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Thanks guys...adjustments will be made.

Cool, IK. Since you've pm'd I hate to come in being a back seat driver

I think the problem is acclimation vs. warmup. The need to go at it with weights closer to your target is one of acclimation. For that reason if you compare what your were doing before to what you did this time; this time was better. But you don't need more than one or two reps for acclimation whereas the "warmup" portions "generally" should be kept further away.

If you find you need more "acclimations", for instance, finding the target weight 'shocks' you (which is bad psychologically AND physiologically) or for whatever reason you can simply add more one reppers with more increments. And keep in mind that for the most part all of this is about optimal vs. suboptimal rather than about right vs. wrong.

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Monday 30 July

Squats
Empty Bar x 5
115x5
135x1
165x3
180x1

225 3x5

Bench
Empty Bar x 5
120x5
165x3
185x1

250 2x5
1x3

Pullups 2x5
Weighted Dips (35) 1x12
1x9

Ab work: Weighted Decline sit-ups (1x30), Weighted Leg Raises (1x20), Weighted Rope Crunches (1x25)

Damn today was a rough one. First I started with squadron PT which I had to do what felt like a million pushups/crunches and then a mile run. After that we played a game of basketball and by the time it was over I was pretty exhausted...so I went home and changed clothes cause I was drenched and I couldnt stop sweating! When I made it back to the gym after about 20 minutes rest I was still sweating. My workout felt pretty weak cause I felt like I was running on half a tank of gas. The squats were brutal and I barely got my last few reps of 225 up. And as you can see I didnt finish my bench at 250, but I blame the earlier cardio on ruining my strength today. I should have a much stronger workout on Wednesday because I dont have PT again till Thursday. The warmup sets felt great and I did lots of stretching prior to the workout. Im going to stick with the same weight for squats on Wednesday and Bench on Friday.

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"You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself."
-William J.H. Boetcker

22 yrs old
6'3 220lbs
Goals: Add lean mass and cut body fat.

The cardio for sure made you weaker. No doubt. But no static stretching prior to your workout in general. If you were doing mobility stuff and dynamic stretching fine...but if you did static stretches that just excacerbated your weakness. Do your static stretches after the workout.

The basic exception is if you have a chronically tight muscle that is opposite (i.e. the antagonist) the muscle group you are working.

Man now im starting to get confused. To stretch or not to stretch? I work at a desk job all day and so I find it necessary to stretch prior to my workout just to get some blood flowin through my body...maybe the PT stretched me out enough that I didnt need to stretch again before lifting? Im just paranoid of getting injured from "not stretching" or "not warming up". Maybe this is just been burned in my skull from years of playing sports and being taught all the basic stretches to do prior to practice and I just carried that over to the weight room. I was confused about dynamic vs static stretching and I think I got the idea after reading up on it some. My basic stretching I do before lifting really focuses on my legs and back.

No dude, it's nothing to be confused about. Stretch AFTER you lift. That's all. You can do dynamic stretches and mobility drills BEFORE you lift if you need to just don't do the classic "static" stretches that we all think of as stretching. Do that after.

LOL, you need to read the article and that'll clear it up. If you need to stretch there are before there are ways to do it and way to not. Static stretches slow you down, decrease your strength, mess up you coordination, etc. so on, if you do them before.

Dynamic stetches and to some extent isometric and PNF can be done before but I'd stick to dynamic.

But here's the problem. Stretching is NOT WARMING UP. Warming up is warming up. Two different things. Doing stretches before you lift will not protect you from injury. It's a myth. A proper warmup which can include some light fullbody cardio of some type, some basic loosening up mobility stuff and then your specific weight warmup....THAT will help protect you from injury. Static stretching will do the opposite.

Basically all the crapola we've ALL had drilled into your heads about the 'proper' stretching to do before you workout is bullshit.

If this isn't making sense to you yet let me know.

I know it sounds like heresy. But anybody who has any modern knowledge of this stuff left those notions about stretching before behind a while ago. Only the old stuck in a rut coach still believes it. Static stretching AFTER, however, has many, many, many benefits...but when I was talking about stretching before I thought you knew I meant after or I would have gone into all this, sorry.

Copy that! I am understanding it all now...man my PT leader is sooo retarded. He has us do the stupidest shit and I have no choice but to do it and I know that it f*cks with my workout! Frusterating...

I see what your saying about the stretches and I like the idea of doing some light cardio before I do my warmup sets and then do some stretching AFTER the workout. Correct?

<-----STILL A NEWBIE!

Static or passive stretching actually REDUCES blood flow to the muscles

Yep, basically what you said. If you do feel "tight" like I said you can do the dynamics. You'll have to teach youself about that and I can tell you a lot. Also you can do joint rotations and different kinds of mobility stuff before if it is necessary. And all that would generally be a good idea. There are many different kinds of stretching and flexibility and they all have their proper place.

But yes you should have a stretching routine that you do after each type of workout.

Like I said before if you have a chronically tight 'opposite' muscle then passively stretching it before would be a good idea. An example of this might be if your pecs were very tight and overactive and you were about to do a row of some type. Obviously the tight pecs could limit you range of motion. Also they could inhibit you ability through something known as reciprical inhibition. So stretching them in a case like that could help a lot because it would sort of de-excite the motor neurons if that makes sense. Remember that flexibility is a function of the nervous system.

On the cardio what I have found to be the best is something that gives you a good range of motion. Lots of people just get on the treadmill for a light warmup but I prefer something like a rower or anything that moves the legs and arms through a larger range of motion. It "gets the blood flowing" much better and it more similar to what you will be doing in the weight workout. Of course the cardio cannot be enough to be taxing to you in any way.

When you do the dynamic stretching prior, however, which I do qutie a bit, that's actually stretching and a warmup all in one not counting the weight warmup of course.

Gotcha Eric. Man this thread should be a mandatory stop for new inexperienced members cause I think we have covered a lot of topics here!