i liked reading this thread and ill give you some recomendation,,especially to the serious guys on getbig that want to get far in body building,,
leave the ego out of the gym! you have to do it inorder to climb the ranks,,the strongest guys are usually the ones who dont get no where in bodybuilding,,i have seen and trained with many strong fellas in my career and those are the ones who always end up with very strong tendoins and bones yet no real solid well developed muscle tissue
its nice to lift heavy but it better be strict and done right so the muscle is worked otherwize! you waste your time in the gym and waste your life lifting weights,,remember what im tellin you guys it took me couple good years to learn it and i had no guidance on this part because no one care!
405 is very nice to squat but you can develop same size muscle with 300lb squat etc etc,,its all in the form when it comes to building muscle,,only when you are already big ,,lean muscle that is,,is when you can decide you wanna play very heavy not before!
take for example tropopin from this getbig board,,the guy is exteremly strong squat like there is no tomorrow yet can hardly nail top 10 nationals,,,again it is not the number you lift,,it is how you lift the number you chose to lift! depending on many factors such as drugs diet age years training injuries bodyfat% genetic heritage and purpose of training
do not do the mistake and waste your time and life building 24 inch quads doing 600lb squats,,use half this weight and build the 27 inches you really want,,if the muscle is there...the muscle is there,,,it wont go anywhere
the need to impress other lifters and females in the gym is big,,but! it wont be enough for no pro card nor any other mark in the industry,,
bodybuilders lift smart
powerlifters lift big
smart bodybuilders will involve powerlifting as part of their training in specific days of the week/month but a bodybuilder that only rely on super heavy poundage will never touch the top,,never!