Well it is a knee dominant movement, so not ideal if you have bad knees. But it’s no worse than a traditional hack squat machine.

Hey Mike. Yeah, 1,400 calories sounds way too low for our size. I was eating 2,700 calories even at the very end of the cut. Depending on your body composition, you could be eating well below your BMR, which means your metabolism has likely slowed down and is preventing you from losing more weight. It might be time to reverse diet and slowly eat more to get your metabolism ramped back up. I recently posted a video where I share my process for reverse dieting if you want to check that out. Don't think I can put the link in a comment, but if you go to my channel it's near the top of my latest videos.

@@Nutritioneering Thank you for the info and advice. I will definitely check out the reverse dieting video!

@@mikerucker8458 You're welcome!

You can use your curl bar for either press variation since you don't have a straight bar. It will be more challenging to go heavy since the bar is lighter, but it's better than nothing!

The good morning exercise is similar to a deadlift in that it's a posterior chain hip hinge movement. However, the good morning starts from an upright position and emphasizes the lowering phase, while deadlifts start from the floor and emphasize the pulling phase. So, a good morning is more like a Romanian deadlift, except the weight is on your shoulders, which changes the loading and feel of the exercise.

Thank you!

Thank you, I really appreciate the kind words!

Hello. Either lat pulldown variation will work fine for gaining strength and muscle definition without getting too wide. For your goal, you can focus on using a lighter weight you can easily handle for 10-15 reps. Looking like a bodybuilder is hard! You don't have to worry about accidentally building too much muscle. 😊

Thank you!

The butt wink is because I have long femurs relative to my torso. So, the high bar placement, narrow stance, and flat heels max out my hip range of motion faster. It typically goes away when I elevate my heels. The hip shift is due to a lateral pelvic tilt, which isn't as easy to remedy. If you have anything constructive to add, I'm open to suggestions.

It's real! You can see more videos documenting the process on my channel.

You're welcome! I wasn't sure if anyone would ever find this video, so I'm honored that it helped you solve your Marcy gym problem. Thanks for sharing that!

I'm sorry to hear about your back! When doing Pendlay rows, it's vital to start with lighter weight and keep the bar close to your center of gravity to avoid strain on your lower back.

The narrow stance isn't necessarily dangerous for the knees but is more knee-dominant. The mechanics also depend on bar placement, heel elevation, and body proportions. If it bothers your knees, I recommend trying a wider stance or a low bar placement to see if it takes some of the load off your knees. I hope this helps!

Yeah I think the muscle loss was minimal at 180. But I still had some love handles and lower back fat. I feel like 172 pounds was the best of muscular yet lean.

You're welcome! You will typically use a lighter weight than you would for a traditional dumbbell curl. Choose a weight where your biceps fail at 8-12 reps, which is best for hypertrophy.

You're welcome!

Thank you!

Absolutely. I usually use both grips during my back workouts.

Thanks, Billy!

I was a bit rusty with some of these woodworking skills, too. You got this!

@@Nutritioneering The 22.5 angles were really easy with my miter saw, but the 67.5 was a pain. I used a Japanese style pull saw and got them cut pretty decent, but still had to do a lot of hand sanding. I recommend lining up the 2 side pieces, clamping them, and sanding everything all at once to make sure everything is flat. After I assembled everything, it wobbled, and I discovered my 2-foot 4x4 was warped. Luckily, I had another one in the back of the garage, and now I'm a proud owner of a Nutritioneering calf block. Thanks again for the great video and inspiration.

@@RudestBuddhist Nutritioneering calf block - I love that! That 67.5-degree cut was definitely the most challenging. It sounds like you have the right tools and good woodworking experience. Clamping the blocks together for sanding the notches is a great idea, too. Congratulations on successfully building your calf raise block, and thanks for sharing your tips!

