[quote]browndisaster wrote:
ok, this is the powerlifting forum so it’s actually relevant and important. btw were those laterals raw or equipped?[/quote]
LOL, can you explain how to perform “equipped” shirted laterals? I mean since its relevant.
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
I know I posted a page ago about how I’m going to focus on back more heavily once I’m done with my current training phase, but that is because I just want a bigger back in general. I have never noticed a direct carryover to the amount of back work I do to an increase in my bench, or vice versa.
I know this is blasphemy in the powerlifting forum, but my bench seems to go up regardless if I do back work or not. I have semi-focused on back (with pullups and db rows mainly, with some face pulls thrown in for shoulder health) for certain training phases but that’s really all. Other phases I will half ass my way through it and just focus on my main lift.
In fact, I put about 30 pounds on my bench last fall and I don’t think I did ANY back work in that 3+ month period. You know what I did do? bench press 5 times a week!
Just sayin
[/quote]
I agree with this too a point until your bench plateaus. Then bringing up tri’s, back and shoulder work will be needed to continue moving your numbers up in the press. High volume and frequency is key as well.
[quote]Caltene wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Waiting for complaint about even mentioning side laterals as if nothing else was written.[/quote]
Kid, you have way too much time.[/quote]
LOL. A thread that rocks like this one and has been read this many times…and this is all you provide in it.
Kinda sad, huh?
No joke…but are some of you here to make progress…or just to act like you already know everything and to talk about other people?
Agreed, lots of advice but very few back pic’s from the “know it alls”
What do you did for your shoulders that helped with the type of bench press you do Prof. X and do you think they acted more as stabilizers or movers for the bench press?
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Did you put on weight during that period?[/quote]
Yeah right at about 10 pounds. I went from 278 or so to about 288.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
yeah, I’ve always thought…getting the supporting muscles stronger just helped to a point. [/quote]
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
I agree with this too a point until your bench plateaus. Then bringing up tri’s, back and shoulder work will be needed to continue moving your numbers up in the press. [/quote]
I think these two posts should be read by anyone here. It was really what I was trying to get across in my post, but I was drunk when I wrote it so I didn’t quite get there. I know at some point I’m gonna need to focus more on the back and such, but I think once you build a solid foundation you have a lot of room for progress on the bench without having to worry about that “support base”. Maintaining it seems to do the trick. I will cross the plateau bridge when I come to it.
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
Agreed, lots of advice but very few back pic’s from the “know it alls” [/quote]
here is a selfie I took back last August or so. Nothing impressive I don’t think, but you asked :-p
There seems to be a common trend to virtually everyone who posted a pic in this thread …high frequency/volume with rows and other exercises = big ass traps/upper back lol. I have nothing of worth to contribute here yet but it sure is motivating.
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Did you put on weight during that period?[/quote]
Yeah right at about 10 pounds. I went from 278 or so to about 288.[/quote]
I imagine that also helped, along with the frequent bench training. I remember Jim talking about that coach who essentially ate his way to a bigger bench. I’m taking the same approach at present.
Balla, I wasnt talking to you man. You have mass, I can tell just from your avatar pic even through its a front shot. For you at your height and weight you may not hit the wall until 500lbs on the raw bench before you have to add in specific back/shoulder training.
My comment was geared towards that guy who just goes around stirring the pot and never posting anything helpful or pertinent to the subject at hand. I was just trying to get this topic back on track because its a good topic of discussion.
I’m a pretty decent bencher. I have large tris and a big back, and not the biggest chest like several good benchers I know, FWIW.
Oddly, I don’t feel like upper back work every carried over to my deadlift that much.
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
Balla, I wasnt talking to you man. You have mass, I can tell just from your avatar pic even through its a front shot. For you at your height and weight you may not hit the wall until 500lbs on the raw bench before you have to add in specific back/shoulder training.
My comment was geared towards that guy who just goes around stirring the pot and never posting anything helpful or pertinent to the subject at hand. I was just trying to get this topic back on track because its a good topic of discussion. [/quote]
haha I know I was just looking for an opportunity to pic whore. I think it is pretty cool to see some of these guys who train primarily for strength though showing off the massive meat slabs on the back though.
and btw, I would be fucking estatic if I could get to a 500 pound bench, with or without specific back/shoulder training!
