Cephalic Carnage: How Do You Train?

Training Bodybuilding
801

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:
It’s a good thing you don’t charge for answering these questions :slight_smile:

Shoulder question this time around good sir. So, I have been doing no pressing work for my shoulders these past few weeks. Reason being my shoulder day falls right after chest/tri’s and seeing as my shoulders are a strong point I wanted to allow my triceps more recovery time and it seems to be allowing my tri’s to grow faster.

Instead I have been focusing on just lateral raises, BB front raises, and cable work for the rear delts and that’s it. They seem to still be growing but do you think this will hurt my shoulder progress in the long run? I just got tired of using the heaviest DB’s for 15 reps, I ran out of room for progression, and I absolutely despise BB military and our smith machines suck balls.

Phil Hernon hated the overhead press and used laterals instead… Then again, Phil Hernon is not exactly a genetic welterweight.

This is purely anecdotal, but anyway:

I find that if I stop doing overhead work and come back to it much later, it seems to bother my shoulders. It doesn’t bother them if I do it regularly though.

Also, my pressing strength overall goes up with my overhead work (I don’t go down below the chin though, on no OH exercise) and often stalls if I stop OH pressing…

Until fairly recently, I’ve always relied on OH pressing to get my delts big… Laterals were more of an afterthought, but I got them to work better now by turning them into a semi-DB-upright row with scapular retraction and all that jazz.

Also, you can do standing DB OHP… Clean (or whatever) the bells up and then you get to choose whether you want to do them with elbows more tucked or flared… I do them fully flared now, so if it were a bar I was using, it’d travel “through” my head. I don’t lock these out as that feels odd on the shoulders, I go from maybe ear level or so to 2/3’s up.
You’ll have to go lighter on those (but imo not by all that much as long as you can get the bells up) and use them for maintenance work. Can be done after chest or so just fine.

Ok, to your question… Hmmm. As I mentioned before, you may have some trouble getting back into the groove once you get back to OH work… But size-wise at least, you shouldn’t have much trouble… Or so I hope.

You use the same exercises both cycles of the week… If you were using a double rotation, we could make it so that one day was heavy tri day (CGP, perhaps with another extension) followed by light shoulder day (laterals), while the other day could be heavy delt day (ohp variant + laterals) followed by light tri day (just some elbow friendly extension perhaps plus pushdowns or some such crap).

Best of both worlds basically…

Do you have a rack where you can do overhead pressing off the pins? That might work nicely. From a dead stop each rep, like dead stop extensions. Could start at a comfortable height, depending on your limb length maybe eye level or so… That would also hit your tris nicely I think.

Or do you have a v-squat/power squat machine?

[/quote]

Sorry dude, completely forgot to respond to this :slight_smile:

Nope no v-squat or power squat damnit, I could really use one of those. I’ve almost completely outgrown my gym’s equipment ahh!!!

I think I’m just going to change my split up a bit, and give shoulders their own day. Do a 4 on 1 off approach and see how that goes.

802

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Bah, the questions just never end lol

I’ll get around to the others eventually…

With all the 5/3/1 stuff/PL stuff being asked, maybe I should just make a t-cell thread with a few of my fav. 5/3/1 assistance templates… And finally some general (non-5/3/1) routines/templates for people to use.

[/quote]

Fantastic idea!

803

Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?

804

[quote]JaX Un wrote:
Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?[/quote]

I know I’m not CC but this is important to know: what’s your squat set-up like?

805

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
CC, sorry if you mentioned this already but I’m still working my way through this thread. Are you using RP and stretching techniques right now with 5/3/1? After this cycle I was thinking that I could at least add in the stretching for mass/recovery gains. As for RP, I think that would be too much for me lifting 4 days a week.

I always do the extreme stretches, regardless of routine…

RP I don’t use much atm.

What are you using 5/3/1 for, PL, BB…?

[/quote]

To get stronger and beefier.

806

got invited to colorado but still no pm function. hope you can get there i would be very interested in hearing you opinion on everything.

807

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
CC, sorry if you mentioned this already but I’m still working my way through this thread. Are you using RP and stretching techniques right now with 5/3/1? After this cycle I was thinking that I could at least add in the stretching for mass/recovery gains. As for RP, I think that would be too much for me lifting 4 days a week.

I always do the extreme stretches, regardless of routine…

RP I don’t use much atm.

What are you using 5/3/1 for, PL, BB…?

To get stronger and beefier.[/quote]

Mostly asking because depending on whether you want to bench in a shirt at some point etcetc would change things a little in terms of what assistance work you’d be doing and so on.

