Vince DelMonte's 'Top 50 Things I Learned In 2006'

**tyciol** · 01-01-2007, 10:27 PM

http://www.ironmagazine.com/article226.html
"IronMagazine asked Vince to give us his top 20 list...he gave us 50!"

I'm sort of thinking it'd be more like 40 if you took out a lot of opinions about TV show and pet peeves in the gym.

Interestingly enough, some of the list struck a familiar tone with me:

8. The two man bench press is becoming more popular each year. You know what I'm talking about. Where one guy lowers the bar and the other deadlifts it up yelling, "It's all you, man!"
9. I hate people with no gym etiquette. The guy who does bicep curls in the squat rack. The guy who does a side lateral raise 1 inch away from the dumbell rack, blocking the entire rack of weights. The guy who loads the leg press with 1000 pounds and leaves the plates on. The guy who drips sweat all over the bench without wiping it down. I could go on and on...

It looks like here he basically learned what Mike Boyle hates: http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1389282

1. Pull ups are better than pull downs. Duh.

I would think whichever provided the most resistance would be better. Due to pulley assistance, bodyweight on the pulldown stack isn't identical to bodyweight on a bar, so just up it.

3. Bicep curls do not produce bigger biceps. Focusing on increasing your body's overall size is what makes your biceps bigger.

So squatting and bench pressing will build bigger biceps than curling? Doubtful. If this means that you need to eat to build muscle (which is also done to increase overall size)... then sure, duh.

13. The Smith Machine is useless. Aside from not allowing your body from working through a natural range of motion, it is a perfect disguise for being stronger than you really are.

It's perfect for low-ROM exercises since you don't move enough to deviate from a natural track anyway. To me, it's more a concern for health with heavy loading on stuff like squats, than with doing curls or something. Honestly, who cares if it's not natural? What matters is it gives resistance. Weight is weight, it doesn't disguise strength, it disguises a lack of stabilization. If anything, I think it adds more resistance to a weight, since you might exert force inefficiently that is just absorbed by it.

16. Stand for something or fall for everything. My father taught me to apply this to my physical, intellectual and spiritual journeys.

Worst advice ever. You should stand for something because it's right, not out of fear of falling for worse things. Falling for one thing isn't really much better than falling for everything. At least someone who falls for everything can reevaluate their choices. Someone who stands for something simply to stand for something will just stick by it forever without contemplation.

28. Dead lifts are the best overall exercise of all time. No other exercise produces the same potential of results as dead lifts.

Perhaps, due to the amount of weight you can put on it, although I'd think all of the olympic lifts done with the same weight on the bar would be superior to the deadlift.

29. Body weight exercises should be mastered before external load is introduced. It amazes me at how many guys attempt a sloppy 200 pound lat pull down but can't pull up their weight once.

Stupid advice. A guy shouldn't be using sloppy form and more weight than they're good for on the lat pulldown, that's all. The lat pulldown can be used to build up to a high enough strength for those who can't do pullups to give them that ability. The same would apply for a LOT of bodyweight exercises people are too out of shape to do.

37. Machines are not always better. They are merely alternatives and used for commercial profit to the manufacturer and sales companies which have influenced the masses to believe that the latest, superior machine is worthy of our attention. I don't agree

I agree with him here, but how revolutionary is it that machines aren't always better? Anywho, I'm more of the mind to give everything my attention, so that would include the newest fitness machine, although it would also include the new-to-me strongman books from 1910 that I never heard about.

43. You are the average of the top five people you hang around most. Hang around with pimps and players and most likely you will become a pimp and player. Hang out with millionaires and most likely you will become a millionaire. Hang out with guys bigger and more ripped than you, and you will eventually become the same.

So basically, reject anyone with negative characteristics? Honestly, while choosing friends you're impressed with is nice, I'm not one to become a social leech simply befriending people so I can mooch off their attributes. It has its place, but yeesh, if 5 of my friends were suicidal, I'm not going to abandon them out of fear of committing suicide. That'd just be cowardly. This is a common theme with a lot of self-help stuff, cast aside anyone with problems, chase after people who are together. Well honestly, how would you feel if your cool friends you're around simply because you want to be like them did that to you? Just like in academia, in the world of friendship we should take on rolls where we are both students and teachers.

Anyway, that's all I'm at odds with, the rest of the 50 are actually very good and Vince wrote some great things which make sense.

**Witchblade** · 01-02-2007, 12:04 PM

You're just nitpicking and interpreting everything the worst way possible. Poor attempt.

**Spud** · 01-02-2007, 03:14 PM

Originally Posted by Witchblade

You're just nitpicking and interpreting everything the worst way possible. Poor attempt.

What do you think the majority of the members of this board do? Read, pick what you find is useful and learn from it.

**StanUk** · 01-02-2007, 03:48 PM

Some interest points being made, some of them I do disagree with though. I do strongly agree with 13 though.

13. The Smith Machine is useless. Aside from not allowing your body from working through a natural range of motion, it is a perfect disguise for being stronger than you really are.

