In any case now a days they start always with scapular health and movement first before doing the ever stressed "external rotations". That is very important because without proper scapular dynamics the rotator cuff would be unable to function and stabilize properly so that doing those rotation exercises would actually cause more harm than good.
So always remember the importance of the scapula in shoulder girdle health. It will make or break you. Most people completely focus and the delts and rotator cuff and that is very wrong.
As for as balancing pulling and pushing, that can be misleading also because of the relatonship of the scapula. People think of the pulling and pushing thing as a "delt" thing. But delt balance is easy to achieve. Big fucking deal. You do anything with the rear delts. You do pressing and bench pressing. Laterals, pullups, pulldowns. Basically if you have any sense of programming at all you're delts should be good.
But just balancing bench press and rows, for example doesn't actually address the important difference between shoulder retraction and protraction. Think about it, when you do bench press you keep your shoulder blades retracted the whole time. When you do rows you are training scapula retraction. They are the same in that regard! If you really wanted true balance between pushing and pulling you would have to do full pushups (with protraction at the end) coupled with rows. You see how this stuff is oversimplfied?
But it's still an improvement over someone just doing bench pressing all the time and nothing else so I'm not complaining too much.
I'll drop you an explanation of the bent over cuban press I like. DUMBELLS ONLY wiht HAMMER GRIP thumbs facing you! No barbell external rotations of any kind and absolutely no pronated (overhand, palms away from you) grip with external rotations!!!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sustainable Progression and Deadlifts
Quote:
| alright, i got all that down. but lets say i wanted to use double progression, alright? does this mean that since i did 265x3 this workout, next workout i do: |
Quote:
265 lbs x 5 reps x 2 sets ? does this equal double progression because if it does then ill do that (im assuming you'd want me to do that because we used to do something similar when i was on the upper-lower, right?) |
Ok, let's go over this again.
There are three main ways to progress we are looking at. Of course there are more than three ways to progress in general, but we are focusing on the three basic ways to go stronger, or at least somewhat stronger because there comes a point where everyone has to focus on that one "ingredient" in order to see changes in absolute strength. But for now you, and most everyone, will see great progression with double or triple progression.
So the three ways:
1. Add weight to an existing number of sets and reps
2. Add reps to an existing number of sets (call this increasing density/volume. Adding any number of reps to any or all sets is progression. Of course if you can barely add two or three reps to a given volume it begs the question whether you are plateauing, just like anything else.
3. Add sets. Remember that adding a set alone is single progression even if that added set isn't the same number of reps as the previous sets. Now, you have to use logic here. If you were doing 3x5 and you added one more set of two, that would be less progression, lol, than adding two reps to the first set of five. You see? Becasue of the rest and recovery involved. But if you added an entire set of 5 that would represent what? A 30% increase in volume? That's a big leap in volume. Just like adding a couple of reps to each set is a big leap in volume.
I'm not good at math. I think you are probably better at this but it's useful to just simply count the reps and then look at any added reps as a percentage of the starting reps. This helps keep you reasonable because in fact many times we are making very big additions in volume without even realizing it. It doesn't seem much just looking at it but in pure mathematical terms it is in fact very large.
If you started with one tough set of 5, say very near a 5 rep maximum and then next time tried to add another set of 5....it's not gong to happen. so we can talk about fatigue and nervous system this and that all day...but look at the simple hard math. If your set of 5 is a near maximal effort, meaning you couldn't do another set even after a good rest, then adding a second set the next time around represents a ONE HUNDRED percent increase in abiltiy, at least one aspect of ability. And as far as progression goes that ain't likely to happen. Now, I bet you've never thought of it that way.
That is just something to think about when the weights get very heavy. For right now, we assume you always have plenty in the tank so that big increases have much less impact.
However, with your example, going from 265x3X1(?) to 265x5x2 begs the question of why you would do so little with 265 the first time if you have the ability to do so much more the next. Chances are, leaving that much in the tank could be a detriment just as easy as it could be a 'conservative' approach. You need to look at ways to get a training effect, or in other words, actually challenge the body, but actually creating an environment of sustainable progression.
By that example, it looks like you still haven't let go of this "waved" idea. This is really, imo, something that looks like bodybuilder mentality. Let's "shock" the body and then rest the body. In order to progress you have to have progressive overload but not overload to the point where you overwhelm recovery. So what is "waving" then? Just a way of producing a training effect less often then you would otherwise be capable of.
Instead of doing very low volume one week (very little training effect) followed by a huge increase in volume the next (big training effect with big recovery deficit) why not do a moderate volume followed by just enough additinal stimulus to create a training effect without overloading recovery. Plus you use a mixture of stimulus over time so that you are not overwhelmed by one stimulus.
So, to make all that into a real world example:
If you did 265x3 this time. It would make more sense to do, say, 265x5 or 6 and then following that with another set of 265 with whatever seems reasonable. So basically add more reps...up to 8, i'd say before adding sets. That will actually create more of a challenge but at the same time it will increase density and volume moderately together instead of increasing volume alone much more than anything else. Low rep sets don't mean much with what you are doing because you are using "submaximal" weights.
I don't know if I'm making sense so let me just give you an example of what I would do based on your last deads session.
225 lbs x 5 reps
245 lbs x 5 reps
255 lbs x 5 reps
245 lbs x 3 reps
225 lbs x 3 reps
I’d assume the 225 was really nothing much more than an acclimation. So I’d start with 255 (I’m basing this on what you said you could do, if I remember it correctly), base my warm-ups and acclimation on that, and then do one set of 255 basing the reps solely on how it was moving. If 255 felt light I would add reps to it. So last time it was 255x5 and this time it may be 255x8. But whatever reps I do it will not be too close to failure. Then
Depending on how all that felt I would decide if I wanted to add one low volume set of 265 or if I wanted to stick with 255 for another set of whatever feels comfortable.
So, just sticking with the next few workouts I might do something like this:
255x8, 265x3 to 4, backoff set
265x6x2 (so see how it’s more weight and reps but a little less dense, this is the kind of thing that creates that “environment of sustainable progression”.
The reason I would do it that way is because you had so many sets going up and down. I have no way of knowing from that what the working weight should really be. So you of course would have a better idea, but this example I think represents a reasonable “idea” from which to proceed. I don’t see any point at all of just doing 265x3. Better to proceed based on what you did before. So that would be a way of establishing a starting point while still achieving a training effect, rather than just doing 265x3 which probably wouldn’t really accomplish much other than more or less giving you a place to build from. Also remember that you are at a place that shear quality and speed, density, volume, load…it is all going to help you get better.
I can’t begin to tell you how important I think this idea of sustainable progression is. I know that you are pretty dedicated to that concept but it is abundantly clear to me that 70 percent of more of the writers base everything on the fastest possible progression. If you are a seasonal athlete then that may be the only way to go. But for you or me, we are free to do whatever the hell we want to or need to. That even means that the concept of beginner, intermediate, and advanced is really completely unique to our individual training model. So keep that in mind…..those individual training models, such as Rips concepts of beginner, intermediate, and advanced, are really only at their most useful in explaining Rip’s way of programming, and even then the individual changes everything. Another coach could have the opposite approach in programming and this a whole ‘nother general training model which would be just as useful in explaining his programming and just as potentially effective for the audience it’s aimed at. That doesn’t mean that the models are wrong or right because we both know that there is not wrong or right there is only ‘works well for me’ or ‘doesn’t work well for me’.
Friday, December 28, 2007
OH Pressing question by Iron_Worker
Iron_Worker:
Well, it seems I'm slowing down real bad on my standing military press progress. The way my schedule works out, it gets worked out once a week on a non bench day and then the next week it gets worked twice but both on bench days.
I was wondering what you guys thought of switching the twice a week OHP to dumbells to try and change it up and stimulate some growth. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to go as heavy on those days if bench is first anyways. I would still be hitting the once a week day real heavy with BB to hopefully progress some more.
What do you think? Is it enough? Any other ideas?
Thanks,
Iron Worker
Eric:
If your shoulders are healthy and you are up to overhead pressing...explain to me how benching would benefit you more except for in a benching competition or pec size. As far as general strength and performence I'd look at overhead pressing over bench anytime. For that matter, I'd look at pullups over benching as a better general assessment. Don't forget that with bench you are laying prone and your body is stable. You don't have to stabilize you entire body against the heavy weight like you do in pressing. Bench pressing is easier than overhead pressing. Leverage is a very big deal with guys that can becnch a lot..not just true functional strength. You want to see who really has the most functinal strength then overhead pressing is going to really show it not that any one exercise is "the test".
There are just many reasons to promote it....including a better bench press. There is only one strenght athlete for which bench would be more important that overhead pressing and that is the powerlifter. Before that it mainly became popular because of the size it gave and because it was "easy". Strength guys used to not touch it because of how 'easy' it was compared to the stuff they normally did. Doing an exercise lying down? What are you lazy?
. That's the kind of attitude I'm talking about.
How much weight is on the bar is only one aspect of the benefit of a lift. The idea that the "heavier" exercise is always better is a misguided and ultimately self-defeating way to train. How heavy you can go on something has as much to do with favorable mechanics and leverage as anything else. In other words, it has to do with how "easy" it is compared to something else that uses the same amount or more muscle. Intensity doesn't always mean the same thing with different movements. Intensiveness, however, can tell you a lot about where your deficits are.
People likewise think that lat pulldown is "better" than pullups because you get the 150 pound dude handling the huge stack. But then that dude can barely do 1 or 2 pullups and would be hard pressed to find some functional benefit from the pulldowns like he would get from the pullups.
I'm not trying to say benching sucks and nobody should do it of course. I'm just trying to take it down a few notches to a more realistic level because there is really no reason anyone should be toture by a decision about what press to prioritize. If you want to improve your overhead pressing then by all means prioritize it in whatever ways are realistic for you. Don't let bench be the decding factor. A better press will likely lead to a better bench anyway and you won't be losing much in the long run by sometimes putting bench second.
Look at how Rip lists out exercises and you will see that he puts Press first in the list before bench pressing every time.
Well, it seems I'm slowing down real bad on my standing military press progress. The way my schedule works out, it gets worked out once a week on a non bench day and then the next week it gets worked twice but both on bench days.
I was wondering what you guys thought of switching the twice a week OHP to dumbells to try and change it up and stimulate some growth. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to go as heavy on those days if bench is first anyways. I would still be hitting the once a week day real heavy with BB to hopefully progress some more.
What do you think? Is it enough? Any other ideas?
Thanks,
Iron Worker
Eric:
If your shoulders are healthy and you are up to overhead pressing...explain to me how benching would benefit you more except for in a benching competition or pec size. As far as general strength and performence I'd look at overhead pressing over bench anytime. For that matter, I'd look at pullups over benching as a better general assessment. Don't forget that with bench you are laying prone and your body is stable. You don't have to stabilize you entire body against the heavy weight like you do in pressing. Bench pressing is easier than overhead pressing. Leverage is a very big deal with guys that can becnch a lot..not just true functional strength. You want to see who really has the most functinal strength then overhead pressing is going to really show it not that any one exercise is "the test".
There are just many reasons to promote it....including a better bench press. There is only one strenght athlete for which bench would be more important that overhead pressing and that is the powerlifter. Before that it mainly became popular because of the size it gave and because it was "easy". Strength guys used to not touch it because of how 'easy' it was compared to the stuff they normally did. Doing an exercise lying down? What are you lazy?
. That's the kind of attitude I'm talking about.How much weight is on the bar is only one aspect of the benefit of a lift. The idea that the "heavier" exercise is always better is a misguided and ultimately self-defeating way to train. How heavy you can go on something has as much to do with favorable mechanics and leverage as anything else. In other words, it has to do with how "easy" it is compared to something else that uses the same amount or more muscle. Intensity doesn't always mean the same thing with different movements. Intensiveness, however, can tell you a lot about where your deficits are.
People likewise think that lat pulldown is "better" than pullups because you get the 150 pound dude handling the huge stack. But then that dude can barely do 1 or 2 pullups and would be hard pressed to find some functional benefit from the pulldowns like he would get from the pullups.
I'm not trying to say benching sucks and nobody should do it of course. I'm just trying to take it down a few notches to a more realistic level because there is really no reason anyone should be toture by a decision about what press to prioritize. If you want to improve your overhead pressing then by all means prioritize it in whatever ways are realistic for you. Don't let bench be the decding factor. A better press will likely lead to a better bench anyway and you won't be losing much in the long run by sometimes putting bench second.
Look at how Rip lists out exercises and you will see that he puts Press first in the list before bench pressing every time.
Someone's question regarding Bench Press form
Teamfast:
Hi, sometimes when lifting i put my feet up on the bench to keep my back flat on the bench. Are there risks to doing this? should I keep my feet on the floor? I dont want to arch my back but some benches are a little too high to keep my feet flat on the floor.
Eric:
I'd recommend against the feet up benching. It is actually pretty complicated to explain because it's not a cut and dry situation (hardly anything ever is).
There are probably people who would be better off with their feet up due to lower back problems caused by etension/rotation problems. But those people may also be advised to limit flat bench pressing.
If you put up your feet it will limit your abilty to get in a proper position and provide a good stable "platform" with the upper back. It WILL limit the amount of weight you are able to push.
The problem is similar to the other side of the coin that you will see with powerlifters. They will really get their hips way up in the air and exaggerate their back arch a lot. Basically this makes it more like a decline bench and reduces stress on the shoulders and they can lift more. But as a general training technique this excessive arching should be avoided. What you want is feet firmly planted and a "neutral" lower back, which is one that is naturally slightly arched.
I noticed you said you don't want to arch your back. Can you explain what you mean by this and why?
When you put your feet up on the bench what you do is the opposite of the excessive arching thing. You flatten out your back. So it is no longer neutral. This impedes natural power transfer from the lower to upper body..a big part of benching. If you flatten out your lower back you also can't arch the upper back. Effective retraction of the scapula is impeded and this rouned back posture while lifting can cause the scapula to wing. Something you don't want.
So you want the knees bent, feet firmly planted, a good tight neutral arch of the lower back, shoulders down and back with scapula retracted (pinched) together...all this will lead to the best longer term "health". Especially at the shoulders. As well as the biggest numbers.
Maybe you can find something to place on the floor on both sides of the too high benches to place your feet on. Perhaps some extra plates or steppers. My bench is too high as well and I actually put my feet on gallon paint cans filled with sand So whatever works.
BTW, I was posting at the same time as Ross and Pity so if any of this is a repeat of anything they said, my apologies.
teamfast:
I think the less arch you have in yur back the better form you are holding since (as powerlifters demonstrate) arching your back enough causes flat to become more of a decline. Some times i see guys doing dumbbells with there feet in the airholding their legs up off the bench (hard to explain) . I guess maybe im thinking by having your legs up makes your core unable to be flexed during lifts.
Not really sure where im going with this one...
Eric:
A natural back is a slightly arched lower back. This does not mean you need to or want to exgerate it but it also doesn't mean you want a "flat" back which is equally bad. But I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying you agree or that you still want to keep your feet on the bench?
teamfast:
i think you answered my question that having your back flat on the bench is equally bad as over arching.