808

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
CC, sorry if you mentioned this already but I’m still working my way through this thread. Are you using RP and stretching techniques right now with 5/3/1? After this cycle I was thinking that I could at least add in the stretching for mass/recovery gains. As for RP, I think that would be too much for me lifting 4 days a week.

I always do the extreme stretches, regardless of routine…

RP I don’t use much atm.

What are you using 5/3/1 for, PL, BB…?

To get stronger and beefier.

Mostly asking because depending on whether you want to bench in a shirt at some point etcetc would change things a little in terms of what assistance work you’d be doing and so on.

[/quote]

Ah now I see what you were getting at. No powerlifting in the future for me, most likely Oly lifting will be though (again).

809

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
Ah now I see what you were getting at. No powerlifting in the future for me, most likely Oly lifting will be though (again).[/quote]

Hmmm. I don’t really know enough about oly lifting programming to give you “safe” advice here.

Personally, I’d probably not choose 5/3/1 at all in this case and, if you do want to do some bbing, simply have 2-3 “oly” days per week and add a little assistance work to these, plus have full assistance days or so…

That could look like a regular bbing split with 2 shoulder days, on which you do cleans or clean and presses or snatches etc before your other delt/trap work… Or you could focus on one oly lift on shoulder day and on another on leg day or so.

5/3/1 could still be used on a few exercises, but perhaps not on the oly lifts.

I’d want more training days than regular 5/3/1 so you can put your other main lifts there and do them some justice, which would be hard to do after oly lifting in the same session.

And if oly lifting performance is of no concern whatsoever at the moment, then I’d really either ditch them completely, or only do them on delt day.

810

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?

I know I’m not CC but this is important to know: what’s your squat set-up like?[/quote]

my feet are a little past shoulder width apart, toes slightly pointed out, chest out and i squat slightly below parallel. I don’t have the flexibility or the knee stability to close my stance more. I am 6’5’’ (193cm) if that makes any difference.

811

[quote]JaX Un wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?

I know I’m not CC but this is important to know: what’s your squat set-up like?

my feet are a little past shoulder width apart, toes slightly pointed out, chest out and i squat slightly below parallel. I don’t have the flexibility or the knee stability to close my stance more. I am 6’5’’ (193cm) if that makes any difference.[/quote]

Hmmmmmmmm.
Personally, I’d go with the hack squat machine (facing the pads, perhaps), if you have a good one or some such if I were you…
Find a main quad exercise that hits your quads well.

Leg extensions before squats can tire your quads out some and perhaps you’ll then “feel” them while squatting, but I personally have doubts that that’s suddenly going to make your squats a better quad exercise.

You could simply focus on deadlifts (unless you have short arms, which I’m guessing is not the case) on leg day and add leg presses or some such as your main quad exercise. For example.

812

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
Ah now I see what you were getting at. No powerlifting in the future for me, most likely Oly lifting will be though (again).

Hmmm. I don’t really know enough about oly lifting programming to give you “safe” advice here.

Personally, I’d probably not choose 5/3/1 at all in this case and, if you do want to do some bbing, simply have 2-3 “oly” days per week and add a little assistance work to these, plus have full assistance days or so…

That could look like a regular bbing split with 2 shoulder days, on which you do cleans or clean and presses or snatches etc before your other delt/trap work… Or you could focus on one oly lift on shoulder day and on another on leg day or so.

5/3/1 could still be used on a few exercises, but perhaps not on the oly lifts.

I’d want more training days than regular 5/3/1 so you can put your other main lifts there and do them some justice, which would be hard to do after oly lifting in the same session.

And if oly lifting performance is of no concern whatsoever at the moment, then I’d really either ditch them completely, or only do them on delt day.

[/quote]

Well, Oly lifting programming is definitely not a problem for me. I competed a couple times with a club and have enough info to smartly go about doing an all-out Oly lifting routine. I also have a template from my old Coach that has 4-week blocks, and you can just restart it when it is done. I am sticking with 5/3/1 though because it is simply what I want to do right now, and I don’t feel like wasting a huge amount of gas back and forth for a gym with bumper plates and platform. So I’m keeping them in on legs days for this cycle so I’m not stale, but I will also keep track of my performance on the Front squats and Deadlifts. If I notice that it is lacking, I’ll have to switch that up a bit.

813

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?

I know I’m not CC but this is important to know: what’s your squat set-up like?

my feet are a little past shoulder width apart, toes slightly pointed out, chest out and i squat slightly below parallel. I don’t have the flexibility or the knee stability to close my stance more. I am 6’5’’ (193cm) if that makes any difference.

Hmmmmmmmm.
Personally, I’d go with the hack squat machine (facing the pads, perhaps), if you have a good one or some such if I were you…
Find a main quad exercise that hits your quads well.

