Aragorn: How Do You Train?

Training
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[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Couple thoughts: 1) frequency is a must when reeducating the body, I do certain things as part of my warm-up every day I am in the gym and it is perfect–also much easier because I know I wouldn’t do them at the end lol. and 2) a Proper overhead squat is done with a torso angle nearly identical to the upright one of a front squat. I’m not a doc so I can’t really help with that, but I would look into that possibility.

Definitely do exercises you feel most, but also try to use the trap 3 raises AFTER you have fatigued the mid back with something you feel, and use band pull-aparts in the same manner–after an exercise you really feel, no rest. Also how you do them is very important–are you on an incline bench?
[/quote]

  1. I realized that not too long ago. For a while I was brainwashed into thinking doing a certain movement or hitting the same muscle 4-5 times a week was over-training and impractical. Not a good mindset for things like these. Plus I always worried about fatiguing myself for my “important” lifts if I warmed up like that. Again, bad thought. I need to start using a better warm up anyway, so why not some serratus/low trap work. For warm ups, do you try to progress at all? Or just do a weight you know you can get and do a few sets just trying to contract the muscle and feel it work?

  2. Understood. I know how certain movements feel to my joint better then a doctor ever could (not a knock on doc’s cause the guy I worked with I respect a great deal) and I believe it wouldn’t be an issue because of the torso angle.

I tried using the trap 3 raises on an incline bench, standing at a cable station, and also bentover with my only my head resting on the top of the incline bench (standing, waist bent 60-70ish degrees with head resting on the bench). All of them just felt like the front of my shoulder was doing the work. From thinking about the movement itself and what the anterior delts do, that seems logical to me. I’m honestly still at a loss for understanding how the low traps are supposed to be taking the workload (especially in this movement), I’ve never felt them do that.

I feel like I’m turning your thread into a shoulder/back rehab/prehab answer session. I appreciate all the information and am taking notes, but damn I don’t like feeling like I’m turning this thread into something it wasn’t supposed to be.

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[quote]fisch wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

Couple thoughts: 1) frequency is a must when reeducating the body, I do certain things as part of my warm-up every day I am in the gym and it is perfect–also much easier because I know I wouldn’t do them at the end lol. and 2) a Proper overhead squat is done with a torso angle nearly identical to the upright one of a front squat. I’m not a doc so I can’t really help with that, but I would look into that possibility.

Definitely do exercises you feel most, but also try to use the trap 3 raises AFTER you have fatigued the mid back with something you feel, and use band pull-aparts in the same manner–after an exercise you really feel, no rest. Also how you do them is very important–are you on an incline bench?
[/quote]

  1. I realized that not too long ago. For a while I was brainwashed into thinking doing a certain movement or hitting the same muscle 4-5 times a week was over-training and impractical. Not a good mindset for things like these. Plus I always worried about fatiguing myself for my “important” lifts if I warmed up like that. Again, bad thought. I need to start using a better warm up anyway, so why not some serratus/low trap work. For warm ups, do you try to progress at all? Or just do a weight you know you can get and do a few sets just trying to contract the muscle and feel it work?

  2. Understood. I know how certain movements feel to my joint better then a doctor ever could (not a knock on doc’s cause the guy I worked with I respect a great deal) and I believe it wouldn’t be an issue because of the torso angle.

I tried using the trap 3 raises on an incline bench, standing at a cable station, and also bentover with my only my head resting on the top of the incline bench (standing, waist bent 60-70ish degrees with head resting on the bench). All of them just felt like the front of my shoulder was doing the work. From thinking about the movement itself and what the anterior delts do, that seems logical to me. I’m honestly still at a loss for understanding how the low traps are supposed to be taking the workload (especially in this movement), I’ve never felt them do that.

I feel like I’m turning your thread into a shoulder/back rehab/prehab answer session. I appreciate all the information and am taking notes, but damn I don’t like feeling like I’m turning this thread into something it wasn’t supposed to be.[/quote]

No problem mate. I’ll keep answering whatever kind of questions people pose to me rehab or not :).

  1. For my warm-up, yes I do try to progress–but NEVER at the cost of anything other than perfect form and feeling. That’s why it’s a warm-up! It’s not supposed to be near your limits, but it’s important to bring up your “base camp” readiness level too. It is by far more important to feel the muscles working just “so” in the warm-up and build mental connection with them than it is to progress in weight. If that thought enters your mind you will be screwed because you’ll start to treat it as part of your “workout”. It is body maintenance and tune-up. The whole point is to be fast paced, activating, getting the blood pumping and the mind ready to do the real work…not actually doing tons of hard work while cold.

