Thank you, X, for inviting me into the T-Cell. I'm starting this thread, not to introduce myself, but to try to get this group active again. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the forums have taken a turn for the worse as of late.

When I first found T-Nation a couple of years ago, I felt like threads were much more serious and civilized than they are now. Most threads I see on the forums lately get derailed in a matter of a page or two, usually in the same unnecessary internet flaming, hating, arguing, etc. This site is definitely the key factor in the progress that I've made over the last 2.5 years or so. I would hope that we can keep the usual training/nutrition discussions going, in hopes of helping others now that are like myself when I first discovered this site. In a way, I'm doing my best to pass on the torch, as The Mighty Stu said I will have to do some day :)

So, I remember seeing a "What's on your mind" or "The Wall" thread somewhere. I'm not sure if that was the name, but I remember seeing a thread devoted for anyone's random thoughts on training/nutrition/supplements whatever that one could post for anyone to discuss. Maybe someone could give that a bump? Or someone can start a new thread, whatever is on your mind.

I hope this thread doesn't come off as too corny lol, but I'm hoping this group can get started up again.

On my mind: Regular/semi-regular fasting is magic. It's certainly not for anyone, but for those who struggle to keep weight off after you get past the initial mental block of "omg, I'm not eating chicken and broccoli every 2.67 hours" (courtesy of Bug,) the results start to speak for themselves and pretty awesome things begin happening.

Mix that with intelligent macro timing, a fair amount of cardio and intense weight-lifting, and you have yourself some impressive physique changes.

Look at you being proactive

Welcome Ashy, well deserved man.

I'd like to see guys who have lifted for a while talk about how they do to avoid and deal with injuries, but I have a hard time wording a first post well. Help a foreigner out lol.

Welcome, ashy.
You bet me to this TCA wake-up thread.

@spar4tee: Just trying to give back what i can to the site that's given a lot to me. Seriously, I wouldn't be where I am now without TNation.

@Maiden: Thanks, man. I remember wanting to call my original training log "My Road to the T-Cell" lol.

@FF: Thanks. And great post, really informative. I guess it's best for us young guns not to ignore the importance of pre-hab, also. I feel invincible now as I'm 22, but I know it can't last forever lol. What can be said for injury prevention, other than the usual mobility work, good warmup and smart training, recovery, diet and proper supplementing?

This is cool

Definitely x2 on what Stu and Fatty said (not to diminish what others wrote).

I'm still in the process of learning when/how much to back off when I "tweak" a body part, but I'm getting less hardheaded about it over time, which is a good thing. Ideally you learn from others' mistakes, sometimes you gotta learn from your own. Those are certainly the ones that stick with you the most.

Thread is not corny. The forums are suffering from an influx of a bunch of people who would rather spend pages arguing and turning every thread into a troll/flame thread.

As far as the topic, what the motorcycle accident taught me is how to train around injuries. My muscle losses were way less than they would have been if I had simply stopped training until I healed or if I had trained stupidly.

I can see now that I would have recovered much slower if I had not continued hitting the gym the way I was.

Breaking my hand taught me to re-evaluate how I held the bar when squatting. Granted I think a firm grip is essential for out of the hole but there was this video of one of the Universal Nutrition guys squatting 650ish in the Animal cage at the Arnold with no hands.

I have a lot more respect for the warming up stage/stretching than I used to. Makes a huge difference.

If I could only do one lower body stretch/mobility exercise, it would be the preacher squat aka 3rd world squat. I do this for 2 minutes every night before I go to bed. I was having shin/knee pains from squatting for a while. I laid off for a week, did the preacher squat for a few minutes each day, and it's completely gone now. There is also a new guy in our strength club who had the most terrible squat form I've ever seen. I told him to do the preacher squat for a minutes here and there every day. Within a couple of weeks, his form and mobility increased dramatically, like night and day.

Me being and uber noob has never done this, i will try it.

Lately my hip flexors have been pretty sore from the volume of squatting.

Re-posting this as requested from facebook...suppose it fits in here.

I know this isn't a crazy revelation to many (or any), but it's a pattern that I've noticed in my training. Whenever I injure a part of my body, it tends to make me better at training it, leading to an ultimately better bodypart. When I wasn't able to train triceps heavy for about 4 months, I learned a lot of new ways to hit tri's without aggravating the injury...after that, my bench started going up again. This time, having hurt my lower back, I've had to hit back and legs for a few weeks in a manner that didn't further strain my lower back. I've learned/taught myself a few new tricks for hitting the same muscle groups, but in a different manner.

It makes sense, with that in mind, why Dave Tate is more well known and influential in powerlifting circles than Donnie Thompson, even though Thompson holds the world record squat...same idea with Scott Mendelson, Ryan Kennely, Benedikt Magnusson, etc. How many of you can say your training methodologies are more affected by them than someone like Dave Tate, despite his lesser degree of "success" in the actual sport? I believe that's largely due to him having injured the crap out of himself so many times, and eventually learning from those mistakes, that he now is better capable of helping other people achieve their training goals MINUS the mistakes, making him a smarter, better coach/trainer/powerlifting guru.

This thread's a breath of fresh air. Thanks and welcome, Larry!

I'm echoing what Stu, Fatty, and Steely said, and upon further reading, the same as H4M as well!

My downside is that I was a frail kid, and went gung-ho as a teen to gain muscle. But I got injured a LOT from poor practices and an ego that wouldn't let up! Had knee surgeries, torn biceps, repeated and various shoulder and lower back problems. However, I maintained a positive attitude about training, yet held on to a large degree of fear - much of it unwarranted. Some of the injuries I had only worsened by NOT training them! Even now if I take a week off, my shoulders and elbows seem to flare up. I've also stopped taking technical advice from "experts". One example is that a lifter MUST retract the scapulae during the entire ROM of the bench press. This has done more to aggravate my shoulders than anything. So much so that I stopped training the BP for years. However, a few months ago I took a cue from observing what happens when a man does pushups. I applied this to my bench presses and now I'm back on the bench without pain! In fact, my shoulders seem to be getting better, and I noticed my mobility has improved. I'm ecstatic because I feel better now that I'm almost 50, than I did at age 30.

Sorry the long story. :)

damn FF I didn't know you were 30, welcome to the old man club =p

just to add to the injury prevention thing: I've found it very, very useful to ramp up weight in ANY movement up to my working weight, and to make sure that DAT FEEL is present, whether it be from a stretch, squeeze, setup, bar path etc.

for example, I've set up pushdowns thinking that I was ok to start with my working weight since my elbows were still warm.. nope, my left elbow went snap crackle pop for the whole set and that elbow was inflamed for a week.

I had no idea you weren't already invited in here Ashy! Well damn, good to have you! Definitely should have been in here long before.

Regarding injury prevention: ramping up is a must! The only exception I can see to this is if you are doing a lift every day at a moderate weight--for instance I pretty much just put 275 on the bar (as part of my current experimentation) for my bench press without a warm-up....but I'm doing it every day AND I've also already done power snatch and some plyo push-ups beforehand.

Also I firmly and utterly believe that foam rolling and PNF stretching has done more to keep things at bay for me than almost everything else. Really pretty basic, but amazing. I do love the CT style neural warm-ups prior to lifting sessions, I feel they help get me ready without taking a ton of time as well.