Mert, and strength dog we should mabey discuss assorted pulls, and back volume pertaining to PLing on a new thread. It sounds like we share similar ideas, and I’d like to here more. Guess I could just finaly start my log, next month never seems to happen.
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
The reason I just went ahead, and showed my weely workout schedual was to show how back gets hit. I have BBer friends that can’t believe I don’t have an official back day, where I ruin my back. If you look at my 4 day break down, I hit back every time I’m in the gym (same with most PLer’s I think) My back is the secondary muscle group(exercise)of the day suspersetted or after main lift. This means the back exercise dosen’t get the intensity of the main exercise, therefore the volume, and somtimes the reps are much more (I aim for double) I can’t speak for other’s but my back thrives on this, strangely my back is what most people comment/ask about the most.
Anyway OP your right it was Dallas that brought up high Pulls, as far as rack pulls, and snatch grip. I always heard that doing snatch grip deads for awhile adds all this muscle to your back (rack pulls would be the same) it’s never done anything for me personaly. I think this is because I dead lift wide to begin with, fingers on outer ring, so it might be effective for narrow people, lots of big names swear by it.
What I do know that as a PLer that likes to look like a BBer, adding in cleans earlier this year, and high pulls has done freaky things to my back, and traps. if somone told me that I could change my back this much in 3mths, I would have thought it was bull shyt. It’s also helped my lifts, and I’m not running any gear right now. I know I sound like a sales man, but in 20yrs of lifting I’ve never had a growth spurt like I’ve had from adding in these two Oly lifts, wish I had before, and after pics.
OP we’ve gotten off original question, but what I would do is put face pulls in instead of chins on one of your upper body days, Than add some heavy pulls at the end of each lower body day, snatch grip from the knee, would be fine for one. the other day try one of the OLYs 5x5 or a heavy bent or Tbar row, 3x10-15. Don’t kill yourself leave a coulple reps in the tank on each set, just put the work in, give it a couple more cycles, and your back should come alive. Remember paitance is power, in more ways than one! [/quote]
So, lets say one day I replace the SS pull ups with face pulls, and at the end of the 531 squat/5x10 dead day I do cleans and at the end of the 531 dead/5x10 squat day I do snatch grip rack pulls? It just seems that this might start to interfere with the main lifts, but maybe not. How does this sound? And thanks again for the replies!
This is exactly what I would, and do do, lol, anyway the facepulls are going to actually be less stressfull than pull ups while thickening your back, keep your elbows high, and the reps slow squeezing your rear delts. On the cleans I would do 5sets, of 3-6reps keeping reps in the tank. back in a min
On the snatch grip deads, it’s better to keep the bar at or below your knees, on these I would use a little higher rep range same as the face pulls, some where between 8-15. This way you can focus on perfect reps, and feeling the muscles your after. You can also combine these rack pulls with some Kirk rows–(from the top of the dead, just pull the bar up to your belly button, and hold for a 3-5 count, really good for grip, and traps) 3-5 sets of these not killing yourself, it’s not about completely destroying yourself, it’s about putting the work in.
As far as recovery, remember these are asistance exercises, they shouldn’t be your main focus, if your tired some days, just skip doing these, or do them light, and focus on the main lift. As long as your eating, and sleeping right, this amont of work shouldn’t be a problem. I would keep my supersets to just the BBB sets, and not the 531 sets (thats just me) In the end 531 gives you a perfect way to tell if your recovering or not, by watching your numbers, if the weight stops going up from month to month, the way it should, just cut back a little.
I recently added a 5th day just for Oly lifts, I thought more of a good thing, would be a great thing. It only took 3 weeks for me to burn out. I was doing Mon. Oly lifts, Tues. Bench, Wed. Squat, Thurs. Military, and by Fri. my deadlift would be in the toilet, I pushed it for 3 weeks, but I was loosing ground. Point is more isn’t always better, so keep an eye on your numbers, and how you feel. This thing we do is really simple,(progressive resistance) the easiest way to screw it up is to over complicate it. 531 is a great program, just have to be patience. Goodluck
I wanted to add a couple of things about how I arrived at my current training for upper back. Again I have gravitated to inverted rows at different heights, and with feet on different boxes.
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Dumbell rows are great, and I often do them with a very small double band under the opposite foot so I am pulling up and out. Basically the dumbell goes from the opposite foot near the floor, to the shoulder so there is a need to pull outward laterally as well as upward.
The main issue I had with dumbell rows is that doing one arm at a time, there is some tendancy to rotate the torso rather than keep the torso completely neutral. This rotation sometimes causes shoulder flair ups. Also inverted rows have basically no loading on the hams, hips, quads, and I do rows on my bench press days, and sometimes squat the day before or after. I didn’t need the extra work for the legs. The inverted row also requires back arching, but there is no “vertical” loading of the spine. -
That is also why I prefer inverted rows to the neck to high pulls now. Also I will walk forward or backward with a wheelbarrow for conditioning which has eliminated a lot of the benefit of high pulls.
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The only real problem with overwork of the upper back is in the a) posterior chain and b) the forearms. The high pulls (with a catch at the bottom especially) did tend to push the forearm over time.
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I also have needed to do a lot of shoulder and upper spine stretching with a broomstick as I lost the ability to get the bar into a low bar position when I was safety and front squatting a lot. Just pulling a broomstick down to the low bar position, arching the upper spine, squeezing the traps and pulling down for 30-60 seconds does a lot of the work of face pulls.
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As for downward pulls, there is one real good exercise I have used and that is to hang in the pullup position but lift myself by shrugging and rotating with straight arms, or nearly straight arms. I might just shrug myself up and rotate to 45 degrees for sets of 10 with a hold. This really hardens the armpits for benching. You can also “shrug” yourself up on a dip station by pushing down with the lats and pecs. It helps the bottom of the bench as well.
What do you think about the cleans Mert Ive really never given them much time in 40yrs. Than recently friend was saying, ``you werent a man if you couldnt clean your body weight`` so I made a mini goal to clean 225 for 5, and 3mths later now have a man crush on cleans. I do them hanging, from knee to shoulders, and just focus on hip pop, and drive. Theyve done loads for my upper back, and dead lift speed. The high pulls I like, but they feel a little akward, so I do them at 135,185, 225 on my way up on deads, than the same on the way back down. Its hard to tell if its the cleans, or the high pull, or the combination thats done so much for my upper back. This is why I hate to add more than one thing at a time to my program. Now I`m stuck doing both.
Well, I think that the catch position on the clean is good for the shoulders for one. I have come to prefer high pulls in the rack, often with some bands though because I could pull a heavier weight to a good height, like 48-54 inches, and for more reps because I wasn’t taking the time and effort to rack it on the shoulders. It was a more pure power movement that way. It never helped my deadlift, which would always stall at the bottom.
I also don’t really want to do another exercise on my lower body day these days. My lower body consists of alternating workouts of wide box squats and full deep squats, and on the box squat day I do a close stance goodmorning, Zercher or deadlift/rack pull, and on the deep squat day I do a wide stance GM, Zercher or Sumo DL/RP. That’s about it. If I need ham work I do my GMs with an arched back.
I do not think that cleans really help the squat or DL, and clean pulls work better and help primarily the bench, but I have tended to do more unverted rows pulling to the clavicles, neck or chin.
If I did cleans, I would do them to warm up for the squat, and I would sink into a full squat between reps, but I have not generally found fast work before heavy to help the heavy, or the opposite really.