Eric:
So your saying, Monsta, that you don't want to have the 'advantage' of good form? To me, whatever short term mental advantage you may get is outweighed by the long term disadvantages. With either technique, as long as you are consistent and steadily progress, then the difference in the weight used is cancelled out. Given the choice, it is better to go with a somewhat safer technique and let the natural laws of progressive overload do their job. Anything else is overthinking it, imo.
Eric (continued):
Totally, agree. That picture you have up...i can just imagine what would happen if you suddenly lost strength in one side. You wouldn't have a stable position from which to recover and you could really end up getting hurt.
Well, I agree. That excessive arching, or basically lifting the butt off the bench can put a lot of compression on the discs and be very bad for the back. But you are taking something that is mental and making it more important then actual biomechanical considerations. Frankly, anyone, if they are disciplined can learn to avoid that reaction of the butt rising. It's hard, I admit because when the weight gets heavy the body just naturally seeks a mechanical advantage and that gives it one. But it can be overcome with discipline.
Let me go at it another way. I actually read one guy with a bunch of letters after his name talking about feet up benching just now. He brought up some of the points I already discussed about lower back problems and how it may be advantages for some. But then he brought up a point about how the upper body stabilizers will be more engaged with feet up benching because you take out the lower body. He didn't actually give his opinion on it though (so fuck em).
As soon as I read it I thought it was ludicrous. Your "upper body" stabilizers were not built to be "isolated". We are connected from head to toes and things going on at the hips can affect things going on at the shoulders. Ask youselve if your body was ever meant to bench press. Maybe if a rock fell on you and your hands were in the right position you may press it off, lol. But do you think isolating the upper body stabilizers would be a good idea? Course not. You would just be less stable and more prone to injury, most likely from being squashed by the rock.
First of all, you are not well anchored to the bench. Second of all, there are two types of stabilizers, active and passive. You don't want to overwhelm one to the disadvantage of the other.
It would be one thing if we were actively training 'stabilizers'. You know, like the bench pressing on a ball? But that is light weight dumbells, not heavy barbells. When you are benching even somewhat heavy, it is not a time to make yourself less stable and definitely not a time to put your shoulders in a more stressful position. But the only way you can properly set your upper back with the feet up, at least from what I have experienced is....to create an excessive and unnatural arch in the lower back.
But you are benching with your lower back flat, your upper back rounded and your chest down. You are basically unstable in a myriad of ways. Your body was meant to work as a unit. There is not any real disadvantage to allowing it to do so. You just have to control the pitfalls of anything you choose to do.
Hi, sometimes when lifting i put my feet up on the bench to keep my back flat on the bench. Are there risks to doing this? should I keep my feet on the floor? I dont want to arch my back but some benches are a little too high to keep my feet flat on the floor.
Eric:
I'd recommend against the feet up benching. It is actually pretty complicated to explain because it's not a cut and dry situation (hardly anything ever is).
There are probably people who would be better off with their feet up due to lower back problems caused by etension/rotation problems. But those people may also be advised to limit flat bench pressing.
If you put up your feet it will limit your abilty to get in a proper position and provide a good stable "platform" with the upper back. It WILL limit the amount of weight you are able to push.
The problem is similar to the other side of the coin that you will see with powerlifters. They will really get their hips way up in the air and exaggerate their back arch a lot. Basically this makes it more like a decline bench and reduces stress on the shoulders and they can lift more. But as a general training technique this excessive arching should be avoided. What you want is feet firmly planted and a "neutral" lower back, which is one that is naturally slightly arched.
I noticed you said you don't want to arch your back. Can you explain what you mean by this and why?
When you put your feet up on the bench what you do is the opposite of the excessive arching thing. You flatten out your back. So it is no longer neutral. This impedes natural power transfer from the lower to upper body..a big part of benching. If you flatten out your lower back you also can't arch the upper back. Effective retraction of the scapula is impeded and this rouned back posture while lifting can cause the scapula to wing. Something you don't want.
So you want the knees bent, feet firmly planted, a good tight neutral arch of the lower back, shoulders down and back with scapula retracted (pinched) together...all this will lead to the best longer term "health". Especially at the shoulders. As well as the biggest numbers.
Maybe you can find something to place on the floor on both sides of the too high benches to place your feet on. Perhaps some extra plates or steppers. My bench is too high as well and I actually put my feet on gallon paint cans filled with sand
So whatever works.BTW, I was posting at the same time as Ross and Pity so if any of this is a repeat of anything they said, my apologies.
teamfast:
I think the less arch you have in yur back the better form you are holding since (as powerlifters demonstrate) arching your back enough causes flat to become more of a decline. Some times i see guys doing dumbbells with there feet in the airholding their legs up off the bench (hard to explain) . I guess maybe im thinking by having your legs up makes your core unable to be flexed during lifts.
Not really sure where im going with this one...
Eric:
A natural back is a slightly arched lower back. This does not mean you need to or want to exgerate it but it also doesn't mean you want a "flat" back which is equally bad. But I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Are you saying you agree or that you still want to keep your feet on the bench?
teamfast:
i think you answered my question that having your back flat on the bench is equally bad as over arching.
Eric:
So your saying, Monsta, that you don't want to have the 'advantage' of good form? To me, whatever short term mental advantage you may get is outweighed by the long term disadvantages. With either technique, as long as you are consistent and steadily progress, then the difference in the weight used is cancelled out. Given the choice, it is better to go with a somewhat safer technique and let the natural laws of progressive overload do their job. Anything else is overthinking it, imo.
Eric (continued):
Totally, agree. That picture you have up...i can just imagine what would happen if you suddenly lost strength in one side. You wouldn't have a stable position from which to recover and you could really end up getting hurt.
Well, I agree. That excessive arching, or basically lifting the butt off the bench can put a lot of compression on the discs and be very bad for the back. But you are taking something that is mental and making it more important then actual biomechanical considerations. Frankly, anyone, if they are disciplined can learn to avoid that reaction of the butt rising. It's hard, I admit because when the weight gets heavy the body just naturally seeks a mechanical advantage and that gives it one. But it can be overcome with discipline.
Let me go at it another way. I actually read one guy with a bunch of letters after his name talking about feet up benching just now. He brought up some of the points I already discussed about lower back problems and how it may be advantages for some. But then he brought up a point about how the upper body stabilizers will be more engaged with feet up benching because you take out the lower body. He didn't actually give his opinion on it though (so fuck em).
As soon as I read it I thought it was ludicrous. Your "upper body" stabilizers were not built to be "isolated". We are connected from head to toes and things going on at the hips can affect things going on at the shoulders. Ask youselve if your body was ever meant to bench press. Maybe if a rock fell on you and your hands were in the right position you may press it off, lol. But do you think isolating the upper body stabilizers would be a good idea? Course not. You would just be less stable and more prone to injury, most likely from being squashed by the rock.
First of all, you are not well anchored to the bench. Second of all, there are two types of stabilizers, active and passive. You don't want to overwhelm one to the disadvantage of the other.
It would be one thing if we were actively training 'stabilizers'. You know, like the bench pressing on a ball? But that is light weight dumbells, not heavy barbells. When you are benching even somewhat heavy, it is not a time to make yourself less stable and definitely not a time to put your shoulders in a more stressful position. But the only way you can properly set your upper back with the feet up, at least from what I have experienced is....to create an excessive and unnatural arch in the lower back.
But you are benching with your lower back flat, your upper back rounded and your chest down. You are basically unstable in a myriad of ways. Your body was meant to work as a unit. There is not any real disadvantage to allowing it to do so. You just have to control the pitfalls of anything you choose to do.
Abbreviations
I was thinking it would be nice to have quick ways of saying things in your journal when we are discussing ways in which you can advance. That we don't continually have to spell out everything...which I get sick of doing, personally. I makes it look like I'm spoon feeding you stuff when in fact you understand how I work. We just don't have a quicker way of talking...
So I want to use abbreviations when it comes to all these different progressive tools. Here are some:
1. RE: repeated effort. That means I want you to do as many reps as possible for a certain number of sets TO failure. This will be usually at a percentage below 90.
2. MRE: modified repeated effort. If I say that it means that I want you to do as many reps as possible for a certain amout of sets at a given weight but NOT quite to failure. Percentage below 90.
3. SE: submax effort. This would be just like the 10x3 and the things that are to come after it. Meaning doing a certain number of reps at a given percentage of 1RM (and prob with specified rest periods).
4. ME: max effort.
5. SP: single progression. To be followed by R, W, or S for reps, weight, or sets respectively.
6. DP: double progression. Same thing. Followed by two letters representig what to add
7. TP: triple progression. Additional letters not needed
. On TP btw, as I had told you before, it will behoove you in the future to have a way to microload. I can't see you doing too much TP adding 5 pounds in addtion to everything else. But if you are able to do it, good on ya!
OK, that's all I can think of for now.
So I want to use abbreviations when it comes to all these different progressive tools. Here are some:
1. RE: repeated effort. That means I want you to do as many reps as possible for a certain number of sets TO failure. This will be usually at a percentage below 90.
2. MRE: modified repeated effort. If I say that it means that I want you to do as many reps as possible for a certain amout of sets at a given weight but NOT quite to failure. Percentage below 90.
3. SE: submax effort. This would be just like the 10x3 and the things that are to come after it. Meaning doing a certain number of reps at a given percentage of 1RM (and prob with specified rest periods).
4. ME: max effort.
5. SP: single progression. To be followed by R, W, or S for reps, weight, or sets respectively.
6. DP: double progression. Same thing. Followed by two letters representig what to add
7. TP: triple progression. Additional letters not needed
. On TP btw, as I had told you before, it will behoove you in the future to have a way to microload. I can't see you doing too much TP adding 5 pounds in addtion to everything else. But if you are able to do it, good on ya!OK, that's all I can think of for now.
Deadlift form critique post injury
Yeah. It's what I thought. I see this a lot.
The key is the bar against the shins BUT the shoulders slightly forward of the bar. You sometimes start out with the shoulders forward of the bar and sometimes don't but just about every rep you pull you shoulders back to initiate the lift. Don't do that. If your shoulders stay forward of the bar you butt should end up a bit higher, appropriately. You going to pull/push straight up. You are actually pulling slightly back on the bar.
Again, one the bar and legs are in proper position and the shoulders are forward of the bar...you MUST maintain that relationship as you lift. Think of it as the bar being lined up underneath the scapula. Then just do what you have been doing.
I could watch the other vids again to see if that was happening but it is easily corrected. Just pay attention. You lifting technique is so much better you just need to keep proper body position.
Let me stress that if keeping your shoulders forward of the bar means you back angle changes and the butt comes up a bit...THAT IS FINE. You have a tendency to want you but to be too low.
Doing this properly should eliminate the any shin drag. It's not like your legs are that very long.
The key is the bar against the shins BUT the shoulders slightly forward of the bar. You sometimes start out with the shoulders forward of the bar and sometimes don't but just about every rep you pull you shoulders back to initiate the lift. Don't do that. If your shoulders stay forward of the bar you butt should end up a bit higher, appropriately. You going to pull/push straight up. You are actually pulling slightly back on the bar.
Again, one the bar and legs are in proper position and the shoulders are forward of the bar...you MUST maintain that relationship as you lift. Think of it as the bar being lined up underneath the scapula. Then just do what you have been doing.
I could watch the other vids again to see if that was happening but it is easily corrected. Just pay attention. You lifting technique is so much better you just need to keep proper body position.
Let me stress that if keeping your shoulders forward of the bar means you back angle changes and the butt comes up a bit...THAT IS FINE. You have a tendency to want you but to be too low.
Doing this properly should eliminate the any shin drag. It's not like your legs are that very long.
"Quality Volume" on Military Press
Let's try something different next time for the MP's (the primary one not the second press exercise).
This time you did:
Military Press = 2 sets x 6 reps x 130 lbs, 1 set x 5 reps x 130 lbs, 1 set x 2 reps x 135 lbs
so 3x6x130 didnt go quite as well as planned. i needed help for the 6th rep on the last set so im not counting it. its moved up from last week which is a good thing. next week i will try for 3x6x130 and then 1x4x130 too. the 135 lbs set was just to see where i stand. im happy[/quote[
The fact that you were able to get a couple at 135 after all that tell's us a lot. What I want to do next time is to have you use slightly more challenging weights but not "maxing" out. This will be within the realm of what I call "quality volume". So it will be much like what you did with the low rep sets to practice technique. Except for this you will be trying to put on more weight and trying to do as much as reasonable.
But before I give you the "plan" I need to explain the mindset. This is very important because this is not like anything you've ever really done before. The fact is it assumes a little more advancement in terms of being able to judge things. Or more experience. I think you are there, at least with the MP's if not the rows
The first thing is the rest periods. We are not to worried about time here. At the end you will drop the weights and do some mre anyway (probably at 130 for 2 or 3 sets) so initially when you are doing the lower rep sets you don't need to be thinking "this is taking too long. At the same time, however, you wan't to keep the rest periods only as long enough as needed to prodcue 2 or 3 good reps on the next set.
Say if you start with 135 and 3. Or if 135 is incredibally light you could do 4 for the first set but no more. But probable 3. Remeber you are going for "quality volume". Alright so for the next set say you rest a minute to two minutes (I'd say two minutes for you). You try for another 3 at 135. If as soon as you pick it up you don't feel like it's going to be good then put it back down and rest more. Then try again.
If at that point you get another set of 2 or 3your recovery seems on target and you feel strong and confident then you move forward. You might put 140 on. Take a good rest which is as long as YOU think is needed and try 2 or 3 at that. When you have added weight it would make sense to take slightly longer rest that if you are just repeating weight. If 140 goes well and there is more in the tank then you can continue loading the bar (as small of increments as you please but no larger than 5 pounds).
Now the rest periods can be whatever is needed. The idea is to keep them as short as you can within reason but if you need even up to 4 minutes then do that. The idea here is a strength challenge, and getting quality volume, not a time thing.
You may end up doing up to 150 like this. I don't really know. When you're done and you feel like it's enought, or you feel like you are approaching failure too much then take a LONG rest of 5 or even 5.5 minutes. And then drop the bar down. Again the weight is up to you but you may end up repeating the 130. So these are like a couple of back off sets except they 'count'. You want to sort of finish off things. So do MRE work here as much as feels comfortable.
What you may find, if you are able to do it correctly and avoid approaching failure for the heavy sets is that those last MRE sets are much stronger than you would have thought. That is really what should happen. This would be what is called "neural facilitation". Similar to sometimes when you do speed work. BUT if you were to do the same thing with traditional "max" work you'd be more "fatigued" than "facilitated". So this should hopefully give you a lot of work with more weight without actually sacrifising your rep work.
For the second press exercise you could of course cut that down or even leave it out completely. Switch to a bench if needed. Whatever.
So the "plan" is much like I already described. Starting at 135 makes sense but you could do a test with 130 of course to see how things are on that day.
135x2-3
rest as needed
135x2-3 (it's important to repeat it once to see if you feel 'strong and fast' still)
rest as needed
140x2-3
rest as needed
145x2-3
rest as needed
150....
Etc. and so on. You could put on smaller increments if you have them and want to and of course you could stop at any point and just stick with that weight for a few more sets.
