Pull/push ratio should be 2:1, i.e. 2 sets of rows for every set of press.
This was super dumb. Actually made my posture worse, and I was back dominant in my first show. I also don’t think I progressed as quickly as I could’ve on pressing movements.
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I think the crux of harartery’s argument is all lifters, and especially newbies, should engage critical reasoning skills to assess their bodies and the effects of different lifts and lifting styles then apply what they’ve learned to create personally optimal training.
Makes sense to me, but it takes time, experimentation, and experience. Lots of people I’ve trained with had never previously even thought of assessing where they felt an exercise or how it made their body/muscles feel. Mind-muscle connection and analyzing exercise effects is totally new to many people and has to be learned.
My two cents, on with the interesting thread.
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Nailed it. I realize, from having lived and dealt with people, that most of them must be taught to think. It’s worse in “Third World” education systems. If someone is told to do a program, that person she be told to figure out what worked from it. You have to talk them through logging things and analyzing it. So, to me, simply saying “Do a program” is bad advice. You gave him a fish. He should be learning to fish.
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Sophomore year in college. My roommate brings home a copy of Muscle & Fitness. We see all the “Lee Haney’s Chest Blasting 3 hour Workouts”. We try to do them, fueled by crappy dorm food. Twenty to 25 work sets per body part. Bro-splits. It doesn’t take long to get discouraged. No way I get through those without being crippled and unable to wipe my ass for a week. Poor college kids without access to gear. Needless to say Joe lead us astray. By the time I graduate college, I figure the iron game as portrayed by Weider was for genetic freaks and I give up, and settle for the comfort of the cardio hamster wheels and cybex machines.
I was 46 before I grabbed a barbell again.
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I’ll go one more. @T3hPwnisher (Who is always a challenge to tag) mentioned something about squatting deep. That depends on what you mean by that. There can be a good reason to Squat rock bottom, but it doesn’t apply to most guys. There is a good reason to at least hit parallel. Measurement exist from past research showing that maximum intra-joint pressure occurs just above parallel, but rapidly dissipates as you reach parallel. is there a value for longevity? Probably, but not particularly after you hit parallel. If I tell a guy he doesn’t need to squat deep, is he going to hit parallel? 99 out of 100 times he will cut it just above parallel. So, does he need to be picking up loose change at the bottom? Nope. Should he be cutting depth? In most cases the answer is no. Should he understand why to do one thing versus another? Ideally.
Yep, exactly this. It should start at home when babies are first developing independent thoughts - “how do you feel? Are you hungry?” and advancing as a kid’s cognition and self-awareness develop - “what did the other kid say? What do you think about that? Why do you think that?” and so forth. Unfortunately, even here in the affluent States, many people aren’t raised with a primary caretaker who helps their kid/s develop analytical reasoning.
Another piece of bad advice I’m still unlearning - calisthenics won’t develop muscle mass or strength, so always choose weights instead of calisthenics.
- 20-rep sets of pullups and 30+ rep sets of dips beg to differ. Currently, I can’t even do either exercise with those numbers.
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Thank for this speech, that slap me a bit, I don’t push myself all of the time, and when i get this mentality i increase a lot, but i never give up, even when i start to training and i was young, even a empty barbell was difficult for me to push, but even when i work in industry and i was tired i go training, even when o was working in the night.
Somethime is also right, when u get some trouble that can to be difficult to not be disturb about that but i really think that it is really important to learn how to be empty and training with empty mind and put your problem Off when u train.
Just if u really feel a truth pain careful to not fuck your body and after u will stop training for a time…
But what u say talk to me, discipline and regularity it is a difficult things hope that i will learn and take ur mentality for training
In this forum i get really good advice, and good mentality here, thank for that, peace
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Whole heartedly agree. I never saw the logic in that. I think the original rational was derived from someone like Poliquin, who derived it from bros who would train lats and whatever was above them separately, which DOES make sense since we’re including the lower back as well so a 2:1 ratio should be about right, but for the ENTIRE BACK while taking the overlaps in movements into account so you’re not exactly doing a 2:1 ratio in terms of movements and volume.
Then the new wave of inexperienced writers who didn’t even look like they trained started misinterpreting this in their own way.
This is real bro science IMO.
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Muscle wise, push-pull ratios don’t even make sense since lats and pecs have the same effect on the shoulder 
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To clarify, this is advice that killed MY gains. I can’t speak to how it affects others.
Squatting to above powerlifting legal (I don’t use “parallel” because there is no set definition) resulted in me getting MUCH bigger and stronger compared to always chasing depth.
Never cared about joint pressure: just getting big and strong.
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Don’t train like a “bodybuilder”
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“If it hurts, don’t do it”
Two physios told me this as I was a teenager with regards to squatting. I wish I had had the good sense to explore is there a way I can do a movement pattern without it hurting or identify why it hurts. I can squat, I just have to do it in a way that suits my morphology. And train my abs lest my hip flexors take over. And not do SL 5x5 3x/wk… Going from a “I’m a kid that has played computer games for all of my life” hopping into something that’s high frequency and maybe suitable for someone with a more athletic background I wish I had cut my teeth on something else then rather than reverting back to the desktop 
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Yeah it depends on one’s antropome antoprome leg/torso length ratio and the type of squat. I go REALLY deep on smith machine squats with my legs close together, body in front of the bar and vertical through the movement. It hits the outer quads really well.
There’s no way I can do this with back squats even with raised heels. My torso will just shift forward and my ass will take over and then dominate the movement as the primary mover instead of the quads.
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I can only agree. I ran cookie cutters for 4-5 years.
You can learn A LOT from them
100% Totally agree.
“If it hurts, don’t do it” should be changed to “if it hurts, do it a little bit differently for a while, and let’s re-assess later”
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My interpretation of the origins of this is, most bros do too much pushing and not enough pulling, especially early on. <raises hand> The idea being, if you tell him to pull:push in a 2:1 ratio, maybe he will do 1:1. Just a theory.
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When I say “Parallel”, I mean the literal thigh bone (Humerus) being parallel to the floor, which is only guestimated under PL rules. And I don’t believe ther is a one size fits all rule, it depends on goals and concerns. You will absolutely use more weight in a shorter ROM, which should trigger better hypertrophy and strength gains over a practical use spectrum (The ROM you are more likely to use in life), so it depends on what is important to you.
This is tough to evaluate if you have some decent quads no? It’s why I prefer hip joint below top of knee joint.
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This is why I advocate for the use of fluoroscopy to assess depth while squatting. If you mount the screen on the wall at the end of the rack, you could monitor your own depth in real time. #Problemsolver
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