Before and After Pictures! Bust Them Up!!!

I never hear about enzymes on this thread. That is the most important thing. Its not just about what you eat it is what you absorb. Trust me that make all the diff.
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Figured I try out a RR Drophead for a year. They had some crazy 1 year closed end lease on the car. So figure why not.
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Dave, your previous posts really show you have an incredible physique... but I think you'd understand my (and likely others) distrust of miracle pills. Physician recommended is another story altogether. Ammino acids in my protein complex, fish oil, centrum, and glucosamine is what I take. I can't say I "notice" the difference with anything except for the protein... but the omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil are definitely good, and the centrum is great for days where my diet isn't quite balanced. My cartlidge in my knees is pretty rough; so the glucosamine doesn't hurt either.

Then again, I'm ~currently~ not trying to be 240 lbs of muscle.

 

Pic from last weekend at my show (I'm on the left - LOL).

My biceps are pretty decent as are my chest and shoulders. I want size now. I'd say I'm 174lbs in this pic.

RMX
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I just purchased John Alvino's "How to get ripped abs" program. I have read nothing but great reviews on it, and figured it was worth a shot. Has anyone else tried this program? And another question, I am looking through the diet portion of it, and I do not like most of the foods such as fish, red potatos, etc. Anything I can do about this?

Thanks guys!

Chris

 

Great RMX! I was beginning to wonder if you were still sticking with it As I understand it; for size, maybe it's time to start doing circuits?

Calories in < Calories out. At the end of the day, any diet is like this.

Eat leaner meats; and smaller portions... chicken, turkey. Don't embellish with dressings. Really it's a lot more simple than many books make it out to be IMO. Not that I've got visible abs yet. It takes a long time to make em visible, even if they are rock solid under the body fat.

 

I've trained as hard as I could and dieted hard since Oct

Gained 10 # of muscle, dropped 20# of fat

I've plateued around 210

Going to drastically change my excercise routine next week

Skiing 4 days straight at Tahoe.

Maybe that will help me brake through my plateau

My workout has been fairly focused on skiing, Did 40 min of cardio a day and lots of jumpsquats

Should be able to shred the mountain pretty well

Hard part of course will be the diet but I'll try to stay focused on protein, fruit, and very low carbs

 

P90x works for me. These are progress pics from my first 90 days. I went from 174 pounds down to 166.

I'm starting the next 90 tomorrow.
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P90X works great for those looking to follow a nice strict routine to get into great shape. I personally gave it a try recently and despite already being in great shape, the Plyometrics set kicked my ass! I used it mainly for cardio/plyo while I was out of the gym to stay as lean as possible. Now I'm back to running 4 some odd miles a day, and started lifting weights for the first time since I was 14. I'm currently 5'6-5'7 and weigh approximately 160lbs, I'm trying to get back up to what I used to be, when I was still training ~6 hours a day, 165-167lbs.

If people are interested in getting some ripped abs I can post up a few of the ab routines I do for people that want to try/feel like throwing up . For what it's worth, I've been a gymnast for nearly 21 years now so conditioning is a big part of my life.

 

Nice progress!

 

DevonL,
you don't really need to ask, but yes, please post it up!!!!! Pronto!

Thanks,
Zack

 

Amino acids *are* what proteins are. It doesn't make sense to say proteins with amino acids.

Big_DJE is right in that it's about absorption, not just ingestion. But, your body should produce enough to be able to digest what it needs. I don't see the need for enzyme supplements unless you have a deficiency or compromised system due to health issues or injury.

Nice physique, DJE. What did you do to get that? How long did it take? I am especially envious of your abs. I must say, your shoulders and neck look a little unnatural.

 

Generally speaking, this is a great ab routine here: http://musclemedia.com/training/BootCamp.asp

What I do however is a full on ab burn similar to what's found in P90X doing various exercises to target your entire core. The hardest area for men to lose fat is generally at the abs - lower abs especially! So cardio mixed in with a proper ab routine is going to help shed the final pounds to reveal your 6 pack fellas!

1. Bent body lateral crunches (These are done by laying on your side, having your legs bent at a 90* angle and having your shoulder come off the ground to the highest degree you can. Your body remains sideways for these, you do not have your chest directed upwards) - 50 each sides
10. Full body bent leg lateral crunches (same as the bent leg crunches, only now your knees come off the ground too) - 50 each side
2. Elbow to opposite knee crunches (with arms behind the head, and legs raised, place your ankle on your knee, crunch upward bringing your elbow on the opposite knee. Don't break form throwing your elbow forward to make it there, go as close as you can without moving your elbows too far forward. These are done consecutively without alternating sides) - 25 each side
3. Body walks (In a proper push up position walk your hands outward as far as you can without moving your feet and hold for 3 seconds. Walk your feet forward so you're back to a pushup position) - 10
4. Full body crunches (While laying on your back, raise your shoulders and feet off the ground and bend your legs inward while you bring your body forward/up) - 50
5. Straight body lateral crunches (same as the bend body crunches, only this time you keep your legs straight) - 50
5. Straight body sit ups (As it sounds, sit ups with your legs straight out in front of you) - 50
6. 25 pushups
7. Leg lifts/legs to the sky (Laying on your back with your legs out straight, raise your legs upward so your body as in an L position, shoot your feet skyward making sure just your lower back comes off the ground to isolate the abs. Bring lower back down, slowly lower legs back to the ground and repeat) - 25
8. Hollow body rocks (Laying on your back with your body in a hollow position - feet and shoulders off the ground, chest rounded - rock your body forward and backward. Each time your feet come up, counts for 1) - 50
9. Crooked crunches (Same position as the bent leg lateral crunches, only now skew your chest so it's facing upward and do a crunch) - 50
10. Leg lifts (On a chin up bar lift your legs up to a 90* angle with your body, and hold for 3 seconds, slowly lower and repeat) - 15


More or less this is what I do for my ab workout at night. I generally repeat this twice and usually with higher sets but it's a good starting point for some of you just looking to really burn your abs. I'll post a few other intense ones sometime that I came up with for an acquaintance of mine when I dig them up! I tried to explain them as best as I can there, if there're any questions feel free to ask and good luck .

