Big J

Awesome! Nice flat back, and if I were to constructively critique (hard to tell from that angle) I would say your knees are perhaps just a touch too far forward over your toes, and it looks like your knees could do with being pushed out slightly to the sides. I'd suggest trying a slightly wider stance, as it would possibly fix both those things. It takes years to learn to squat properly and your form as a beginner is excellent

I have one bottle of ale every night (3.5 to 6% ABV depending on which one it is) and the occasional dram of whisky, usually from Islay. That puts me just a touch over the recommended amount, but I figure at my size, the recommended amount doesn't quite apply. I've abstained from alcohol in the past, and haven't found any difference between that and sensible consumption apart from that I'm more miserable!

Very good. As I said though, form is key and getting instruction from someone who knows what they are doing will be the difference between reaping the benefits of a great exercise and potential injury. Squatting is easy when you know how, but there is a learning curve!

Don't think of squatting as powerlifting but rather the core of any gym routine. Like deadlift, it utilises all major muscle groups, but deadlift can be more problematic for the lower back (I only really do trap bar deadlift at this time as I can keep my back flatter throughout the lift). The key thing with squatting is form. Watch videos on Youtube on squat form and try to find someone in the gym who knows how to squat who you can work with to learn the ropes. Once you've got it, you'll never go back to the machines. There just isn't any comparison.

If you've not tried squatting Silky, you've not lived! I spent about 10 week building up leg strength a bit on the leg press, extension and curl. All good, but only when I started squatting again did I get the full body workout. Your core gets a hammering - obliques especially. It has been said that if you were to do only one lift then it should be squats. The anabolic effect for the whole body is huge.

Is that on squats? Have you considered increasing the volume on legs? After about 2.5 weeks mine have finally adapted to squatting every 48 hours and it's getting much easier. Rupe, nice to hear that you open water swim. The problem for me is that by comparison, a pool is the awful. Swimming across a loch is bliss for me, but the chlorinated pool is hard to get excited about.

I enjoy swimming Rupe, but find pools to be dreadfully dull. Open water where I'm most at home, but getting a comfortable temperature in the UK is tricky! My wife fairly recently joined the gym. She used to lift casually when I was last lifting. We've since had two kids, the second 5 months ago so she's hoping to address a few 'lugging baby around' back issues and generally tone up. We created a mostly machines based routine that was OK, but was a bit time consuming and didn't lead to much in the way of DOMS. So went in today with her and did squats, push press, leg press, bench, horizontal row and lat pulldown. Just six lifts with the focus being on the first two. She's been complaining all evening about lore legs! Ha!

Am glad u are a fan the man is a genius I think some days are body is just not as Hungary as others no matter what u do physically I get days when I could literally eat the fridge and all that's inside of it but others when I have to force my my six meals I consistency is the key with eating Off the back of Stan's videos, I've started watching the super training gym vids from mike bell and those are great too. Makes me hungry to up my numbers!

I've watched loads of Stan efferding's videos on your recommendation Don and really enjoy his rants. I believe that he really knows his stuff, and recognise that real eating is better than shakes but I know my limitations and I get bored eating endlessly. I probably get 2/3 of my calories from food and 1/3 from shakes. What's odd today is that even after the heavy squatting and everything else yesterday, I'm just not hungry today.

Quite sensible Stephen. I get my supplements from Myprotein. I ordered from them when I was lifting last time (over 10 years ago) and they've always been good.

The whey protein is a joy to consume compared to the pea protein. I was vegan last time I lifted, and the the shakes were awful. The strawberry flavour of the weight gainer makes it easy. The amino acid supplementation is a new one to me, but I shall read about citrulline when I have a moment. Previously, my lifting and diet was well structured, but I didn't supplement much past creatine. I would love to be strong again, but the issue at my height is the gigantic amount of weight needed to overcome my leverage issues. Competitive strongmen (not that I want to compete again) at my height are generally 160-190kg. I can't handle that much eating!

Glad to hear you're back at the gym! Shoveling snow not enough for you then?! You must be sick of it by now. Not tempted by the resistance training? I think that's where you'll see the biggest improvements in quality of life.

Supplementing quite a bit because I'm a lazy eater. So presently on: Myprotein weight gainer - ground oats mixed with whey protein Whey powder Creatine - I've always responded very well to this. Started just before Christmas and saw an immediate strength increase and weight gain L-glutamine - I haven't used it before but I thought, why not? Just been using it for a couple of weeks. It's coincided with me returning to free weights and perhaps it's helped me squat every other day without too much trouble. Dextrose and maltodextrin - I carb up either side of a workout or other exercise. The above ingredients with semi skimmed milk mean I can easily produce an 800 kcal shake which can be necked in 20 seconds and digested very quickly. I also take an omega 3+6+9, glucosamine (no idea how effective that is) and a multivitamin. On about 5500-6000 kcal a day presently, and now sat at just over 113kg, up from 100kg 14 weeks ago. I'll probably bulk to 125kg and then try to cut back to a leanish 120kg and hold at that. The allure of the heavier weights is hard to resist though.

I did a 29 cube load of fresh oak at it weighed in at 11.4 tonnes, so 2.54 cube per tonne. Softwood a bit less generally, unless it's very wet chipwood (top sections of the tree are much sappier, and therefore wetter).

