how I see people use the term, it's far more closely correlated with body fat than with muscle mass - certainly for men, at any rate. Have a look at pictures of Lee Priest in the off season - he's still got a huge amount of muscle, but no-one would even think about calling him toned.
    I agree that the percentage of body fat is hugely important to the aesthetic effect of toning, but while Lee Priest's muscles may not be visibly toned in the off season, there is no doubt that they are still in great shape.

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    As far as I know, you can't really sculpt or shape a muscle. A muscle has two attachment points, and it flexes between them. I am aware of no evidence that you can control the way in which hypertrophy occurs between those points. There is some evidence that it doesn't have to occur uniformly, but I know of none that it can be actually controlled by form of exercise. (But I'd be interested in a cite if you have one).
    How you actually train, is a significant factor in the look of your body. You are right in saying that you can't specifically 'sculpt' an area of muscle, but you can affect the overall look of a muscle by considering how it is made up and by targetting specific areas of the muscle. Take, for example, the biceps. This consists of two bundles of muscle, a short head and a long head, each with its own origin but with both having a common insertion point near the elbow. Doing a simple bicep curl is not going to give maximum benefit to both parts of the muscle. To achieve real definition and tone, you need to do two different types of bicep curl, each focussing primarily on a different head of the bicep. Similarly with bench pressing to hit the pecs, because of the make up of the muscle, a flat bench press only is not going to give you an even increase in size across the whole area of your chest. To hit the upper area of the muscle you also need to press on an incline of around 30-40 degrees, focussing the effort on the clavicular head of the pectoralis major. This gives a more even and defined look and improves the aesthetic tone of the muscle.

    I could go on to talk about triceps, quads and deltoids, but I'm sure you get the idea. Obviously there is so much more to this, including different types of muscle, types of fibre within the muscle and its purpose and different ways to train for strength, endurance and size, but I'd say that's way beyond the scope of this discussion. The simple fact is that just going into a gym and lifting the heaviest weight you can find is not going to give you a defined and toned body, no matter how low your percentage of body fat. It's all about training smarter and, unfortunately, harder...

  4. #144
    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    What you can do is shape a group of muscles. eg. there are many muscles in the shoulder. You can chose to hit the main shoulder muscle hard and grow bulk, or you can chose to hit the front of the shoulder, ther rear of the shoulder etc. specifically.
    Sure. But the distinction between shaping a group and shaping a muscle is important. When I see people (laymen) talking about shaping a muscle, they generally really are talking about shaping that individual muscle. To be specific, they are usually talking about a change that would probably require changing the attachment points of the muscle. They tend to talk about 'balance' when they're talking about the relative sizes of muscles.

    To gain shape (more muscle) you are actually working the muscle past exhaustion (which is what I think you meant) - You are litrally tearing the muscle - the re-growth adds extra muscle as the tear gets repaired.
    Interesting point, (and I've just noticed your last post): what you say about tearing the muscle is of course true, but I've never thought of that as exhausting the muscle. I would think of 'exhaustion' as being the (somewhat subjective) point where you can't get the muscle to lift anything anymore. In practice, no-one really goes that far, but if you can bench 100Kg, then 8 reps at 90kg is unlikely to exhaust you; even if you can't do any more reps at 90 you can still probably rep 50kg fairly easily. You may well be technically right though - there's a theory that micro-trauma occurs when the muscle exhausts its supply of ATP-CP and starts having to metabolise glycogen. (Yes, I did just look that up ). That happens "pretty quick in the game", however - it only takes about 10 seconds to deplete the creatine in the muscle. So long before most people would consider their muscles to be exhausted.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    the quick posts are catching me out!

    I can't keep up with work AND typing on the forum. Something's gotta give. I think my boss may be upset with me today...

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    I thought that muscle was grown gradually by your body having to adapt to a more stressful regime. "Tear and repair" seems a bit extreme: is that only used for 'quick fix' muscle gain?
    (I know that martial artists sometimes break bones because the healed bone is denser than naturally grown bone.. but that's just stupid lengths in my opinion.)

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    I thought that muscle was grown gradually by your body having to adapt to a more stressful regime. "Tear and repair" seems a bit extreme: is that only used for 'quick fix' muscle gain?
    The word "tear" is somewhat misleading here - it's not an actual injury as such that you'd notice. I prefer the term 'micro-trauma'; you're basically talking about damage on a very small scale. This happens all the time when you exercise - I think it's basically what gives you that "ooh, I feel sore" the next day feeling.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Filthy Monkey View Post
    I could go on to talk about triceps, quads and deltoids, but I'm sure you get the idea.
    No no! Go on... I like it! (is there such a thing as a fitness fetish club )
    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    In practice, no-one really goes that far,
    Your joking! Have you never seen men training in a team, two blokes stand holding the ends of the bar, cos the 'lifter' WILL drop it at the end!

    And also, when I'm working my tricep (which BTW was non existent to begin with and its still weak) it suddenly reaches that point and I have to drop the weight, as there's no way I can bring it back up again!
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    Registered User David Franklin's Avatar
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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lory View Post
    Your joking! Have you never seen men training in a team, two blokes stand holding the ends of the bar, cos the 'lifter' WILL drop it at the end!
    Sure. What I've not seen someone do is someone keep reducing the weight until they can't lift even the bar, then get a light dumbell, keep going, and finally rep with nothing but the arm until they can't even move their arm anymore. (And if they did, I think it would be stupid).

