dumps

just a little extra on push ups. a tip from me if you are looking to work your chest but dont have anythign available to add extra weight, is power push ups. I personally make a fist (as if im punching the ground) then lower down, then instead of just raising my self, i try and push my self as hard as possible. some people like to add a clap, but its not neccesary and makes you look a knob. just push as hard as you can, imagine you are trying to push yourself back to your feet. this way you are working at your 100% max and you are working all the muscle. - make sure you have a soft mat or something to land on though! on Magic Lamps' question, id second what Metsaj has said. you have said you are gaining weight, so just carry on. and you also probably look more muscular than you think you do. that taking photos is great advice. you ever see a photo of yourself from a year or two ago and then you realise you are actually bigger now. if you are worried you arent gaining fast enough, then it is likely to be possible to perfect your routine to make sure you are more effecient, but as said, you are gaining weight, so i wouldnt worry too much, just carry on! To MinSeok: why do you ask if we are power lifters?

We still havent mastered voice recognition yet. it rarely works first time! i cant see this being any different. the cameras will be poor as well i'd imagine. it is pretty cool, but id wait for apple/samsung or someone to come out with one so that a rival begins and they just get better and better. maybe in 10/15 years time they will be useful. I wont get one though due to money and that i have a fucking massive nose which doesnt allow me to wear glasses. maybe if they did a contact lens version id be interested

What if cech is going to be like van der sar!? we will never see Courtois! but yeah i hear you, i was just saying that theres that awful 10% chance of all those nasty things happening and it scares me because it excites me when i think of our chelsea team in 2 or 3 seasons time with his name in goal.

the problem is though, if madrid stick in an offer for him, theres a chance he may want us to accept and then may go about handing in a transfer request etc. I can't wait till he's in goal for us, but at the same time you dont want to cut Cech out too early as he's got numerous more seasons in him.

If true, i think it should be his last season out on loan before he comes back and takes over from Cech. My fear is, we obviously cant have him on the bench, so whilst Cech is here we are going to keep loaning it out, and i fear he isnt going to want to come home he's been at madrid for ages now, and i fear he will want to stay. It was rumoured that Barcelona/Real were after him, i dont think he will be able to resist the temptation there...

man, seriously?! bodybuilding.com is not a source of information. question everything you read there. and i think you forget what you were saying. earlier you were saying it was down to genes wether you had an 8 pack. now you are saying: "we all have an 8 pack, just its rare to see a visible 8 pack". which is what i said in my original post on the subject.

I dont know where to start with that. 1. never trust someone who is trying to SELL you fitness. wether its a diet book, or a book on how to lose weight with simple exercises you can do at home. never trust them. they are trying to make money. 2. he says: "For most men – the top 3 bands (not including the top band/connective tissue where you see the muscles attach to the front of the rib cage) are what creates the six packs abs look…" - the muscles that attach to the rib cage (the ones at the top of the abs) are probably the easiest muscles to work on the abs and they DO show through and DO make up part of the traditional six pack. 3.he goes on to say its genetic, but then blurts out this: "Some experts will argue that with “stricter dieting” and “harder workouts” – you can eventually get your six packs to become eight pack abs… But if you’ve know me for a while – my philosophy on this is: Just give me the six pack – I don’t need two more – I have a life to live and it’s not ‘in the gym’…" which just contradicts himself as he is now saying that "yeah, with a strict work out and diet, we all have one. but fuck it, just get 6 and take it easy." 4. he advertises his mates site a lot... My advice to anyone would be: don't take advice from anyone trying to sell or advertise something.

ok well my advice to you would to be do some squats and dead lifts, then rate out of 10 how well worked your abs feel. then grab a 5 kg medicine ball. lay down. hold your arms out so you are completely flat with the ball resting on the ground over your head, do 3 sets of 8-12 reps of that and then rate out of 10 how hard you feel your abs have been worked... i dont know what text you are referring to. the stuff about how we define visible abs? then i htink you are right, if you are thinking of seeing a 6 pack, but like i said, thats just the shape of the muscle. its very rare to see a visible 8 pac, i dont know if i have ever seen one. but everybody has it. In reference to that picture, pac 7 and 8 would be the lower abs. To Rmpr: that gym looks sick! i would love to go to a place like that. the gym im at is crap! that place looks awesome! the guys that work there sound properly professional so you should be in safe hands.

thats not true. unless its a rare genetic condition... everybody has hte same amount of muscles and bones. @vincent you can do a sit up or a crunch with added resistance, cable crunches, or hold on to a weight = added resistance.