Feeling it work is most important, no matter if that means you go 10 second slow reps or what. If you can’t feel something work, you have no way of knowing how to improve or when it is weak or strong.

  1. Sounds to me like you are both shoulder dominant, and overtight, and have weak rear delts to boot. Just like mobility is dependent on the ability of the soft tissue to stretch properly, so to is activation of muscles. So if your anterior delts are overtight, they will be one of the very first things you feel, and if they’re both relatively stronger than everything else AND overtight, you’ll never feel anything EXCEPT your front delts.

Ok, try this. Try adding the wall slide that I mentioned earlier from Eric Cressey in with a pause/hold each rep. Then, no rest, do seated facepulls from a lat pulldown machine, but use a lat bar instead of the rope–will explain below after the circuit. Do this before your workouts as part of your warm-up along with serratus work and all the other good stuff. Then do a circuit as follows during the actual workout:

  1. Row variation you feel in your lower mid-back (as opposed to upper traps) very well. Pause/hold each rep for 3 count focusing solely on the mid back and low traps that you feel. Form must be tight and beyond all else you must always be able to feel the mid/low traps really well.

  2. Without rest, move back to the Eric Cressey wall slide thing (can’t remember the original name, hopefully you can find it on his site or youtube but I’ll try to find it). Same thing–slooooowly execute the pull backwards and hold/squeeze for 3 seconds.

  3. Without rest, move to an incline bench as if doing trap raises. Set it very low on the incline, just make sure your hands aren’t brushing the ground when you’re sitting on it. Instead of doing trap raises, do “I-raises” (explained below). Hold the contracted position for a 3 count or as long as you can if less.

  4. Without rest, Rear delt flyes on the incline bench, no holding, that’s impossible. Big wide wingspan.

REST 2 minutes.

IF you can do them properly–and test them when you’re fresh to make sure way before you start this circuit–broomstick overhead squats will go after #4 and before #5. You can use a wall just like for wall squat drills. Stance must be front squat stance, no cheating wide. If not, don’t use the OH squat.

Next post–exercise description…

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EXERCISES:

  1. Seated face-pulls. Pretty much exactly like they sound. Lat pull station, use the lat bar or a v-grip you find comfortable. I find a lot of v-grips are too narrow to feel right, so start with the regular lat bar. Use a grip that puts about 1 foot of space between your hands, basically normal face-pull width with the rope in your face. Can’t be too wide. Lean back 45 deg. and lock the torso down–no movement no body english. Then face do facepulls to eyes, no lower. Key here is to try to think of your breastbone pushing up directly into the ceiling—FUCKING HARD.

Where most people get off track is that instead of arching they start actually leaning their torso back. This happens any time they’re given this cue and not only this exercise, regular pulldowns and other stuff too. You are not leaning back, you are arching UP. In other words, if I stood you up back against an electrified wall and said “point your breastbone at the ceiling” this is what you would do. You would not lean your torso back, your shoulders and butt would still be in a vertical line. You would roll your chest up and try to stretch your shoulders backwards. This is what you want to do.

  1. “I-raises”. I’m not sure what these are called, and I thought I invented them because I came up with them on my own but apparently not. I came up with a different version originally, but the one I am going to explain is better suited to rehab and activation. The other one is a favorite exercise but may lead you to start compensating with bad habits in your current condition.

Instead of going to the 12 o’clock position with your hands or the 10-2 position like in many trap raises, you are going to sit on the LOW incline bench the wrong way and with your hands hanging down naturally and palms facing perfectly away from your body you are going to pull to the 6 o’clock position. Your hands will be pointed down at the floor when you finish the movement. You must keep them pointed perfectly down, don’t let them slip to neutral. You must keep your arms tucked close to your sides–this is not the “7-9 o’clock” position, it is the 6pm position. If you need to because your knees are in the way, you can stand w/ your chest on the incline bench. Every rep starts from a dead hang.

As you pull to the 6pm position, you will do 2 things: 1) you will try to pull your chest up off the bench and into the ceiling and 2) you will try to “lengthen” the space between your head and your shoulders. Ever see a Nat. Geo special on those native tribes with long necks and the brass rings? Try to emulate that.

