Calves and Lateral Delts

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

My present workouts are built around the following template:

Primary Exercises - 5x5 / 5x6 (I increase reps first between moving up the weight and doing 5x5 again)

Secondary Exercises - 5-4-3-2-1 rest-pause… 5 reps, 10-15 sec pause, 4 reps, 10-15 sec pause, etc. If it’s back or quads, I up the total number of reps to 20 instead of 15. For lower back and hams, aim for 12-13.

Finishers - just some pure isolation exercises to get a pump.

So, my tris/shoulder workout goes:

5x5 close grip bench press
5-4-3-2-1 Military Press
5-4-3-2-1 Dips
5-4-3-2-1 Front Raises x 2

And this is where I start getting confused. I tried doing the 5-4-3-2-1 approach for lateral raises and various calf exercises, and had a hard time getting a good mind-muscle connection, and ended up not “feeling it.” My calf exercise weights are also very erratic because of this; despite getting some painful pumps, I seem to be unable to recruit and fatigue the muscles properly

With just about all my other muscles, I have a good mind-muscle connection and, judging from the past 2 weeks, seem to be doing really well with this workout type. (Thanks to Cephalic_Carnage!)

I just don’t know what to do with the lateral delts and calves, since they’re not really involved in any of the big compounds I do, meaning there’s basically no cumulative fatigue involved. If anyone has any ideas, please pitch in. For now, I’m thinking of adding incline lateral raises from a bench, but have nothing on how to work my calves properly.

G

2

laterals delts are involved in over head presses.

3

[quote]sid132 wrote:
laterals delts are involved in over head presses. [/quote]

What? If any of you are relying on overhead presses for ALL of your delt training, not only are you clueless, but you will end up with imbalances between muscle groups.

I’m sorry, but this is retarded. You will not find many really big guys with huge shoulders who think you should avoid lateral raises.

Mind you, this is coming from a guy with BIG shoulders and not some little internet newb who just read an article.

4

[quote]Professor X wrote:
sid132 wrote:
laterals delts are involved in over head presses.

What? If any of you are relying on overhead presses for ALL of your delt training, not only are you clueless, but you will end up with imbalances between muscle groups.

I’m sorry, but this is retarded. You will not find many really big guys with huge shoulders who think you should avoid lateral raises.

Mind you, this is coming from a guy with BIG shoulders and not some little internet newb who just read an article.[/quote]

Quoted for emphasis… Shoulders have always been a strong point for me.

OP,

Try Bent Over Lateral Raises for variation.

You can also do Power DB Lateral Raises which will allow you to use more weight.

6

[quote]Professor X wrote:

Mind you, this is coming from a guy with BIG shoulders and not some little internet newb who just read an article.[/quote]

Prove it =p

What would you suggest the OP do then? Personally, I do lateral DB delt raises in the 12-15 rep range and it seems to be ok.

7

[quote]G87 wrote:
My present workouts are built around the following template:

Primary Exercises - 5x5 / 5x6 (I increase reps first between moving up the weight and doing 5x5 again)

Secondary Exercises - 5-4-3-2-1 rest-pause… 5 reps, 10-15 sec pause, 4 reps, 10-15 sec pause, etc. If it’s back or quads, I up the total number of reps to 20 instead of 15. For lower back and hams, aim for 12-13.

Finishers - just some pure isolation exercises to get a pump.

So, my tris/shoulder workout goes:

5x5 close grip bench press
5-4-3-2-1 Military Press
5-4-3-2-1 Dips
5-4-3-2-1 Front Raises x 2

And this is where I start getting confused. I tried doing the 5-4-3-2-1 approach for lateral raises and various calf exercises, and had a hard time getting a good mind-muscle connection, and ended up not “feeling it.” My calf exercise weights are also very erratic because of this; despite getting some painful pumps, I seem to be unable to recruit and fatigue the muscles properly

With just about all my other muscles, I have a good mind-muscle connection and, judging from the past 2 weeks, seem to be doing really well with this workout type. (Thanks to Cephalic_Carnage!)

I just don’t know what to do with the lateral delts and calves, since they’re not really involved in any of the big compounds I do, meaning there’s basically no cumulative fatigue involved. If anyone has any ideas, please pitch in. For now, I’m thinking of adding incline lateral raises from a bench, but have nothing on how to work my calves properly.

G[/quote]

Try any of the DC calf routine variants if you can stomach them. (check the stickies in IM or do an advanced search there)

Add laterals in if you want, why not?
Odd that you’d do front-raises after all that pressing though, unless they’re some real weak-point of yours…
Maybe just replace them with laterals or do the laterals at the end… A machine would probably help you more here.

Your version of rest-pause isn’t quite what I was talking about though :wink:
But if you can progress on it, keep doing it I guess.

8

[quote]GhorigTheBeefy wrote:
Professor X wrote:

Mind you, this is coming from a guy with BIG shoulders and not some little internet newb who just read an article.

Prove it =p

What would you suggest the OP do then? Personally, I do lateral DB delt raises in the 12-15 rep range and it seems to be ok.[/quote]

The rep range isn’t even that significant assuming you aren’t doing one rep maxes. I gained most of my size using dumbbells. I now use those side lateral machines more and more because I can go even heavier and it takes my forearms and biceps out of the equation. I didn’t switch to that though until I was moving quite a bit more weight than I see most people using.

9

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
For lateral delts, I like to do mine facing into the incline bench as this eliminates and body english.

Have you tried fascia stretches for your calves? They work for me. Use the leg press machine so that you can avoind loading the spine.

