Lost this in another thread... - JP Fitness Forums

seomanthe · 07-24-2008, 06:59 AM

Hey all.. I originally posted this at the end of -Stage 6, anyone..?- but I guess it got lost:

I will be starting Stage 6 the week after next (my recovery week from stage 5 is serendipitously falling on my vacation to Europe!). I work out in the gym at my job, which up till now has been adequate in terms of equipment. But for next stage's negative pullups, there is no chinning bar, power tower... Nada. Not even an exposed heating pipe. I'll put a list of the equipment at the end of this post*.

Thing is, I can already do pullups (I have a chinning bar at home, and can bang out 5 consecutive reps of underhand pullups). Overhand I'm not so good, I struggle with just one. My wide-grip lateral pulldowns have always seemed very weak to me, 12lbs at best so far. But in bent-over rows I can pull 80lbs though! I honestly have no idea what's going on here. I've studied the form in the book and watched videos at ExRx and I believe my form is good.

So what I would like to do is strengthen my back (a lot) so that my overhand pullups are better, with the equipment at hand. I should add that at home I do have an olympic bar and plates also.

AND finally.. Yesterday I did my favorite exercise, cable wood-chops. The cable machine has 2 cables connected to the plates at that station that you clip to the grips. Up until now, I have always connected the grip to BOTH cables and so far have maxed at 12lbs. Yesterday, the person before me had only connected to one of the two cables and I just left it that way, and found it was INCREDIBLY easy to move the same amount of weight... I know it was the same weight because I can still see the plates moving as always, lol. I raised it to 15lbs and still barely any effort at all. All I can say is... wth?

*a home-gym big cable monster that has stations for a bunch of different exercises, a bicep curling machine, a wide assortment of DBs, benches, a seated rower, treadmills, ellipticals, weighted abs chair, and standing punching bag

Aoife · 07-24-2008, 07:07 AM

So, if your only missing equipment is the bar for pullups, break them off of your workout and do them at home. And then, of course, work the overhand grip as the book has you do them. It's not the worst thing in the world, if you can't find a way to get a bar in there or something to use.

LisaS · 07-24-2008, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seomanthe

Thing is, I can already do pullups (I have a chinning bar at home, and can bang out 5 consecutive reps of underhand pullups). Overhand I'm not so good, I struggle with just one. My wide-grip lateral pulldowns have always seemed very weak to me, 12lbs at best so far. But in bent-over rows I can pull 80lbs though! I honestly have no idea what's going on here. grip to BOTH cables and so far have maxed at 12lbs.

this doesn't track at all. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the station where you are doing this has numbers on the plates - but that they don't represent the number of pounds at that level. Many stations are set up like this.
If I had to guess - the numbers might represent 10s of lbs or some other value, but not single pounds.

realcdn · 07-24-2008, 11:59 AM

I agree, it's likely 12x5lb or 12x10-lb plates. Okay, the last machine I used was a leg press at the old company gym I used, however, each number corresponded to # of plates.

seomanthe · 07-24-2008, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LisaS

this doesn't track at all. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the station where you are doing this has numbers on the plates - but that they don't represent the number of pounds at that level. Many stations are set up like this.
If I had to guess - the numbers might represent 10s of lbs or some other value, but not single pounds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by realcdn

I agree, it's likely 12x5lb or 12x10-lb plates. Okay, the last machine I used was a leg press at the old company gym I used, however, each number corresponded to # of plates.

Hmm.. When I go downstairs tomorrow, I'll fiddle with the plates and see what's what. I do know that the plates at the top of the stack (lightest) are smaller than the plates below, and the numbers increase by ones. I've assumed so far that inserting the pin at the plate marked "12" means that the total poundage of the plates moved is 12 pounds... & this is how I've logged all the way through stages 1 through 5! Ugh. Now I'm depressed that my logs might all be horribly wrong.

LisaS · 07-24-2008, 02:08 PM

otto works out somewhere where the plates are just numbers - so he just reckons along the lines that today he's doing #7 and next week same reps at #8 and that's improvement.

normal cable stations that intend to record pounds don't go up by "1" - they are marked like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and so forth.

Aoife · 07-24-2008, 02:18 PM

I've seen cable machines where the plates go up by 5, 10, 15, or 20 pounds.
The pulldown machine at our old gym was plates of 15.

I doubt a pulldown or row machine would have plates set at 5 pounds, those tend to be reserved for the cable machines meant to be used with one hand, it's really too small an increment for a large muscle group like the back.

At our current gym, the row, pulldown, and a couple other machines only have numbers like described. The assisted pullup/dip machine actually has a key on it listing what the numbers correspond to. I remember it being something odd, like a stone (14#) versus a "normal" increment like 10/15.

Other non-cable machines will do similar (I mean, I guess they have cable systems, but that's within the stack, not that you're pulling on a cable, is what I'm describing as the difference.)

missjane · 07-24-2008, 03:44 PM

Our cable machine at the gym is 1,2,3,4,5 and when I asked, the consensus here was that they were in 10 lb increments; however, on my cable machine, they are all the same size and there's a 5 lb plate you can add on on top of the stack, too.

Bratt · 07-26-2008, 12:33 PM

The only thing that makes any sense is that 2 cables = twice as much weight as one cable. The only time I've heard of or seen machines with 2 cables is when they are each attached to a stack of weights. Like a cable crossover machine. I can do 25lbs for the woodchop. That's probably fairly average. I think 12 lbs is an odd number though. Most machines that use pounds go up in increments of 5 don't they? Maybe yours is kilograms?

Take a picture or 2 of the machine and post it maybe?

Quote:

Originally Posted by seomanthe

AND finally.. Yesterday I did my favorite exercise, cable wood-chops. The cable machine has 2 cables connected to the plates at that station that you clip to the grips. Up until now, I have always connected the grip to BOTH cables and so far have maxed at 12lbs. Yesterday, the person before me had only connected to one of the two cables and I just left it that way, and found it was INCREDIBLY easy to move the same amount of weight... I know it was the same weight because I can still see the plates moving as always, lol. I raised it to 15lbs and still barely any effort at all. All I can say is... wth?

*a home-gym big cable monster that has stations for a bunch of different exercises, a bicep curling machine, a wide assortment of DBs, benches, a seated rower, treadmills, ellipticals, weighted abs chair, and standing punching bag

missjane · 07-26-2008, 03:18 PM

I've given up on truly knowing what the plates really weight. I now *think* that the plates on the Cybex machines are 12 lbs each and the add-on plate is 6.5 lbs, based on my research. But, I just now concern myself with going from plate #6 to plate #7, for example, because I truly can't be 100% sure of the actual weight. As long as I am improving, I guess it just doesn't matter. It's just the anal side of me that REALLY wants to know.