You know its a good leg work out when stairs become a challenge that you could possibly not complete.

yeah thats what ive done. i first joing the gym when iwas 17 or 18. and for about 6 months i did try hard. then itj ust became part of my life, and i have seen gradual increases. and every now and then i go for targets. like my last target of the last 3 months was cardio and thats pretty good now - in a couple of weeks time im going to aim to gain a few kilos in muscle. I have a bit of a challenge coming up in the near future, im going to be moving to a new city. this means i need to find a new gym. I will no longer have my usual crowd of friends that i play football with twice a week, and i will be coming out of university and going in to work i hope so im going to have a new scedule. I hope to be able to settle in really quick and get in to an exercise routine, else im gonna become a chubby little funster. I plan to join a gym, find out if they have any amateur leagues in things like squash/badminton/tennis i can join, quickly make some friends and organise some weekly football! Im off to the gym now for a quick leg workout. PUMPED!

I hate it when football does that. saying he's already signed with his next club already. why can't they release that information now! rumours do my tits in.

thats what I said... On the topic of body building. what would everybody say they aim to look like when they hit the gym? I personally prefer to worry about performance. I like to look toned, but it doesnt bother me if my muscles are smaller than someone elses. I don't even play sport properly. I play every sunday in a casual 5 a side and i also play in a small competitative 6 a side league on a thursday night. I got to hte gym mainly to improve my general health, im not particularly muscular, but im toned. i do a lot of cardio, specifically high intensity training. I only weigh in at about 63kg at the moment (im about 5ft 7) and ive quite a slender frame (...one of those guys with the slim nobbly wrists...) and like i said, i am fairly toned all over but im thinking of spending 5 or so weeks on some strength training to get me up to about 68kgs. But i think ill start that in 2 weeks time (im currently participating in research that involves aerobic stuff, so dont want to do too much strength stuff at the moment). so back to my question: how big does everyone want to be? I know there are some guys in here trying to lose some fat, some guys trying to build strength, some guys trying to improve performance but in your eyes, what is the perfect shape to you?

I would love Jose. i think we would all love Jose. The media would love it if we got Jose - they want us to get Jose! but the reality is not so simple. Jose left because he wasn't getting the control he exepcted. the only way he will return is if Roman allows Jose the power, which will most likely not happen. I hope we get a decent manager and i hope we have that manager long term. I honestly think if we still had AVB right now we would be in a good place (dont think we would have won the champions league though...). Do people think Roman is going to stop sacking managers becasue of a few bad results? or is he going to keep going through them till he finds someone who never loses?

@Vincent: Mate, that guy has massive abs. they are huge. they just arent defined. thats exactly what i was talking about when i was going on about tennis balls and loafs of bread - that guy just has a massive 1 pac! and saying even if you dont work abs but you train all the time and your abs are used to stabalise you, fair point, they do, but they dont get massive that way. thats like saying theres no need to work your triceps if you are benching all day.... yes your triceps are used when you bench, but they arent used at full capacity. same with abs. Also, i think Rmpr is right, if he were to try to show of his abs, i think we'd see some definition there. that guy has some big abs though, defined or not.