I will gladly have a rational debate about the mechanics of this exercise if you can provide one good reason why you think the opposite is true. The point I'm making in this video is that the force is applied in the direction of the cable. Therefore, the load on the tricep muscle is highest when the cable is perpendicular to the forearm bone. When standing close to the pulley, the tricep only has to exert peak force in a tiny portion of the range of motion at the top. In contrast, stepping away and leaning forward loads the tricep through a more significant portion of the mid-range and contracted range of motion. This technique is much better for hypertrophy and specifically for targeting the medial and lateral tricep heads. You could split the difference and stand a little closer to work the long head of the tricep in the stretched position - I'm not opposed to that. But standing right up on the cable is only suitable for doing partial reps or ego lifting. When I was younger, I would lift the entire stack on cable pressdowns with that technique, but my triceps were relatively small. As I gained more experience, I adjusted my technique, as shown in the video, and now my triceps have grown significantly.

@@Nutritioneering in a single joint mechanistic pov you might be right but the thing is that it is not only a pure movement arm topic. We have other muscles in that region and to be able to start your excersise, the lats, traps and the rear delts will bear a huge amount of load to keep the arm on that path. That is more a lat movement other than a triceps movement. If you go close to the stack where the humerus is in line with the cable there is going to be a minimal load on the mentioned muscles and the triceps will be the limiting muscle. The easiest way to find out if an excersise is bs or good for hypertrophy is that if you load it to a huge weight which muscle is going to fail. So I can’t imagine to even get to the starting position with your setup with a full rack.

@@powercat-training I agree that applying load to the target muscle is one of the principles of hypertrophy. And using body position to isolate the muscle is one way to do that. However, more factors are involved in hypertrophy, such as range of motion, position of flexion, time under tension, and the mind-muscle connection. Standing close to the cable is better for isolating the elbow joint from the shoulder joint. But standing further from the cable, the load is applied to the triceps through more of the range of motion, particularly in the contracted position. Using lighter weight allows the lifter to focus on contracting the triceps without much effort wasted on stabilizing the shoulder. You don't need huge loads to elicit hypertrophy. In fact, going too heavy often has the opposite effect and results in changing mechanics to favor power instead of deliberate muscle contraction. I've seen many ego lifters stand right up on the stack to lift as much weight as possible, but they flare their elbows and engage their pectorals and anterior deltoids, almost like a tricep dip. I'm not saying you should never stand close to the stack on tricep pressdowns. But it should not be done the way I just described, which is what I demonstrate in the video. Standing away from the cable and using lighter weights is much better by comparison. I understand there are some advantages to standing closer to the cable as well, if you use proper form.

@@Nutritioneering I could debate every sentence but I don’t think I will be able to convince you without a visual help so I will stop here.

@@powercat-training I've considered all your points and even ceded ground where we overlap, or I agree with your point of view. On the other hand, you disregarded the rational points I've made because you've already determined you're right. That's the reason this debate hasn't gone anywhere.

Thank you. Best of luck with your body transformation!

You're welcome!

Yes, the smith machine good morning targets the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back.

Yeah, that's pretty much it if you had to boil it down to a two-word distinction. And some other nuances affect the use cases.

@@Nutritioneering I've had to do some research into this topic because I'm combat sports athlete (Karate and Jiu-jitsu) and both my coaches and a coworker who is a physical educator told me to focus more on floor press with balistic move rather then bench. Using bench only as a warm-up / resistence training. I would like to know/learn more about those things, but they told me exactly that to keep it simple 🤣🤣🤣

@@victorribeiro2431 Your situation would be one of those nuances 😉 I agree with your coaches that the floor press is better suited to combat sports. Those sports require a lot of isometric force and power from a dead-stop position, which is what the floor press is good for. The bench press is better for working your muscles and joints through the full range of motion, particularly the stretched position. So, using that as your warm-up before floor pressing is a solid method. Your coaches are spot-on for your specific sport. However, powerlifters, bodybuilders, and Olympic lifters may need a different approach.

Yes, you could do this with resistance bands as well. Lying on the floor should feel more stable than standing 👍

You're welcome, Justin. Glad my video provided the information you needed!

That's understandable, as it can be tricky to find the right balance. Here are some additional tips: Looking down at the floor instead of straight ahead is the easiest way to tilt your body forward. You can't see my knees at the bottom, but they are slightly behind my hips, facilitating the forward lean. Also, you'll notice in the video that my hands are further behind my torso for chest dips. It's not a drastic forward lean you're after, just enough to shift the load to your chest. I hope this helps!