Then a long 5 or more minute rest and the MRE work which can be 130 or 135 depending on how you feel. As you see SO much of this depends on your judgement and how you feel. This ain't standardized cookie cutter shit. You could basically say it is "doing what you can". However it is doing what you can do WELL rather than shitty the way most people end up donig it. So if the bar moves super slow and you're grunting and straining, there is not use in continuing. That does NOT mean that it can't feel challenging. It's a tricking and fine line.
It should be very productive and fun.
Continued..
Go for 3 reps if doable. 2 reps is fine. This is about "quality volume" and not just about rest-pausing it although it is similar.
For instance a really good thing to do so you can basically lift the heavier weight more times is to take 90 or so percent and rest-pause it with one rep and 10 to 15 second rests. That's kind of a classic rest-pausing technique (without the drop sets) and it's emphasis is on taking that very heavy weight and instead of following one rep right after another so that you only do say 3 reps you rest pause and get maybe 6 reps plus every rep is potentially just as good as the first. This all having nothing to do with DC style rest pausing which is essentially post failure work with short rest.
So you look at the "quality volume" thing I've described and it's a lot like that rest-pause thing except you will end up using a slightly lighter weight and only focus on how many times you can get the weight up with a good rep. That entails at least doing more than 1 rep which would be counter productive since the rest periods arent restricted as much. So at least go for 3 but realize that we are emphasizing quality and staying fresh so 2 good reps is still better than 3 with the last being slow.
By the same token you might end up pumping out 4 good ones here and there but I find it's best to stay with 3. And if only 1 good one is in the cards then that is what will have to happen. You want to stay far away as possible from failure. That doesn't mean that you won't find it feeling a little tought here and there but you should expect a very good bounce-back if things are going well.
Whatever exapmple I gave you was just an example...this is a "feel" and a reactive thing.
More..
Reread the first explanation I wrote. I might have confused you by over-expaining. The rest periods can be anything and it is completely up to how thing are going. But most of them should be less than 3 I would think.
As far as the less weight comment don't worry about it. I'm comparing the classic rest-pause technique I described with this. It doesn't matter. You will put on as much weight as ends up working out for you. Everything you need is in the first explanation.
YES. It is all relative. That is exactly why I emphasized that there is not exact formula.
There is no pyramid. If you can ramp up the weight and end up with 3 reps then good.
This is not a max out attempt. The idea is not to build up to a max or something like that. Remember that you are going to do those "back off" sets. In a way this is just on top of what you have normally been doing.
Say that a person just did 130x6x3.
So he uses this technique keeping the rest periods as short as possible but as long as needed and he does
130x3 (70 second rest, just as an example)
135x3x2 (90second rest after first then 120 after second)
140x3 (3 minutes)
145x3 (rest longer)
150x2
150x2 or 3
who knows really....
Then if he hasn't gone too far and allowed enought recovery he takes 135 and knocks out two sets of 6. But even if he takes 130 and does 2 or 3 sets it's still great. Are you seeing what I'm getting at? And those backoff sets aren't even really necessary really.
This is something that is hard to explain. You just have to experiment with it. Most people have never done something so "freestyle" so it's an individual experience.
This time you did:
Military Press = 2 sets x 6 reps x 130 lbs, 1 set x 5 reps x 130 lbs, 1 set x 2 reps x 135 lbs
so 3x6x130 didnt go quite as well as planned. i needed help for the 6th rep on the last set so im not counting it. its moved up from last week which is a good thing. next week i will try for 3x6x130 and then 1x4x130 too. the 135 lbs set was just to see where i stand. im happy[/quote[
The fact that you were able to get a couple at 135 after all that tell's us a lot. What I want to do next time is to have you use slightly more challenging weights but not "maxing" out. This will be within the realm of what I call "quality volume". So it will be much like what you did with the low rep sets to practice technique. Except for this you will be trying to put on more weight and trying to do as much as reasonable.
But before I give you the "plan" I need to explain the mindset. This is very important because this is not like anything you've ever really done before. The fact is it assumes a little more advancement in terms of being able to judge things. Or more experience. I think you are there, at least with the MP's if not the rows
The first thing is the rest periods. We are not to worried about time here. At the end you will drop the weights and do some mre anyway (probably at 130 for 2 or 3 sets) so initially when you are doing the lower rep sets you don't need to be thinking "this is taking too long. At the same time, however, you wan't to keep the rest periods only as long enough as needed to prodcue 2 or 3 good reps on the next set.
Say if you start with 135 and 3. Or if 135 is incredibally light you could do 4 for the first set but no more. But probable 3. Remeber you are going for "quality volume". Alright so for the next set say you rest a minute to two minutes (I'd say two minutes for you). You try for another 3 at 135. If as soon as you pick it up you don't feel like it's going to be good then put it back down and rest more. Then try again.
If at that point you get another set of 2 or 3your recovery seems on target and you feel strong and confident then you move forward. You might put 140 on. Take a good rest which is as long as YOU think is needed and try 2 or 3 at that. When you have added weight it would make sense to take slightly longer rest that if you are just repeating weight. If 140 goes well and there is more in the tank then you can continue loading the bar (as small of increments as you please but no larger than 5 pounds).
Now the rest periods can be whatever is needed. The idea is to keep them as short as you can within reason but if you need even up to 4 minutes then do that. The idea here is a strength challenge, and getting quality volume, not a time thing.
You may end up doing up to 150 like this. I don't really know. When you're done and you feel like it's enought, or you feel like you are approaching failure too much then take a LONG rest of 5 or even 5.5 minutes. And then drop the bar down. Again the weight is up to you but you may end up repeating the 130. So these are like a couple of back off sets except they 'count'. You want to sort of finish off things. So do MRE work here as much as feels comfortable.
What you may find, if you are able to do it correctly and avoid approaching failure for the heavy sets is that those last MRE sets are much stronger than you would have thought. That is really what should happen. This would be what is called "neural facilitation". Similar to sometimes when you do speed work. BUT if you were to do the same thing with traditional "max" work you'd be more "fatigued" than "facilitated". So this should hopefully give you a lot of work with more weight without actually sacrifising your rep work.
For the second press exercise you could of course cut that down or even leave it out completely. Switch to a bench if needed. Whatever.
So the "plan" is much like I already described. Starting at 135 makes sense but you could do a test with 130 of course to see how things are on that day.
135x2-3
rest as needed
135x2-3 (it's important to repeat it once to see if you feel 'strong and fast' still)
rest as needed
140x2-3
rest as needed
145x2-3
rest as needed
150....
Etc. and so on. You could put on smaller increments if you have them and want to and of course you could stop at any point and just stick with that weight for a few more sets.
Then a long 5 or more minute rest and the MRE work which can be 130 or 135 depending on how you feel. As you see SO much of this depends on your judgement and how you feel. This ain't standardized cookie cutter shit. You could basically say it is "doing what you can". However it is doing what you can do WELL rather than shitty the way most people end up donig it. So if the bar moves super slow and you're grunting and straining, there is not use in continuing. That does NOT mean that it can't feel challenging. It's a tricking and fine line.
It should be very productive and fun.
Continued..
Quote:
| regarding the presses, u told me to try and do as many sets as possible of 1-2 reps increasing the weight each time by no more than 5 lbs but lesser than 5 if i want. if i feel like something is wrong (after unracking), i am to put the bar back, wait, and attempt it again. right? the pattern u gave me is; |
For instance a really good thing to do so you can basically lift the heavier weight more times is to take 90 or so percent and rest-pause it with one rep and 10 to 15 second rests. That's kind of a classic rest-pausing technique (without the drop sets) and it's emphasis is on taking that very heavy weight and instead of following one rep right after another so that you only do say 3 reps you rest pause and get maybe 6 reps plus every rep is potentially just as good as the first. This all having nothing to do with DC style rest pausing which is essentially post failure work with short rest.
So you look at the "quality volume" thing I've described and it's a lot like that rest-pause thing except you will end up using a slightly lighter weight and only focus on how many times you can get the weight up with a good rep. That entails at least doing more than 1 rep which would be counter productive since the rest periods arent restricted as much. So at least go for 3 but realize that we are emphasizing quality and staying fresh so 2 good reps is still better than 3 with the last being slow.
By the same token you might end up pumping out 4 good ones here and there but I find it's best to stay with 3. And if only 1 good one is in the cards then that is what will have to happen. You want to stay far away as possible from failure. That doesn't mean that you won't find it feeling a little tought here and there but you should expect a very good bounce-back if things are going well.
Whatever exapmple I gave you was just an example...this is a "feel" and a reactive thing.
More..
Reread the first explanation I wrote. I might have confused you by over-expaining. The rest periods can be anything and it is completely up to how thing are going. But most of them should be less than 3 I would think.
As far as the less weight comment don't worry about it. I'm comparing the classic rest-pause technique I described with this. It doesn't matter. You will put on as much weight as ends up working out for you. Everything you need is in the first explanation.
YES. It is all relative. That is exactly why I emphasized that there is not exact formula.
There is no pyramid. If you can ramp up the weight and end up with 3 reps then good.
This is not a max out attempt. The idea is not to build up to a max or something like that. Remember that you are going to do those "back off" sets. In a way this is just on top of what you have normally been doing.
Say that a person just did 130x6x3.
So he uses this technique keeping the rest periods as short as possible but as long as needed and he does
130x3 (70 second rest, just as an example)
135x3x2 (90second rest after first then 120 after second)
140x3 (3 minutes)
145x3 (rest longer)
150x2
150x2 or 3
who knows really....
Then if he hasn't gone too far and allowed enought recovery he takes 135 and knocks out two sets of 6. But even if he takes 130 and does 2 or 3 sets it's still great. Are you seeing what I'm getting at? And those backoff sets aren't even really necessary really.
This is something that is hard to explain. You just have to experiment with it. Most people have never done something so "freestyle" so it's an individual experience.
Tips on Row form
you do not need to have the torso completely parallel doing barbell rows. In fact this will just mess you up because it's close to impossible to get a PARALLEL position while keeping the lower back set. So bascially as low as you can comfortably get your torso which will really be at a slight angle with the shoulders higher than the hips.
And also, I didn't want you to think you need to have the shoulder held back all the time. You bring the shoulders forward at the beginning of the movement so there is some protraction of the scapula. My point is only that it need to be controlled. You never just allow the bar to pull on your shoulders in a completely relaxed state. I think you know what I mean be that.
Then you simply retract the scapula bringing the bar in. Exactly where your bring it is up to you but it's better to keep it at least at the sternum or lower. That way it's more a neutral postion as far as the back muscles are concerned. But of course you can vary this for different emphasis.
Continued...
Hmmmm....
Is some of your ideas about rows coming from Kethnaab? It sounds like him. I remember now we had a lot of discussions with him here about rows and he's got some weird "ideas" about rows.
There is no real rule that a "regular bent over row" is at 45 degrees. That's really high. 45 degrees is not the definition of it. It's just that ange if you choose to do so. Most people do it lower as long as they can maintain their arch.
Yates rows are done much higher and if you consider them somewhere between standing up and bending over they are really high. Maybe higher than 45 degress really now that I think of it...there hardly any range of motion since they are pulled into the stomach while at a very high angle.
I read over Kethnaab's description of rows in the Rippetoe thing and all the going on about how much better the deload is is completely pointless. As I said before the purpose of rows is not to lift as much on rows as possible. there are no rows contests. And doing them with being as explosive as possible in mind is, when your think about it, equally pointless. If you want to be explosive do olympic variations.
But in that description he repeats the importance of maintaining the lumbar arch about a zillion times.
If deloading on the floor is so important a person could still do it without all the thoracis flexion (rounding of the upper back). Now some people will be able to do the "JS" rows with very little of this anyway but I'll bet 90 percent of the people doing them are rounding the entire back.
More Row Stuff..
I've got a couple of things I pulled up I want you to look at as just a way of seeing different back angles but all with both with.
Yes, I know you know how to do it but I'm trying to dispell some of these "rules" about angles from your mind. Especially parallel vs. other angles. Basically you can do it at whatever angles you are comfortable with or use different angles from around 45 degrees all the way down to parallel. Most people have a bread and butter way they like to do it of course.
http://www.criticalbench.com/exercises/bent-over-barbell-rows.htm
https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/criticalbench14.htm
Next I want you to look at these two articles and vids. The parallel row vs. the pendlay row.
One the pendlay row one tell me if it makes any sense what the article says and what the guy does in the video. I'm not going to tell you what I think
But mostly I want you to notice that they are BOTH deweighted on the floor. But in the first "regular parellel bent over row" the guy never rounds his upper back. He simply lets his shoulders come down. I suspect this is the deweighted row that Rip is talking about being a regular barbell row and the so called Pendlay, JS or whatever is a bastardized version of it with thoracic roundking added. I'm not sure if that's true but in any case a person could do a deweigted row without all the rounding bullshit. If they couldn't do it parallel or on the floor at all, like I said they could deload to something higher. Even some plates.
Btw, I realize I made a big deal about it not being an EXPLOSIVE lift. But that is not to say it is not done fast. In order to use the muscles of the back via scapula retraction you have to do it fast. Otherwise the arms end up doing a lot.
And also, I didn't want you to think you need to have the shoulder held back all the time. You bring the shoulders forward at the beginning of the movement so there is some protraction of the scapula. My point is only that it need to be controlled. You never just allow the bar to pull on your shoulders in a completely relaxed state. I think you know what I mean be that.
Then you simply retract the scapula bringing the bar in. Exactly where your bring it is up to you but it's better to keep it at least at the sternum or lower. That way it's more a neutral postion as far as the back muscles are concerned. But of course you can vary this for different emphasis.
Continued...
Hmmmm....
Is some of your ideas about rows coming from Kethnaab? It sounds like him. I remember now we had a lot of discussions with him here about rows and he's got some weird "ideas" about rows.
There is no real rule that a "regular bent over row" is at 45 degrees. That's really high. 45 degrees is not the definition of it. It's just that ange if you choose to do so. Most people do it lower as long as they can maintain their arch.
Yates rows are done much higher and if you consider them somewhere between standing up and bending over they are really high. Maybe higher than 45 degress really now that I think of it...there hardly any range of motion since they are pulled into the stomach while at a very high angle.
I read over Kethnaab's description of rows in the Rippetoe thing and all the going on about how much better the deload is is completely pointless. As I said before the purpose of rows is not to lift as much on rows as possible. there are no rows contests. And doing them with being as explosive as possible in mind is, when your think about it, equally pointless. If you want to be explosive do olympic variations.
But in that description he repeats the importance of maintaining the lumbar arch about a zillion times.
If deloading on the floor is so important a person could still do it without all the thoracis flexion (rounding of the upper back). Now some people will be able to do the "JS" rows with very little of this anyway but I'll bet 90 percent of the people doing them are rounding the entire back.
More Row Stuff..
I've got a couple of things I pulled up I want you to look at as just a way of seeing different back angles but all with both with.
Yes, I know you know how to do it
but I'm trying to dispell some of these "rules" about angles from your mind. Especially parallel vs. other angles. Basically you can do it at whatever angles you are comfortable with or use different angles from around 45 degrees all the way down to parallel. Most people have a bread and butter way they like to do it of course.http://www.criticalbench.com/exercises/bent-over-barbell-rows.htm
https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/criticalbench14.htm
Next I want you to look at these two articles and vids. The parallel row vs. the pendlay row.