    There does come a point where pushing yourself too hard in the gym becomes counterproductive. Seeing healthy people being carried out of the gym after they black out isn't a great deal of fun, particularly after you know of rowers at your university who dropped dead after ergos.

    And also, when I'm working my tricep (which BTW was non existent to begin with and its still weak) it suddenly reaches that point and I have to drop the weight, as there's no way I can bring it back up again!
    Just to be clear, there's a difference between no longer being able to move a weight with your arm, and no longer being able to move your arm at all.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    I thought that muscle was grown gradually by your body having to adapt to a more stressful regime. "Tear and repair" seems a bit extreme: is that only used for 'quick fix' muscle gain?
    Muscle is grown gradually, and yes, it does tear and repair, that is the way it works. Not a quick fix, just the way it is.

    That is why it aches the day after, or for a few days after, if your body needs time.

    Quote Originally Posted by David Franklin View Post
    The word "tear" is somewhat misleading here - it's not an actual injury as such that you'd notice. I prefer the term 'micro-trauma'; you're basically talking about damage on a very small scale. This happens all the time when you exercise - I think it's basically what gives you that "ooh, I feel sore" the next day feeling.
    Not a BIG injury, but an injury all the same, that the body fills up with more muscle mass.

    I have not heard the term "micro-trauma" - nice tag, it is damage on a small scale as you say.

    As Lori would say.... no pain, no gain... the pain is the ripping of muscle fibre and the repair process going on, to make you stronger.

    BTW good posts FM

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lory View Post
    Then why do all the instructors i've ever worked with, advocate what FM said.... i.e small weight, lots of reps for 'toning' and BIG weights/low reps for gaining muscle mass?
    I really did see this in action. When I was in my early 20s' I went weight training with two friends as part of our Tae Kwon-Do training. My friends lifted massive weights and I lifted light weights and did loads of reps and plenty of stretching. My friends became amazingly strong and got huge muscles. I got thinner and thinner and you could see all my muscles, rather like something from anatomy lessons

    When we sparred my chunky friends were very slow and, basically, rubbish at fist-fighting and kicking. And the bigger they got the slower they went. I think they would have been good at grappling, but they seemed to lose flexibility and agility. On the other hand, I seemed to get faster and more agile. Although I weighed so much less than my muscular friends my blows seemed to bounce off them rather than have much effect.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    I really did see this in action. When I was in my early 20s' I went weight training with two friends as part of our Tae Kwon-Do training. My friends lifted massive weights and I lifted light weights and did loads of reps and plenty of stretching. My friends became amazingly strong and got huge muscles. I got thinner and thinner and you could see all my muscles, rather like something from anatomy lessons

    When we sparred my chunky friends were very slow and, basically, rubbish at fist-fighting and kicking. And the bigger they got the slower they went. I think they would have been good at grappling, but they seemed to lose flexibility and agility. On the other hand, I seemed to get faster and more agile. Although I weighed so much less than my muscular friends my blows seemed to bounce off them rather than have much effect.
    Absolutely, good post Andy.

    I never did see the advantage of (for a guy) lots of reps and light weights, unless you are looking to run a marathon or do endurance sports, or need a good deal of speed.

    For a Lady I can see the benefit of light weights and lots of reps.

    For me, I did heavy weights and low reps, since I was 14. I still maintained speed and flexibility in both Judo and Kung Fu, but that could have been from natural DNA. I think it was not the norm, as many people were supprised that a "large guy" was fast and agile.

    There are of course many types of strength. A friend of mine cycles a lot and goes to the gym regularly, does many reps of light weights and is REALLY fit. He cannot however do big lifts with regular size girls.
    I am in no way as fit as him, but I can lift him above my head

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    I am in no way as fit as him, but I can lift him above my head
    Having such a low head helps too

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor View Post
    Having such a low head helps too
    I do come up short... but not as short as you

    But what is one inch between friends... unless of course you are intimate friends

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    No one has mentioned muscle cramp.

    I was told by a physio that the muscle cramps if poisonous fluids are in the muscle.

    He said to always try and stretch the muscle even if the cramp's really painful.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    I've always understood one of the main causes of cramp to be a lack of minerals in the blood, such as sodium, magnessium or potassium, often caused by dehydration.

    The pain in muscles from overuse, which may be what you're referring to, is due to a build up of hydrogen ions in the form of lactic acid, due to a lack of oxygen getting to the muscle during intense exercise. This is main reason you are advised to cool down after exercise, as continued light work will encourage oxygen into the muscle, helping to remove the lactic acid.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by Astro View Post
    No one has mentioned muscle cramp................

    He said to always try and stretch the muscle even if the cramp's really painful.
    How else do you deal with muscle cramp's ? If I dont stretch the muscle I am in agony

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by David Bailey View Post
    • better ability to dance.
    • Hotter chicks.
    Dancing is better at both of those things than lifting weights.

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    This has changed from a personal hygene thread into a scientific analysis of biological and biblical proportions.

    Guess what YOU DANCE YOU SWEAT.

    Stone me live with it.

    If you dont like it spend most of your time on a forum...Oh sh1t pot calling kettle etc etc.

    DTS XXX XXX

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    Re: Why don't men bring a towel/change of shirt?

    Quote Originally Posted by stairman View Post
    How else do you deal with muscle cramp's ? If I dont stretch the muscle I am in agony
    I was once told that if you pinch the bit of skin between your big toe and second toe the cramp would dissipate

    I thought it was a load of baloney. Then I tried it once and it did work Really weird

    I can't say I've tried it again though... that's not really that great considering I'm a scientist.... hmmm.... anyone up for a clinical trial

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