The Raven

Do you take any supplements? What would you recomend? I started Wheybolic Extreme and Cellucore Super HD recently. Have you tried those?

Kinda related, does anyone here know any drills or exercises for linebackers and fullbacks? I've only played guard in highschool, but the coach at the college I'm going to said I should try fullback or linebacker there. I'm trying to get faster and work on getting more explosive out of a 2 point stance.

Crap! Nice man.

Thats good stuff man. I bench about 215 on a good day. Being 190 I'll take it. My goal was to bench over my body weight I've squatted 350, but I've box squatted 515 for a set of 8. I was going for a 1+ set and my coach made me keep lifting until I couldn't. I haven't tried to go much higher than that on box squat because that killed my back. I power cleaned 205 a few weeks ago but haven't gotten that lately. 365 dead lift. I drink nothing but water unless I'm eating out, and when I do eat out I try to drink tea instead. I try to do at least 100 pushups today, which has helped my bench a lot.

So what's everybody's max lifts for bench, squat, deadlift, and/or power clean?

No problem man

Do pushups. Lots and lots of pushups. Obviously you could do bench press. You could do rowing pushups with the dumbells. You could do overhead presses. For mass gaining, I would recomend peanut butter and milk. Whey Protein is a very good protein shale for mass gaining. My coach either found or invented the absolute most diabolical exercise ever you could do with those dumbells. They're called "man makers". You're gonna get into a push up position with dumbells in your hands, row with your right hand, row with your left hand, do a pushup, jump up into a standing position, and then press the dumbells over your head. If you've ever done burpees or squat thrusts its like that. They will shred your upperbody.

That sounds brutal

Speed crunches - on back, legs up, and cross your feet. And crunch fast! Bicycles - You're gonna lay on your back and shoot your legs back and forth like pistons, bringing your opposite elbow to the knee as it comes back. You should twist your torso, and lift your shoulder off the ground. (i.e. Right elbow to left knee) Boxer crunches - Lay on your back with feet down, knees bent. Crunch up, and twist your torso left and right so that your opposite elbow goes to the opposite knee. Bring your right elbow to left knee, left elbow to right knee. The key is to twist your torso FAST. V-ups - Sit on your but with your hands behind your back on the floor. Your feet should be crossed and off the ground. Crunch your knees up to your chest, like a V. Hip tilts - Lay on your back, with your legs in the air. Arms flat on the gound at your side. Roll your hips back and lift up in the air. The goal here is to keep your feet high. This is not a speed exercise like the previous ones. Snap touches - Very similar to hip tilts. Lay flat with your legs out straight on the ground, and your arms flat laying over your head. Crunch like a V, lift your shoulders off the ground, and without bending your knees, touch your toes with your hands. Also not a speed exercise. "Do it right, not fast" 6 inches cycle - Lay flat with your feet 6 inches above the ground. Some "fun" variations of this are to lift your legs to 12 or 18 inches, lift one leg up at 12 and the other at 16, alternating lifting your legs up and down, etc. They're kind of hard for me to explain throught text, but if you need more aid I can look for videos of them on youtube.

Do you have access to weights? I could help with arms, and shoulders better if I knew what variety of weights you had access to. As far as abs go, doing ab circuits is the way to go. My coach gives us brutal ab wrokouts by doing rapid fire ab exercises with no breaks. I don't know the actual science behind them, but we'll do exercises that complement each other really well. For example, we'll start with speed crunches, then move into bicycles, then into boxer crunches, and repeat. A really killer ab workout you could do is speed crunches, bicycles, boxer crunches, V-ups, hip tilts, snap touches, and finish up with a 6 inches cycle. You can do them for whatever time duration you wish, I would suggest starting at 30 seconds to get acclimated to it, but try and do a minute of each. If you need explanations for any of this I can help with that.

Maybe, idk. I'm no athletic trainer lol.

I've tried those. However, I've always found decline pushups (feet on bench) and regular push ups more effective. To each his own! There are a lot of push up variations I've tried. Triangles, "staggered", claps, shoulder touches, dumb-bell etc