One the pendlay row one tell me if it makes any sense what the article says and what the guy does in the video. I'm not going to tell you what I think
But mostly I want you to notice that they are BOTH deweighted on the floor. But in the first "regular parellel bent over row" the guy never rounds his upper back. He simply lets his shoulders come down. I suspect this is the deweighted row that Rip is talking about being a regular barbell row and the so called Pendlay, JS or whatever is a bastardized version of it with thoracic roundking added. I'm not sure if that's true but in any case a person could do a deweigted row without all the rounding bullshit. If they couldn't do it parallel or on the floor at all, like I said they could deload to something higher. Even some plates.
Btw, I realize I made a big deal about it not being an EXPLOSIVE lift. But that is not to say it is not done fast. In order to use the muscles of the back via scapula retraction you have to do it fast. Otherwise the arms end up doing a lot.
Eric's Rule #1 about exercises
So here's my new RULE NUMBER ONE ABOUT EXERCISES:
When a guru has a "theory" about a new and innovative way to do something question it right away. I don't care how qualified said individual is. Untill you see it parroted in general by the biomechancis and exercise sciecne world in general IGNORE IT.
When a guru has a "theory" about a new and innovative way to do something question it right away. I don't care how qualified said individual is. Untill you see it parroted in general by the biomechancis and exercise sciecne world in general IGNORE IT.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Future Program
Let me break it down into a couple of main things.
1. The first priority is to get those deads up to a respectable level...or if failing that then just to train the posterior chain up to a respectable level. All the while the other stuff that is going up now will continue to go up.
2. There is a lot of size built in to this program right now. However you do not fully take advantage of the size potential because you continually do less volume on certain things than you could.
Examples....face pulls will give you huge traps but you don't do enough of them. You could put in extra row movements and do more variety. Especially using pulleys at different angles, etc.
But what you don't realize yet is the size potential of the kind of thing I have you doing and just what is going to happen to your back, for instance when you get better at deads and use more variety in the deadlifting range.
You say you want bigger shoulders well they will come. More rowing, more pressing, and even the shoulder prehab stuff which can include scapular plane laterals and other stuff will help.
But the point is that what you are doing now already has tons of size potential but you could have more size potential except you simply keep your workouts too short. I think it has been drilled into your head that you can't work more than a certain time period...due to all the anabolic hormone reduction stuff with longer workouts. It's crapola.
3. You can always ustilize bodybuilder style stuff in your workouts as a sort of add on at the end. The trick is not to do stuff that will interfere with more important exercises. One of the main reasons I am down on do a lot of curls, for instance is that they tend to interfere with pullups/chinups if done in excess (which need a lot of arm).
On the other hand there are other things that can be done that don't intefere too much with the big movements.
The bottom line for focusing more on hypertrophy is either do a little more volume in general with your given frequency or do higher frequency with a given volume.
3. Of course there are better ways to focus on appearance but you really have to realize that the missing element is not the growth potential of your workouts but simple fat levels, added volume, or added frequency.
If your want to do strength plus fat loss in a fullbody workout scenario then you can design workouts with that in mind. PLUS keep the main workouts short but provide time in at the end for "bodybuilder style" stuff.
But let me focus more on the particular points you made:
[quote]but im beginning to think that perhaps it would be an ok idea to diversify slightly (only slightly) into training more for bodybuilding goals u know? in the sense: giving more emphasis to look better rather than lift heavier weights.
but then im thinking that even if i did change my goals slightly, it wouldnt change my training in any way would it? you would have me doing the same exercises and stuff in either case. its not like we'd change my program into a split and then hope it works.[quote]
I think the best approach in terms of divesifying what you are doing now is to make modest changes, gauge the effect, make more changes, gauge them, so on and so forth. That way you try to incorporate the new goals without disrupting the old ones. But of course you don't make the changes so modest to be worthless for the new goal.
The basic change I would make is to utilize supersets (some antagonistic for strength and some mixed up challenge and fat loss) while retaining the basic movements in the same type of strength realm as you are doing now.
So for instance I wouldn't start supersetting deads and hanging leg raises. But I might superset romanians and leg raises, or pullthroughts and leg raises (just as one example). It would be done either to retain a primarily strength training effect while keeping time down OR to get the heart rate up and also keep overall time down (while always keeping intensity fairly high)
And then tack on bodybuilding stuff at the end doing it "bodybuilding style" but also supersetting it or even tri-sets or whatever designed to also keep the heart rate up.
Like I said, given frequency, more volume, or more frequency at given volume, but never LESS frequency. I actually am very open minded to taking a page from bodybuilding (I used to DO bodybuilding, afterall) but NOT that one. Low frequency splits always come out behind higher frequency ones.
No. It's not wrong. But this is mostly about diet. You're going to get bigger if you train pretty much how you are now and eat enough. If you eat too much you'll get fatter too. The question is would you rather look big and pretty defined ALL the time with your shirt off or drive yourself silly trying to look "RIPPED" like a bodybuilder on stage only to not be able to maintain it, losing or not gaining any more muscle, and getting on the yo-yo diet train.
The first scenario is about patience and keeping your bf% somewhere between 10 and 12 all them time until most of your body composition changes come into being overtime...needing just a little tweaking here and there if the abs don't show good enough. The second scenario is basically stupid
If your looking great then I think your shoud keep looking in the mirror and forget about the scale for a while.
You simply HAVE to start consistently focuing on short term goals. You will drive yourself nutty thinking about what happens when your are 40.
Wrong question. You're in Texas. Forty is India. Get it? Start walking now with the goal of reaching India (ok so you can't walk there but hyprothetically) you may never make it. But if you start walking with the goal of reaching California or maybe just the next county in Texas....no problem.
You're lighter but most of your measurements went up. Sound good to me. I don't think in numbers like that so all I can say is you have to focus more on diet if you want to have less fat.
If I were you, me being me, then I would do what I already mentioned. You are having too much basic success for me to want to comtemplate changing the basics. We still have a lot of potential in your bench press and overhead press. We need to get your back healthy and get you back with the heavy deads. I'm much more interested in setting short term goals and reaching them. If something was broken it would be different...but it ain't.
However as I said, there is a lot of potential you fail to tap. I've actually mentioned a few things to you before.
You'd be surprised at how much bodybuilding stuff I allow myself to do. For instance, unlike you, my chest is not my strong suit. If I were to just work on bench press strength and all that comes with it...my chest would look small compared to the rest of me, especially my back.
So I do some bodybuilding style bench press. Light weight and high slow reps (but heavier than db's). Elbows and 90 degree angles not going all the way down (to protect the shoulders and keep the emphasis on the chest) and not fully locking out. I'll bet that surprises the hell out of you doesn't it? But I can do it in a safe way and without interfering with benching in general and it simply "finishes out" my chest so that it looks generally the same as the rest of me.
Actually what I would express is that it is frustrating simply because I actually do have a longer term plan loosely in mind. But then you get injured and whatnot so it thows a wrench in the works. So when we should be focused on recovery and getting back on the progress train you want to discuss this other stuff. I think you are pulling yourself in too many different directions.
You keep throwing these three day programs at me. It's kind of funny since you could actually increase the frequency of what your are doing now if you wanted. At the same time it seems like you end up doing 3 exercise workouts a lot even at the lower frequency. So now you tell me you wan't to do bigger workouts more often? How about doing the fundamental thing of actually doing more in your given workouts?
I recognize that you have skipped a lot of stuff lately because of your back but the fact is there were things you could have done instead (you could have asked if you needed ideas). I would like to see you get back on track and start ramping up your effort in the gym so that we can see what changes we can make. It’s kind of hard to be constantly asked about routine changes when the fact is we haven’t been able to make the ongoing changes we normally would.
So in other words let’s try to build a stable footing upon which to proceed instead of hopping from one lose rock to another.
1. The first priority is to get those deads up to a respectable level...or if failing that then just to train the posterior chain up to a respectable level. All the while the other stuff that is going up now will continue to go up.
2. There is a lot of size built in to this program right now. However you do not fully take advantage of the size potential because you continually do less volume on certain things than you could.
Examples....face pulls will give you huge traps but you don't do enough of them. You could put in extra row movements and do more variety. Especially using pulleys at different angles, etc.
But what you don't realize yet is the size potential of the kind of thing I have you doing and just what is going to happen to your back, for instance when you get better at deads and use more variety in the deadlifting range.
You say you want bigger shoulders well they will come. More rowing, more pressing, and even the shoulder prehab stuff which can include scapular plane laterals and other stuff will help.
But the point is that what you are doing now already has tons of size potential but you could have more size potential except you simply keep your workouts too short. I think it has been drilled into your head that you can't work more than a certain time period...due to all the anabolic hormone reduction stuff with longer workouts. It's crapola.
3. You can always ustilize bodybuilder style stuff in your workouts as a sort of add on at the end. The trick is not to do stuff that will interfere with more important exercises. One of the main reasons I am down on do a lot of curls, for instance is that they tend to interfere with pullups/chinups if done in excess (which need a lot of arm).
On the other hand there are other things that can be done that don't intefere too much with the big movements.
The bottom line for focusing more on hypertrophy is either do a little more volume in general with your given frequency or do higher frequency with a given volume.
3. Of course there are better ways to focus on appearance but you really have to realize that the missing element is not the growth potential of your workouts but simple fat levels, added volume, or added frequency.
If your want to do strength plus fat loss in a fullbody workout scenario then you can design workouts with that in mind. PLUS keep the main workouts short but provide time in at the end for "bodybuilder style" stuff.
But let me focus more on the particular points you made:
[quote]but im beginning to think that perhaps it would be an ok idea to diversify slightly (only slightly) into training more for bodybuilding goals u know? in the sense: giving more emphasis to look better rather than lift heavier weights.
but then im thinking that even if i did change my goals slightly, it wouldnt change my training in any way would it? you would have me doing the same exercises and stuff in either case. its not like we'd change my program into a split and then hope it works.[quote]
I think the best approach in terms of divesifying what you are doing now is to make modest changes, gauge the effect, make more changes, gauge them, so on and so forth. That way you try to incorporate the new goals without disrupting the old ones. But of course you don't make the changes so modest to be worthless for the new goal.
The basic change I would make is to utilize supersets (some antagonistic for strength and some mixed up challenge and fat loss) while retaining the basic movements in the same type of strength realm as you are doing now.
So for instance I wouldn't start supersetting deads and hanging leg raises. But I might superset romanians and leg raises, or pullthroughts and leg raises (just as one example). It would be done either to retain a primarily strength training effect while keeping time down OR to get the heart rate up and also keep overall time down (while always keeping intensity fairly high)
And then tack on bodybuilding stuff at the end doing it "bodybuilding style" but also supersetting it or even tri-sets or whatever designed to also keep the heart rate up.
Quote:
| back and biceps |
Quote:
shoulders and chest legs and triceps |
Like I said, given frequency, more volume, or more frequency at given volume, but never LESS frequency. I actually am very open minded to taking a page from bodybuilding (I used to DO bodybuilding, afterall) but NOT that one. Low frequency splits always come out behind higher frequency ones.
Quote:
| but then i keep thinking to myself that this is all useless thought processing because: |
Quote:
1.) it wouldnt work out in the long run 2.) ur not going to be too happy about this. and then several months from now ill realize exactly why u dont agree with me and then ill regret this (assuming i do it) 3.) this is just some passing fantasy of mine to get more ripped, larger and generally just thicker. i want to look good with my shirt off. is this wrong? |
No. It's not wrong. But this is mostly about diet. You're going to get bigger if you train pretty much how you are now and eat enough. If you eat too much you'll get fatter too. The question is would you rather look big and pretty defined ALL the time with your shirt off or drive yourself silly trying to look "RIPPED" like a bodybuilder on stage only to not be able to maintain it, losing or not gaining any more muscle, and getting on the yo-yo diet train.
The first scenario is about patience and keeping your bf% somewhere between 10 and 12 all them time until most of your body composition changes come into being overtime...needing just a little tweaking here and there if the abs don't show good enough. The second scenario is basically stupid
Quote:
| see, Eric: they way i see it: ive just gone from 185 to 177 lbs. fuck. i should be depressed. but im far from it. im far from it because im looking great (well great meaning better than before) but im not looking like how i really want to, u know? i want to have bigger shoulders, a larger back. not so much emphasis on my chest though. i think my chest is ok. i want to increase my arm size. u said that doing arm work early in the game reduces potential. |
If your looking great then I think your shoud keep looking in the mirror and forget about the scale for a while.
Quote:
| so far this is how my mentality has been: i will lift for strength right now in my life when most kids my age lift to look good. and i will be stronger than most kids but i wont look better than them. thats fine. but then when im 40, ill look better than 99% of the guys who's sons will be my kids friends. and when i walk into a room at 45 ill look a billion times better than the rest of the old guys out there. |
You simply HAVE to start consistently focuing on short term goals. You will drive yourself nutty thinking about what happens when your are 40.
Quote:
| BUT, now im thinking: i can keep increasing strength very gradually and slowly and i can focus on looking good too so that hopefully at 40, i will still be strong but at the same time i will look waay better because i started building the foundation pretty early. am i wrong in this? |
Wrong question. You're in Texas. Forty is India. Get it? Start walking now with the goal of reaching India (ok so you can't walk there but hyprothetically) you may never make it. But if you start walking with the goal of reaching California or maybe just the next county in Texas....no problem.
Quote:
| its not like im expecting immediate results but i feel like i want to look so much better with my shirt off than what i look like right now. ok how about if i put it for u like this Eric: u know ive been a fat kid right? alright. so think about it. ive gone from 160 to 185 to 177 now. my arms are pretty good. they look nice with my shirts and stuff. i look good. lets say i get a rating (from anyone) of 8, alright? ok. if i had to walk into a pool in my trunks, id get rated (by the same person) as an 5 or 6. u see the problem? |
You're lighter but most of your measurements went up. Sound good to me. I don't think in numbers like that so all I can say is you have to focus more on diet if you want to have less fat.
Quote:
| am i just thinking too much, eric? what do u think? if u were me right now what would u do? |
If I were you, me being me, then I would do what I already mentioned. You are having too much basic success for me to want to comtemplate changing the basics. We still have a lot of potential in your bench press and overhead press. We need to get your back healthy and get you back with the heavy deads. I'm much more interested in setting short term goals and reaching them. If something was broken it would be different...but it ain't.
However as I said, there is a lot of potential you fail to tap. I've actually mentioned a few things to you before.
Quote:
| also, i know ur going to say either one of the two options: |
Quote:
1.) its fine to think more like a bodybuilder for a while as long as i try to get ronger |
You'd be surprised at how much bodybuilding stuff I allow myself to do. For instance, unlike you, my chest is not my strong suit. If I were to just work on bench press strength and all that comes with it...my chest would look small compared to the rest of me, especially my back.
So I do some bodybuilding style bench press. Light weight and high slow reps (but heavier than db's). Elbows and 90 degree angles not going all the way down (to protect the shoulders and keep the emphasis on the chest) and not fully locking out. I'll bet that surprises the hell out of you doesn't it? But I can do it in a safe way and without interfering with benching in general and it simply "finishes out" my chest so that it looks generally the same as the rest of me.
