Am I the only person who doesn't count bar weight ??

So what about all those "socialist" countries that have more efficient healthcare than the United States? People have better coverage and costs are LOWER. United States ranks #46 in healthcare cost efficiency. There are 45 countries ahead of us, and almost all of them have government issued insurance in one form or another. FACT. So at least get your facts straight before ranting. Costs do not go up, but rather down when you compare "socialist" healthcare of other countries to the current healthcare system of the United States.

Have you ever worked with government as a private sector worker? The company I work for in Michigan regularly works with the DOT, DNR and DEQ. Every one of them wastes tons of money. As an example, when we are awarded a MDOT project we are given the job without even giving them a budget for the project. Once we give them our budget they compare it to what they think the job should cost to complete, which in itself is fine and I would expect that. The problem is that our proposed budget is usually 30%-50% less than what they think the project to cost to complete. Here's the kicker. We are not authorized to do the project unless we increase our budget to be within 3%-5% of theirs. What does this cause to happen? We end up milking the job to put in the hours that the MDOT requires us to charge. This adds up to millions of wasted tax dollars every year. Dealing with the DEQ and DNR is just as bad. They waste MILLIONS every year.

Our health care costs are ridiculous, I won't argue that. But the problem isn't the private sector, it is the government involvement that drives the prices through the roof. Government regulations have pretty much made it impossible to run a non-profit health care center to treat those who need medical treatment who don't have health care. My grandfather was a doctor/surgeon and ran one in the 50's but they eventually had to shut their doors and those that they treated for free had to start going to the emergency room for treatment for general health care. And that is where our biggest problem lies...there is not good way for a community to provide the necessary health care for their residents who need it.

As long as the government in this country continues to ignore the Constitution and continues to run all of their unconstitutional departments that drive up costs with unnecessary regulations, health care will never be affordable in this country. The prices will only become reasonable when we have a truly free market system where people pay for health care with their own cash rather than relying on "insurance" to cover EVERYTHING for them (insurance should only cover big things like necessary surgeries, not your regular doctor visits). Because when you are paying with your own cash you are more choosy in WHEN you really need to see a doctor as well as choosy in the quality of service you want when you do need service. That would drive down prices and increase the quality of service.

I know a few people from Canada and the Europe. They all prefer our health care system when the problem is something that could be life threatening. For the common cold BS, yeah, they think their system is fine. But when it is something serious? They would rather be here in the USA.

I'm sure a lot of people won't agree with me, and that's fine.
 
The problem with the healthcare debate in America, is the same problem for most other major policy debates in that (your country), and it comes down to the framing. You have psycho-Republicans framing the mantra from the Revolutionary War (yes, that one ... nearly 250 years ago), and that mantra is "tyranny". If the government is trying to do anything, it must be tyrannical.
This just shows that you don't understand the principles that this country was founded on. It's not that "if the government is trying to do anything, it must be tyrannical". It's that our country was founded on a constitution as a Constitutional Republic. That Constitution is very clear about what our Federal Government is allowed to do. Had they stuck to those guidelines this would be a much different and much better country that wouldn't be wasting trillions of dollars.

Then you get pre&post-Clinton Democrats (basically, Clinton is your best President ever by almost any economics measure ... ) who have this great set of ideas but no head for the economics.
So you believe the lie that is the "Clinton Balanced budget". He did something that is called "creating internal debt". He "balanced the budget" by stealing from Social Security and many other trust funds. Basically he decided that the money that was brought into the trust funds that year that wasn't spent "that year" was a surplus and used that money to "balance" his budget. What he really did was create internal debt (that will NEVER be repaid) by "stealing" from the future retired people by taking the money that is supposed to be waiting for them when they retire. So now we have a Social Security system that is going bankrupt because Clinton and the other crooks in DC have stolen from it for decades. Had they left it alone it most likely would have worked exactly as planned.

And then you have just about the worst system of elected government in the world (let's put it this way, when American lawmakers re-structured Japan after boom-kicking everyone in WWII, they ran as far away from their own system as they could; encourages deadlock, makes minimal sense at most structural junctures).

And what happens is a cluster-you-know-what.

Bringing this back to healthcare: on one side it's positions such as Bulldog's (and he has every right to hold whatever opinion he likes - I'm not questioning that), and on the other is "we'll take care of it and if you don't support it you're a millionaire scumbag", with neither side's position philosophically capable of creating a middle ground.

Add to that people with money and their lobbyists: no wonder your system is up $hit creek without a paddle :(

You just made my point with your last statement. It is the unconstitutional departments that pander to the lobbyists and their money that are the problem. Without those departments looking out for the interests of those who provide all the cash, we would have a free market that would regulate itself which would drive costs down and quality of service up. But as long as the unconstitutional departments exists and keep their thumb on those who don't fit into the lobbyists plans things will just get more expensive. This is a fact. Take all the lobbyist money out of our government and you have new, cheaper innovation that will flourish. Until that happens, we are screwed.