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[quote]Aragorn wrote:
EXERCISES:

  1. Seated face-pulls. Pretty much exactly like they sound. Lat pull station, use the lat bar or a v-grip you find comfortable. I find a lot of v-grips are too narrow to feel right, so start with the regular lat bar. Use a grip that puts about 1 foot of space between your hands, basically normal face-pull width with the rope in your face. Can’t be too wide. Lean back 45 deg. and lock the torso down–no movement no body english. Then face do facepulls to eyes, no lower. Key here is to try to think of your breastbone pushing up directly into the ceiling—FUCKING HARD.

Where most people get off track is that instead of arching they start actually leaning their torso back. This happens any time they’re given this cue and not only this exercise, regular pulldowns and other stuff too. You are not leaning back, you are arching UP. In other words, if I stood you up back against an electrified wall and said “point your breastbone at the ceiling” this is what you would do. You would not lean your torso back, your shoulders and butt would still be in a vertical line. You would roll your chest up and try to stretch your shoulders backwards. This is what you want to do.

  1. “I-raises”. I’m not sure what these are called, and I thought I invented them because I came up with them on my own but apparently not. I came up with a different version originally, but the one I am going to explain is better suited to rehab and activation. The other one is a favorite exercise but may lead you to start compensating with bad habits in your current condition.

Instead of going to the 12 o’clock position with your hands or the 10-2 position like in many trap raises, you are going to sit on the LOW incline bench the wrong way and with your hands hanging down naturally and palms facing perfectly away from your body you are going to pull to the 6 o’clock position. Your hands will be pointed down at the floor when you finish the movement. You must keep them pointed perfectly down, don’t let them slip to neutral. You must keep your arms tucked close to your sides–this is not the “7-9 o’clock” position, it is the 6pm position. If you need to because your knees are in the way, you can stand w/ your chest on the incline bench. Every rep starts from a dead hang.

As you pull to the 6pm position, you will do 2 things: 1) you will try to pull your chest up off the bench and into the ceiling and 2) you will try to “lengthen” the space between your head and your shoulders. Ever see a Nat. Geo special on those native tribes with long necks and the brass rings? Try to emulate that.[/quote]

Sounds good. For the I raises, the arms bend as they come up right? Meaning, go from straight arm dead hang to a 6 pm normal bent elbow row position, as opposed to keeping elbows extended throughout the movement. I’m 6 ft 3 and very long limbed, so my knees will likely be in the way.

By pulling the chest up, do you mean by arching the lower back or by rounding the upper back?

Is the Cressey stretch you’re talking about the forearm slide facing the wall or the scapula slide where you are facing away from the wall?

65

[quote]fisch wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
EXERCISES:

  1. Seated face-pulls. Pretty much exactly like they sound. Lat pull station, use the lat bar or a v-grip you find comfortable. I find a lot of v-grips are too narrow to feel right, so start with the regular lat bar. Use a grip that puts about 1 foot of space between your hands, basically normal face-pull width with the rope in your face. Can’t be too wide. Lean back 45 deg. and lock the torso down–no movement no body english. Then face do facepulls to eyes, no lower. Key here is to try to think of your breastbone pushing up directly into the ceiling—FUCKING HARD.

Where most people get off track is that instead of arching they start actually leaning their torso back. This happens any time they’re given this cue and not only this exercise, regular pulldowns and other stuff too. You are not leaning back, you are arching UP. In other words, if I stood you up back against an electrified wall and said “point your breastbone at the ceiling” this is what you would do. You would not lean your torso back, your shoulders and butt would still be in a vertical line. You would roll your chest up and try to stretch your shoulders backwards. This is what you want to do.

  1. “I-raises”. I’m not sure what these are called, and I thought I invented them because I came up with them on my own but apparently not. I came up with a different version originally, but the one I am going to explain is better suited to rehab and activation. The other one is a favorite exercise but may lead you to start compensating with bad habits in your current condition.

Instead of going to the 12 o’clock position with your hands or the 10-2 position like in many trap raises, you are going to sit on the LOW incline bench the wrong way and with your hands hanging down naturally and palms facing perfectly away from your body you are going to pull to the 6 o’clock position. Your hands will be pointed down at the floor when you finish the movement. You must keep them pointed perfectly down, don’t let them slip to neutral. You must keep your arms tucked close to your sides–this is not the “7-9 o’clock” position, it is the 6pm position. If you need to because your knees are in the way, you can stand w/ your chest on the incline bench. Every rep starts from a dead hang.