Quote:
| 2.) i should shut up and just keep doing what im doing (which is what i think ur going to say) |
Actually what I would express is that it is frustrating simply because I actually do have a longer term plan loosely in mind. But then you get injured and whatnot so it thows a wrench in the works. So when we should be focused on recovery and getting back on the progress train you want to discuss this other stuff. I think you are pulling yourself in too many different directions.
You keep throwing these three day programs at me. It's kind of funny since you could actually increase the frequency of what your are doing now if you wanted. At the same time it seems like you end up doing 3 exercise workouts a lot even at the lower frequency. So now you tell me you wan't to do bigger workouts more often? How about doing the fundamental thing of actually doing more in your given workouts?
I recognize that you have skipped a lot of stuff lately because of your back but the fact is there were things you could have done instead (you could have asked if you needed ideas). I would like to see you get back on track and start ramping up your effort in the gym so that we can see what changes we can make. It’s kind of hard to be constantly asked about routine changes when the fact is we haven’t been able to make the ongoing changes we normally would.
So in other words let’s try to build a stable footing upon which to proceed instead of hopping from one lose rock to another.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Injuries
I was just about to sign off and it occured to me there was a basic thing I could tell you that would help you in the future with injuries. It's nothing comprehensive and all-explaining but it's a very important part that I doubt most people are aware of.
If you look at the injury you got it would probably be what's known as a "nondisruptive" injury. Without explaining all that let me sum it up by saying it's different than an injury where you pull off a bunch of muslce fibers. There is tissue damage and inflammation but it is basically a kind of injury that is not as good about telling you what's up. The nondisruptive type would be the most common muscle strain we get in the weight room.
Here's the part of that you want to be aware of. You injured one side of your back. With an inury like that it is possible for the muscles to regain the ability to exert 90% or the opposite side or your back in as little as 24 hours! Certainly after a few days you'll have that 90% or more ability. Plus the pain being gone, etc...
BUT, and this is a big but, the acual tensile strength of the muscle may still be diminished quite a bit. Up to around 75 percent of previous depending....
So you can see the problem here, right? You've got a muscle that is basically capable of exerting more force than it can withstand. This is during early initial stages and not later if it becomes chronic.
So you can see how easy and why people re-injur themselves after an initial injury. You've basically got a muscle that is acting like it's OK! These second injuries often end up being much worse than the first one. I don't think that is the case with you now though but it is very likely to be the case most of the time.
The key lies in the "non-disruptive" label. This rapid return of force potential is part of the reason it's called non-disruptive. Unfortunately the body didn't evolve it's injry mechanisms to deal with lifting heavy barbells over and over again
.
Just something to be aware of.
If you look at the injury you got it would probably be what's known as a "nondisruptive" injury. Without explaining all that let me sum it up by saying it's different than an injury where you pull off a bunch of muslce fibers. There is tissue damage and inflammation but it is basically a kind of injury that is not as good about telling you what's up. The nondisruptive type would be the most common muscle strain we get in the weight room.
Here's the part of that you want to be aware of. You injured one side of your back. With an inury like that it is possible for the muscles to regain the ability to exert 90% or the opposite side or your back in as little as 24 hours! Certainly after a few days you'll have that 90% or more ability. Plus the pain being gone, etc...
BUT, and this is a big but, the acual tensile strength of the muscle may still be diminished quite a bit. Up to around 75 percent of previous depending....
So you can see the problem here, right? You've got a muscle that is basically capable of exerting more force than it can withstand. This is during early initial stages and not later if it becomes chronic.
So you can see how easy and why people re-injur themselves after an initial injury. You've basically got a muscle that is acting like it's OK! These second injuries often end up being much worse than the first one. I don't think that is the case with you now though but it is very likely to be the case most of the time.
The key lies in the "non-disruptive" label. This rapid return of force potential is part of the reason it's called non-disruptive. Unfortunately the body didn't evolve it's injry mechanisms to deal with lifting heavy barbells over and over again
.Just something to be aware of.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Deadlifts and Motor Pathways
The "messed up motor pathways" is a shorthand way of saying that you did some shit wrong and to failure for a length of time and you brain, not knowing any better said 'oh, this is how I'm supposed to do this. This muscle first and then this..etc. and so on. This is called motor learning and it is specific to the movement you are doing.
It is not as an important factor in low skill weight training as it would be say, in the olympic lifts, but sufficeth to say that there is a certain amount of plasticity in the motor system that allows the brain to learn and prioritize certain patterns of movement. It would be an overstatement indeed to say "I can't deadlift" but it would be fair to say "I can't deadlift correctly right now". Learning is NOT just intention. You can have now clue how to do something properly, be unaware that you are doing it wrong, and "learn" to do it this incorrect way, thus establishing movement patterns that will require you to back off to lighter weights and "re-learn". As I said it becomes more of an issue the more complex the movement but it is an issue.
Look at it this way. Once you learn to ride a bike you never forget, right? Why is this? You guessed it. HOWEVER, you may be able to ride a bike but unable to ride a bike really really fast even though another guy who's essentially the same as you and has been riding bikes the same amount of time with the same effort is much faster. Why is this? Well, because he learned better, all other things being equal.
If you try to re-learn bike riding in this certain way that allows the most effecient transfer of power to the pedals, it will be harder to do that than it was to learn to basically ride the bike in the first place depending on how long you've been riding of course.
When you don't have a lot of experience doing something like deads, which is one of the more compex of the slow lifts, especially if you want to do it well, and you spend a lot of time as an inexperienced deadlifter doing it to failure and beyond....that is a way to "learn it wrong". NO, it doesn't physically damage you and cause you not to be able to walk. That's just some silly defensive shit from people who are being defensive.
What it does is force you to spend this honeymoon time with deads too much in a state of fatigue and at intensities that are not really conducive to learing proper movement patterns. Think about it. How much of the feedback that you brain is getting is at a time when you have already recieved the "stop" message. This is not a way to develop proper movement patterns.
Even from a simple "this muscle too tired that bigger muscle not tired" you can see what will happen. The brain is like one of those choreagraphers. All it knows is that the show has to go on at all costs. So if one of the dancers is not up to snuff and can't get the job done what does the choreographer do? He puts all the work on his best/strongest dancers. What happens when just a few of the best dancers are doing all the work? The show sucks.
DC training forced you into a situation where not necessarily the correct movement patterns were learned, but the ones that were necessary to get the job done under a situation of too much stress. Problem is that it only gets the job done for so long before imbalances put you on the sidelines. Basically strong/overactive muscles and weak/inhibited one and all sort of complicated shit getting messed up as you go along doing things the same way.
One thing I forgot to say is that for less skill oriented movements all this stuff is very load dependent. I.E. there is a certain weight at which you can't perform a proper rep but this is not a maximal weight. There is a likewise a lighter weight that you can perform a proper rep through paying attention to good form.
This is what I meant when I said before that the weight you achieved during the DC "doesn't count" IF you want to relearn the deads, do them right, and live up to your potential.
Really what it comes down to is bad form being relearned and just like always heavy weights and learning do not mix.
It is not as an important factor in low skill weight training as it would be say, in the olympic lifts, but sufficeth to say that there is a certain amount of plasticity in the motor system that allows the brain to learn and prioritize certain patterns of movement. It would be an overstatement indeed to say "I can't deadlift" but it would be fair to say "I can't deadlift correctly right now". Learning is NOT just intention. You can have now clue how to do something properly, be unaware that you are doing it wrong, and "learn" to do it this incorrect way, thus establishing movement patterns that will require you to back off to lighter weights and "re-learn". As I said it becomes more of an issue the more complex the movement but it is an issue.
Look at it this way. Once you learn to ride a bike you never forget, right? Why is this? You guessed it. HOWEVER, you may be able to ride a bike but unable to ride a bike really really fast even though another guy who's essentially the same as you and has been riding bikes the same amount of time with the same effort is much faster. Why is this? Well, because he learned better, all other things being equal.
If you try to re-learn bike riding in this certain way that allows the most effecient transfer of power to the pedals, it will be harder to do that than it was to learn to basically ride the bike in the first place depending on how long you've been riding of course.
When you don't have a lot of experience doing something like deads, which is one of the more compex of the slow lifts, especially if you want to do it well, and you spend a lot of time as an inexperienced deadlifter doing it to failure and beyond....that is a way to "learn it wrong". NO, it doesn't physically damage you and cause you not to be able to walk. That's just some silly defensive shit from people who are being defensive.
What it does is force you to spend this honeymoon time with deads too much in a state of fatigue and at intensities that are not really conducive to learing proper movement patterns. Think about it. How much of the feedback that you brain is getting is at a time when you have already recieved the "stop" message. This is not a way to develop proper movement patterns.
Even from a simple "this muscle too tired that bigger muscle not tired" you can see what will happen. The brain is like one of those choreagraphers. All it knows is that the show has to go on at all costs. So if one of the dancers is not up to snuff and can't get the job done what does the choreographer do? He puts all the work on his best/strongest dancers. What happens when just a few of the best dancers are doing all the work? The show sucks.
DC training forced you into a situation where not necessarily the correct movement patterns were learned, but the ones that were necessary to get the job done under a situation of too much stress. Problem is that it only gets the job done for so long before imbalances put you on the sidelines. Basically strong/overactive muscles and weak/inhibited one and all sort of complicated shit getting messed up as you go along doing things the same way.
One thing I forgot to say is that for less skill oriented movements all this stuff is very load dependent. I.E. there is a certain weight at which you can't perform a proper rep but this is not a maximal weight. There is a likewise a lighter weight that you can perform a proper rep through paying attention to good form.
This is what I meant when I said before that the weight you achieved during the DC "doesn't count" IF you want to relearn the deads, do them right, and live up to your potential.
Really what it comes down to is bad form being relearned and just like always heavy weights and learning do not mix.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Deadlift Injury
List out what you did on deads from your injury before up until now.
I'll do it for you going a little before the back strain and up til now:
2 sets x 5 reps x 200 lbs (90 kgs)
2 sets x 5 reps x 210 lbs (95 kgs)
2 sets x 5 reps x 225 lbs (100 kgs)
1 sets x 5 reps x 235 lbs (105 kgs)
1 sets x 5 reps x 275 lbs (125 kgs)
After the bad goodmornings
1 sets x 1 reps x 285 lbs (130 kgs)
2 sets x 8 reps x 185 lbs (85 kgs)
1 set x 8 reps x 205 lbs (90 kgs)
1 set x 5 reps x 245 lbs (110 kgs)
Back still hurting some
1 set x 6 reps x 225 lbs, 1 set x 10 reps x 135 lbs
set x 1 rep x 275 lbs
Never get in such a hurry with deads. It doesn't matter what you did with crappy form way back when on a crappy program. Notice that your goodmorning injury came after you made a 30 pound JUMP for reps on deads. Then some rest and some initial but shortlived submaximal stuff.
Then a forty pound jump ALL the WAY UP to the level you should have progressed steadily from at the beginning of the list INSTEAD of making that big jump.
Then back down 20 pounds for six reps and then a FIFTY pound jump. Practically right after an injury. This is of course not to mention all the other stuff affecting your back.
I think it's clear why you're back is fucked, don't you?
This is one of those examples of wanting to find the specific source of an injury so that one can justify the other screwed up things they feel a need to do since those things are not to blame and this other thing is.
So in this case it's the goodmornings. Well I totally agree that the goodmorings were a culprit. In fact, as I've said I'm not big on goomornings for everyone. But just because a problem springs up during an exercise doesn't mean you get to ignore all the other things that might have contributed to the problem. I don't think it's a coincidence that the goodmoring problem came after a big deadlift jump. Likewise I don't think it's a coincidence that you are hurting again after a similar jump. It's simply a weight you shouldn't be doing right now.
I told you way back when you wanted to get back into deadlifting that you should consider it a clean slate and not to be influenced by what you did before. But you haven't been able to stick to that. The problems you had before necessitated a "clean slate" to relearn things and to get to a point of muscular development that allowed you a buffer zone in terms of maximal effort. You are not there yet. In effect you simply have not been deadlifting long enough to attempt 30, 40, or 50 pound PR's of any kind let alone repping it. Add to that an injury that in no way could have completely resolved yet and you have a problem.
You see if I wanted to throw an extra 30 pounds on the bar and attempt a dead PR I can do that without much fear of injury. That is because my body is strong enough to protect me from injury even if certain aspects of good form are comprimised or even if I am not able to get up the weight. So I might fail but I'm not going to hurt myself. I'll simply put down the weight. But here you have a case where form was supposedly perfect and YET pain resulted. That should tell you to not be doing this kind of thing again until well in the future.
Once you can get deads going again then keep on slowly and systematically progressing them and stop trying to reach for this golden ring you thought you had in the past.
But you were progressing well and actually quite quickly. That's the thing. Everything was going fine so there was no need to take unecessay risks. If you had put on 235 or even 245 you probably would have been fine and even been able to make 10 pound jumps if you wanted. But I would rather see you take your time and add a rep or two and things like that. Because that is just the kind of thing that gets the back strong and ready.
I doubt very much it will take you 2 years to hit 315, provided you are not to severly sidetracked by your back.
But you're right, this is the kind of thing that teaches us lessons.
Hopefully you can do a supported row. One arm rows are probably not the answer since they still tend to put pressure on the core and uneven pressure on the back. So you need something to take the back out of it for a while. I have found plenty of times that cable rows are doable as long as you are very strict. It depends on the injury of course. But if not maybe you have a chest supported row thing you can do or you can do supported rows off a bench...dumbells work good for that. Rows themselves are not something you need to sweat. I always do all sorts of rows and they are all useful and effective in their own way. If you can't do barbell rows it's hardly a tragedy.
In the future, keep in mind that maxing out on deads or making big jumps in general is not something you do very often. You know, a lot, if not all, PLr's only max out deads on comp day. They don't know what's gonna happen until it happens. There's a reason for that. I very seldom try to max out. It's usually enough just to know, or at least being fairly certain of what I can do that is enough. I don't compete so I have no real reason to disrupt my training and progress so it's something I do to reward myself for all the hard and patient work. I have no other yardstick but myself. With that said, it's a good thing to do. But it is something that is planned for. Not something that you decide off the cuff because you "feel good that day" or whatever.
The only other thing I could say that may help is that you have to be able to sometimes look at your training in a very objective way. You talked about pinpointing the fault but many times it's not a pinpoint it's a huge mountain staring you in the face. But when it comes to our own training we tend to turn a blind eye to those mountains. If you had sat back and looked ONLY at your deadlifting with that dispassionate eye that I used, well, it would have jumped out at you.
For anyone else who might be reading this, since I know Anuj has learned it, just because the pain goes away from an injury doesn't mean it's "healed up". If you think that you are being STUPID. Just use some friggin common sense. If you cut your finger does it continue to throb during the entire healing process? NO. But what happens if you bang it on something or whatever while it's healing? You BLEED and it HURTS. And yes the two are similar enough to compare in this way. But probably most will have to learn that lesson the hard way.