**Witchblade** · 01-02-2007, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by Spud

What do you think the majority of the members of this board do? Read, pick what you find is useful and learn from it.

He reads, picks what he could possibly interpret the worst way possible, doesn't learn from it, but nitpicks it.

**Spud** · 01-02-2007, 09:16 PM

Take an optimistic stance rather than a pessimistic one. Think of it as him trying teach others

**BoneCrusher** · 01-02-2007, 09:51 PM

Originally Posted by Spud

Take an optimistic stance rather than a pessimistic one. Think of it as him trying teach others

AND try to avoid being an insulting @$$hat to other members that are posting threads with the best interest of the community as a whole in mind. Be gentle is all I'm trying to say ...

**depaul** · 01-02-2007, 11:02 PM

At the risk of being laughed at, I'm going to ask the question, "when did deadlifts become unequivocably better than squats?" I guess I have always been led to believe that they are basically on par, or that maybe the squat is slightly better...

**fufu** · 01-03-2007, 07:55 AM

Originally Posted by depaul

At the risk of being laughed at, I'm going to ask the question, "when did deadlifts become unequivocably better than squats?" I guess I have always been led to believe that they are basically on par, or that maybe the squat is slightly better...

It's subjective...some movements effect others more than some. I don't think there is a real quanatative answer for that one either.

**PWGriffin** · 01-03-2007, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Witchblade

You're just nitpicking and interpreting everything the worst way possible. Poor attempt.

agreed....some points were horribly misinterpreted. Everything vince said is pretty on point IMO.

**Squaggleboggin** · 01-03-2007, 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by depaul

At the risk of being laughed at, I'm going to ask the question, "when did deadlifts become unequivocably better than squats?" I guess I have always been led to believe that they are basically on par, or that maybe the squat is slightly better...

Deadlifts and squats are really nearly identical. It's just the bar placement and what that different placement affects that changes. Because the squat uses direct loading on the spine (the bar is on your back instead of hanging in front of you), the pressure put on the back is quite different from that applied from the deadlift.

However, if you get into other variations of each, I think the squat definitely has some cool modifiers. These include Bulgarian squats, overhead squats, and, of course, overhead Bulgarian squats. I don't recall anything similar in the deadlift, which makes the squat have more options to someone who likes to use them.

**depaul** · 01-04-2007, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by fufu

It's subjective...some movements effect others more than some. I don't think there is a real quanatative answer for that one either.

Originally Posted by Squaggleboggin

Deadlifts and squats are really nearly identical. It's just the bar placement and what that different placement affects that changes. Because the squat uses direct loading on the spine (the bar is on your back instead of hanging in front of you), the pressure put on the back is quite different from that applied from the deadlift.

However, if you get into other variations of each, I think the squat definitely has some cool modifiers. These include Bulgarian squats, overhead squats, and, of course, overhead Bulgarian squats. I don't recall anything similar in the deadlift, which makes the squat have more options to someone who likes to use them.

Okay, thanks guys.

**wilwn** · 01-04-2007, 04:48 PM

Originally Posted by Squaggleboggin

Deadlifts and squats are really nearly identical. It's just the bar placement and what that different placement affects that changes. Because the squat uses direct loading on the spine (the bar is on your back instead of hanging in front of you), the pressure put on the back is quite different from that applied from the deadlift.

However, if you get into other variations of each, I think the squat definitely has some cool modifiers. These include Bulgarian squats, overhead squats, and, of course, overhead Bulgarian squats. I don't recall anything similar in the deadlift, which makes the squat have more options to someone who likes to use them.

you could do single leg versions of DL/RDL/SLDL, bulgarian versions of DL/RDL/SLDL

**PWGriffin** · 01-04-2007, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by wilwn

you could do single leg versions of DL/RDL/SLDL, bulgarian versions of DL/RDL/SLDL

agreed....

Both exercises use the entirety of the legs to move the weight...but with squats there is more stress on the quads and in the deadlift there is more stress on the hips/hams.

**Squaggleboggin** · 01-04-2007, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by wilwn

you could do single leg versions of DL/RDL/SLDL, bulgarian versions of DL/RDL/SLDL

Bulgarian deadlift? Maybe if you don't like your shins or knees very much. The bar would hit you before you could get a fourth of the proper ROM.

**wilwn** · 01-04-2007, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by Squaggleboggin

Bulgarian deadlift? Maybe if you don't like your shins or knees very much. The bar would hit you before you could get a fourth of the proper ROM.

with dumbbells?

**slip** · 01-05-2007, 07:54 PM

Bollocks. The bodyweight point (29) attacked by the original poster was not a poor interpretation.

How the hell are you supposed to master bodyweight pull ups before moving to a lat pulldown as a beginner?? Doesn't make any sense. If you can only do 110lbs on the pulldown machine, and you weigh over 200lbs, you've got no chance of doing a chin up. He made the mistake of giving a bad example of what he meant, but in his position with newbs reading his stuff and taking it as gospel, its a silly mistake to make.

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