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.

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back and biceps

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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.

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but then i keep thinking to myself that this is all useless thought processing because:

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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also, i know ur going to say either one of the two options:

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!