I'll do it for you going a little before the back strain and up til now:
2 sets x 5 reps x 200 lbs (90 kgs)
2 sets x 5 reps x 210 lbs (95 kgs)
2 sets x 5 reps x 225 lbs (100 kgs)
1 sets x 5 reps x 235 lbs (105 kgs)
1 sets x 5 reps x 275 lbs (125 kgs)
After the bad goodmornings
1 sets x 1 reps x 285 lbs (130 kgs)
2 sets x 8 reps x 185 lbs (85 kgs)
1 set x 8 reps x 205 lbs (90 kgs)
1 set x 5 reps x 245 lbs (110 kgs)
Back still hurting some
1 set x 6 reps x 225 lbs, 1 set x 10 reps x 135 lbs
set x 1 rep x 275 lbs
Never get in such a hurry with deads. It doesn't matter what you did with crappy form way back when on a crappy program. Notice that your goodmorning injury came after you made a 30 pound JUMP for reps on deads. Then some rest and some initial but shortlived submaximal stuff.
Then a forty pound jump ALL the WAY UP to the level you should have progressed steadily from at the beginning of the list INSTEAD of making that big jump.
Then back down 20 pounds for six reps and then a FIFTY pound jump. Practically right after an injury. This is of course not to mention all the other stuff affecting your back.
I think it's clear why you're back is fucked, don't you?
This is one of those examples of wanting to find the specific source of an injury so that one can justify the other screwed up things they feel a need to do since those things are not to blame and this other thing is.
So in this case it's the goodmornings. Well I totally agree that the goodmorings were a culprit. In fact, as I've said I'm not big on goomornings for everyone. But just because a problem springs up during an exercise doesn't mean you get to ignore all the other things that might have contributed to the problem. I don't think it's a coincidence that the goodmoring problem came after a big deadlift jump. Likewise I don't think it's a coincidence that you are hurting again after a similar jump. It's simply a weight you shouldn't be doing right now.
I told you way back when you wanted to get back into deadlifting that you should consider it a clean slate and not to be influenced by what you did before. But you haven't been able to stick to that. The problems you had before necessitated a "clean slate" to relearn things and to get to a point of muscular development that allowed you a buffer zone in terms of maximal effort. You are not there yet. In effect you simply have not been deadlifting long enough to attempt 30, 40, or 50 pound PR's of any kind let alone repping it. Add to that an injury that in no way could have completely resolved yet and you have a problem.
You see if I wanted to throw an extra 30 pounds on the bar and attempt a dead PR I can do that without much fear of injury. That is because my body is strong enough to protect me from injury even if certain aspects of good form are comprimised or even if I am not able to get up the weight. So I might fail but I'm not going to hurt myself. I'll simply put down the weight. But here you have a case where form was supposedly perfect and YET pain resulted. That should tell you to not be doing this kind of thing again until well in the future.
Once you can get deads going again then keep on slowly and systematically progressing them and stop trying to reach for this golden ring you thought you had in the past.
But you were progressing well and actually quite quickly. That's the thing. Everything was going fine so there was no need to take unecessay risks. If you had put on 235 or even 245 you probably would have been fine and even been able to make 10 pound jumps if you wanted. But I would rather see you take your time and add a rep or two and things like that. Because that is just the kind of thing that gets the back strong and ready.
I doubt very much it will take you 2 years to hit 315, provided you are not to severly sidetracked by your back.
But you're right, this is the kind of thing that teaches us lessons.
Hopefully you can do a supported row. One arm rows are probably not the answer since they still tend to put pressure on the core and uneven pressure on the back. So you need something to take the back out of it for a while. I have found plenty of times that cable rows are doable as long as you are very strict. It depends on the injury of course. But if not maybe you have a chest supported row thing you can do or you can do supported rows off a bench...dumbells work good for that. Rows themselves are not something you need to sweat. I always do all sorts of rows and they are all useful and effective in their own way. If you can't do barbell rows it's hardly a tragedy.
In the future, keep in mind that maxing out on deads or making big jumps in general is not something you do very often. You know, a lot, if not all, PLr's only max out deads on comp day. They don't know what's gonna happen until it happens. There's a reason for that. I very seldom try to max out. It's usually enough just to know, or at least being fairly certain of what I can do that is enough. I don't compete so I have no real reason to disrupt my training and progress so it's something I do to reward myself for all the hard and patient work. I have no other yardstick but myself. With that said, it's a good thing to do. But it is something that is planned for. Not something that you decide off the cuff because you "feel good that day" or whatever.
The only other thing I could say that may help is that you have to be able to sometimes look at your training in a very objective way. You talked about pinpointing the fault but many times it's not a pinpoint it's a huge mountain staring you in the face. But when it comes to our own training we tend to turn a blind eye to those mountains. If you had sat back and looked ONLY at your deadlifting with that dispassionate eye that I used, well, it would have jumped out at you.
For anyone else who might be reading this, since I know Anuj has learned it, just because the pain goes away from an injury doesn't mean it's "healed up". If you think that you are being STUPID. Just use some friggin common sense. If you cut your finger does it continue to throb during the entire healing process? NO. But what happens if you bang it on something or whatever while it's healing? You BLEED and it HURTS. And yes the two are similar enough to compare in this way. But probably most will have to learn that lesson the hard way.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
When doing box squats, do 1-2 light sets of Deep Squats
Something your missing that may help you in the future. I have preached the need to be somewhat flexible and patient. One thing that would have helped you doing box squats for so long was to allow yourself to switch them out every so often for regular squats. Keeping youself familiar with it and so on and preventing that culture shock of swithching suddenly. Also you can alway hit a set of light squats as a backoff as long as it is really a backoff and not ball's out. Higher reps.
Something I've mentioned and witch I really believe to be the case is that practising and also learning a movement for the first time is really better done with higher reps. This cements the movement patterns quicker and better and gets you greased up. At any time when you get away from the main movements you can still use this concept to keep in practice. The body doesn't just deal in intensity and volume. It deals in patterns of recuritment which I shorthand as "movement patterns" as a catch all of all the different things going on. Even if you don't feel a set is "productive" in the traditional sense of progressive overload it is still productive in other ways.
In fact I count this as one of the drawbacks of the 3x5 Rippetoe thing for absolute beginners. It's a good set range in terms of using moderate volume but not a good range in terms of learning the lifts. Plus the fact that absolute beginners will react the same to whatever you give them.
You don't have to necessarily do back off sets every time...and sometimes you can just completely replace the box squats for some appropriately heavy squats. Keep in mind that you can rely on any one method to keep you squats healthy. And also keep in mind that some "catchup" is just part of the game if you train this way but for the most part you should be able to maintain squat form and confidence while you're going along.
Something I've mentioned and witch I really believe to be the case is that practising and also learning a movement for the first time is really better done with higher reps. This cements the movement patterns quicker and better and gets you greased up. At any time when you get away from the main movements you can still use this concept to keep in practice. The body doesn't just deal in intensity and volume. It deals in patterns of recuritment which I shorthand as "movement patterns" as a catch all of all the different things going on. Even if you don't feel a set is "productive" in the traditional sense of progressive overload it is still productive in other ways.
In fact I count this as one of the drawbacks of the 3x5 Rippetoe thing for absolute beginners. It's a good set range in terms of using moderate volume but not a good range in terms of learning the lifts. Plus the fact that absolute beginners will react the same to whatever you give them.
You don't have to necessarily do back off sets every time...and sometimes you can just completely replace the box squats for some appropriately heavy squats. Keep in mind that you can rely on any one method to keep you squats healthy. And also keep in mind that some "catchup" is just part of the game if you train this way but for the most part you should be able to maintain squat form and confidence while you're going along.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
no situps and crunches
The hip flexors are part of it. That can be overcome by going into posterior pelvic tilt and doing abdominal vacuums...but the biggest reason is that they are bad for the shoulders and not to mention the back....(which again indirectly leads to the shoulders). And they are simply not as effective as some of the other choices. For flexion standing ab pulldowns can be much more effective. You can add more weight and you can posteriorly tilt the pelvis and do the vacuums which will effectively remove the hip flexors from the equation.
People go around and around about all this and are always trying to come up with modifications to the pushups and crunches to make them better....it's such a waste of time when there are so many other options. Do reverse crunches instead of crunches and it will be much better. You can add leg weights and doing hanging knee or leg raises is sort of a more advanced version of this. BTW, for hanging stuff I actually do more LOWERING that raising.
For instance for hanging leg raises I will bring the knees up all the way to my face then lower them down WHILE straightening the legs until my thighs are parallel and my legs are straight out in front and then I will slowly lower...and repeat. I do ALL of this while maintaing a posterior pelvic tilt (that means the top of your pelvis is tilted to the rear). There's just all sorts of shit you can do. And isometric stuff is good.
It's very important to find ways to recruit the external obilques more. So that's why the torsion exercises come it. And things like cable woodchops are good. ALL of this type of thing is going to strengthen the entire abdominal complex. You really don't need to worry about situps and crunches
People go around and around about all this and are always trying to come up with modifications to the pushups and crunches to make them better....it's such a waste of time when there are so many other options. Do reverse crunches instead of crunches and it will be much better. You can add leg weights and doing hanging knee or leg raises is sort of a more advanced version of this. BTW, for hanging stuff I actually do more LOWERING that raising.
For instance for hanging leg raises I will bring the knees up all the way to my face
then lower them down WHILE straightening the legs until my thighs are parallel and my legs are straight out in front and then I will slowly lower...and repeat. I do ALL of this while maintaing a posterior pelvic tilt (that means the top of your pelvis is tilted to the rear). There's just all sorts of shit you can do. And isometric stuff is good.It's very important to find ways to recruit the external obilques more. So that's why the torsion exercises come it. And things like cable woodchops are good. ALL of this type of thing is going to strengthen the entire abdominal complex. You really don't need to worry about situps and crunches
I am not convinced at all that someone needs to do EXTRA internal rotation exericises
The only thing I can add is that I am not convinced at all that someone needs to do EXTRA internal rotation exericises. Like I told you before, almost all your major upper body exercises involve some aspect of the internal rotators. The internal rotators are huge muscles. Especially compared to the external rotators.
The major internal rotators are the lats, pecs, teres major and subscapularis. The first three for sure get worked in abundance and are going to tend to be dominating to the externals. What you'll find is disagreement about the subscapularis. Some will say you need an isolated internal rotation exercise to hit that muslce. It is a muscle that lies underneath the scapula hence the name. The mistake people make is that they think it is very tiny like the externals because you can't see it. But in fact it's pretty darn large. The will say it will be inhibited by the larger internal rotators and thus cause imbalance (it is an important humeral stabilizer)....so it needs to be strengthened.
The problem is this assumption doesn't seem to be indicated by research. Basically if the internal rotators are hypertonic and dominant the subscapularis will be also. I've never seen anything to indicate that the subscapularis becomes inhibited by the other internals in the general shoulder disfunction syndromes. If anything it tends to become OVERWORKED if the scapular movers and external rotators are weak because it will have to take over some of the stabilizing role...of for instance the suprispinatus.
You know I have a lot of respect for Eric Cressey but I disagree completely with his statements about working the subscapularis. Until he shows me some examples of it being inhibited which he has never proven.
So to sum it up....I would avoid "internal rotations" as a prehab excercise. That is, the actual isolated type that are supposed to target the subscapularis more. There are other prehab type exercises that may involve some internal rotation but will also hit some other small but important muscles. This is fine but just keep in mind the relationship I layed out about the abundance of internal rotation in the average program. It is also important to stretch the lats and pecs for this reason. However I am not talking about DC style stretching!
The major internal rotators are the lats, pecs, teres major and subscapularis. The first three for sure get worked in abundance and are going to tend to be dominating to the externals. What you'll find is disagreement about the subscapularis. Some will say you need an isolated internal rotation exercise to hit that muslce. It is a muscle that lies underneath the scapula hence the name. The mistake people make is that they think it is very tiny like the externals because you can't see it. But in fact it's pretty darn large. The will say it will be inhibited by the larger internal rotators and thus cause imbalance (it is an important humeral stabilizer)....so it needs to be strengthened.
The problem is this assumption doesn't seem to be indicated by research. Basically if the internal rotators are hypertonic and dominant the subscapularis will be also. I've never seen anything to indicate that the subscapularis becomes inhibited by the other internals in the general shoulder disfunction syndromes. If anything it tends to become OVERWORKED if the scapular movers and external rotators are weak because it will have to take over some of the stabilizing role...of for instance the suprispinatus.
You know I have a lot of respect for Eric Cressey but I disagree completely with his statements about working the subscapularis. Until he shows me some examples of it being inhibited which he has never proven.
So to sum it up....I would avoid "internal rotations" as a prehab excercise. That is, the actual isolated type that are supposed to target the subscapularis more. There are other prehab type exercises that may involve some internal rotation but will also hit some other small but important muscles. This is fine but just keep in mind the relationship I layed out about the abundance of internal rotation in the average program. It is also important to stretch the lats and pecs for this reason. However I am not talking about DC style stretching!
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Tight Hams?
PART I
Well let's hope it settles down. Some of it could just be it tightening up. When you stretch it after an injury like that it may feel uncomfortable but that's ok, go ahead and stretch as long as there is not bad pain....
You do seem to have a lot of problems with recurrent tightness. How dedicated have you been to your stretching regimen?
I'll look at the squat vid again. He said you have "excessive posterior tilt" which would mean the top of your pelvis tilts to the rear excessively but I bet he meant the front which would be "anterior" (ante meaning "before" or "in front of"). For someone to say you have this while your are squatting can be purely subjective. It's really when you are just standing normally when this counts.
I didn't notice a lot of 'butt wink' on the box squats but I will look again. You did have a lot of butt wink on your regular ATG squats. I agree in general that your probably need to stretch harder after your workouts. And you may be one of those people who would benefit from stretching (more dynamically) in between sets.
As far as having tight hamstrings and inhibited hip flexors and erectors he doesn't know what he's talking about. It would be very unusual for tight hamstrings to result in loose and weak hip flexors and spinal erectors. Most of the time if your hammies are excessively tight so are your hip flexors. Remember when you couldn't sleep on your back? (I don't know if you can now). Remember how tight your hip flexors were?
It doesn't make biomechanical sense. Likewise if you have prominent pelvic "posterior" tilt your hamstrings would likely be loose not tight. NO. Your hamstrings, hips flexors, AND erectors are tight. The only thing that is likely inhibited are the glutes which we have confirmed and is one of the things this routine was desinged to correct.
You are already doing (or are supposed to be doing) everything you can to correct any flexibility issues. Your routine is dealing with strength. If there is butt wink then the only other way to really deal with that is to not go so low that butt wink results and work on going lower slowly until you can do it without the wink.
And I explained all this before.
BTW, I know you are probably really frustrated and stressed about the back. But I know it will all work out. Go ahead and be stretching it gently at this point. I'd most like you to heat it and then stretch it. If your mom could massage it also that would be great.
PART II
I may not have explained it all thouroughly enough.
I didn't want to overwhelm you with technical info.
I'll give you a for instance and then we'll get into the stretching later.
One of the misunderstandings that the guy in the PM had was the difference between lenght and flexibiltiy or "tightness".