I realize that many won't agree with me, and that is fine. We are all entitled to our opinions.

OK...enough of the political BS. Lets talk about hypertrophy!
 
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I am not an authority on the subject by any means, but last I checked, independent analysis seems to project that Obamacare would actually LOWER healthcare costs overall. Of course, it's all projected estimates anyway, nothing concrete, but I for one fully support the measure as I currently have no health insurance at all, and if an emergency should happen, the taxpayers would be picking up the bill under the current system. I don't think the healthcare plan is perfect by any means, but I do believe it's a good step in the right direction. It's my Different idealogy , based on other countries' successful healthcare systems.
 
@Bulldog - I understand the system of government and the Constitution v.well. I've studied it extensively and taught a v.short course on a v.small aspect of it. Obviously am not an expert making a living at it, and obviously am keeping things brief.

Article 1 gave Congress the power to legislate, and legislate it did. Your hated departments and agencies come as the result of that. Furthermore, 'agency' is just an arm (and "agent") of the government, far from unconstitutional.


The lobbyists come from and with insurance companies. Just like they comes from and with oil companies when we talk alternative fuel technology, they come from coal and logging companies when we talk environment etc. For my take, the profession should be made unlawful (though not illegal). It's corruption in its simplest and purest form. Naturally their are government-aligned/employed lobbyists as well.

The problem here lies chiefly with the structure of government, and having 2 branches (let's leave judiciary out of this for now) that are required to run one agenda (governance). Having an executive body beholden to the legislative body in the USA model is a fatal flaw, and has been for (well) over a century.


Regarding the "free market": it doesn't work. Unregulated systems never have, and trying to relabel system failures as "market corrections" stopped being a successful excuse some time ago. Pure capitalism is a failed philosophy, just as pure socialism or pure communism is/was. Look at every major industry in the world, and look at what the free market did to whittle down competition and establish a monopoly, a duopoly or an informally price-fixed market:

-Petrol
-Supermarkets (call it food)
-Banking
-Finance
-Construction
-Shipping (logistics)
-Military hardware
-Biotech

Pick an industry that operates in a generally unregulated free market, and the end result is inevitably a lack of competition, followed by price gouging from those left over.

Free markets don't work they way free marketeers say they do. Hell, pick a finance collapse. The free market system crashes date back some three hundred years. Proponents call it a "market adjustment", but that's like saying the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union was a "system adjustment" or something.

For healthcare, there's absolutely zero evidence that the free market system creates any improvement in quality of service. The problem is that it isn't an optional service, not in its strictest sense. Companies aren't competing for disposal income. People are ALWAYS going to spend money on health, one way or the other, so insurance companies aren't driven by a need to improve quality; their customers will always exist.

For healthcare, at the very, very least, the insurance companies will create new packages (cheaper) to get business from those now covered by ObamaCare but want better input and particulars. It establishes competition, which is something that is lacking for the lower socio-economic classes.
 
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@Bulldog - I understand the system of government and the Constitution v.well. I've studied it extensively and taught a v.short course on a v.small aspect of it. Obviously am not an expert making a living at it, and obviously am keeping things brief.

Article 1 gave Congress the power to legislate, and legislate it did. Your hated departments and agencies come as the result of that. Furthermore, 'agency' is just an arm (and "agent") of the government, far from unconstitutional.


The lobbyists come from and with insurance companies. Just like they comes from and with oil companies when we talk alternative fuel technology, they come from coal and logging companies when we talk environment etc. For my take, the profession should be made unlawful (though not illegal). It's corruption in its simplest and purest form. Naturally their are government-aligned/employed lobbyists as well.

The problem here lies chiefly with the structure of government, and having 2 branches (let's leave judiciary out of this for now) that are required to run one agenda (governance). Having an executive body beholden to the legislative body in the USA model is a fatal flaw, and has been for (well) over a century.


Regarding the "free market": it doesn't work. Unregulated systems never have, and trying to relabel system failures as "market corrections" stopped being a successful excuse some time ago. Pure capitalism is a failed philosophy, just as pure socialism or pure communism is/was. Look at every major industry in the world, and look at what the free market did to whittle down competition and establish a monopoly, a duopoly or an informally price-fixed market:

-Petrol
-Supermarkets (call it food)
-Banking
-Finance
-Construction
-Shipping (logistics)
-Military hardware
-Biotech

Pick an industry that operates in a generally unregulated free market, and the end result is inevitably a lack of competition, followed by price gouging from those left over.

Free markets don't work they way free marketeers say they do. Hell, pick a finance collapse. The free market system crashes date back some three hundred years. Proponents call it a "market adjustment", but that's like saying the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union was a "system adjustment" or something.

For healthcare, there's absolutely zero evidence that the free market system creates any improvement in quality of service. The problem is that it isn't an optional service, not in its strictest sense. Companies aren't competing for disposal income. People are ALWAYS going to spend money on health, one way or the other, so insurance companies aren't driven by a need to improve quality; their customers will always exist.

