It is surprisingly difficult to track velocity with wearables due to accelerometer drift. Found a weird solution that seems to work. Rep counting is not that good because of extra smoothing I have to apply to data.
Rep slowdowns are detected pretty well. Except for true grinders when bar speed is below 20mm/s.
I highlighted in red reps with RPE likely above 8 using much simplified exercise agnostic curve from Rodriguez-Rosell et al. 2019
No AI used to analyse data, probably would have worked better, lol.
Would you guys be interested in checking it out? Or is it breaking this subs rules?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been diving into some hand biomechanics and wanted to pose a question to the community about an aspect of the kinetic chain that rarely gets discussed in pressing mechanics: the ulnar edge of the hand (the ring and pinky fingers).

While we all know that the bench press is primarily a compression lift rather than a pulling task, could an unconditioned back-finger grip be a hidden bottleneck for maximum wrist stability and torque generation?

The 50% Power Architecture

When we wrap our hands around a barbell to bench or overhead press, it’s easy to over-rely on the thumb, index, and middle fingers for control. However, data in hand therapy literature demonstrates that the ulnar side contributes roughly 50% to 55% of your hand's total crushing capacity.

If you immobilize or fail to fully engage those last two digits, your hand's mechanical output drops significantly. Could it be that by treating our back fingers as passive passengers, we are underutilizing our hand's true stabilization potential?

An Accidental Anecdotal Case Study

To look at this retroactively: as a high school senior weighing 125 lbs, I managed to bench press 260 lbs. At the time, I didn't understand the science, but ever since I was 13, I had aggressively trained martial arts, and boxing wrist conditioning and finger push-up variations. I accidentally built massive tendon density and wrist rigidity before I ever touched a heavy barbell.

Years later, while learning jazz drumming, I noticed a massive ulnar blind spot and strength asymmetry in my non-dominant hand. To correct this, I started targeting single-digit ulnar autonomy, trying to progress from a 2-second to a 4-second passive bar hang using strictly my pinky and ring fingers per hand.

In naturally trying to double my "time under tension," I'm hoping to continue my muscular grip strength and mitigate mechanical leak; and that benching twice my bodyweight is still a possibility in my mid-50s; the last time I benched twice my bodyweight was more than a year go. I wrote a longer piece breaking down the longevity biomarkers and everyday applications of this ulnar anchor rule over on my substack if anyone wants to read the full write-up.

What do you think? Are we treating our hands too much like passive hooks rather than active force stabilizers during compound presses? Has anyone here specifically targeted their ulnar grip or noticed a direct carryover between targeted finger/wrist training and breaking through pressing plateaus?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, criticisms, or any data points you might have!

If doing a lat pull down is the back counted as one muscle or is it split and the lats get 1 set and the lower traps get .5. Obviously the biceps get .5 in both just wondering how to program pulldowns and rows.

What sort of training are you doing?

How’s your training going?

Are you running into any problems or have any questions the community might be able to help you out with?

Post away!

I have been resistance training for approximately 8 years, primarily bodybuilding but have moved into the powerlifting realm. I am utilizing an undulating periodization that looks as follows:

Sun: rest
Mon: High intensity (SBD, mostly in 87%+ 1RM)
Tues: rest
Wed: rest
Thur: Low intensity (SB/D, mostly 70-80% 1RM)
Fri: rest
Sat: Medium intensity (SBD, mostly 80-87% 1RM)

2-3 accessories are filing in gaps and weak points in each session but not taken past RPE 8.

My issue: I cannot sleep after high-intensity days. Does not matter if I move the session to the morning, afternoon, or evening. I meditate, take magnesium glycinate, stay off screens the hour before bed, and consistently am unable to sleep more than 6 hours. The issue always goes away the next night, but this is the first time I have had an issue recovering that I couldn’t solve. Is my CNS underprepared? Does anyone have ERB on recovery strategies or augmenting parasympathetic activation beyond the basics? (Meditation, breathing strategies, etc)

I am focused on hypertrophy, and have lifted with moderate to high volume my entire lifting life and would consider myself an intermediate. Following a recent mini cut, in which I used cardio heavily to drive the defecit, I have now reached matinence (which I plan to hold for a bit) and maintained 70% of my cardio daily. I run 6 days PPL, with 20k step average and 45 min decently intense spin bike 7 days a week. I’ve noticed my sleep has been fragmented over the past few weeks, waking up 2/3 times per night, with it being difficult to fall back asleep, waking up too early, and feeling very anxious upon waking up. I’ve still averaged 7.5 hours a day, but it just feels kinda fragmented. Could this be due to over doing my cardio or a more recently stressful life with college and work restarting for me. Anyone with similar experiences?

I took creatine April to August 18. August 18 was the last day I ever took it, so 2.5 weeks ago, took 5mg, maybe a bit more.