Im not trying to be a dick, but i still don't buy it. theres no gene in your body that is either "show abs" or "dont show abs" that gene just doesnt exsist. With the body builder thing, i think there have been a good handful of body builders who are massive, low body fat and have 'no abs', but these werent 'genetic disorders' these were just poor routines that lead to it. they'd have a really flat stomach (with some slight definition of abs) but there would be no massive bulges. simply because they didnt give as much care to their abs workout, some even say they didnt even bother doing abdominal workouts. another thing worth a mention is the type of muscle development. you see guys walking around who a toned to hell, have like a large tennis ball bump for a bicep, whereas some guys just have a chunky bicep like a loaf of bread, THATS down to genes a fair bit as well as the type of trainging (and the crazy drugs some of the bigger guys take), and you can get abdominals like that, makes it look like a ginat 1 pac. but they are still abs. you've probably seen pictures that ive seen but just jumped to a conclusion too fast. ill try find the guy I can remember.... EDIT: This wasnt the guy i was talking about but its similar to him: with this guy its hard to say. if you are defining abs as a clear bulging 6/8 pack, then he lacks it. but if you define abs as just the muscle of the torso, then yeah, you can see it (he has that famous V that is all the rage at the moment in this thread!) you can also see some of his obliques and serratus anterior. i dont even know who this guy is or anything on him, but i wouldnt be suprised if his workouts consisted mainly of back and arms.... his pecs and shoulders seem to be a bit behind the development you can see in his arms and lats... maybe thats what he was aiming for, just a flat stomach, i dont know. all the related pictures are disgusting! i honeslty do not see the appeal of being that big.... some body builders have hte tiniest waists and just so much muscle on them. crazy. I typed in "body builders with no abs" in to google, there are a few pictures of these massive guys with odd looking abs. they all have visible abs but they all look very different - and thats down to genes! (mostly). I have read nothing to back that up, that is literally me looking at pictures of half naked massive men and taking an educated guess at why. i still dont think a gene exsists to prevent you from developing your abdominals, I agree that genes influence how they may look (massively), but everyone can get some... If you found an article or some kind of research to prove it i would love to see it because i am not aware of it. EDIT 2: there are some fucking gross pictures of body builders out there! i really do not see the appeal. and im sure some of those are photoshopped. I did see a good one of a guy who is pretty muscular, but has hte biggest belly ever. thats another thing, some people may have 3-6% body fat, but all their fat can be around their abs.... people tend to either distribute their fat evenly over hte body, distribute it around their organs, distribute it around their waists, or smash it on the thighs. thats all down to genes. i have a fair bit of fat on my torso, i can grab a decent handful, yet i cant even pinch it on my legs and theres not much on my upper body.

I'd be interested to hear your justification. from my knowledge everybody has the abdominal muscles. there is a nice layer of fat infront of them. if you can reduce the fat to muscle ratio, your abs will reveal themselves... some people have a hard time losing the fat. some people have a hard time building the muscle. but with work everyone can achieve it. some just have to work a lot harder than others.

everyone CAN build visible abs. Its genetic in terms that some people may be able to build muscle faster than others, or to not gain fat like others. but its not down to genetics wether you will be able to have visible abs or not.... everyone is capable, some people may just have to work harder than others to achieve it.

Im all for the development of youth, and those saying Lukaku cant be in our first team because he's not developed.... he's having a blinder of a season and is playing better than Torres AND Ba... why cant he play in the first team? he is still learning and he does still make some bad decisions... but he still finds the net... look at Sterling... he's young as hell, but he gets to play first team football because he's seen as being capable. if somone is good enough to be in the first team, then they should be. not matter their age. Wilshere, Sturridge, Cleverly, Jones, jsut to name a few, all played first team football regularly despite their age. The problem is the managers. they have to like the player and see them in their plans for them to be able to play. some managers don't care on the age of the player, if he feels they can increase their chances of a win, then they'll play them. some managers are the opposite. I just hope we have a manager that isnt afraid to paly a youngster when he feels they can benefit us. and if we have that manager, then these youngsters will get their game time if they deserve it. or at least id like to hope.

as good as lamps and Rami are, in my eyes, its one or the other. Mikel/Luiz needs to partner one of them there. Luiz in defence is a bit worrying, you never know how he's going to do! totally depends on his mood! Man utd have got a fairly good team. i've a nasty feeling hernandez is going to have a good game. they are beatable though. should be a good game, hopefully rami and lamps communicate well, and we may be alright!