Assuming he meant excessive anterior tilt of the pelvis instead of posterior tilt he assumed that the psoas and spinal erectors would be "tight" and short...thus pulling the pelvis from the front and the back into an excessive anterior tilt and increasing the arch of the lumbar spine. Right?
So he further assumed that this would produce lengthened hams. But this is where his logic broke down. You can have long hams but still be "overactive and tight" in them. In a position of execessive anterior tilt the hams would be taking on more of their fair share of the load. While the gluteals would be weak and inhibited. Obviously you don't consider your hams to be very flexible right now. Well flexibility is a function of the nervous system not the "length" of the muscle belly.
We had to assume that your hams would need flexibility trianing and we were right. And of course your erectors and hip flexors would be both short and tight instead of just tight.
Between the glutes and the hams, we assume that the glutes are too weak. BUT, between the quads and the hams, we assume that the hams are too weak. We assume therefore that the hams will be less flexible than the glutes (you don't have "tight" glutes do you?) and we also assume that the quads although seemingly "overactive" are really owing more of a problem to the tight hip flexors and the quads will get a stretch when we stretch the hips flexors properly.
So you see how complicated and confusing this stuff really is.
One thing I think seems apparent is that we need to put in more dynamic stretching work before your workouts.
Well let's hope it settles down. Some of it could just be it tightening up. When you stretch it after an injury like that it may feel uncomfortable but that's ok, go ahead and stretch as long as there is not bad pain....
You do seem to have a lot of problems with recurrent tightness. How dedicated have you been to your stretching regimen?
I'll look at the squat vid again. He said you have "excessive posterior tilt" which would mean the top of your pelvis tilts to the rear excessively but I bet he meant the front which would be "anterior" (ante meaning "before" or "in front of"). For someone to say you have this while your are squatting can be purely subjective. It's really when you are just standing normally when this counts.
I didn't notice a lot of 'butt wink' on the box squats but I will look again. You did have a lot of butt wink on your regular ATG squats. I agree in general that your probably need to stretch harder after your workouts. And you may be one of those people who would benefit from stretching (more dynamically) in between sets.
As far as having tight hamstrings and inhibited hip flexors and erectors he doesn't know what he's talking about. It would be very unusual for tight hamstrings to result in loose and weak hip flexors and spinal erectors. Most of the time if your hammies are excessively tight so are your hip flexors. Remember when you couldn't sleep on your back? (I don't know if you can now). Remember how tight your hip flexors were?
It doesn't make biomechanical sense. Likewise if you have prominent pelvic "posterior" tilt your hamstrings would likely be loose not tight. NO. Your hamstrings, hips flexors, AND erectors are tight. The only thing that is likely inhibited are the glutes which we have confirmed and is one of the things this routine was desinged to correct.
You are already doing (or are supposed to be doing) everything you can to correct any flexibility issues. Your routine is dealing with strength. If there is butt wink then the only other way to really deal with that is to not go so low that butt wink results and work on going lower slowly until you can do it without the wink.
And I explained all this before
.BTW, I know you are probably really frustrated and stressed about the back. But I know it will all work out. Go ahead and be stretching it gently at this point. I'd most like you to heat it and then stretch it. If your mom could massage it also that would be great.
PART II
I may not have explained it all thouroughly enough.
I didn't want to overwhelm you with technical info.
I'll give you a for instance and then we'll get into the stretching later.
One of the misunderstandings that the guy in the PM had was the difference between lenght and flexibiltiy or "tightness".
Assuming he meant excessive anterior tilt of the pelvis instead of posterior tilt he assumed that the psoas and spinal erectors would be "tight" and short...thus pulling the pelvis from the front and the back into an excessive anterior tilt and increasing the arch of the lumbar spine. Right?
So he further assumed that this would produce lengthened hams. But this is where his logic broke down. You can have long hams but still be "overactive and tight" in them. In a position of execessive anterior tilt the hams would be taking on more of their fair share of the load. While the gluteals would be weak and inhibited. Obviously you don't consider your hams to be very flexible right now. Well flexibility is a function of the nervous system not the "length" of the muscle belly.
We had to assume that your hams would need flexibility trianing and we were right. And of course your erectors and hip flexors would be both short and tight instead of just tight.
Between the glutes and the hams, we assume that the glutes are too weak. BUT, between the quads and the hams, we assume that the hams are too weak. We assume therefore that the hams will be less flexible than the glutes (you don't have "tight" glutes do you?) and we also assume that the quads although seemingly "overactive" are really owing more of a problem to the tight hip flexors and the quads will get a stretch when we stretch the hips flexors properly.
So you see how complicated and confusing this stuff really is.
One thing I think seems apparent is that we need to put in more dynamic stretching work before your workouts.
Fatigue on the Full Body Program
It's best to think of the fatigue interms of the fatigue "effects" of the different kinds of work. That is, how fast the fatigue comes, the relative level of it, and how long it lasts.
You're thinking of volume in terms of muscle soreness instead of these fatigue effects. You don't even really need to separate out CNS versus metabolic fatigue.
Now with the workout you are doing I know we've said certain things are "like" the texas method but that only has to do with specific details. There is actually nothing in your program that borrows from that kind of setup.
Remember that volume is relative and load is relative. So for instance, your first two workouts are not just maximal strength like the Friday of Texas. Instead they TEND toward being on the heavier side of things and have some maximal strenght followed by assistance work that tends more toward the "work" side of things, but is lower volume than the workout later in the week.
If your were to look at these workouts in terms of just "CNS" fatigue and muscle soreness it wouldn't make any sense. You are getting mixed fatigue AND fitness responses from those workouts but overall the fatigue should not be as long lasting as the later workouts. The first lower workout should be especially low volume so as to not intefere too much with the maximal strength work that comes at the beginning of the first upper workout. Then once that is pulled off there can be more volume coming after.
So what we are doing is "playing" with the fatigue effects in order to get the best numbers from maximal stenght work but ALSO we are hoping to get some more longlasting fitness effects then we would from doing ONLY maximal strength work on those days. It is a mixed bag and is not just a one or the other type of thing.
Remember what I wrote in the TM thread about Friday's workouts and the fitness gained from them. This is something very important that most people just don't seem to get. So let me put it another way. Only a beginnner gains very meaningful fitness from one set. It changes a lot when you become more advanced. You need to have a certain amount of "work" in order to gain more permanent "fitness" (and when I say fitness I mean stength, dammit, since that is the type of fitness we are going for. There is no such thing as "overall fitness" only relative degress of different kinds of fitness). This is why I find it so funny that people make such a big deal out of the whole 1RM and 5RM being so "important". Funny how nobody cared about that doing Madcow's and they certainly don't worry about it while "loading" on the "DFT".
Keeping all that in mind the program you wrote COULD work but basically you have the same relative volume and intensity distributed thoughout the week. There doesn't seem to be any manipulation as far as fatigue is concerned. I.E. you could expect much the same response from all the workouts. It would be quite manageable but the question is whether there is enough to drive progress.
Most of what I said before was fairly specific to the upper/lower. To apply that theory to a fullbody you’d really need fewer exercises and much more literal uses of it.
Since it is simple to do so I’ll relate it to TM. So TM’s setup deals with fatigue in a different way and there is a very sharp delineation between maximal work and maximal strength. I don’t need to rehash the theory behind the the setup but the DRAWBACK of it is that you can’t ever guarantee that fatigue and recovery will intermesh perfectly allowing you consistent PR’s on Friday no matter what you do. Friday advances could be gained from Monday if fatigue has dissipated and enough fitness is gained but assuming that it will is one of the limitations. Friday could just as well be interfered with. Again most people should gain well by just advancing on Monday and not regressing on Friday.
But we talk about things in terms of a week. Well your body doesn’t know weeks. It only knows stimulus and response. Fitness and fatigue. So what if you looked at your body’s responses literally and applied them to something simple like TM?
You could put maximal strength on Monday. Hit your PR’s then. You would be at your freshest fatigue wise and at your utmost ability to achieve them. Any fitness response would be relatively speedy and fatigue would disapate quickly.
So one day off you shoud be ready to hit the volume. You’d do your TM 5x5 type workout then on Wednesay. Except it wouldn’t be a literal 5x5 I just mean it would be the most metabolically draining of the three workouts. You’d have a lot more exercises. So you’d hit deads at low volume. Then you would hit some kind of squats or squat assister at higher volume but relatively low….then same thing with bench and/or pressing work. Back work. Whatever. This would be a big day with a high relative volume in other words.
Then a day off and an “offload” with added assistance. You wouldn’t need as aggressive an offload since you would then have two days off before you go for PR’s again. The pr’s would be mixed and switched around.
So that would be an intensity – volume – recovery approach that corresponded more closely to fatigue responses. The reason this works is because the fitness gained from Wednesdays workout and assisted by Friday’s workout (so Friday would actually help not just provide active recovery) would be long lasting enough to be displayed on Monday but at the same time there would be very little chance of Monday’s PR being interfered with like they are on Friday of the TM.
The ‘volume’ of course would be entirely relative to your goals. There would be no need of doing, for instance 5x5 sets if less would facilitate your goals. Also I would use the same flexible progression that I use for my upper/lowers so that more volume can be introduced if and when it is needed and in a steady and systematic way. But the big problem is that to cram in the ways I like to train would make for two very big days. It would never actually work.
The reason I do upper/lowers is not because I like training 4 days a week or whatever. It is because I need to break all that volume up so as not to overwhelm myself. All this is nothing more than a theoretical exercise, like yours, designed to lead straight back to the fact that fullbodies are best left simple and the more complex training works much better with the split.
If you took out the standpoint of variety, though, my way of maximal strength, maximal work, and then a recovery/assistance day would probably work quite well. If I ever get back to that kind of thing, I’ll play with something and try it out. The thing that TM and the other 5x5’s don’t take into account is the difference between the fitness effects. You can look at it like Monday causes a PR on Friday and it makes a lot of sense. BUT you can also look at it as being fresh on Monday facilitates the PR’s which was setup anyway by Wednesday’s and to some extent Friday’s work since that fitness gained from those days is much more long lasting. You just have to realize that the body doesn’t care about a “week” it only knows to respond to the stimulus it receives.
But let’s not take theory too far. Most of what I do comes from experiencing different things. I take theory and add it to experience, not the other way around. The best way of knowing if your setup would work is for you to do it and learn from it. It would be much harder than you think though from what I can tell.
You're thinking of volume in terms of muscle soreness instead of these fatigue effects. You don't even really need to separate out CNS versus metabolic fatigue.
Now with the workout you are doing I know we've said certain things are "like" the texas method but that only has to do with specific details. There is actually nothing in your program that borrows from that kind of setup.
Remember that volume is relative and load is relative. So for instance, your first two workouts are not just maximal strength like the Friday of Texas. Instead they TEND toward being on the heavier side of things and have some maximal strenght followed by assistance work that tends more toward the "work" side of things, but is lower volume than the workout later in the week.
If your were to look at these workouts in terms of just "CNS" fatigue and muscle soreness it wouldn't make any sense. You are getting mixed fatigue AND fitness responses from those workouts but overall the fatigue should not be as long lasting as the later workouts. The first lower workout should be especially low volume so as to not intefere too much with the maximal strength work that comes at the beginning of the first upper workout. Then once that is pulled off there can be more volume coming after.
So what we are doing is "playing" with the fatigue effects in order to get the best numbers from maximal stenght work but ALSO we are hoping to get some more longlasting fitness effects then we would from doing ONLY maximal strength work on those days. It is a mixed bag and is not just a one or the other type of thing.
Remember what I wrote in the TM thread about Friday's workouts and the fitness gained from them. This is something very important that most people just don't seem to get. So let me put it another way. Only a beginnner gains very meaningful fitness from one set. It changes a lot when you become more advanced. You need to have a certain amount of "work" in order to gain more permanent "fitness" (and when I say fitness I mean stength, dammit, since that is the type of fitness we are going for. There is no such thing as "overall fitness" only relative degress of different kinds of fitness). This is why I find it so funny that people make such a big deal out of the whole 1RM and 5RM being so "important". Funny how nobody cared about that doing Madcow's and they certainly don't worry about it while "loading" on the "DFT".
Keeping all that in mind the program you wrote COULD work but basically you have the same relative volume and intensity distributed thoughout the week. There doesn't seem to be any manipulation as far as fatigue is concerned. I.E. you could expect much the same response from all the workouts. It would be quite manageable but the question is whether there is enough to drive progress.
Most of what I said before was fairly specific to the upper/lower. To apply that theory to a fullbody you’d really need fewer exercises and much more literal uses of it.
Since it is simple to do so I’ll relate it to TM. So TM’s setup deals with fatigue in a different way and there is a very sharp delineation between maximal work and maximal strength. I don’t need to rehash the theory behind the the setup but the DRAWBACK of it is that you can’t ever guarantee that fatigue and recovery will intermesh perfectly allowing you consistent PR’s on Friday no matter what you do. Friday advances could be gained from Monday if fatigue has dissipated and enough fitness is gained but assuming that it will is one of the limitations. Friday could just as well be interfered with. Again most people should gain well by just advancing on Monday and not regressing on Friday.
But we talk about things in terms of a week. Well your body doesn’t know weeks. It only knows stimulus and response. Fitness and fatigue. So what if you looked at your body’s responses literally and applied them to something simple like TM?
You could put maximal strength on Monday. Hit your PR’s then. You would be at your freshest fatigue wise and at your utmost ability to achieve them. Any fitness response would be relatively speedy and fatigue would disapate quickly.
So one day off you shoud be ready to hit the volume. You’d do your TM 5x5 type workout then on Wednesay. Except it wouldn’t be a literal 5x5 I just mean it would be the most metabolically draining of the three workouts. You’d have a lot more exercises. So you’d hit deads at low volume. Then you would hit some kind of squats or squat assister at higher volume but relatively low….then same thing with bench and/or pressing work. Back work. Whatever. This would be a big day with a high relative volume in other words.
Then a day off and an “offload” with added assistance. You wouldn’t need as aggressive an offload since you would then have two days off before you go for PR’s again. The pr’s would be mixed and switched around.
So that would be an intensity – volume – recovery approach that corresponded more closely to fatigue responses. The reason this works is because the fitness gained from Wednesdays workout and assisted by Friday’s workout (so Friday would actually help not just provide active recovery) would be long lasting enough to be displayed on Monday but at the same time there would be very little chance of Monday’s PR being interfered with like they are on Friday of the TM.
The ‘volume’ of course would be entirely relative to your goals. There would be no need of doing, for instance 5x5 sets if less would facilitate your goals. Also I would use the same flexible progression that I use for my upper/lowers so that more volume can be introduced if and when it is needed and in a steady and systematic way. But the big problem is that to cram in the ways I like to train would make for two very big days. It would never actually work.
The reason I do upper/lowers is not because I like training 4 days a week or whatever. It is because I need to break all that volume up so as not to overwhelm myself. All this is nothing more than a theoretical exercise, like yours, designed to lead straight back to the fact that fullbodies are best left simple and the more complex training works much better with the split.