For healthcare, at the very, very least, the insurance companies will create new packages (cheaper) to get business from those now covered by ObamaCare but want better input and particulars. It establishes competition, which is something that is lacking for the lower socio-economic classes.

The problem is that we have NEVER had a truly free market. And that is where the problem lies. You can't say a free market never works when we have never really had one to know for sure. I'm very confident that a TRULY free market would in fact produce healthy competition in nearly every market and would be self regulating based on price and quality of service. But any time you have government intervention putting regulations on the marketplace it will skew it one way or the other.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Back to hypertrophy discussion...
 
I've never counted bar weight...
All my lifts are free weights, no machines.
When everyone does a bench press, they are automatically lifting the bar too, so why include its weight when comparing?
Of course, we are ALL lifting the bar as well, so it is work being done.
I workout at home... I don't go around telling people how much I can lift...it's just easier for me to count the plates in reference to my HST.

if I included the bar weight when I log my lifts on my app, it would cause a lot of unnecessary calculating...
:P


Sent from my iPhone...
 
I wasn't going to reply to this thread but since Wungun did, I will also chime in. I actually, when planning out cycles and recording lifts, only count the weight on one side of the bar. It makes it real easy to record. But, like Wungun, I work out at home and do not go around bragging or complaining about what I can lift. This would not work well for strength competitors obviously.
 
That's an interesting point...counting one side of the bar. Because when I do DB work, I often keep track of the weight on one DB, which makes it easier when thinking about adding weight the following workout. If that makes sense...


Sent from my iPhone...
 
I've never counted bar weight...
All my lifts are free weights, no machines.
When everyone does a bench press, they are automatically lifting the bar too, so why include its weight when comparing?
Of course, we are ALL lifting the bar as well, so it is work being done.
I workout at home... I don't go around telling people how much I can lift...it's just easier for me to count the plates in reference to my HST.

if I included the bar weight when I log my lifts on my app, it would cause a lot of unnecessary calculating...
:P


Sent from my iPhone...

If you don't include the bar weight then your progression will be tighter and a bit less accurate. You are in fact lifting the bar when you bench, so if you have four 45s on there, you are lifting a total of 225 lbs. That's what your muscles are moving. So it is more accurate to use that for the progression. Assume that is your 5 RM, you want to start at 70% of your 5 RM for the 5s, that would be ~160 lbs or 115 lbs of plates not counting the bar for the first day of 5s. If you didn't include the bar weight when you figured your cycle out, you would be starting the first day with 70% of 180 which is ~125 lbs or 170 lbs including the bar. That is only 10 lbs difference but the disparity becomes even larger when you start using heavier lifts like squats and deads.

This is the same reason that I include my bodyweight when figuring out progression for dips and chins. It is more accurate. If you don't include bodyweight when figuring out progression on dips and chins, you are going to be going much heavier on those lifts over the course of the entire cycle. Example, you weigh 225 lbs and you can do 15 chins with 5 lbs hanging from your belt. You will end up starting your cycle with a 2.5 hanging from the belt if you don't include bodyweight. Whereas if you include bodyweight, then your 15 RM is 230 lbs and you will correctly be starting the cycle doing either bodyweight chins or using assistance to do chins with 160 lbs total.

Wider progression should lead to more hypertrophy as you can sustain growth for a much longer period before RBE sets in, as long as you are lifting enough to meet the minimum threshold anyway.


Is all this going to make a huge difference in the end? Probably not a huge one, but it could make at least a measureable difference over the course of time. Assuming you continue with HST for several years as many of us had, at the end of five years or so, it could have a larger commulative difference.
 
Interesting point about calculating your chins and dips using your body weight as well. I've always used the bar weight when calculating lifts (except for landmine press or landmine row), but never body weight for chins/dips.
 
When doing t-bar rows although you're using a 45lb bar, you're not lifting the entire bar completely off of the ground which is why I don't add the bar to that exercise. I think it's hard to determine exactly how much of the bar weight you're actually lifting as compared say bench press or bar row. Every other exercise I add the bar.
 
When doing t-bar rows although you're using a 45lb bar, you're not lifting the entire bar completely off of the ground which is why I don't add the bar to that exercise. I think it's hard to determine exactly how much of the bar weight you're actually lifting as compared say bench press or bar row. Every other exercise I add the bar.

You're going to have a hard time calculating the angle of gravity at various pull levels there, so basically towards the upper range of the pull less load is directed downwards and more towards you, partially supported by the barbell's ledge.

So I'd just count the damn barbell :D
But if you don't, then remember to never count it, consistency is what means a lot.
 
Personally, I don't count the bar for one-armed BB//landmine rows, T-Bar rows, landmine press etc. I'll put the weight with a "+ bar". You aren't lifting the entire bar, but whichever way you do it, as Rihad noted, just be consistent.
 
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