Leg extensions before squats can tire your quads out some and perhaps you’ll then “feel” them while squatting, but I personally have doubts that that’s suddenly going to make your squats a better quad exercise.

You could simply focus on deadlifts (unless you have short arms, which I’m guessing is not the case) on leg day and add leg presses or some such as your main quad exercise. For example.
[/quote]

This sounds great, thanks Andy and CC for responding. I will play around with the hack squat machine this week

814

[quote]JaX Un wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
PB Andy wrote:
JaX Un wrote:
Hey CC, quick question

I feel like my hamstrings and glutes dominate my squat, if i do some light leg extensions before i squat, will this help activate my quads? Or can you think of any other exercises to help activate my quads, leg extensions have never been kind to my knees?

I know I’m not CC but this is important to know: what’s your squat set-up like?

my feet are a little past shoulder width apart, toes slightly pointed out, chest out and i squat slightly below parallel. I don’t have the flexibility or the knee stability to close my stance more. I am 6’5’’ (193cm) if that makes any difference.

Hmmmmmmmm.
Personally, I’d go with the hack squat machine (facing the pads, perhaps), if you have a good one or some such if I were you…
Find a main quad exercise that hits your quads well.

Leg extensions before squats can tire your quads out some and perhaps you’ll then “feel” them while squatting, but I personally have doubts that that’s suddenly going to make your squats a better quad exercise.

You could simply focus on deadlifts (unless you have short arms, which I’m guessing is not the case) on leg day and add leg presses or some such as your main quad exercise. For example.

This sounds great, thanks Andy and CC for responding. I will play around with the hack squat machine this week

[/quote]

All credit goes to CC!

815

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
All credit goes to CC![/quote]

Or to whomever originally realized that there is no exercise that can’t be replaced.

816

[quote]tokon wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Bah, the questions just never end lol

I’ll get around to the others eventually…

With all the 5/3/1 stuff/PL stuff being asked, maybe I should just make a t-cell thread with a few of my fav. 5/3/1 assistance templates… And finally some general (non-5/3/1) routines/templates for people to use.

Fantastic idea![/quote]

That would be amazing :slight_smile:

817

CC

Hope you could help

I’ve been doing a 2way at a high frequency around 6 times a week. I’ve been doing this for about 8 months now and my gains have recently started stalling. My knees and elbows have also started hurting as well.

I am contemplating going to a 3 way (chest/shoudlers/triceps—back width/thickness/hams----quads/biceps/forearms) though I still want to keep training around 6 times a week.

I was wondering if you could give me some clue on exercise options and volume. I will happily answer any type of question you need for further information.

Thanks

818

[quote]Clown Face wrote:
CC

Hope you could help

I’ve been doing a 2way at a high frequency around 6 times a week. I’ve been doing this for about 8 months now and my gains have recently started stalling. My knees and elbows have also started hurting as well.

I am contemplating going to a 3 way (chest/shoudlers/triceps—back width/thickness/hams----quads/biceps/forearms) though I still want to keep training around 6 times a week.

I was wondering if you could give me some clue on exercise options and volume. I will happily answer any type of question you need for further information.

Thanks[/quote]

Check Modok’s “bodypart once weekly?” thread in the t-cell, he usually trains on a 3-way over 6 days I think.
Whether you can split hams and quads like that depends a lot on your exercise selection, though…

I’d go with:

Chest+Back
Legs+Abs
Delts+Arms (exercise order depends on ex. selection, i.e. free-weight CGP goes first if you want to use it)

You could also go push, legs, pull.

I may go into detail a bit later…

819

Imma gonna try to group Chest with Back instead of Chest and Arms like I usually do. My triceps work always ends up sucking ass. I actually ditched triceps on my Chest+Arms day yesterday and did Back+Triceps today instead. I use pin-presses for triceps now, would you put those before Delt work on Delts+Arms day?

Cheers.

820

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
Imma gonna try to group Chest with Back instead of Chest and Arms like I usually do. My triceps work always ends up sucking ass. I actually ditched triceps on my Chest+Arms day yesterday and did Back+Triceps today instead. I use pin-presses for triceps now, would you put those before Delt work on Delts+Arms day?

Cheers.[/quote]

You should be able to do your pin work for the tris after the delt stuff, provided that you set the pins some inches above the chest (similar to a 2 or even 3-board press). (don’t forget to take your PL setup into consideration when choosing pin height)

If that doesn’t work for you or you just want to prioritize the tris, do your pin cgp first.

And if all else fails, just do delts after back on chest+back day instead of on arm day. That can be a bit tough, though.