As you pull to the 6pm position, you will do 2 things: 1) you will try to pull your chest up off the bench and into the ceiling and 2) you will try to “lengthen” the space between your head and your shoulders. Ever see a Nat. Geo special on those native tribes with long necks and the brass rings? Try to emulate that.[/quote]

Sounds good. For the I raises, the arms bend as they come up right? Meaning, go from straight arm dead hang to a 6 pm normal bent elbow row position, as opposed to keeping elbows extended throughout the movement. I’m 6 ft 3 and very long limbed, so my knees will likely be in the way.

By pulling the chest up, do you mean by arching the lower back or by rounding the upper back?

Is the Cressey stretch you’re talking about the forearm slide facing the wall or the scapula slide where you are facing away from the wall?[/quote]

No! your arms stay straight on the 6pm pull! pulling chest up means arching your upper back, not lower, like I described for the facepulls/ "standing your back to the electrified wall.

The Cressey one is the forearm slide facing the wall I believe.

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Never thought to try face pulls in a seated position, but I might just have to give that a whirl… Especially since my shoulders are getting creaky again. Great tip!

67

Its funny that you mention seated face pulls, I have been doing them seated on a dumbell wherein my back is at a stretched position towards the pulleys and I then perform the pull. I feel the contraction in a different way seated and mix them with standing FPs

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Aragron this info is pure gold.I’m 3 month’s out from shoulder surgery and things have been coming along great the past month.Strength,range of motion etc but for for the last week I have been using your warm up drills.Face down swings,broomsticks,over head squats etc and they have made a huge improvement in how my shoulder/lat have felt.

I kinda lost that muscle memory,function and the tracking of my scapula etc.This and using CT’s built for bad set up and hitting the same movements every day with perfect form(like you talked about)have made such a big difference.So much so that I have been able to put the power snatch back into this pre w/o line up and It feels amazing once again.

Like fisch said I know he didn’t want to turn this into a shoulder/scap rehab thread but I’m glad you went into so much detail on this subject.Once again thanks for all of this detail in your write ups Aragron,It’s helped me a ton.

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When I have clients with bad posture, rounding, that need rear delt, and upper back work. I get them to install a hook in the wall at home somewhere at face level, and get a strap, or rope, so they can do 100s of these during/throughout the day. I call them TRX face puls, fdor lack of a better name. It costs about 10$ for the suplies and works wonder’s. Not to hyjak your thread Aragorn, just seemed like a spot for it. The only action shot action shot I have is with a pipe, but I usually recomend just holding the strap ends (or rope) and pulling apart as you pull yourself up - keeping your elbows high. Again not to hyjack, but I witnessed with lots of clients doing these daily, a big turn around with posture within a month, and I’d love your thoughts on these as well Aragorn

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This is the 10$ set up, some sort of hook or handle screwed to the wall at face level, with a strap ( this is a tow starp 8$ from auto store) but a rope or towel works as well

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I don,t usually use the pipe, just only shot I had, just hold the ends of strap or rope and keep elbows high as you pull yourself up, and spead the rope. I’ve had 40yr factory worker’s, that had totaly rolled forward posture, and a month of doing these daily did miricles. you can put a handle in your bedrooom or where ever you can do them daily. Again sorry for the hyjack, just my 2cents since we’re on the subject. Still giving us gold Aragorn Thanks

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[quote]Aragorn wrote:

No! your arms stay straight on the 6pm pull! pulling chest up means arching your upper back, not lower, like I described for the facepulls/ "standing your back to the electrified wall.

The Cressey one is the forearm slide facing the wall I believe.[/quote]

Once again, thanks for the answers! I really appreciate you taking the time to write up all of this and go into so much depth when I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for you to just say “do lower trap and scap activation”. While a simple statement like that is somewhat helpful, it doesn’t even come close to being as helpful as the write up you’ve given. I’ll give these suggestions a go when I get back into the gym either today or monday, depending on how work goes.

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Aragorn:

As far as the benching goes, I hear I’m doing pretty good form-wise from the more experienced PLers I train with. I recently started training lats 4 days a week (different amounts/exercises thought), which has brought them up a lot. Went from barely any lats to some of the better looking lats in my gym within a month (not that that says much, not a lot of really solid lats here), but more importantly developed a pretty solid mind-muscle connection. Certainly helped my deadlift and I’m starting to learn how to engage them on the bench, but that’s a more recent development, so I haven’t exactly mastered the technique yet (but I can definitely feel it helping). I’m also wondering if it might be all kind of a non-issue, since unlike 90% of the guys in my gym, I wasn’t benching for 2 years before I ever stepped in a squat rack or deadlifted. I started them all at the same time.