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]law8 wrote:
There seems to be a common trend to virtually everyone who posted a pic in this thread …high frequency/volume with rows and other exercises = big ass traps/upper back…
[/quote]
- lots of food.
[/quote]
Shit, the whole “gotta get swole” attitude is shared by each of them also.
You don’t get a HUGE back unless you can impress some people at the dinner table also. That thickness seems to be missing by a lot of posters lately.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
This pic is old and I am leaner now and a little bigger, but my back looks like this mostly from lat pull downs,[/quote]
Glad to see someone speak up for these.
HS?
I hear it gets hard to breathe with these sometimes. I guess because when we use our erectors the front of our chest can expand to inhale?
[quote]ImaMonsta wrote:
I’m sorry, but lat pull downs are completely inferior to pull-ups and chins; any real strength training coach will tell you that. Peak and mean muscle activation is much higher in pull-ups and chins - Inside the Muscles: Best Back and Biceps Exercises - T Nation Content - COMMUNITY - T NATION
[/quote]
Peak and mean muscle activation are weight-dependent so… such studies probably flubbed on that data.
In the same pathway… in the same orientation in space… so it is the same motion.
Right, and pushups and benching don’t have carryover either, right?
Better depends on what you want from something. It’s better if it allows you to begin with the rep range and tempo and RoM you desire.
[quote]OmniStyx wrote:
Weighted pullups are the best, especially when you throw on some Fat Gripz! Quite sadly, though, I have to remove them temporarily to let my lats regain some length and fix my anterior humeral glide syndrome. It’s truly a terrible loss for me.[/quote]
Your lats get shorter when you do weighted pullups? Why? Doesn’t stretching and full RoM fix this? What do you switch to to fix AHGS, rows?
[quote]ImaMonsta wrote:
I just look at what’s going to be the best bang for my buck, and pull-ups/chins work a lot more muscle groups, so I think they’re better.[/quote]
What muscle group is hit in a pullup that isn’t hit in a pulldown? Calves?
To be purely about sarcoplasm and not about myofibril you have to get into a pretty high rep range. Sarcoplasm can also be temporary and go away when you revert to lower reps at a new weight, and having done it builds room (fascia stretching) for myofibrils, reducing soreness, enhancing recovery.
[quote]ImaMonsta wrote:
[quote]atypical1 wrote:
Something tells me you’ve got neither and I’m not simply trying to be a dick. Guys who talk this rarely have any experience at all and say this crap just because it’s what they’ve read somewhere.[/quote]
You’re not being a dick; you’re being ignorant by generalizing. I must be small because I have accurate information on something… Right, because smart training never got anyone anywhere.[/quote]
He’s relating his instinct. He said ‘rarely’ not ‘absolutely’. It’s also not established that this information is accurate.
That’s great and impressive but I don’t think many people have hurt themselves making responsible use of a lat pulldown. There are safety arguments about switching to BW when you reach higher levels I guess (like maybe someone might hold onto the bar too long with a pulldown and incur an injury for fear of dropping it) though they can be mediated by having a training partner (when going higher than BW, a training partner can help bring the bar down for the first rep and help bring the weight up after the last one).
Which are?
[quote]ImaMonsta wrote:
I’m still at a loss that I’m being scrutinized for believing that a pull-up is a better movement.
[/quote]
It comes up because we often don’t explain fully to others the criteria of betterness (ie “squats are better than chins” … for what?) or the whyness of how it suits the criteria.
[quote]mkral55 wrote:
Way too common a thing in internet discussions. Is a pull up a better strength movement? Id say yes. Id wager a lot of people would agree. Is a pulldown a better movement for lat size? Lot of people say it is. Basically splitting hairs about it.[/quote]
Size is more of a realistic thing to measure. Most people could tell you that a movement is often the best way to build strength for that movement. Are people talking about strength transfer to some kind of powerlifting movement though?
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
don’t ignore traps! I took the advice of “don’t work traps directly ever” and am now paying the price trying to catch up.[/quote]
On the plus side, your delts look really great by comparison.
