dumb question, should everyone do that?

It depends.

If you are referring to "first" meaning the first exercise(s) of a daily routine, I would prefer to see someone doing the compound lifts first. Basically do the hardest stuff first, and make the workout easier as you go along.

If you are referring to "first" as is...the first exercise routines they do, in order to get accustomed to working out, I don't see any reason to neglect compound BB exercises in lieu of DB exercises.

That being said, shoulder injuries, weak stabilizer muscles, and other such conditions would warrant doing ONLY independent movement exercises (ie: anything with a DB instead of a BB - where the arms work independently of each other).

One of my buddies started doing pyramids on the core lifts. What do you think about this?

Reps are:
20-15-10-5-3-5-10-15-20

I did it with squat the other day and I felt it.

I did:
20@135 lbs
15@185 lbs
10@225 lbs
5@275 lbs
3@315 lbs
5@275 lbs
10@225 lbs
15@185 lbs
20@ 135 lbs

ATG squats btw

This post was edited by GetSpanked on Jan 13 2014 11:33am

So it's much "easiser" to get injuries where the arms work seperately? BB is safer?

Is there a link to your take on shakeology?
Trying to give my girlfriend all the right reasons as to why Not to do it.

raynlads i just wanted to let you know you are the GOAT trainer, thankyou

what is your point of view on these vitamin pills and protein powder.
http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/impact-whey-protein/10530943.html (PROTEIN WHEY)
http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/micellar-casein/10798909.html ( CASEIN)
http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/daily-vitamins/10530076.html ( VITAMINS)
my question is
are these vitamins good enough for a full daily use? i mean do they cover it all 100 % and even more?

at the moment i use animal pak which is insane ^^ but they are so pricy and theres like 8 pills to swallow and theyre huge..
whats ur thoughs on this myprotein place? its very cheap imo, but is it quality? i usually buy optinum nutrition etc but the price is high and im on low budget atm.

Looks great for hypertrophy!

Not necessarily. In order to work around injuries, or to prevent them, dumbbells are more versatile and allow you to modify your workout by changing the angle at which you hold them and thus can alleviate pressure accordingly.

I can't find it. It's probably several hundred pages back.

Shakeology is a COMPLETE scam. It's ran by the beachbody corp, which is the same company that does P90x and other such exercise routines. They created a line of overpriced garbage products called the Beachbody line. Besides being total overpriced junk, they made outrageous promises that, of course, could never be backed up.

Here is the nutritional facts label from their product:

http://images.beachbody.com/tbb/store/shakeology/pdf/shakeology_vanilla_supp_facts.pdf



Now, before I go into details about the nutrition, let's analyze the website.

First of all, consider the "bright flashy website" with tons of advertising. Even the layout of the site is indicative of a common web supplement scam that promises outrageous benefits. The best part is that the price of the product is NOT featured immediately on the home page. This lures customers in with the false hope that their product is a type of magic elixir, capable of making fat people skinny, unattractive people beautiful, and the skinny into muscle hulks. The bottom line, is that the flashy advertising, lack of baseline pricing, as well as the difficulty to find BASIC nutritional facts or an actual ingredients page, is absolutely an entire football field of red flags.

Now to analyze the price and nutrition.

$120 buys you a 1 month suppy of shakes (1 shake a day = $4 per shake). Each shake is ONE scoop (35g). You are essentially paying $4 / 35g of powder. Each scoop has 16g protein, 14g carbs, 3g fiber, and 2g of fat with a total of around 130 cals. That means, your price for this so called magic elixir is a whopping $0.32 per calorie. By comparison, let's look at eggs. Eggs cost about $1.00 per dozen. Each egg has around 70 calories. 2 eggs = 140 cals, and cost approximately $0.08 per egg, or $0.16 for 10 calories more than the shake. Now, let's see. $4.00 per shake (130 cals) or $0.16 for 2 eggs (140 cals).

Basically, you are paying TWENTY-FIVE (25) times the price for this shake, per calorie.

Now, granted, you are not getting all those other ingredients with the eggs. However, let's look at the ingredients you will be getting - the 27g of so-called "superfoods" mixture. 16g are a mixture of proteins from pea protein & whey protein. The other 11g are another 3g of fiber, which leaves another 8g of mostly herbs (such as Basil and Maca) and flavoring (such as monkfruit for sweetener), and apple pectin. Dollars to donuts, you are getting a subpar blend of low-quality cheap herbs mixed up and freeze dried before placed into these shakes. None of the items are organic, or even certified pure. As a result, you can be rest assured that 99% of those herbs are not providing you with any nutritional benefit whatsoever. If any benefit was provided, it sure doesn't justify the 25x price increase over typical nutrition in the same ballpark.

So at the end of the day, you are paying 25x more than you should for below average macros, unproven claims, low quality ingredients, and high level marketing.

A comparable solution, at a much higher quality, and greatly reduced price, would be the following:

Replace one meal a day with a shake made from 1 scoop of Optimum Nutrition Pro Complex Natural or NOW! Whey Protein. $30 / month
Take a good quality multivitamin each day, such as NOW! Adam (for men) or NOW! Eve (for women). $10 / month

Total of $40 a month (1/3 the price), for BETTER macros, BETTER supplementation, MUCH BETTER ingredients, from PROVEN companies.


The key at the end of the day for weight loss and muscle gain, comes from the macros. Regardless of those BS shakes, the end result is 130 cals, 16g protein, 14g carbs, 3g fiber, 7g sugar, and 2g fat.

1/2 a scoop of Optimum Nutrition Pro complex is 15g of protein, 0.5g fat, and 1g of carbs - around 70 cals. That means a full scoop delivers the same calories, but double the protein, 1/7th the carbs, and 1/4 the fat.

She will see better results with my recommendation than shakeology, any day.


Bottom line - Shakeology is a marketing scam. Plain and simple.