I was wondering if I might bend the ear of folk involved in smaller scale forestry down in the South West (specifically Devon) for 10 minutes or so on the phone? I'd be tremendously grateful to their time. Please message me if you have a moment. Jonathan

Squatted up to 1x125kg this evening which was reasonably straightforward. That's 25kg more than I've squatted since returning to lifting, but still 65kg less than I used to do. Push pressed up to 2x75kg, which was quite easy. 40kg down on what I used to do. Trap bar deadlift up to 1x150kg, which is 110kg down on before, but form was good (squatted the weight up with a fairly flat back). Strength is coming back quickly, along with the weight (12kg in 13 weeks) but it's a bit depressing how low the weights are!

That's odd. I've had that 'bucket' for years and years and it says I'm only about 16% full in terms of usage. I was always a bit weak on bench lock out, even with focused tricep work. Massive wingspan to blame I guess. Before I started doing narrow grip I reached (what I considered was quite a high bench for 102kg bodyweight at my lofty height) 135kg on the bench, but didn't get past 140kg on narrows. My little brother is benching that now, so I obviously have to beat that! Stephen, glad that you are getting somewhere with the doctors. I know first hand what constant pain does to you. Drags every aspect of your existence down, like a grey camera filter on your life. And you can't ever be accused of being inactive, so I hope you can get it sorted

Quite agree. I'm taking my time on warm ups at the moment as the motions aren't second nature again yet. Bench goes something like: 10@20, 8@40, 8@60, 5@80 and then whatever the working sets are. Did an easy 1@100kg the other day, but reckon I've got 105-110kg in there are the moment. I'm on a fairly standard grip now though (used to be narrow grip as better carry over to log press) as I figure that I go enough tricep work elsewhere. Also, with my 7ft wingspan, middle finger on the rings is still pretty narrow. Squats require serious warm ups at the moment to get past the DOMS from the previous session. So 8@bodyweight, 8@20kg, 8@40kg, 5@60kg, 5@80kg and so on. I never bothered with a pause on the bench (beyond sometimes pausing the final rep on a set) as I never trained for powerlifting specifically, but I don't bounce. Touch and go. I'm very strong off my chest and weak on lockout.

Feel pretty good generally. Physically, it seems to iron out the aches I get in the right side of my back. If I eat a full meal within 2 hours of training I usually feel sick. Mentally, it's nice to properly push myself in the gym and I'm still at the stage of really easy gains as I've only been training 3 months.

With a pause as well. Bloody impressive. I forget where I heard it, but the theory was that you can bench with a higher frequency than other lifts. I'd never have the patience to do enough back work to balance out three days a week of benching though!

Naturally, every little helps when moving heavy lumps of concrete! I'm fairly sure that my reliance on the belt is what injured my back at that time, but you do these things when you are young and stupid (22-23 in the photos).

Sorry for the random post quoting Silky Fox - I couldn't post anything on that thread apart from that. Odd little glitch. I found much the same VI - when I was doing regular forestry work my back was generally fine. That range of movement is key. More photos from that time:

I just can't lift well in the mornings. It takes at least 6 hours from getting up for my lower back to work properly. It always has. After 6 hours I can squat effectively without lower back instability and weakness being an issue. It's so funny being in a commercial gym after all these years. We used to have a little industrial unit and a spit and sawdust strongman gym about 10 years ago, so a shiny warm gym with treadmills and machines is very alien. This was our old gym: There are a few main mistakes people seem to make in the gym: * The main one is not train legs. Considering that your legs, glutes and lower back make up way in excess of 50% of your muscle mass, I'd say 90-95% of the training I observe is upper body training. This is especially true with younger guys. They don't seem to realise that the anabolic effect from consistent leg training will cause everything else to grow more quickly. And also that chicken legs don't impress the ladies. * Not enough intensity. A lot of folk barely seem to break a sweat. Doing 10 rep sets when they could easily do 20. Pratting around with the phone between sets. Doing 6 different exercises to hit one muscle group. Going through the motions of lifting won't build muscle. * Too much isolation. I've seen guys come straight in through the gym doors and hit the curls. 8 different ways. They ought to be doing all sorts of upper back work (which hits the biceps) and then do a few sets of curls at the end. * Not eating correctly. I was chatting to one kid a couple of months back (early 20s maybe) who said he hadn't gained weight for a year. He was maybe 60kg and 5ft 8". He didn't train legs, as you would expect, but I think a lot of guys don't realise how much you have to eat. Over the past 12 weeks I've stepped up my calorie intake from 4500, to 5000, to 5500 and it's now nearly 6000kcal a day. That's at 111kg bodyweight, training every other day. It'll have to go up further if I want to keep growing. Other than that, I'd just say have fun. Training hard, with goals helps me progress and keeps me motivated but I know it's not for everyone.

I don't know Stephen. Have you visited a physio for an assessment? I'm up in the Strath second week of February if you wanted me to have a look, one dodgy back sufferer to another! Great session at the gym today. About the 7th squat session now, squatting every 48 hours. At the point now where even the Rehband neoprene support (much softer than a belt) feels unnecessary. I couldn't feel any benefit at all. Legs are constantly aching, but I think they'll adapt to the workload, and squatting every 48 hours will cause rapid general muscle growth. Dumbell bench well up too, to 10's at 38kg per hand.