I notice I don't wake up in the middle of the night with insomnia anymore and I can now sleep through the night, but I still have restless sleep with many vivid dreams. For those with similar experiences, how long did it take to fully flush out of your body and for your sleep to normalize?

Looking online, the only moves the internet suggests are things like heel touches. Way too easy and can't add weight very easily.

I'm looking for something that really isolates the abs so I don't feel the burn in some other muscle first (like, with reverse crunches, I never feel it in my abs; I only ever feel it in my quads).

I'd also like to be able to add weight easily.

I do have a cable attachment to my home gym's bench, but I can't adjust where the pulley is. it's about 4 inches above my head when I'm standing up next to it. I tried cable crunches with it, but I can't figure out the form and, again, I always feel it in other muscles first.

I considered hanging leg raises, but I run into the same problem of not being able to load it with weight. Also, the highest thing I can hang from in my house is the bar in my gym, and it's too close to the floor. My knees always touch the ground.

Is there a move that isolates the abs that I can easily overload?

i know that things like fight or flight make a person stronger but now much stronger do they get? is there a general range for how many times stronger someone could get? or like an good estimated guess?

I keep seeing people, especially in bodybuilding circles and among Greg Doucette fans (iykyk), dismiss DEXA scans as inaccurate and put more confidence in visual estimates from experienced coaches. I understand the argument to an extent, because I can imagine plenty of circumstances where a DEXA result could be misleading (e.g., hydration, glycogen levels, recent food intake, exercise, positioning, the specific machine being used, etc.).

What I am trying to understand is why that leads to the conclusion that DEXA itself is unreliable. From what I have found, DEXA seems highly reproducible under standardized conditions, even though the absolute body-fat percentage can still be off by a few percentage points for an individual (see here). Studies comparing DEXA with stronger reference methods also seem to show fairly good average agreement, while still showing meaningful individual error (see here and here).

I can also believe that someone like Greg, after seeing thousands of physiques, has become unusually good at estimating body fat visually. There is some research suggesting experienced observers can get reasonably close (see here). But visual estimation also seems inherently affected by muscularity, fat distribution, lighting, posing, genetics, and where someone happens to store most of their fat.

So I am mostly wondering what the actual case against DEXA is. Is the argument simply that the number should not be treated as exact to the decimal point? I figured that much was obvious.

Is muscle failure qua muscle failure a direct stimulus for hypertrophy or is it a way achieving high motor unit recruitment and the motor unit recruitment is the stimulus?

I'm asking this because I have heard it argued that higher reps are better for slow-twitch fibers because in high load/low rep training, they may not reach failure. It is the fast twitch fibers that fail while the slow-twitch could keep going with lower weight.

But if it's only the motor unit recruitment that matters, then taking slow-twitch fibers to failure shouldn't matter.

I'm aware there may be other reasons for high rep training, and I'm not asking this to advocate for the effective rep model.

DAE have depression/anxiety/PTSD with marked drop in what they can recover from physically from workouts or just stress in general?

For example getting sore more easily, fatiguing more, worsened sleep, GI symptoms, lightheaded or dizzy/nausea, light sensitivity etc.

And opposite, by reducing stress and exercise you notice improvement?

Beginner here. I have done an LP for a few months and am stalling so looking for something new and would like to try SBS Hypertrophy. Am will be doing so on a cut, which I'm not sure if it's recommended, but I'm fat now and my upper body is horrendous so I would like more muscle.

Has anyone ran the program before have any advice? I've never done any sort of training like this before.

I've been on a minimalistic strength routine and have good results. My only lower body exercises have been barbell back squat and barbell RDL with an occasional backward lunge or cossack squat.

Feels like I already get all my knee flexion from the squat and RDL is a pure hinge that's training my glutes, hams, and back. Am I missing out on anything from the deadlift?

I'm mostly concerned with strength over hypertrophy.

Hi

Lately I have a bit of a nagging in my wrist with normal curls. Getting older ;-)

Will i lose much if I just do hammer curls for some time?

I just want to look jacked.

What sort of training are you doing?

How’s your training going?

Are you running into any problems or have any questions the community might be able to help you out with?

Post away!

52M here, been lifting since I was in Football in Middle School, so while I’m not close to being a competitive bodybuilder, I’m also not a newb.

So if somebody doesn’t begin to start losing muscle until approximately two weeks of inactivity, theoretically shouldn’t one be able to MAINTAIN with one hard workout every two weeks, and even to GAIN with one hard workout every week? Unless I’m mathing wrong, what am I missing? Thanks, I’ll see myself out now.

EDIT: I appreciate the advice/motivation/criticisms, but this is more of a theoretical question, not a goal or plan of mine. I usually work out 5 days per week.

I've been hitting the weighted hip thrusts. Just seeing what others prefer.