If you took out the standpoint of variety, though, my way of maximal strength, maximal work, and then a recovery/assistance day would probably work quite well. If I ever get back to that kind of thing, I’ll play with something and try it out. The thing that TM and the other 5x5’s don’t take into account is the difference between the fitness effects. You can look at it like Monday causes a PR on Friday and it makes a lot of sense. BUT you can also look at it as being fresh on Monday facilitates the PR’s which was setup anyway by Wednesday’s and to some extent Friday’s work since that fitness gained from those days is much more long lasting. You just have to realize that the body doesn’t care about a “week” it only knows to respond to the stimulus it receives.
But let’s not take theory too far. Most of what I do comes from experiencing different things. I take theory and add it to experience, not the other way around. The best way of knowing if your setup would work is for you to do it and learn from it. It would be much harder than you think though from what I can tell.
Deadlift and Fatigue
Deadlift, to me, at 1x5, needs to go on the first lower day. It's maximal work. Matter of fact your first lower should be you first workout of the week and especially if you're doing deadlift. Different people may have differnet opinions depending on what aspect of recovery they focus on.
Look, you want strength, you want functionality, and you want health. But in the way you arrange the workouts you are still thinking like a bodybuilder. You want to "prioritize" muscles.
To some extent you can do that but there is an order of importance to look at in the way you arrange things.
I'll list out those things in order but first a little explanation.
Just about everything centers around recovery. Most people are stuck in a rut of thinking about recovery in terms of local muscular recovery. They worry about whether their chest is recovered, or their legs, or their arms. You hear it all the time...my legs were too tired to squat. That statement there is a dead giveaway that a person doesn't know shit about programming.
The recovery we really need to worry about is systemic in nature. It involves the entire system and the CNS is one of the biggest parts of it. There are only so many resources to go around and those include the resources of your nervous system not just your muscles themselves. Fatigue plays into all this. Keeping this in mind helps us decide what to do first and the general order things should happen in.
So the first thing we think of is nervous resources. The more complex and heavy a movement the more resources it demands from the CNS. You don't even need to worry about the relative nature of the fatigue they cause because just that fact will tell you that the more complex and heavy movements should come first...when the CNS is freshest. This would obviously mean a time when residual fatigue from the entire routine is at it's lowest so you put the more complex movements where your body has the most resources to pull them off.
Deadlifts, in your routine, would be the most complex, demanding movement. When I say complex I don't necessarily mean how much skill it takes, I mean how much minute muscular control you body has to call on to do the movement. Obviously, the nature of it changes as we get stronger and the CNS matures, but there comes a time where the deadlift needs to be at the top of the list if you expect to do it right.
Deads of course cause a lot of metabolic fatigue so that may lead some people to want to push it further into the weak. But if the volume is not too high the fatige will not be as long lasting at the "volume" fatigue. And in any case the need to be at your freshest to prevent injury and any number of other problems (such as the problem you got from Doggshit training) outweighs any other consideration. This is why I had said a 5x5 is not a good routine to bring up your deadlifts if you are having problems because in order to do that squats would have to give ground.
So this all tells us where in the weak heavy deads should go and it also tells us the exercise order. Remember, most complex first. So that means you would never do squats before deads if you really know what you are doing. You would most certainly never do high volume squats. Deads is just NOT a movement that is going to be understanding if you care more about squats or bench press. It's just not.
But you're probably thinking I can still do upper day first, right? Wrong. Because it's not about muscular recovery. It's about systemic resources. I notice everbody puts the upper first in upper/lowers. Because they think that they'll be too tired to do their precious bench press if they do the lower first in the week. So they actually understand intuitively about systemic resources, but they don't take this logic to it's conclusion.
They simply care more about their pecs. That ain't strength triaining. There is no logical reason to put upper first when lower is the most complex. The upper day movements are less complex therefore they require fewer resources. That means your bench won't suffer as much from your deadlift (and squat) as your deadlift will suffer from you bench. The best thing to do is to also arrange the day's off in a way that gives more recovery from the draining nature of deads.
That is why I do upper lowers like this: Lower, day off, upper, lower, day off, upper. Then two days off for an eight day week.
So here are the things to consider when arranging the routine in order of importance.
1. Most complex and heavy movements first
2. Lighter and higher volume second.
3. Priorities based on weaknesses, injuries, postural problems, etc.
Putting in deadlifts changes everything. It really becomes a different routine becasue everything must shift around the exercise. If it were a matter of your deadlift not having problems it would be different but if you want to improve on it you have to be willing to give it it's due.
You could keep doing the kind of thing you are doing and then you might actually find some improved capacity for bringing it up in your next routine. But if you want to put it in now, which is good as far as I'm concerned, you need to be willing to change priorities.
Let me know what you think and I will help.
Look, you want strength, you want functionality, and you want health. But in the way you arrange the workouts you are still thinking like a bodybuilder. You want to "prioritize" muscles.
To some extent you can do that but there is an order of importance to look at in the way you arrange things.
I'll list out those things in order but first a little explanation.
Just about everything centers around recovery. Most people are stuck in a rut of thinking about recovery in terms of local muscular recovery. They worry about whether their chest is recovered, or their legs, or their arms. You hear it all the time...my legs were too tired to squat. That statement there is a dead giveaway that a person doesn't know shit about programming.
The recovery we really need to worry about is systemic in nature. It involves the entire system and the CNS is one of the biggest parts of it. There are only so many resources to go around and those include the resources of your nervous system not just your muscles themselves. Fatigue plays into all this. Keeping this in mind helps us decide what to do first and the general order things should happen in.
So the first thing we think of is nervous resources. The more complex and heavy a movement the more resources it demands from the CNS. You don't even need to worry about the relative nature of the fatigue they cause because just that fact will tell you that the more complex and heavy movements should come first...when the CNS is freshest. This would obviously mean a time when residual fatigue from the entire routine is at it's lowest so you put the more complex movements where your body has the most resources to pull them off.
Deadlifts, in your routine, would be the most complex, demanding movement. When I say complex I don't necessarily mean how much skill it takes, I mean how much minute muscular control you body has to call on to do the movement. Obviously, the nature of it changes as we get stronger and the CNS matures, but there comes a time where the deadlift needs to be at the top of the list if you expect to do it right.
Deads of course cause a lot of metabolic fatigue so that may lead some people to want to push it further into the weak. But if the volume is not too high the fatige will not be as long lasting at the "volume" fatigue. And in any case the need to be at your freshest to prevent injury and any number of other problems (such as the problem you got from Doggshit training) outweighs any other consideration. This is why I had said a 5x5 is not a good routine to bring up your deadlifts if you are having problems because in order to do that squats would have to give ground.
So this all tells us where in the weak heavy deads should go and it also tells us the exercise order. Remember, most complex first. So that means you would never do squats before deads if you really know what you are doing. You would most certainly never do high volume squats. Deads is just NOT a movement that is going to be understanding if you care more about squats or bench press. It's just not.
But you're probably thinking I can still do upper day first, right? Wrong. Because it's not about muscular recovery. It's about systemic resources. I notice everbody puts the upper first in upper/lowers. Because they think that they'll be too tired to do their precious bench press if they do the lower first in the week. So they actually understand intuitively about systemic resources, but they don't take this logic to it's conclusion.
They simply care more about their pecs. That ain't strength triaining. There is no logical reason to put upper first when lower is the most complex. The upper day movements are less complex therefore they require fewer resources. That means your bench won't suffer as much from your deadlift (and squat) as your deadlift will suffer from you bench. The best thing to do is to also arrange the day's off in a way that gives more recovery from the draining nature of deads.
That is why I do upper lowers like this: Lower, day off, upper, lower, day off, upper. Then two days off for an eight day week.
So here are the things to consider when arranging the routine in order of importance.
1. Most complex and heavy movements first
2. Lighter and higher volume second.
3. Priorities based on weaknesses, injuries, postural problems, etc.
Putting in deadlifts changes everything. It really becomes a different routine becasue everything must shift around the exercise. If it were a matter of your deadlift not having problems it would be different but if you want to improve on it you have to be willing to give it it's due.
You could keep doing the kind of thing you are doing and then you might actually find some improved capacity for bringing it up in your next routine. But if you want to put it in now, which is good as far as I'm concerned, you need to be willing to change priorities.
Let me know what you think and I will help.
Fatigue
Before I get into it let’s talk about fatigue. We know that fatigue is something we need to regulate if we won’t to perform out best. Also, if we want to be safe.
There are two different types of fatigue. One is neural in nature. The other is metabolic in nature. This is the systemic fatigue I speak of.
What does neural fatigue mean? It means down-regulation of alpha- and beta-receptors or decreasing the release of catecholamines. This means decreased nervous system fuction. You lift a heavy weight and you cause some nervous system fatigue. It doesn’t matter what exercise. Just more complex movements mean more fatigue. Bench one day can effect your deads or squats the next. We established that before.
Rip says in the book about the speed work being light since it is only half the load and therefore it’s no big deal. Like it has no effect on you. As if everything has to do with total load. Bullshit. How do you lift a light load as quickly as possible? By calling on as many motor units as possible as quickly as possible. How do you lift a very heavy load at any speed? By calling on as many motor units as possible as quickly as possible. They sound very similar in that way don’t they?
Also, what Rip says about the light loads meaning no injury just because they are light? Well, in fact, when you compare traditional slow strength work with ANY TYPE of work that involvles acceleration you get more injuries with the latter. He really should know better than to make a statement like that (it’s one of the things that really disappoints me about the book). Stress on joints is not just related to total load on the joints. In some cases total load can paly a heightened role due to body positioning and mechanics. But the actual load on the joints themselves is a function of acceleration. If you lift 50 pounds super super fast the load on the affected joints is MUCH more than 50 pounds. The more you accelerate the more the load. Not to mention the potential herky-jerky nature of it. But I digress.
I’ve discussed the similarities between maximal loads and maximal speed training. In fact they are two example of the THREE primary types of strength training. Maximal strength, maximal instensity, and maximal work. So maximal strength is using near-maximal loads for low reps for every how many sets. Maximal intensity uses sub-maximal loads for maximal acceleration. The only on left that I haven’t discussed yet is maximal work. Maximal work is sub-maximal loads with a high volume of training. Now I know this is old stuff to you except that I doubt you have ever put it together in the way that I’m doing now.
How do maximal strength and maximal intensity (heavy work and speed work) affect fatigue? The answer is IN VERY SIMILAR WAYS. They both result in very high fatigue that dissipates after a brief period. Maximal intensity won’t cause as much fatigue at first but it will catch up very quickly.
At first maximal strength should follow after speed work, since you will get more fatigue from maximal strength work so it you did the heavy work first you wouldn’t be able to improve your speed work very quickly. But as you progress I would in the end always put maximal strength work first. When that time is we cannot be sure and technically you can do either when you are very advanced. But I would do maximal strength work first simply because it works better and there is less potential for injury.
Maximal work causes lower levels of fatigue than either of the others, but the fatigue lasts longer. Since the recovery and thus the fitness after-affect with maxmal strength and maximal intensity kicks in faster it shunts aside the fatigue somewhat. Whereas the fatigue from maximal work is pretty much immediate. This tells us that maximal strength and maximal intensity should always come before maximal work in a single training week. Or a single training day, for that matter.
Logically, heavy work and speed work can even come on the same day at the appropriate volume.
So you have at first
The good thing about putting speed work earlier than maximal strength work is because of what I said before, also. At first, the fatigue after-affect will be both of lesser magnitude and it will have larger and quicker fitness gains which actually have the capacity to help the maximal strength work. Maximal strength work can actually have this effect on maximal work work but here the relationship is even stronger because of the similar nature. Remember what I told you about my own training, where I would gain strength so fast from my maximal work earlier in the week that I would be using similar weights for the volume work later (the routine format helped). Well, this kind of thing should be stronger for speed work to maximal strength work.
So that's enough, I think, for now.
There are two different types of fatigue. One is neural in nature. The other is metabolic in nature. This is the systemic fatigue I speak of.
What does neural fatigue mean? It means down-regulation of alpha- and beta-receptors or decreasing the release of catecholamines. This means decreased nervous system fuction. You lift a heavy weight and you cause some nervous system fatigue. It doesn’t matter what exercise. Just more complex movements mean more fatigue. Bench one day can effect your deads or squats the next. We established that before.
Rip says in the book about the speed work being light since it is only half the load and therefore it’s no big deal. Like it has no effect on you. As if everything has to do with total load. Bullshit. How do you lift a light load as quickly as possible? By calling on as many motor units as possible as quickly as possible. How do you lift a very heavy load at any speed? By calling on as many motor units as possible as quickly as possible. They sound very similar in that way don’t they?
Also, what Rip says about the light loads meaning no injury just because they are light? Well, in fact, when you compare traditional slow strength work with ANY TYPE of work that involvles acceleration you get more injuries with the latter. He really should know better than to make a statement like that (it’s one of the things that really disappoints me about the book). Stress on joints is not just related to total load on the joints. In some cases total load can paly a heightened role due to body positioning and mechanics. But the actual load on the joints themselves is a function of acceleration. If you lift 50 pounds super super fast the load on the affected joints is MUCH more than 50 pounds. The more you accelerate the more the load. Not to mention the potential herky-jerky nature of it. But I digress.
I’ve discussed the similarities between maximal loads and maximal speed training. In fact they are two example of the THREE primary types of strength training. Maximal strength, maximal instensity, and maximal work. So maximal strength is using near-maximal loads for low reps for every how many sets. Maximal intensity uses sub-maximal loads for maximal acceleration. The only on left that I haven’t discussed yet is maximal work. Maximal work is sub-maximal loads with a high volume of training. Now I know this is old stuff to you except that I doubt you have ever put it together in the way that I’m doing now.
How do maximal strength and maximal intensity (heavy work and speed work) affect fatigue? The answer is IN VERY SIMILAR WAYS. They both result in very high fatigue that dissipates after a brief period. Maximal intensity won’t cause as much fatigue at first but it will catch up very quickly.
At first maximal strength should follow after speed work, since you will get more fatigue from maximal strength work so it you did the heavy work first you wouldn’t be able to improve your speed work very quickly. But as you progress I would in the end always put maximal strength work first. When that time is we cannot be sure and technically you can do either when you are very advanced. But I would do maximal strength work first simply because it works better and there is less potential for injury.
Maximal work causes lower levels of fatigue than either of the others, but the fatigue lasts longer. Since the recovery and thus the fitness after-affect with maxmal strength and maximal intensity kicks in faster it shunts aside the fatigue somewhat. Whereas the fatigue from maximal work is pretty much immediate. This tells us that maximal strength and maximal intensity should always come before maximal work in a single training week. Or a single training day, for that matter.
Logically, heavy work and speed work can even come on the same day at the appropriate volume.
So you have at first
- Maximal intensity (speed work)
- Maximal strength (heavy work)
- Maximal work
The good thing about putting speed work earlier than maximal strength work is because of what I said before, also. At first, the fatigue after-affect will be both of lesser magnitude and it will have larger and quicker fitness gains which actually have the capacity to help the maximal strength work. Maximal strength work can actually have this effect on maximal work work but here the relationship is even stronger because of the similar nature. Remember what I told you about my own training, where I would gain strength so fast from my maximal work earlier in the week that I would be using similar weights for the volume work later (the routine format helped). Well, this kind of thing should be stronger for speed work to maximal strength work.
So that's enough, I think, for now.
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