No skid marks for you then... Abs, they can be hard to work. when we lift weights, we do 3 sets of 8-10. because we know that stimulates all the right pathways and doesnt stimulate ones that provoke endurance adaptations. you smash out 100 ab crunches, thats endurance. the same rules apply to your abs. if you are going for hypertrophy of the abs, dont do 100 of them. if you just want to imrpove and stabalise your core, then yeah, doing more may be a benefit. My ab work out normally consists of about 4 sets of 10-15. movements. i try and do negatives on them, which is very hard. i warm up by do a full sit up, a crunch, a full shit up a crunch twist and so on. just a warm up. my first set: i hold a medicine ball (i think its about 3kg) just above my head, then i do 10 full sit ups (important not to use the ball as a force to lift you! you have to let it dangle below to create a resistance!). my second set, is a series of crunches, which i guess could be seperated to 3 mini sets: 8-12 reps normal crunch. 8-12 reps twists to the right and then 8-12 reps with twists to the left. i use the medince ball like i did in the first set, apart from, when im twisting, i hold the ball to the opposite side of my head (so if im twisting to the right, i hold the medicine ball over my left shoulder). my 3rd set is bounches. so i lay down, stretch my arms out as far as i can (so im like a big plank) and hold hte medine ball, i do a full sit up. then on the way down i stop at a point, then lower my self lower and stop, then lower myself once more so im just above the ground, stop, then go all theway down. each time i 'stop' i go back up a bit, so its like im bouncing. its very hard but very good. literally ripping your abs apart. beautiful. my 4th set: i hang from a bar, and basically do really powerful tucks. so if you were to see me from the side, id be dangling in the air like this: / (legs at the bottom, head at the top). i pull my self up so my head is level with the bar, and then lift my knees to my chest (really focusing on my abs. its easy to do this just by using your legs), and i crunch it. i bring it in as fast as i can, then lower it out as controlled as i can. do 8-12 of these. thats my usual ab work out. its sore to raise my self out of bed after that. i also mix it around, so throw in some other ab work outs, just swap them in and out as i want. but that above is the one that ruins me the most. May not sound that clear but you get the idea! my main advice for those who are bit advanced and want to really get some bulding abs, is to try and do negatives/eccentric stuff. it can be hard. anotehr good way is to lay down, raise so you are at like 45 degree angle. then with a medcine ball in your hand, throw it behind your head, and resist it as it tries to pull you down. that is another ruiner! The reason it works so well (any eccentric exercise) is because, without getting all sciencey, you have 2 protein structures (actin and myosin), during a contraction, these two proteins bind, and pull together, like rowing, and these only work one way, so when you are trying to lift something (say a bicep curl) but its going the opposite way, you are making these proteins bond, and then quite literally ripping them apart, they will try as hard as possible to make the dumbell go towards your shoulder, but if you are trying to lift something that is going away from your shoulder, tear tear tear! and that is why you feel sore as shit the next few days!

depending on what you want from your workouts, in terms of strength you can do pretty much anything with some dumbells... you need make sure you can get some heavy ones though to keep up the progression. a bench would be useful for thise as well. things like pull up bars can be useful. punch bags can give you a great workout for the hwole body. problem is its all pretty pricey! but then i guess £30 for a membership is pretty pricey as well in the long run. if you are living on a farm, im sure I saw Rocky lifting some farming stuff. hay and all that, worked out alright for him To The Skipper, im not sure i knwo what you mean, but when you do your chest, yes you use your triceps, but you arent using them 100%, I have chest, shoulder and triceps day and i leave the gym feeling ive worked them all. If you wanted to laternate htem you could, i dont think there will be any harm in it, its just what i do, likei said, different people different things. hell, why not try out both see if you notice any differences. - another thing, on my chest, shoulder and triceps day, i do 2 chest things, 2 shoulder thigns hten one tricep thing. because my triceps would have been used for all my shoulder and chest exercises, so they dont need too much doing at the end of a session.

My advice would be, when you do go to that weight regime, dont be afraid to participate in some fat burn stuff on the same day/rest day. i mean real easy stuff. not only will it help you burn fat but it will help you recover. Another tip, instead of doing Chest and Biceps. do Chest and Triceps. simply because when you do your chest you are doing your triceps as well so it works out nicely. same with back, when you do your back you tend to work the biceps as well. my advice would be no more than 2 exercises that work the same muscle. so for chest, dont go doing the bench, the dumbell fly, cable fly, push ups etc. just chose 2. and because of that, you may want to add shoulders to your chest and triceps workout. as those muscles are all secondary muscles to each other in those exercises. strength training doesnt need to last more than 45 minutes. Id say legs should be done alone. so just spend 45 minutes on your legs. they are a very hard group of muscles to work due to their size and the amount of them. Its just advice, different things work for different people. also as time goes on you'll be able to add in another strength session and remove a rest. itll all just come naturally. but yeah that fat burn/cardio you have planned for the start sounds pretty solid and you seem to have the right idea. just eat well, sleep well, and stay active!

that 'V' line you're after: fat burn and ab workouts. a lot of focus on obliques so do a crunch and twist. if you have a pelvis, which i hope you do... just lose fat and build the abs and boom. to be honest itll just come naturally with everything else you do. I've got a just below average body fat and i have those lines.

Shouldnt have been bertrand on that man, thats the fault of Luiz going of roaming again. Im not particularly worried. form what ive seen so far this game is ours, we just need to be more clinical in the final third. i think its fair to say Hazard is under isntructions to take it easy. so i think he will probably turn it on a bit now till we get a goal.