 

I will try and look them up, but if you could link each exercise to a video of it, that would be fantastic. Many thanks for posting this. I am not pursuing a 6-pack per se, but it would be nice to have one.

How long would it take if one did this stuff religiously, say, every 2nd or 3rd day?

 

Due to how everyones body reacts to exercising differently, it's really hard to say, it also depends on how built a person currently is. For a person in decent shape just needing to shed a couple of pounds and sculpt the abs, I'd say a couple of months combined with cardio and their abs would begin poking through.

I've been asked a couple of times to put some videos together of some of my conditioning so if you're unable to find a graphical/video representation of the sets, I'll try and put one together when I have a little bit of free time.

 

It would be great if you could get a video together, post it to youtube, and put the link on here.

 

I wont be seeing patients until 1pm today so depending on how long some errands take I may be able to get that together this afternoon; I'll post a link once I do.

If anyone isn't opposed to doing handstand push ups against the wall, I highly suggest these. Even just holding a handstand for 30 seconds to a minute is great for the shoulders.

 

I can hold it against a wall for over 3 minutes. Unfortunately, my shoulders are not as big as I'd like. Also, my pushups never amount to more than a twitch. I am wondering if I eat the wrong proportions of fat/carbs/protein and it results in my body breaking down too much muscle. I am researching nutrition right now, but I don't have it figured out. I think I need to do a lot more heavy weights for the arms, shoulders, chest, neck, and upper back, something I find terribly boring.

Looking forward to your vid(s). It might be easier to do 30 second clips to keep the file sizes down.

Thanks!

 

I just switched from doing light weight supersets on my shoulders to heavy weight (3x6) and I've really seen great progress. Just make sure to not go too heavy, if you feel any pain drop weight. By the time summer comes my shoulders are going to look pretty nice I think.

I think back is probably my favorite to work. Shoulders are quickly becoming my 2nd favorite.

 

Some updates for me...

I've spent the past few months doing crossfit. I don't think I've done a normal bodybuilding workout since December. After doing crossfit, it just seems so boring.

Crossfit has increased my overall fitness levels tremendously. The beauty with the program is that you will quickly find out what your achilles heel is and you will have no choice but to work on building that part of your body up. For me, it's my shoulder and core. There's certain workouts that I absolutely kick ass in, and there's others that little 115lb girls smoke me in.

Some examples of workouts I've done this month...

1) 3 bars of death. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 rep scheme.
- 225lb deadlift
- 155lb front squat
- 115lb power clean
(literally the hardest workout I've ever done... every muscle fiber in my body ached after this)

2) 5 rounds for time...
- 10 pullups
- 10 jump squats
- 10 pushups
- 10 135lb deadlifts
- 10 95lb pushpress
- 10 ab-rollouts

3) 5 rounds for time:
- 30 wall-balls (24lbs/10 feet)
- 30 box jumps (30 inches I think)
- 400 meter run

4) As many rounds in 20 minutes as possible:
- 10 kettlebell swings (24kg kettlebell; kettlebell must go above your head)
- 10 pushups (chest to floor/arms locked out)
- 10 double-unders (jump rope)
- 10 sit-ups

5) 5 rounds for time:
- 10 deadlifts (225lbs)
- 5 handstand pushups
- 10 pullups

6) Tabata Circuit (20 seconds AMRAP, 10 seconds rest... 8 times)
- Pullups
- Pushups
- Situps
- Rowing (on a rowing machine)
- Squats

The workouts are brutal, but the satisfaction you get when you're done is second to none.

 

I see there has been a few success stories on P90X. has anyone tried Insanity by Shaun T?

 

Yes, Insanity is good. Just be careful what you eat, or your body will go into starvation mode because it will feel it is not getting enough nutrition for the loads it is being subjected to. It will definitely give you good fast-twitch muscles, strength, and endurance.

My friend did it and liked it so much he's doing another 3-month round.

 

Crossfit is hard core. My only problem(s) with it:
1. It is easy to hurt yourself doing a lot of the moves. Make sure your body can handle it before you start.
2. I just don't see myself doing it every day or every other day for the rest of my life, or the next 10 or 20 years, even.

From an evolutionary perspective, I think it's overkill, like running marathons.

 

1. U have to something for the rest of your life IF u wish to stay fit and have less aches and pains. Working out is a part of mi life now that I'm mid 40s.

Don't want to complain like mi grandparents and thheir friend.

 

1) You can get hurt doing a bicep curl if you haven't stretched, aren't warm, etc.

2) It's not for everyone, that's for sure. For the sickos out there like myself, however, it's like a drug.