BBB[/quote]

By fascial stretching, I guess you’re referring to getting a stretch at the bottom? I think the leg press is actually a brilliant idea. I tried doing standing smith calf raises today to get that stretch, and it really made my back feel funky, since being on an elevated surface with heels hanging off had me at a bad angle. Tell me, when you do calf raises, do you lift off the ball of your foot as well as the heel?

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Add laterals in if you want, why not?
Odd that you’d do front-raises after all that pressing though, unless they’re some real weak-point of yours…
Maybe just replace them with laterals or do the laterals at the end… A machine would probably help you more here.

Your version of rest-pause isn’t quite what I was talking about though :wink:
But if you can progress on it, keep doing it I guess.
[/quote]

I realise it’s not exactly what you meant :slight_smile: But it has me cranking out more reps with more weight in the same amount of time, so I figured, why the hell not? I was referring to you bringing up the whole RP idea in the first place, not this protocol. I ran across the 5-4-3-2-1 in a Thibs article when I was researching rest-pause. As you said, I’m progressing well enough with this right now (really well so far), and in a few weeks I’ll evaluate myself and probably tweak a few things. Of course, a bunch of what I’m doing might not work… Not claiming that this is a good programme, but it seems to feel right, and as long as I progress and keep evaluating whether what I’m doing works or not, how bad can I do? :slight_smile: If you have any specific thoughts on how I could do better, though, please don’t hold back.

As for the front raises… My tri’s take over the bench press to the extent that my front delts barely work, and they don’t work at all on the dips. The military press doesn’t seem like enough: I always have some extra gas in the tank after it, so I do the raises. I might go heavier and reduce it to 1 set, but seems okay right now.

Polish Rifle I was contemplating cheating the weights up and doing slow negs, actually, but wasn’t sure how effective that would be. I think I’ll start with what BBB suggested so I know what it’s like to “feel” my medial delts working, and then progress to power side raises.

Ghorig: Are you… in fact… beefy? :smiley: Haha, the reason I’m worried about the width of my shoulders is that I got a lot heavier in the past 3-4 months, but not as wide in the shoulders as I feel I should be at this weight. (Blame it on lack of isolation exercises!). So I’m determined not to let the same thing happen again.

10

Question for you big boys or anyone: I love doing lateral raises but I find whenever I do them for any length of time, pain develops in my right shoulder. I cut them out and the pain goes away. What other exercises//machines/tips would you guys recommend for getting the most out of stimulating my lateral head? It seems to be the most lacking in my shoulder development.

11

Oh, and C_C, what’s IM? DC sounds tough as shit, which means that I definitely want to try it out :slight_smile:

12

[quote]bugeishaAD wrote:
Question for you big boys or anyone: I love doing lateral raises but I find whenever I do them for any length of time, pain develops in my right shoulder. I cut them out and the pain goes away. What other exercises//machines/tips would you guys recommend for getting the most out of stimulating my lateral head? It seems to be the most lacking in my shoulder development.[/quote]

Some of the older lateral raise machines should help (just don’t go all the way up)… Maybe you’ve come across that post by D about what some do as a delt widowmaker on the 3-way? Try that as a non-widow (obviously) maybe.

Else… Well, there is that DB press where you sit facing the back-rest on an incline bench set to just shy of 90 degrees… If you do them right, you can maybe do 60 percent of your regular db overhead-press weight on that, but imo that hits the lateral delts more…

13

[quote]G87 wrote:
Oh, and C_C, what’s IM? DC sounds tough as shit, which means that I definitely want to try it out :)[/quote]

Bit too early for DC for you, don’t take that the wrong way either.

IM = intensemuscle.com forums. (Doggpound is a subforum there, the official DC forum).

Browsing the stickies and some old threads on there (the latter via advanced search) might help you out with some things.

14

[quote]G87 wrote:
bushidobadboy wrote:
For lateral delts, I like to do mine facing into the incline bench as this eliminates and body english.

Have you tried fascia stretches for your calves? They work for me. Use the leg press machine so that you can avoind loading the spine.

BBB

By fascial stretching, I guess you’re referring to getting a stretch at the bottom? I think the leg press is actually a brilliant idea. I tried doing standing smith calf raises today to get that stretch, and it really made my back feel funky, since being on an elevated surface with heels hanging off had me at a bad angle. Tell me, when you do calf raises, do you lift off the ball of your foot as well as the heel?

[/quote]

Fascial stretching is explained over at IM as well (doggpound stickies)… Not sure if BBB does them same stretching variants or protocols, though.

15

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
G87 wrote:
Oh, and C_C, what’s IM? DC sounds tough as shit, which means that I definitely want to try it out :slight_smile:

Bit too early for DC for you, don’t take that the wrong way either.

IM = intensemuscle.com forums. (Doggpound is a subforum there, the official DC forum).

Browsing the stickies and some old threads on there (the latter via advanced search) might help you out with some things.

[/quote]

I was referring to the exercise, not DC per se… It’s something I’m interested in progressing to potentially, but I think I need a few more years of experience under my belt. However, the program does seem to have a reputation for pain and intensity, so I’m expecting to find some cool exercises there :).

18

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:

No I won’t do a lot of the leg (quad/ham) stretches since I don’t consider them to be anything like safe for the back.

BBB[/quote]

? I can see what you mean regarding the alternative ham stretch (the rounded back sldl-kind of thing), but you get plenty of alternatives…

The only quad stretch I know is the sissy-squat (sort of) one, though. How could that injure your back?

20

[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
Because tissue tension in the rectus femoris muscles will overcome the rectus abdominus and obliques, forcing the lumbar spine into hyperextension, long before the quads even pass their elastic limit enough to force the kind of intensity needed for a DC fascia stretch. This will compress the facet joints due to the hyperextension.
[/quote]

I really think my brain started bleeding after I read this.