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
most people who complain they cant get their backs to grow are half assing there pullups and pulldowns. They do that 1/4 to 1/2 rep bull shit. Guys that do pull ups and only go half way down get zero lat activation. Getting that full stretch at the bottom (dead hang) is key to activating the lats. Same goes for pulldowns as well. IMO.[/quote]
Would peak contraction also matter? A lot of the time people don’t fully bring bar to chest (or chest to bar)
[quote]tattoo’d’popeye wrote:
I was talking about the people you see doing these in the gym, lol
If we’re very weak on the pullup and don’t feel safe in the stretched position and don’t have pulldown access, could these be good to build up a base of strength for later attempting full RoM though?
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
You can’t do the rows on a bench anymore, you have to support your off hand on some equipment instead, like this
But otherwise, it still will murder your lats.[/quote]
Some of the articles I’ve read about the DB rows on T-Nation mention stuff like ‘kicking up the hip’ on the side of the working arm. Has anyone understood what that means? I don’t really get it.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I’m honestly starting to think that you simply can’t overtrain the upperback, and that is soaks up volume like a sponge. The more I throw at it, the more it grows.
[/quote]
Why does it always feel good when it’s sore compared to the lower back which feels like death while sore? Same with lats.
[quote]Bailey H wrote:
Replace lat pulldowns with chin ups, it doesn’t matter if you can’t do many, just do more sets instead (6-10x3 ect…).[/quote]
So people should do 10 sets of 3 chins instead of 3 sets of 10 pulldowns? I thought ~10 tended to make people grow more than ~3.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
when I lost size on my back. I had to change how I did that exercise completely even though back does not come involved with side laterals much.
It changed my leverage.
now that my lats are back, side laterals are way easier.
Waiting for complaint about even mentioning side laterals as if nothing else was written.[/quote]
Only complaint here is the term ‘side lateral’ (lateral means side?)
Makes me wonder, would big lats reduce the RoM of lateral raises? Maybe if you lost mass in your lats, they got harder because there’s a bigger stretch on the bottom?
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
You can do a hold at the top of a pullup or chinup or do pauses during the eccentric portion of the lift. This obviously takes a very strong back and arms. [/quote]
This is true, but when you reach the point where you can’t anymore, pulldowns do allow that opportunity to keep completing reps in state too fatigued to keep repping BW, at least.
I couldn’t understand any of that.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I couldn’t understand any of that.[/quote]
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I couldn’t understand any of that.[/quote]
[/quote]
i was at the gym and this old man came in and started racking the bar for some squats, when i realised he was only doing one plate so i got in his face and laughed so fukking hard, he just smiled, i backed off because the cretin had a look in his eye like he was gonna try and tug my shaft if i got any closer ( mincing phaggot ). so i sat back and watched him watching for him to squat so that i could critique his form but guess what, the bald old kunt started to stretch lmao, but in all seriousness this pissed me right off off , i needed to use the squat rack for curls so i shouted
" oi, what the fukk are you doing you ghandi looking spastick "
he wimpered " im stretching young man, its good for you "
I got all up in his space pulled up my sleeves and said " fisting your wife’s anus is the only stretching i ever do "
I got tired with his back chat at this point so i grabbed him, forced him under the bar and un-racked the weight, the pussy almost collapsed but he managed to regain balance and then proceeded to squat, 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 all good form, I was going to go and congratulate him and tell him how much protein i eat on a daily basis (450 g, all from raw eggs ) , but then before my eyes the twat went for a 6th i let out a huge “U WOT MATE” but he kept going then i saw a butt-wink on his 7th rep, this was the last straw i grabbed a medicine ball shouted " Mark Rippletoe says hi mother fukker "and threw it at his knee mid squat, the phaggot went down like a speared bison, pinned under the bar he squirmed and yelled for help but it was too late he was already dead to me.
what I do:
-shrugs for traps
-deadlifts for lowe r back
-pullups/pulldowns with a close neutral grip as well as yates rows for lats
-wide grip pullups for the teres muscles
-rear delt raises, chest supported db rows, and some rotator cuff stuff for the upper back
am I missing anything? I guess I should do some rows to my belly button or higher for thickness