how much of a difference is eating 3 full meals a day to what I've heard eating 6 small meals? Is 6 meals that much better and can anyone actually prove it?

None, other than personal pleasure.

Nope.

It's been proven that it doesn't matter.

EDIT: To actually say something useful: meal timing/frequency is for the most part irrelevant. I personally enjoy 2-3 larger meals. 6 small meals contributes to your metabolism twice as frequently as 3 big meals, but with half the magnitude. It all evens out.

I always found the six small meals a day thing inconvenient. I would get confused cause in reality its like 3 meals with 3 healthy snacks in between imo and protein shake can also count as a meal post workout. Pretty much just eat enough so you won't feel hungry afterwards and cause you to over eat.

Went and bought a 36" foam roller today. Just got done using it for the first time, boy where has this thing been my whole life??? It felt pretty intensely painful in spots, but the good kind of pain. Like that really deep tissue massage I've always wanted to get, where it hurts when you get it, but you feel amazing afterwards. I already feel less sore.

Best money I've spent in a long time.

Do you have a lax ball? Your post X infinity imo.

Really? The act of foam rolling is sometimes painful for me, regardless of whether the area I am rolling was sore previous to said foam rolling. Is this a normal occurrence or am I performing the foam rolling incorrectly?

This is what I meant.

Yes it is going to hurt, especially when you first start out because your muscles are more than likely all messed up with tons of adhesions. After the first few weeks it will clear up some and there will only be a few rough spots each session, depending on what you've been doing.

It sucks some when you aren't used to it, but fight through the pain and really roll those spots that are the most tender.

Should I stop lifting until the soreness goes away? Or continue with much lighter weight?

Is it alright to regularly use whey protein shake as a one meal replacement daily (when trying to slowly lose weight/strength train 3x week)? I'm eating two meals and using whey protein shake as a snack once or twice a day. I like it because it's seems fairly satiating and I don't have to prepare another meal, or get too bored with things like cottage cheese/greek yogurt as my go to snacks.

I use now unflavored isolated whey mixed with a few ounces of unsweetened cranberry juice(which i sweeten a bit with stevia/xylitol combo). The cranjuice i buy has something like 80 calories for 8 ounces, and I only use maybe 5 ounces per shake. Tastes really good.

Is this a bad/flawed strategy?

As long as you are correctly tracking the calories and not magically forgetting to count 150 cals of cranjuice or w/e, its fine. Props for finding a way to enjoy protein shakes. I chug mine then chug coffee to get the horrid taste away

I'd try very light weights. If they cause any sharp pain, stop immediately. If not, work up fast as long as there's no sharp pain. Hopefully you can also distinguish between soreness in your erectors and well, disc-related pain.

When dead lifting, how long is too long to take between reps? Is 5-10 seconds too long?

Also, is foam rolling really necessary if I feel like I'm recovering well enough on my off days?

Generally you want to start the next rep as soon as you get your body in position again. It should not take 10 seconds, it's definitely slower for me than other exercises between reps but still only a few seconds in between.

You don't need to foam roll. It's just a useful thing to do especially if you have specific problem area's.

need some advice. over the next 4 months or so I will be concentrating on fat loss (suns out guns out brah). Going to focus on the following:

1. Diet
2. Strength Training (already did ss > tm > 5/3/1)
3. HIIT couple times a week.

Main question I have is, what programs are usually pretty good with trying to cut (not too extreme) and cardio during the week? More importantly, what would be the most optimal? Or am I splitting hairs and just focus on my diet (calories in and what I eat). I realize I wont be able to progress that much since I'll be cutting a little and increasing workout volume (HIIT). Couple ideas...

5/3/1 body building template (http://www.jimwendler.com/2011/09/531-and-bodybuilding/)
-a lot of the assistance lifts are probably easy to recover from and wouldnt be that taxing (ie curls).

5/3/1 triumvirate
-only 2 extra assistance lifts

5/3/1 any variation
-I had some good results with cutting before while on 5/3/1.

Texas Method
-I've noticed people have good results with cutting while on TM. But I think adding HIIT during the week would be brutal. I think bare min, my volume day would have to be 3x5.

Madcow
-No experience with this, just a wild card here.

Thanks.

If I'm on a low carb diet how bad would it be if I chewed gum all the time maybe like 3 a day? I heard chewing gum is actually good if your trying to cut weight but I started thinking that it probably has a lot of carbs that I don't want? Any tips on this or gum that has little or no carbs?

Thanks bud.

This is a little rock.

Before you make a bunch of random assumptions, you should google your gum of choice and figure out the nutritional facts.

Anybody used a Thera-Band Flexbar?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...-tennis-elbow/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-Rj...layer_embedded

http://www.amazon.com/Thera-Band-Fle.../dp/B000P7YMW0

Supposedly it helps immensely with tennis elbow type pains and general forearm strengthening.

how exactly to include pullups in SS routine?

i think rippetoe adivices shoulder width, whats the diference to wide grip? cause i prefer doing the latter, its easier and fells better

its 3 sets to failure, or 5 sets to failure? some of u adviced to do till 5 then add weight, instead of till 15 or so ( i have the weight belt so would be a good use) and on avg just to have an idea how much weight u guys started adding per sessios on pull-ups

Wide grip for pull-ups (palms away from you), shoulder width for chins (palms facing you). Iirc it's 3 sets to failure. Add weight when you hit 8ish reps imo, but it's not a big deal when. Start with 5 or 10 lbs.

I just wanted to post a followup to the suggestions I've taken thus far. Day after foam rolling and getting an extra hour of sleep, I feel ****ing awesome. Much better mood/energy and practically no soreness.

how can i make chicken breasts taste less disgusting?

Jesus,
simple way:
salt + pepper + meat seasoning (Lawry's, et. al.)


hard way:

Put about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a pan and turn the heat up to medium. Next, mince two cloves of garlic and toss them in the pan. I then seasoned the chicken breasts with salt, pepper, all-purpose meat seasoning, and dehydrated ground peppers. Once this is done, you should be able to smell the garlic cooking a little bit in the oil, which is a sign to toss the chicken into the pan seasoning side down. Make sure you season the other side. Now you just let it cook on medium heat for 5-10 minutes for each side. I usually do about 5m, then flip, 5m, flip. It can be a little bit difficult to judge if it is done so I usually just cut through the thickest part of the chicken to make sure its not pink in the middle. Over time you'll know when it's done and don't have to cut into it.

Also, the frozen chicken breasts usually don't have as much flavor as "fresh" chicken breasts.

shocking that making people do forearm strength exercises helps them with forearm pain.

i've never tried the apparatus. i imagine it's probably ok.

Haven't posted here in forever.
Anyways stopped lifting for a while till the gf dumped me but been back doing SS 3 days a week for the past 4 months now.

Lifts have progressed nicely but a fewproblems
Worksets are currently
Bench->230
OHP -> 145
Squats -> 235
Deadlift -> 300 (always do double overhead)
Powerclean -> 175

Before I had stopped lifting for a while my worksets were squats ->250 and bench only 205 so idk, I do go extra low on squats now so maybe thats it.

My squats seem to be stalling, maybe form? (don't have a weightlifting belt right now which might be affecting it)

Also my main reason for posting, deadlifts. After a workset of deadlifts now my lower back is super tired/tight for 10-15 minutes and all I want to do is sit down and walking is a pain. Not normal is it? Possibly rounding my back? I get the same thing from squats too sometime though not as bad lately which I think is cause I'm squatting a little less than I should be/can.