For grip, I have my ring fingers on the rings. I’m 5’8", not entirely sure what my wingspan is, but my hands extend to a couple inches from my knees (from a standing position). I bench with a pretty good arch and I put a mat (about 1/2") under each foot because I can lift more with it (I can feel more leg drive).

As far as the biochem, it’s just what I happen to be studying for at the moment. I like genetics and microbiology (going for med school though) and I did really good at introductory biochem and organic chem, so I thought it would be a bright idea to take a senior level course, since there would probably be a reasonable amount of overlap. Not my brightest idea lol.

@Jake:

Has anybody ever told you you look a lot like Hugo Girard?

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The secret’s out. LOL, I hide my size well !

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[quote]kgildner wrote:
Never thought to try face pulls in a seated position, but I might just have to give that a whirl… Especially since my shoulders are getting creaky again. Great tip![/quote]

Definitely a big fan. When standing, as I said, I get too distracted trying to keep everything lined up and also maintain balance against the pull of the rope. I don’t feel these as much in my back at all, but when seated where it is easier to maintain the chest up shoulders stretched position it feels a lot better.

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[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Its funny that you mention seated face pulls, I have been doing them seated on a dumbell wherein my back is at a stretched position towards the pulleys and I then perform the pull. I feel the contraction in a different way seated and mix them with standing FPs[/quote]

Definitely agree! I still do standing FPs time to time, just not near as much. Sometimes I throw them in as the finisher of a superset starting off with the seated FPs.

You can get a lot of variety out of changing grips on seated FPs, which is another reason I like them–regular lat bar, v-grips, and ropes all feel slightly different.

77

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
When I have clients with bad posture, rounding, that need rear delt, and upper back work. I get them to install a hook in the wall at home somewhere at face level, and get a strap, or rope, so they can do 100s of these during/throughout the day. I call them TRX face puls, fdor lack of a better name. It costs about 10$ for the suplies and works wonder’s. Not to hyjak your thread Aragorn, just seemed like a spot for it. The only action shot action shot I have is with a pipe, but I usually recomend just holding the strap ends (or rope) and pulling apart as you pull yourself up - keeping your elbows high. Again not to hyjack, but I witnessed with lots of clients doing these daily, a big turn around with posture within a month, and I’d love your thoughts on these as well Aragorn
[/quote]

Don’t sweat it–the pics are definitely welcome. That’s a great set-up btw, I like that quite a bit for a DIY home gym. It’s about perfect for people who don’t necessarily want to train at home or aren’t huge ironheads but need a little something for some health issues.

I am a HUGE fan of daily work–it’s easiest to do when you’re in a routine habit and set aside time, and daily work is the best way to generate a routine, as I said I put stuff I know I am unlikely to do into my warm-ups because it makes me get it done before I get “too tired”. It also makes sure you hit all the requirements of frequency and volume to re-tune your body.

Hundred percent agree with you on being able to see big improvements in a month. I’ve found lower body issues much more troublesome in terms of seeing results, whereas upper body work yields quick changes most of the time. I like holding the straps, although as I said in a post above all the different grips give slightly different feels so I like to change it up on occasion.

From a full TRX set-up, I also like the following done as a giant set with no rest:

  1. Y raises, arms straight
  2. T raises (rear delt flyes) arms straight
  3. Face pulls to eyes/forehead
  4. High row to chin/collarbone
  5. Low row to chest/belly button

Do at least 8 reps on all of the first 2 movements, with goals to get 12-15, then finish with as many reps as possible until failure on the last 3 before resting. You can even add in an I row (meaning both arms straight to the 12 pm position) as your number one before doing this giant set. Great finisher for back days, and it fixes some of the anterior delt involvement with trap raises because you’re lying face up rather than down.

You can also modify the whole circuit to whatever you feel like, easier or harder. Don’t remember where I picked this up but it was a number of years ago.

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[quote]jppage wrote:
Aragron this info is pure gold.I’m 3 month’s out from shoulder surgery and things have been coming along great the past month.Strength,range of motion etc but for for the last week I have been using your warm up drills.Face down swings,broomsticks,over head squats etc and they have made a huge improvement in how my shoulder/lat have felt.