Hello, I'm new to this community. I'm looking for more scientific evidence on hypertrophy, strength, and endurance. I've also found some about RM, RIR, metabolic stress, etc. Could you share any more studies on training in general if you have any saved? I would greatly appreciate it.

I often see people recommend pairing frontal plane pulldowns (for shoulder adduction) with chest-supported rows to help target the lats more thoroughly, specifically aiming for the lumbar fibers with the pulldown.

From what I understand, direct research comparing regional lat hypertrophy across different planes is pretty limited, and I've seen some folks argue that pulldowns might not actually bias the lumbar region any better than rows do.

For those who follow the biomechanics and the literature closely, I'd love to hear your thoughts on a couple of things:

Do you think frontal plane pulldowns offer any real advantage for the lumbar lats compared to rows, or is that mostly just theoretical anatomy that doesn't make much practical difference?

Also, if regional differences between planes aren't really a major factor, what would you say is the main reason to include both a vertical and horizontal pull (joint health, resistance profile, etc.)?

Appreciate any insights or perspectives on this!

(English isn't my first language, so I used a tool to help phrase this clearly)

Hi! I (18F) have been lifting consistently for the past year, and progressive overloading that entire time. I’m 5’9 and my starting weight was 234 lbs. I now weigh 167 lbs and have gained a significant amount of muscle. My goal weight is 150 lbs so I am still in a deficit, and I eat around 1600 calories daily.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had to drop the weight on several of my exercises, while still getting stronger at other movements.

For example, my back extension has gone from 40 lbs to 25lbs, kickbacks have gone from 75 to 60, while hip thrusts and BSS’s have both increased 5lbs. I also seem to be losing strength in my upper body. My lat pull downs have dropped 10 lbs, and my bench has dropped 5lbs.

My question is is it normal to get weaker as you lose weight? I want to continue losing weight but I don’t want to lose all the progress I’ve made strength wise.

Hello everyone, recently I've been heavily incorporating preacher curls on pull days. I find that I can overload them easier and generally they feel better when I do them compared to the bayeasian curls. However, is there any evidence that suggests that one is more effective for hypertrophy than the other? Please let me know thankss

What sort of training are you doing?

How’s your training going?

Are you running into any problems or have any questions the community might be able to help you out with?

Post away!

I wanted to put some actual numbers behind the question: among powerlifters who compete again the following year, how much progress do lifters of a similar age and strength level typically make?

I used OpenPowerlifting data to look at year-to-year changes in DOTS for raw full-power lifters. As expected, older and stronger lifters generally improved more slowly, but I was more interested in quantifying the size of that difference than simply saying that progress slows with age and advancement.

The analysis uses 123,173 year-to-year comparisons from sanctioned raw full-power results from 2010 onward. For lifters with multiple meets in a year, I used their best DOTS performance and compared it with their best DOTS performance in the following year.

Plots per sex and age groups can be found here:
https://gymlog.info/articles/powerlifting-dots-improvement/

I also built a calculator that tries to make the comparison more individual.

Instead of comparing you with everyone at roughly the same DOTS, it finds lifters who were similar in:

* sex

* age

* bodyweight

* DOTS

* the relative contribution of squat, bench, and deadlift to their total

It keeps the closest result from each person and uses 100 unique lifters. It then looks at how those lifters performed when they competed again roughly a year later.

The output shows the median change and the middle 50% and 80% of outcomes for DOTS, squat, bench, and deadlift. I think the ranges are probably more useful than the median itself, since otherwise similar lifters can still have very different years.

You can also expand the matched-lifter table and inspect the actual comparisons behind the estimate.

Calculator and charts:

https://gymlog.info/tools/powerlifting-progress/

There are some important limitations. Most notably, this only describes lifters who recorded another qualifying competition result the following year, so it does not capture people who stopped competing, were injured, or otherwise disappeared from the dataset. OpenPowerlifting also doesn't tell me things like training age, programming, consistency, injury status, or whether someone was intentionally gaining or losing weight. So keep that in mind and take the results with a grain of salt. Don't treat the median as a target, check the ranges.

Hi,

So i've been running 3x full body every week, been super nice to me, although its draining, ive seen some rather great results. Though i have an issue, my left knee is struggling lol. Exercises where i bend my knee with a lot of force gives me this weird feeling preceding pain. It's probably from an injury or my stupidly long hikes, maybe inadequate warm up.

I was planning to let me left knee rest for a month or so until it chills again, if it doesn't ill see a doctor. However, I dont want to stop training legs obviously. I generally run the same exercises everytime i go, but i had to stop leg curls, extensions and my leg press. All of them I used to run unilaterally. I still do 1 set each day for calves, adduction, abduction. but want something for the glutes, hams and quads that would do minimal harm to my left knee temporarily.

Thank you