@@ginnheimTV for which exercise are you wondering about the grip?

@@ryanjhamat2544 are you suggesting that heating healthy food in a microwave somehow makes it unhealthy?

@@Nutritioneering yes it does

@@ryanjhamat2544 I have not seen any evidence that microwaving food is harmful. Can you provide a specific medical study backing your claim?

@@Nutritioneering well they are banned in Russia and possibly other countries and it’s just one of those obvious things

@@ryanjhamat2544 microwaves actually are not banned in Russia. I’m not sure what you mean by it being one of those obvious things. Other than rumors and conspiracy theories, there’s no evidence that microwaving food is harmful. I’ve been looking for research on the subject since your first comment just to make sure I’m not missing something, but I haven’t found anything that holds up to scrutiny.

Thank you!

No problem! I understand how frustrating it can be to do certain exercises on the Marcy home gym. So, I'm glad my video helped you find a comfortable way to do leg curls.

Thanks for your comment. I'm with you about doing both variations for a complete back workout. I've heard the saying about using the wide grip to build a wider back for many years, and it seems logical when looking at the mechanics. According to EMG data, it stimulates the lats slightly more than the close grip. The wide grip also works the detailed musculature of the upper back more than the close grip. However, the close grip puts the body in a stronger pulling position, engaging more muscle groups. I have yet to see any studies on how grip width affects back thickness or width, so using both grips is the best way to cover your bases.

It would be more accurate to say the incline bench EMPHASIZES the upper chest. The chart shown in the video is actual EMG muscle activation data from a sports research study. It shows the incline results in greater upper chest activation with less mid and lower chest. While the flat bench has more even activation across the whole chest. So the incline is significantly better for building the upper pectorals relative to the rest of the chest.

@@Nutritioneering EMG studies are not a reliable source to predict how an individual will grow muscle. Activation does not equal muscle growth; during a standing OHP, your glutes activate a lot, not because they are growing, but for stabilisation. It's also necessary to say that everyone has a different activation of each muscle on a given exercise. A study has shown over 12 weeks that the group training with an incline bench had more chest growth than with a flat bench. Yes, it was only one study, so it should not be taken as an absolute, but we still have some information based on it.

@@d0va316 That's a fair statement about EMG not being perfectly correlated to muscle growth. And you are correct that individual circumstances play a significant role. In addition to exercise selection, other factors such as range of motion, loading, rep range, rest period, and training split will also affect muscle gain. And I would even agree that some people could build a good chest with an incline bench and no flat benching. However, I would be interested to know the demographics of the participants in the study you mentioned (experienced vs new lifters, training protocol, diet, etc). Also, did they measure pectoral growth in the upper, middle, and lower pecs, or just an average? Studies aside, my experience also has been that the incline bench does not activate the lower chest as much, while the flat bench does not activate the upper chest as much. For instance, I was able to incline bench before I could flat bench after tearing my pectoral muscle. The reason is likely due to the different parts of the chest activated and getting more support from the anterior deltoids on the incline bench. At the end of the day, advanced bodybuilders must consider bench angle when designing a workout routine to build the desired muscle shape and aesthetic. For example, if someone lacks fullness in the lower chest, I would not have them exclusively incline bench. Or if they have a teardrop chest profile, I would add more incline pressing. On the other hand, just getting the technique down and applying progressive overload is enough for novices.

@@Nutritioneering yeah I like your point. I will try to find back the study I'm talking about. If I remember correctly, it was 47 participants. They were untrained or detrained. From my experience, I've only been flat benching since I started lifting (January) and I've developed a tear-drop pec like you say. So next year, I'll try only an incline bench I would like to say thank you for reading my entire comment and staying courteous. It's a rare thing in KZbin comments😅

@@d0va316 No problem! You brought up some excellent counterpoints, and I'm always open to an intelligent debate. I keep an open mind to new information because those who think they know everything stop gaining knowledge. For someone new to lifting, you already have a thorough understanding of physiology. Keep that desire to learn; you will make significant progress in your lifting journey!

🙌

You're welcome!