I kinda lost that muscle memory,function and the tracking of my scapula etc.This and using CT’s built for bad set up and hitting the same movements every day with perfect form(like you talked about)have made such a big difference.So much so that I have been able to put the power snatch back into this pre w/o line up and It feels amazing once again.

Like fisch said I know he didn’t want to turn this into a shoulder/scap rehab thread but I’m glad you went into so much detail on this subject.Once again thanks for all of this detail in your write ups Aragron,It’s helped me a ton.[/quote]

Glad they worked for you brother!! That’s just about a perfect result man. Great to hear.

I think a primary key on the power snatch is to make sure that you feel most of the tension in your back rather than shoulders. The shoulders will get a lot of work regardless, but they are not supposed to take the brunt of the tension–if you feel them more than your back, it’s a clue you’re not tight enough, chest up enough, or something else is wrong. You should always feel a lot of the tension in your mid-back.

If you don’t, the fix is simple–just do some work like this to mentally reconnect there and then focus on the big squeeze after fixing the mental connection problem.

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[quote]fisch wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

No! your arms stay straight on the 6pm pull! pulling chest up means arching your upper back, not lower, like I described for the facepulls/ "standing your back to the electrified wall.

The Cressey one is the forearm slide facing the wall I believe.[/quote]

Once again, thanks for the answers! I really appreciate you taking the time to write up all of this and go into so much depth when I’m sure it would’ve been much easier for you to just say “do lower trap and scap activation”. While a simple statement like that is somewhat helpful, it doesn’t even come close to being as helpful as the write up you’ve given. I’ll give these suggestions a go when I get back into the gym either today or monday, depending on how work goes.[/quote]

Let me know how they go!

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[quote]Apoklyps wrote:
Aragorn:

As far as the benching goes, I hear I’m doing pretty good form-wise from the more experienced PLers I train with. I recently started training lats 4 days a week (different amounts/exercises thought), which has brought them up a lot. Went from barely any lats to some of the better looking lats in my gym within a month (not that that says much, not a lot of really solid lats here), but more importantly developed a pretty solid mind-muscle connection. Certainly helped my deadlift and I’m starting to learn how to engage them on the bench, but that’s a more recent development, so I haven’t exactly mastered the technique yet (but I can definitely feel it helping). I’m also wondering if it might be all kind of a non-issue, since unlike 90% of the guys in my gym, I wasn’t benching for 2 years before I ever stepped in a squat rack or deadlifted. I started them all at the same time.

For grip, I have my ring fingers on the rings. I’m 5’8", not entirely sure what my wingspan is, but my hands extend to a couple inches from my knees (from a standing position). I bench with a pretty good arch and I put a mat (about 1/2") under each foot because I can lift more with it (I can feel more leg drive).

As far as the biochem, it’s just what I happen to be studying for at the moment. I like genetics and microbiology (going for med school though) and I did really good at introductory biochem and organic chem, so I thought it would be a bright idea to take a senior level course, since there would probably be a reasonable amount of overlap. Not my brightest idea lol.
[/quote]

  1. Grip. You might consider moving it in for raw benching. It will take some time to bring back the poundages, but I feel better having moved my grip in to where the ring is about on my ring finger instead of index, and I’m a good bit longer limbed than you. Your mileage may vary of course but I have found for raw benching that the traps are very important (ala CT and Wendler) and that it helps a great deal to pack them tight as your set-up. It also helps to pack them tight if you have a slightly narrower grip.

  2. Keep with the biochem man. If you did well in organic (was it general organic or org. 1/2?) you can do well in biochem. What are you guys going over?

It helps to think of biochem as a language. For organic that is literally what you are doing, learning a new language with new vocabulary (para, ortho, SN2 reactions, etc.) and new grammar. The principle of electron density and flow is one of the big ones to take away from organic because it applies to the structural reactions in biochemistry too, specifically at enzyme reaction sites. For the other parts of biochem it is essentially a different language looking at signalling pathways and gene and protein expression. You should look into histone acetylation: there is some trippy ass shit in there but it is a rapidly emerging area of research and absolutely fascinating. Here’s a pretty awesome review article:

http://jb.oxfordjournals.org/content/138/6/647.long

Couldn’t find the original one I was looking for which is older but I think I know where to grab it. I’ll link it later.